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‘What condition?’

He looked up again, and this time there was that bright silver flame in his eyes as he met her gaze. ‘You share my bed.’

A wave of shock went through her, closely followed by a creeping, prickling heat that she couldn’t pretend she didn’t feel. In fact, suddenly all she could think about was being in his bed with him. Naked with him. Would he be as cold as he looked? Or would he be hot? No, he’d be hot, wouldn’t he? She’d been close to him this morning in the laundry room, and he’d been so hot—

No, God, what was she thinking? With an effort, Libby pulled her thoughts out of the gutter and tried to get a breath. She couldn’t be contemplating that, not seriously. She could admit that she was attracted to him—she might not have any sexual experience but she wasn’t totally naive—yet sleeping with him? For a Christmas tree?

He wants you, though. That’s obvious.

That thought sent yet more heat flooding through her veins. ‘Y-you can’t mean that,’ she said, stuttering a little.

‘I do mean that.’ The flame in his eyes leapt higher. ‘We have a certain…chemistry, Liberty.’

‘But I—’

‘I saw the way you looked at me in the laundry just before. You weren’t repelled by me.’

Oh, God…

Libby’s cheeks heated. She wanted to deny it, but he’d probably call her out on it, and that would be even more embarrassing. For the first time in her life, she wished she’d had more sexual experience, because then she might know what to say to him.

‘If you’re expecting a seduction,’ he went on, when she didn’t say anything immediately, ‘I can’t give it to you. But what I can give you is pleasure.’

Libby wanted to get up and walk away or slide off her chair and disappear under the table out of embarrassment at least, but that would be childish. She was an adult woman. She could talk to a man about sex without feeling like a teenage girl, couldn’t she?

He wants you. When was the last time anyone wanted you?

The thought caught her off guard, unsettling her. She’d always tried her hardest not to think negative thoughts. That’s what Mr Evans, Worthington’s manager at the time, had taught her after she’d been disappointed by prospective foster parents yet again. She’d been fifteen, too old for people who wanted younger children and a difficult age for fostering. That last rejection had stung, especially when no one had told her why she hadn’t been suitable for an adoption. She’d smiled fiercely at the couple who’d come to talk to her, making sure she sat very still in case they thought she was too fidgety and answering all their questions with the utmost politeness, because she didn’t want them to think she was rude. She’d told them that she loved school and loved learning, and that her favourite hobby was reading, just in case they preferred someone quiet.

But it didn’t matter how good or polite or smart she was, they hadn’t wanted her. No one did. So after that last failure, Mr Evans had come up to her room to comfort her, telling her that she had to look for the good things when something bad happened. And if you look for the good things, that makes the bad things feel somehow less bad.

He wasn’t wrong, so that’s what she’d done, deciding that the good thing about not being wanted by anyone was that you knew how awful it felt. And if you knew how awful that felt, you wouldn’t want anyone else to experience that pain. In fact, you’d do everything in your power to make them feel wanted and cared about and loved.

That had been her primary goal ever since that day, to make the kids that came to the home feel wanted and cared for and loved, and that’s what she was doing now she managed Worthington herself. She didn’t want anyone to feel the pain of rejection the way she had all those years ago, and she didn’t want herself to feel that way, either. So she never thought about it. Never thought about all the years she’d lived at Worthington, watching children be adopted and taken into loving families while she remained. She always remained.

And she didn’t want to think about that now, either, yet the way Kai was looking at her made her shiver with a yearning she thought she’d long since cut out of her heart. She gave out hugs all the time, but no one ever hugged her. No one ever touched her as if that was all they could think about. She’d never been caressed or stroked or—

Stop. She had to stop. She had to stuff that yearning back into the box she’d put it in, and she couldn’t look at it again. It was too painful, made her feel too raw, too self-pitying, and she hated that. She was alive, with a roof over her head, and nothing bad had happened to her apart from her mother giving her up for adoption when she’d been a baby, and she didn’t even remember that. She didn’t need to be stroked or caressed or touched or wanted. She was happy just as she was.

‘I’m sure you could,’ she said finally, choosing her words very carefully. ‘But I’m not sleeping with you for a Christmas tree.’

His silver brows drew down, but that flame in his eyes didn’t stop burning. ‘Why not?’

She stared at him in astonishment that he would even ask, yet it seemed a genuine question. God, what had Neve Aarsland done to him? Was he really that detached from society or human feeling that he couldn’t even see why his suggestion might not be a welcome one?

‘You want me, Liberty,’ he said into the silence. ‘I know you do.’

If she was a better liar, she might be able to convince him that she didn’t in fact want him. But sadly, that wasn’t the case. ‘I barely know you.’ She gripped her coffee mug tighter. ‘And I’m not sleeping with someone I barely know, no matter how much I might want them.’

Impatience flickered over his face. ‘I assume that you’ve been looking me up online.’

‘Yes, I did.’

‘Then you know me.’

‘Your public face, yes. But I don’t know you as a person,’ she pointed out. ‘You do understand the difference, don’t you?’

‘Why do you need to know more than that?’