‘And you have a very good body, and for a designer your dress sense is…interesting.’
An insult and a compliment. Which should she respond to? In the end she chose neither. ‘It’s late, so if you don’t mind…?’
‘I’ll show you the way.’
Like everything else in the place the doorway was generous but even so Eve found herself hunching her shoulders to make herself smaller as she went through, as though touching him would ignite some invisible touch paper. Annoyed at herself, in the hallway she lifted her head and pulled her shoulders back. She was acting as though she were a victim of her own hormones; his touch would not release some sort of carnal chain reaction unless she allowed it to.
She followed him up the deep curving staircase, her heart beating, her emotions see-sawing.
He reached the upper hallway and, without turning, pointed to his right. ‘I’m up that way. The guest suites are that way—take your pick. Except probably the last two. Clare uses the end one when she stays over and my mother leaves a few things in the one next to it.’
He caught her look and said, ‘Clare is my ex-wife.’
An ex-wife who slept over: very civilised… Just how civilised, exactly? she wondered.
‘No, we don’t have sex.’
Her eyes widened at this fresh evidence of his ability to read her mind.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘RELAX, I’M NOT a mind-reader, you’re just incredibly transparent and in answer to that thought nothing is going to happen between us tonight. Unless you want it to…?’
Eve recognised it was a taunt, not an invitation, but if it had been?
The question formed before she could stop it and dangerous thoughts swirled in her head. She felt caught between anger and… She shook her head, refusing to recognise that sensation in the pit of her stomach as excitement. The admission would open too many doors she didn’t want to look behind.
‘You said before you were not that woman, the one who cries and needs a shoulder, the one who gets rescued, that isn’t you.’
She shook her head, wary of walking into some sort of trap. ‘No.’
‘So tell me, what is you?’
Eve looked away, avoiding his disturbingly intent stare, her negligent shrug masking her confusion. Before today she could have replied to that question with total confidence, but today had challenged a lot of things she’d previously taken as given and now wasn’t the moment to think about them. She had to stay focused.
On what?
She felt a cold finger of unease trace a path up along her spine. She was only one stumbling step away from panic; she had always known her aim and gone for it… It gave her purpose, stability.
She tilted her head back to look at him, releasing a sigh of relief as, no longer treading water, she felt her feet touch bottom. ‘I am…sensible.’
She half expected him to laugh but he didn’t. ‘And is it fun being sensible?’
She was fully prepared to defend undervalued common sense, but as her glance locked with his dark eyes framed by those crazily long silky eyelashes she experienced a stab of breath-snatching, heart-racing lust. It was followed by an equally fierce flash of anger that made her lash out.