A Touch of Temptation(27)
The questions had tied her up in knots. So before she lost her nerve and remembered the million reasons why it was a bad idea she had called Anna and informed her she was moving in.
She pulled her robe on and pushed her feet into comfy slippers. It took her a few minutes of walking through the long corridor to reach the lushly carpeted foyer.
She reached the grand salon and sighed. Huge pillars stood in the room, supporting high ceilings. The room could have housed her entire apartment. Pristine white marble floors gleamed beneath her slippered feet, and the glass walls all around offered three-hundred-and-sixty-degree views of midtown Manhattan and the southern end of Central Park.
Contemporary art graced the walls. She smiled as she recognized a couple of artists native to Brazil.
It was the spectacular luxury she had expected from a man with Diego’s assets, and yet it was different. There was no ostentation here or anywhere else in the penthouse. Just a quiet, simmering elegance—a flash of bright red here and there, a candid portrait of a street-fighter on the streets of Rio de Janeiro reflecting Diego’s passionate nature.
The best feature, however, was that it was so big she needn’t ever see Diego unless required.
Feeling a lightness that had been missing for several weeks, she walked through the salon toward the terrace.
She stepped into the covered part of the L-shaped space and a shape emerged from the shadows. She had expected it to be only Anna and her for another night.
A quiet gasp escaping her, she stepped back. A teenager, his bulging biceps inked with elaborate tattoos, one of which looked eerily familiar, met her gaze. Her mouth fell open as he moved toward her and the light from the salon behind her illuminated his face.
The left side of his rugged face was covered in blue and purple bruises. His hair was cropped close to his scalp. A naughty smile split his severely cut mouth, which had blood crusted on it. “You are Diego’s wife?”
Between his thick accent and his swollen lip Kim was barely able to understand him. She nodded, a different kind of shiver overtaking her now.
He stepped in front of her when she moved, leaving only just enough space between them. His gaze traveled over her leisurely in a defiant, purposeful scrutiny that she assumed was meant to make her nervous.
With every inch of her headspace taken up by thoughts of Diego, she wasn’t.
“I’m Miguel,” he said, still sporting that smile, which was just short of lascivious. “If you get...bored with Diego...” He finished his sentence with a wink and a subtle thrust of his hips that left no doubt in her mind. “Call me. I will treat you right.”
She stood stiffly without blinking. “Nice to meet you, Miguel,” she threw at him, refusing to show how much his presence had spooked her.
She stepped onto the rooftop terrace, her head spinning with questions—which fled her mind at the sight in front of her.
The vast terrace was illuminated with little solar lights lined up against the floor. The rest of the light came from the spectacular skyscrapers of Manhattan around them. The effect was breathtakingly simple and just the peace she wanted.
There was a fire pit with comfy-looking recliners to her left, and a small bar with a glass top. But it was the perimeter of the pool that caught and held her attention.
A hot tub was on one side, with a couple of loungers on the other.
She walked toward the pool like a moth drifting to light—until the splish-splash of long, powerful strokes punctured the silence.
It took her a moment to realize that half the pool stretched past the terrace, overhanging the streets of New York. Her heart thudded like a tribal drumbeat, her gaze searching for the powerful figure in the water.
Not that she needed to see him to know that it was Diego. Only he could find swimming in a pool that edged twenty stories into the sky relaxing.
She was about to turn around, ready to flee, when he swam to the edge of the pool facing her and stood.
His wet hair clung to his scalp, outlining the strong angles of his face. Water sluiced enticingly over biceps that flexed while holding him up. His gaze ran over her, sweeping thoroughly from the top of her mussed hair to the opening of her robe and her bare legs. “Is everything okay?”
She folded her arms around her midriff. “Yes, everything’s fine. I just...”
“Did you come up for a swim?”
“What? No. I....” She clasped the sash of her robe, moving to the balls of her feet, ready to run.
She sighed. This was her reality now. Seeing Diego in all his glorious forms, apparently counting up her points on his weird reward system for sex. She smiled at the absurdity that she was actually keeping count.
How desperate was she?
“I did come for a swim,” she said, trying hard to keep her gaze on his face. And not trail down his wet, sexy body. “But not from my own apartment.”