The discovery of this vulnerability had not made him overly sympathetic to her distress and he’d deliberately goaded her until she’d snapped.
Her eyes flickered down to their single point of contact, which still hadn’t been broken. He hadn’t let go of her hand and there was something hypnotic about the way his thumb was tracing tiny arabesques on her palm.
When she drew her hand back and nursed it against her chest, he made no attempt to prevent her. ‘I am not a stranger,’ she said huskily.
‘No, you’re not, and I shouldn’t have reacted like that. I am not engaged—not to Sophia nor to anyone else. Despite my grandfather’s constant matchmaking, I remain single. Do you believe me?’ His ink-dark eyes scanned her face.
The reply came without a pause. ‘Yes, I do…’ In her head she could hear herself saying those words standing in a church but, before her fantasy could solidify, she pushed it away. ‘Believe you, that is,’ she tacked on, hastily adding, ‘I suppose it’s only natural that your grandfather wants an heir.’
He might be holding out but one day, perhaps when his grandfather realised that Leo did not react well to being pushed, he would oblige, and produce the future Romano generation.
An image of dark-eyed children arranged by height flashed before her eyes. Children they might have had together in another life.
‘I know what we are…or rather what we are not. What we share is just sex. I get that.’ She should do; he’d said it often enough.As if she was likely to forget when he recited it like a post-coital mantra.
‘But honesty is important to me and there are some lines that I am not willing to cross.’ Lines, she realised, that could look very blurred just because she burned so fiercely for this man.
But if she bent her own rules and crossed those lines once, she would never stop crossing them, and she would end up a paler version of the person she was.
Someone she didn’t like.
She jerked as a wave lapped over her toes with a hiss and retreated.
‘Sophia is coming to the gala,’ he said.
Her toes dug into the wet sand. ‘I know this, and me being here is still an exercise in humiliation.’ Her throat closed up as she angrily blinked away tears. ‘Was she supposed to be part of it? I just didn’t realise how far you would take it… I feel pretty stupid right now.’
‘You feel stupid? How the hell do you think I feel?’
Unnerved by the raw anger in his voice, she took a step back.
‘Do you think any of this is going the way I planned? Nine years ago, I felt happier than I’d ever been, ever dreamt I could be, and then you walked away from me. Well, maybe it was all for the good. Before my grandfather found me, I had already discovered I had skills, a knack for making money. Initially, it was just about trying to prove myself to you and your family, then I discovered I was really good at thinking outside the box.’
‘And making even more money.’
He nodded and gave a negligent shrug. ‘Yes. Seeing you reminds me of what I once thought my life was. It reminds me of all my weaknesses.’ His heavy lids drooped.
‘You think I’m a weakness?’
Amy was half fascinated and half repelled by his admission.
‘I think you are my nemesis.’ He paused, his chest lifting as he sucked in a deep breath. ‘You have a face and a body that would tempt a saint and I am definitely no saint.’ He gave a devil-on-steroids white grin and caught her by the waist and…did he drag her towards him, or did she throw herself at him?
Amy wasn’t sure. It was one of those moments when the cord that seemed to connect them was almost visible as she strained to press closer to him.
‘It doesn’t matter what I say, my body betrays me…’ The groan that followed his laugh had a tortured sound that she physically felt. ‘As does yours,’ he said, his mouth moving down the column of her throat. ‘I can smell it on you. You’re ready for me now.’
She whimpered and his dark eyes flared before his mouth covered hers in a devouring kiss.
Their mutual frantic kissing took them several feet from the water’s edge, where they collapsed to their knees onto the sand, pulling off each other’s clothes, hands on hot skin as they fell onto the sand.
‘Sorry, I’m squashing you.’
‘No!’ She placed one hand on the back of his head and held him where he was. ‘I like it.’
‘This is…’ he started to say.
Just sex.
