After all that, the thought of parading around in a swimsuit was unsettling. But if she were to be successful in moving on from tonight’s revelations, then she would have to act as though it didn’t matter. And the swimsuit she had brought with her was the last word in prim. If he’d suddenly found her sexy in her new-found peacock clothes, then he’d soon be catapulted back to square one the second he spotted her in her black one-piece. That was some consolation.
If he never mentioned those low, murmured confidences again, she would be happy to pretend that they didn’t exist. Things would settle back into place with maybe just the odd jarring reminder here and there.
‘I wouldn’t dream of hanging back.’ She lightened the mood with a cheery laugh. Something wicked stirred inside her. ‘For starters, Thompson would never forgive me if he’s there! See you in the morning, Raffaele!’
To Raffaele’s intense annoyance, he found himself spending the following day of meetings and socialising on high alert for the Thompson kid. He didn’t sit on the managerial board of the hotel, so should if Thompson appeared, then obviously Raffaele would be within his rights to send him on his way. Very satisfying to savour the thought of that.
He also found himself surreptitiously watching out for signs of flirting from the team, most of whom were young.
Erin had shown up for work very modestly dressed in some neat, soft navy cotton shorts, a daffodil-yellow T-shirt and some flat tan sandals. But somehow she still managed to look as tempting as she had the night before in her brightly coloured outfit. It felt as though a thought had taken root in Raffaele’s head, and now that it had, it was intent on sprouting all sorts of tendrils.
She had also reverted to her usual polite self, controlled, smiling and helpful. He should have welcomed that. He didn’t. He wasn’t going to return to any of the touchy-feely, kumbaya nonsense he’d strayed into last night. But he also wasn’t going to pretend that he wasn’t aware of her as a woman either.
Last night he’d done nothing but think of her until finally, unable to sleep, he’d got up and worked. Or at least tried to.
Thoughts of her had driven him mad. The things he’d told her…the things she’d told him…the way their eyes had locked together, two people trying hard to fight the obvious.
All he could see in his mind was her. As a man to whom the adulation of women had always been a given, he simply hadn’t known how to handle the one woman who eluded him.
He had always had a policy of never actively pursuing any woman. At the end of the day, there were plenty of fish in the sea. But after a couple of hours of fitful sleep he had awoken to the realisation that that particular policy no longer held true.
There was only one fish in this ocean and that was the only fish he wanted.
God, he wanted her so much, as if a dam of dark, desperate want had been swirling under the surface for a million years and had now, finally, burst.
The intensity of what he felt didn’t disconcert him at all.
When it came to women and his lack of faith in long-term relationships, there was always an underlying unease that they might end up wanting more than he would be prepared to give them. He always came clean from the start that he wasn’t in it for marriage but even so…
Well, just look at Alexa and how that had turned out. She had ignored his warning completely.
With Erin, however, there would be no such fear. She knew him in a way no other woman did; she knew how he felt about longevity in relationships. The things he’d shared with her would only have reinforced what she would already have known. Love wasn’t on his agenda and never would be. He could keep it physical, just like he kept all his relationships with women physical. That was a given.
More than that, when it came to a life partner, he simply wasn’t her type.
In an ideal world, a fling on the other side of the world would be something they could both indulge in and then, once it was over, lock away in a box never again to be revisited. Their working relationship would resume the peaceful course it had once taken.
This wasn’t an ideal world, of course, but Raffaele still thought they could navigate this situation. He had the perfect solution.
It was something he had been vaguely thinking about for a while. And now that their circumstances had changed, that vague thought had crystallised. It was waiting to be pulled out of the hat, magician style.
‘Hope you’re wearing your swimsuit,’ he had murmured to Erin during their lunch break, as they stood at the buffet bar helping themselves to some of the delicious local food. ‘As soon as the next round of meetings comes to an end, off we all go to sample the local beauty spots.’
‘Of course I’m wearing my swimsuit!’ She had looked at him with astonishment. ‘Isn’t that what you asked me to do? Or have you forgotten?’
Now, lunch done and the final meeting wrapped up, Raffaele stretched back in his chair and looked around at the eight men and women assembled at the table with him.
They were an efficient bunch. They all knew their numbers and even though they’d all been fully cognizant that the hotel had been gradually being sidelined by its current owner, they’d all maintained their enthusiasm to see it do as best as it could, given the financial restraints they’d been dealing with for the past couple of years.
‘Okay.’ Raffaele stood up and strolled through the boardroom, all eyes on him. ‘Good work and I want to say that if I go ahead with this purchase, you’ll all be in line for generous remunerations. You’ve been loyal to this hotel despite the fact that not a huge amount of money’s been poured into it over the past two years.’
He paused behind Erin’s chair and rested both hands on the back of it.
Automatically, Erin stiffened, feeling his presence behind her and reacting to it with every fibre in her being.
Playing it cool had taken everything out of her.
She’d barely slept the night before. Her head was stuffed full of images of her boss’s dark, handsome face, that curling smile, the lazy intent in his eyes that challenged her to step out of the box and explore the unimaginable, those whispered words about the troubled boy behind the controlled man…
