Socialite's Gamble(53)

‘Just don’t cry,’ he warned her as he put the buggy into gear. ‘The first sign of tears and we’re gone.’

Cara reached across the space and laid her hand on his arm. ‘Thank you,’ she said softly. ‘For everything.’

‘You promised me you wouldn’t cry,’ Aidan complained as they climbed back into the buggy.

Cara sniffed. ‘Technically I didn’t actually promise and I’m really trying not to but it was so beautiful. Didn’t you think?’

Aidan smoothed a tear from her cheek. ‘I’m going to have to start packing tissues around you.’

‘No matter how many times I see it,’ Cara said, ‘I wish Juliet had been the type to jump up and run after both their families and wring their necks for being so small-minded that they couldn’t put the past behind them instead of killing herself. Then she could have come back and they would have been together for ever.’

‘For ever?’ A strange light entered his eyes that looked a little like fear.

‘Of course. They loved each other.’

‘You buy Hallmark cards, as well, right?’ he teased, reminding Cara of what he thought of forever after.

‘Actually, I draw my own.’

He straightened her necklace, a crooked smile on his face. ‘Juliet wasn’t the type to seek vengeance because she was sweet and generous. Giving.’

‘She needed to grow a backbone.’

‘That was Romeo’s job. He should have stood up for her.’

Cara smiled sadly. ‘And that’s why it’s called fiction.’

Aidan scooped her up into his arms and shouldered open the door to the bungalow. It had become like their home away from home, an intimate cocoon where they wrapped themselves around each other every night.

He stripped her bare and Cara groaned as he started to make slow, passionate love to her.

Before he turned her into a quivering mess unable to do anything but lie back and take whatever he wanted to give her, she rolled them over and straddled his waist.

He gazed up at her, his hands behind his head, his blue eyes dark and lazy.

She leaned forward and placed her hands on his chest, curling her nails into the soft hair there, her eyes drifting over his handsome face. She reached forward and traced her finger over his eyebrows and down the straight ridge of his nose.

Warmth stole through her and her heart seemed to swell behind her chest. She let her fingers drift across his sensual lips and lightly scratched the stubble that had formed on his tanned jaw. He breathed deeply, his nostrils flaring, and Cara realised with a start that she had fallen in love with him.

Thrillingly, wonderfully, joyously, impossibly in love with him.

The realisation floored her. She searched her brain for other times she had imagined herself in love but she couldn’t think of a single time that she had felt like this. As if her heart was about to burst.

Was it even possible to fall in love with someone so quickly? ‘You know, I know we’ve both embraced Fiji time,’ Aidan drawled, bringing his hands out from behind his head to mould around her hips. ‘But I think now you’re taking things a little far.’

Cara sucked in a steadying breath.

Was he falling for her, too? Could it be possible?

She made a face. Not likely and she wasn’t nearly brave enough to ask. Wasn’t brave enough to even explore her own feelings in this moment. So she didn’t. Instead she slid down his body and let herself be swept away by his touch and his taste.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow would be soon enough to deal with her feelings.

Unfortunately tomorrow came all too quickly with the bright sunshine streaming in through the window and Aidan’s angry voice carrying from the living room.

Blinking open sleepy eyes, Cara pulled on the shirt Aidan had discarded the night before and padded down the hallway to investigate.

Aidan was wearing his old board shorts and nothing else, the phone attached to one ear and his morning coffee gripped in the other.

‘He won’t get it. I’ll make sure of it.’ He paused. ‘Yes, personally. Have Sam ready the plane. And set up a meeting with the AFL board first thing tomorrow morning.’

When he rang off he tossed his phone onto the dining table and that was when he noticed Cara standing in the doorway.

She tried not to think the worst, but her heart was hammering inside her chest.

‘Problems?’

‘You could say that.’ He took a gulp of coffee and grimaced. ‘I have to return to Australia.’

‘Yes, I heard.’

When he didn’t say anything more, just stared out the window, Cara felt a chill come over her body. ‘What’s the AFL?’

He didn’t turn around. ‘The Australian Football League.’