Raffaele was half listening.
He was busily searching the crowd when he spotted her. For a couple of seconds, his brain simply didn’t register what his eyes were telling him.
Erin.
She was dancing!Since when did his well-mannered secretary dance? And she was dancing with a man…
Raffaele stopped dead in his tracks.
The room was cleverly lit. Sultry, shadowy nooks and crannies gave an atmosphere of intimacy, but it wasn’t so dark that people couldn’t see what they were doing. The crowd was lively, mostly young. On the edges, groups of older men and women were chatting. There was a space in the middle cleared for dancing and on a small rostrum, a trio of steel band players was rocking classic old tunes.
And there Erin was…dancing.
And herehewas, hardly able to breathe as he watched her sway to the beat of the steel band without a scrap of inhibition. In the arms of some young, good-looking guy who was grinning like the cat that got the cream.
She was wearing something and nothing much: a bright yellow vest that clung to her slender body and emphasised her small, rounded breasts, and a flowered wrap-around skirt in shades of yellow and orange and bright green, slit up both sides so that her thighs were visible with every sinuous movement.
And where were her sensible shoes? All-weather and practical?
He remembered the pale pink toenails… Now the shoes she was wearing matched those pale pink toenails. They were tan gladiator-style sandals with beads.
Raffaele had no idea why he was so shocked by the vision of his secretary being twirled on a dance floor by a complete stranger, her head thrown back as she laughed with delight.
She was doing the very thing he had been encouraging her to do and yet…and yet…he wasn’t sure helikedto see her in action. Of course he hadmeantevery word he had said about her needing to relax, to justlet go, but had she any real idea of how easy it was to give some young guy—and some young guy they didn’t know from Adam—the wrong impression?
He realised his jaw was slack and quickly pulled himself together. Briskly, he walked towards her, only stopping when he was towering over her partner.
‘Erin!’
Her cheeks were pink and her eyes were sparkling. She looked every inch the carefree girl he’d been imagining she could become when he’d encouraged her to step out of the box she liked to hide in. Although now he wondered whether he had got that completely wrong.
Maybe the box had only ever been for his benefit. Maybe this was the real Erin and she’d simply chosen not to show him.
He sensed that his smile was more of a scowl as he cut in, inserting himself between the couple just as the tempo changed from bouncy to cosy.
He slid his arms around Erin’s waist and dipped down so that he was more on her level.
‘Having fun?’
Erin felt the sinewy hardness of Raffaele’s body against hers and everything in the room disappeared. Suddenly, it felt as though it was only the pair of them on a dance floor that had shrunk to the size of a postage stamp.
‘I was,’ she managed in a wry voice, edging back but finding that his hold was just slightly too tight to easily disengage.
He looked amazing in a pair of linen grey trousers, loafers and a black polo shirt that fitted him like a glove. He hadn’t shaved and his six-o’clock shadow was unforgivably sexy.
‘Who’s the kid?’
‘Kid?’
‘The one you were dancing with.’
‘He’s a year older than me so I’m not sure “kid” would be the right description, Raffaele.’
‘Exchanged personal information already? Quick work.’ His voice was light and amused.
Erin shrugged.
‘I didn’t expect to find you here before me,’ Raffaele said, sweeping her towards the side of the room so that they were now on their own, away from the hubbub of people.
