“What are you doing up?” she asked conversationally as she went to stand next to him on the balcony.
Her robe was still undone, and the nightgown she wore dipped low, offering a tantalizing glimpse at the perfection of the tops of her breasts. She would be soft, fragrant and responsive, because while he didn’t think she was here for seductionalone, she knew what she was doing.
What she was after.
He forced himself to look away from the sweet, golden temptation of her skin and stared out at the ocean, focusing on her words, not her intent. What was he doing up? Wondering how he’d gotten himself into this mess where she became the sole center of all his thoughts, wants, desires.
Like he was eighteen years old. Obsessed, and righteous with it. A woman’s sole protector from those who would hurt her. Itshouldbe noble, until a man used it as an excuse to hurt. To be violent himself. To follow that violence to its natural conclusion.
As Gabriel once had, toalmostdisastrous results.
But he could not verbalize this to Evelyne.
She sighed, an awed, satisfied kind of sound. “Isn’t it beautiful?” she murmured, leaning against the railing. “I never knew how much I would love living next to the ocean, especially since it’s hardly some tropical paradise, but it’s better somehow than sun and blue. It’s moody. Brooding. I think I even enjoy the cold.” She smiled up at him, a goddess among mortals. “You made an excellent choice.”
The curve of her mouth beckoned him. Lush and soft. The wind tangled in her hair, fluttering a scent of florals and sea around him like some kind of potion meant to tempt him. She would be a dream come to life if he pressed his mouth to hers.
She would be his end if he did not extricate himself fromthis.
“I have to leave,” he told her, the words coming from some strange place of panic he didn’t recognize. He had never panicked. He had plotted, he had acted. He had been in some…dangerous situations here and there for his job when dealing with people who were not altogether on the up and up.
Never once had he panicked.
But he recognized this need and its potential to turn him into what he’d been at eighteen. Obsessive, vengeful andwrong. No better than King Enzo with his manipulations and violence.
“Why?” she asked.
“I’ve been called away to work.”
“Have you?” she murmured, her mouth curved into a smile.
Like she didn’t believe him. Like she saw through him.
When certainly neither should be norcouldbe true.
He pushed off the balcony and moved back into his room. Never in his life had heliedto a woman about his reasons for leaving, probably because never in his life had he had torunfrom a woman. In any other situation, he would be sure he was made of sterner stuff.
But she tempted him, and she was the one temptation he could not allow. The one temptation that could never surface.
He found his bag—thankfully mostly packed—and tossed it on the bed. “I should be gone closer to a month this time.” Perhaps longer, but he didn’t need to say that. He put his laptop that sat on the desk into his bag. He’d leave his toiletries—there was nothing in the bathroom he could not replace once safely home in Milan. Perhaps he’d go to his other estate in Sydney. Surely that was as far away from Maine as he could be. He would find a woman. He would remind himself that what had taken over his mind was simply temporary.
That he was stronger than it.
He made a move to shoulder his bag, then realized somewhat belatedly that he was not wearing a shirt. Yes, he would need a shirt. And shoes. He set the bag down, but there was a problem.
Both shirt and shoes were on the other side ofher, unless he crawled over his own bed.
He would notcrawl.
So he stood there.
She stood in his way. Purposefully, he knew.
Her gaze roamed his face, like a tentative, explorative caress. He should have stopped it, sidestepped her. Instead, he stood frozen as she moved closer, gracefully, a bit like a ghost. A ghost that haunted, that played with his mind, because he did not move out of her reach.
He held himself perfectly still as she reached up, with those slim, elegant, princess hands to touch his face. Her fingertips danced across his cheeks. Her eyes were luminescent, her lips pink and lush. She studied his face like it was a marvel.
“Gabriel,” she murmured, his name shaped by her lips causing a bolt of lust to obliterate the recriminations he tried to hold on to. “You do not need to leave. I do not want you to leave.”
