Bestselling Authors Collection 2012(38)

His mouth meshed with hers, his fingers tangling in her hair and, like a man dying of thirst, he drank her in.

She was breathing hard when he broke off the kiss.

Breathing almost as hard as he was when he pulled away, his hands lining her jaw, his thumbs working the space between where her lips ended and her cheeks began. Her eyes were wide, brilliant blue and brimming with questions and wonder and fear. It was the fear that scared him the most, the fear that made him realise what he’d done.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, letting her go. ‘I shouldn’t have done that.’

‘It’s okay,’ she said, dabbing her eyes with a tissue, still looking shell-shocked though he could see she was aiming for cool. ‘I realise it didn’t mean anything.’

He climbed from the car, rankled that she’d used the very words that would normally be uppermost in his mind. ‘It meant something,’ he said, pulling her door open a few moments later. ‘It meant sorry for everything you’ve been through. It meant thank you for what you are doing. It meant thank you for telling me.’

‘That’s okay then,’ she said, her composure returned though still wary enough to keep her distance as she climbed out. ‘Maybe we should just forget it happened.’ And she headed for the entrance.

Forget it happened? Forget the sweet taste of her mouth under his? Forget the way she felt so right in his arms?

How the hell was he supposed to do that?

The shop helped. Only it wasn’t a shop, he decided, it was his worst nightmare. The place was acres across. How could anything as tiny as a baby warrant so much stuff?

‘How do we do this quickly?’ he asked.

She looked almost as overwhelmed. ‘Maybe they have some kind of personal shopping consultant service.’

The notion appealed immensely. ‘Let’s find out,’ he said, cutting a swathe through the crowds of couples inspecting prams and cots and baby gear to the service desk.

The woman was serving someone at the head of a line but still she looked up, as if some sixth sense had alerted her. Looked again when she saw what was approaching in his dark trousers and fitted cotton knit top.

Instantly her face lit up, and she shoved a bag in the direction of the customers she’d just put through the register so they could pack their purchases themselves. He didn’t need to jump the queue. ‘Can I help you?’ she asked, all bright-eyed and breathless in her eagerness to please.

‘I need your help,’ Dominic said in that ultra-deep voice, and the woman’s eyes told them he could have whatever he wanted. ‘You see, I’m having this baby and I don’t have the first clue what I need. And all this…’ he swept his arm in an arc around the showroom ‘… I have no time for this. Do you have some kind of consultancy service who can assist?’

Angie almost felt sorry for her. The woman was almost hyperventilating as he explained. He’s not that special, she thought, and then she looked around at all the people in the store. There were a fair share of those who looked kind of normal, a few more who looked even better, and then, she had to concede, there was Dominic.

He was in a class of his own here. No wonder the woman was falling all over him.

‘I can help,’ she said, calling an assistant to take over her register. She stood to one side and smiled wanly at the next person waiting in line to check out their purchases, feeling guilty when she realised just how long the queue was.

Apparently they would all remain waiting until Dominic Pirelli’s every need was satisfied. Strangely it was only the men who looked resentful. The women just looked hungry and, when they glanced her way, openly envious.

They’d look even more envious if they had any idea what they’d just been doing in the car. Angie trembled at the memories, remembering the way he had cradled her, comforting her, remembering how comfort had so quickly turned to something else. His lips had been surprisingly gentle, his taste had been addictive and there had been no way she’d been going to stop him.

What a fool. He’d kissed her because he felt sorry for her and she’d stupidly kissed him back as if he really meant it.

God, she was a fool!

She knew what he thought of her. She was the lowest of the low, from the back blocks of western Sydney, while he was a billionaire with a mansion on the sea. She’d seen his lip curl when they’d first met. She remembered the look on his face when he’d stepped inside her home, as if he was slumming it. She did not belong in his world and there was only one reason why she was here and it was not to be kissed by him or to kiss him, or to imagine this was some kind of fairy tale where they might all end up happily ever after.