“My niece, my sisters, they’re going to invite you along to the evening do after your shift.”
The hope sunk like a rock thrown into a pond. “You want me to tell them I have to work.”
“No.” A noise that sounded like a cat being strangled left her throat. “But why on earth would you think otherwise when I’ve been so standoffish?” She stared straight into his eyes. “I’d like you to come.”
He blinked, his brain trying to catch up. “You want me at your niece’s evening reception?”
“Yes.” She swallowed and looked away. “If you want to go, but if you think you’ll be too tired, I understand.”
“Livvy, I could go a week without sleep and still not be too tired to spend an evening with you.”
“That’s... oh.” Her cheeks bloomed. “Now I’m flustered.”
He liked knowing he could unbalance her.
All too quickly they were back at the hotel. He took her hand, pressed a kiss to her palm. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then?” She nodded, her gaze sliding up to his. “Thank you for taking a walk with me.”
“I think the pleasure was all mine,” she replied dryly. Her eyes skimmed his face, and he sensed she was choosing her next words carefully. “I wouldn’t have felt obligated,” she said eventually. “I only do what I want to do. And what I wanted to do was return the pleasure you gave me.”
With a final look at him she turned and strode back to her mum and sister, leaving him gaping after her, his erection harder than ever.
Chapter 10
Olivia watched Sophie and her husband—wow, that was a phrase it would take a while to get used to—laugh together as they swayed on the dance floor. The newly married couple looked so joyous, so in love with life and each other, it filled her with a warm glow of contentment. To think, there had been a moment when she’d contemplated not being here.
“They look happy, don’t they?” Beside her, Ashley beamed with pride.
“They look ecstatic. Exactly like a young couple in love should look,” Olivia agreed. For the first time in her life, she felt a twinge of envy, but it quickly disappeared when her mum joined them. Love wasn’t always what it was cracked up to be.
“Likethem?” A haunted look crossed her sister’s face.
Olivia followed the direction of Ashley’s gaze. “That’snot love,” she murmured, watching Paul, Ashley’s ex-husband, share a highly raunchy dance with his new girlfriend. “How old did you say Melissa was?”
“Apparently not old enough to recognize a lying, cheating bastard when she sees one. Then again, she probably knew he was married when she started shagging him and didn’t care.” Ashley sniffed and dabbed at her eyes. “Twenty-nine,” she mumbled finally.
Almost twenty years younger than Paul. And here Olivia was, balking at eleven years between her and Connor.
As if just thinking of him conjured him up, Connor appeared in the doorway. Wearing a fitted sky-blue collared shirt with the sleeves rolled up above his tanned forearms and smart cream trousers with brown suede loafers, he looked coolly sexy and... her heart did a slow flip.Dashing.
Their eyes met across the room, and a riot of butterflies took off in her belly when he shot her a crooked smile.
“Isn’t that the chef?” her mum asked as Connor strode over to them. “The man you went for a walk with yesterday?”
“The walk you came back very flushed from,” Ashley added dryly, taking a sip of champagne.
Olivia could barely hear them above the sound of her heart thumping in her ears. Crazy that he had this effect on her. But after yesterday, the awareness that had always hummed between them had rocketed up a thousandfold. Now she knew, in intimate detail, how he felt. And the need to feel him again, to experience his touch, his heat, without the barrier of clothes... it was a sharp, almost vicious pull in her lower belly.
“Is it my imagination or has the temperature in here just gone up a hundred degrees,” Ashley teased, fanning herself.
A beat later Connor was there in front of them, smiling into Olivia’s eyes. “Hey.” He bent and kissed her on the cheek. As she inhaled his fresh male scent and tried to unstick her tongue from the roof of her mouth, he greeted her mum and Ashley the same way.
“How was the wedding?” he asked, gaze skimming across the three of them before landing on her. And God, that shirt made his eyes pop.
“Good,” she managed, then berated herself for using such a lackluster word. And berated herself again for allowing a man to leave her tongue-tied.
“Beautiful,” her mum corrected. “The setting, the ceremony, the speeches—”
“And the food,” Ashley interrupted. “Mum was definitely going to say that.”
