One Night with Morelli(37)

                It was also a big fat lie. The visible dark shadow on his face and the spikiness of his hair caused by his habit of running his hand back and forth across his dark head when he was exasperated did not detract in the least from his sinful attractiveness.

                Her glance drifted to his hand on the door. He had nice hands, she mused, big and strong with long, tapering fingers. She averted her eyes but the heat continued to spread through her body. There was no way in the world she was entering that house.

                ‘It’s been a long day.’

                ‘I don’t see the connection between the way I look and you not taking me to a hotel.’

                ‘I assumed, wrongly it would seem, that this would be more convenient for you.’

                ‘So you made the unilateral decision and expected me to go along with it.’ Staying the night under his roof filled her with a panic that was irrational. It wasn’t as if he was going to demand her body in payment for bed and board. ‘Call me a cab!’ she demanded, panic making her sound imperious.

                His eyes narrowed. Draco was sick of humouring her. ‘Madre di Dio!’ he gritted through clenched teeth.

                Eve stared, her startled green eyes round. His accent was so perfect that she’d almost forgotten he wasn’t British, but right at that moment his Latin heritage was pretty hard to miss, as the combustible quality she had sensed he possessed under the surface had smouldered into life—and it was pretty impressive.

                ‘Suit yourself! Spend a night in a hotel room without so much as a toothbrush but spare me the histrionics and call your own damned cab!’

                ‘I will!’ She watched him step into the hallway and without warning her annoyance melted as the sense of guilt she had morphed into embarrassed contrition as she saw the day through his eyes. Images of herself flitted through her head; she really hadn’t covered herself in glory today.

                As first impressions went, chucking her bag of lingerie samples over him took the biscuit. Then sobbing all over him in the ladies’ room, telling him God knew what; she really didn’t want to remember. And then she’d turned what was meant to be a face-saving kiss into some sort of marathon kissing competition. Just when he’d probably thought it was all over, he’d had to rescue her from wandering around alone in the depths of the Surrey countryside. Taking a deep breath, she followed him inside.

                ‘Sorry, you’re right. I’m not that woman.’ It suddenly seemed important that he know this.

                ‘What woman?’

                ‘The one I’ve been today. I don’t usually do girly crying, I don’t normally need rescuing and I can call my own cabs.’

                ‘Can you also perhaps resist the temptation to cut off your nose to spite your face?’

                Following a short silence and an internal debate to which he was not privy, she nodded. ‘Thank you. I would be grateful of a bed for the night.’ There had to be a dozen or so to spare. The place, if the hallway they stood in was any indicator, was enormous. Typically Georgian, very light, with a really beautiful staircase rising up all three floors.

                ‘If it’s not too much trouble for…?’

                He watched as she looked around as though she expected an army of servants to materialise.

                ‘Just us tonight. What’s wrong? Are you afraid of being alone with me?’

                ‘Don’t be stupid.’ If she had an ounce of sense she would be. If she had an ounce of sense she wouldn’t be here at all; she’d be in a hotel room. Instead she had capitulated far too easily to his suggestion that she stay here—well, more than suggestion, really; he had presented it as a fait accompli.