‘Especially since what?’
‘I don’t want this to end.’
Erin felt her heart skip a beat but before irrational hope could start putting feelers out, he continued, ‘Not yet.’ He leaned into her, kissed her, a deep, bone-meltingly thorough kiss, and at the same time he cupped her between her legs, rousing her all over again.
‘And I can tell you feel the same way. Don’t try to deny it. I can feel it in your wetness and I know just how turned on you’ll get if I do this…’
He dipped his fingers inside her and found the beating clitoris with no trouble at all. He teased it with the expertise of a man who knew her body, knew just how to take it where it wanted to go.
Erin moaned and lost herself in sensation.
She didn’t want to. There was a conversation waiting to be had but right now her body had different ideas. He moved his fingers harder and faster, and she bucked, arched and came quickly and on a long, shuddering groan of satisfaction.
‘There,’ he said with satisfaction. ‘That’s why I just can’t stop this yet. Why neither of us can but…’
Erin didn’t interrupt. She had no idea what he was about to say but it didn’t matter because he was right. Of course they could no longer work together. Of course she would have to hand in her resignation. Even if she was greedy and decided to continue this situation, sneaking past one another during work hours and sharing hot, surreptitious glances over the computer…it would end one day and when that happened, she would be left with even more broken pieces of her heart to piece together.
He, on the other hand, would always escape unscathed because he would never be emotionally invested.
‘Want to hear my plan? I think you’ll love it, Erin, and honestly, it’s something I should have done, like I said, some time ago.’
‘Okay. What’s your plan? Tell me. I’m all ears.’
‘I promote you. You earned a promotion a long time ago and I’m not talking a salary increase. I’m talking about a complete change of job title.’
He paused and in that pause Erin understood. She saw it all in an instant, how he’d worked things out.
The details, the job title, they weren’t important: what it boiled down to was that Raffaele planned to pay her to continue their affair. Although she had no doubt that he would never see it that way.
‘Really?’ she said, trying to keep her devastation out of her voice.
‘I want you to take full charge of a number of clients, including this chain of hotels if I go ahead with the purchase, which I probably will. Your clients will all be familiar to you and you’ll have full responsibility to see the ongoing projects through to their conclusion. Naturally, with the title will come a substantial pay increase. Erin, you’ll be able to afford to move out from that peculiar place you live in, to give your parents whatever financial help they need…to lead a life of comfort doing the thing you love.’
‘Oh wow.’ She wasn’t tempted for a second. Money could never buy what she really wanted.
‘I know! You’ll be reporting to me, Erin, but you’ll be on a different floor completely so there will be no awkwardness.’
‘I see.’ Conveniently relocated—near enough to be accessible for as long as it took before he got bored but far enough so that he didn’t have to face her on a daily basis once the whole thing had ground to a halt.
‘I’ve started the ball rolling with HR,’ he told her comfortably. ‘I hope you don’t mind? So here’s what I’m thinking…a couple more days here and then back to the grindstone except…the grindstone isn’t going to be quite what either of us left behind. No…it’s going to be a lot more exciting now… You can take a week or so off, go visit your parents, and by the time you return to the office, you’ll be the proud possessor of a shiny new desk in a shiny new office on the fourth floor.’
‘That’s all very speedy, Raffaele.’
‘I like to think of myself as a man of action.’
‘I see.’
‘Am I detecting a certain lack of enthusiasm?’ Raffaele frowned and drew back to look at her. ‘Aren’t you excited? Don’t youwantwhat’s on the table?’ His voice roughened with sincerity. ‘You get the job of a lifetime, Erin, and we get to keep this going, to sleep together, to touch one another…’
There was just the briefest of hesitations. Erin looked down then back to him. She smiled.
‘Keep it going,’ she murmured. ‘Yes…we both still want one another…so why not keep it going?’
For precisely the length of time they remained on this yacht. Why not indeed? A couple of days of being greedy, of having Raffaele all to herself. And then the minute they returned to London…the only thing on the table would be her resignation.
Chapter Nine
ERIN WAS TEMPTEDto email her resignation letter. So much easier. Something brief and anodyne with a few vague words about the many challenges the job had given her but alas…circumstances dictated that she now seek alternative employment. Something high on waffle and low on detail.
