‘Have it if you want,’ she said, pushing her plate towards him when he appropriated some more.
‘I will. I’ve not had time to eat and the only food in the house was a cupboard of tinned peaches.’
‘House?’
‘It turns out I have one here.’
‘Turns out?’
‘I had an uncle who lived here—you know about the Danish connection?’
She nodded. ‘Someone mentioned it.’
‘He died last year.’
‘Sorry.’
‘I never met him. Signe is not big into keeping family connections. Well, I inherited the place and I never got around to putting it on the market. It’s in the old part of town.’
‘The conservation area?’ She had walked past the big old houses and been charmed.
He nodded. ‘I’d invite you over but the dust is inches thick.’
‘So he was all alone?’
‘With a house full of memories.’
‘That’s so sad.’
He was twisting the lid off a bottle of iced water. He had long, elegant fingers, deft and strong. She could remember how strong and how sensitive. Tactile images rushed in, threatening to drag her back. She struggled to banish them, but not before she had relived the moment his hand had closed around one breast, cupping it in his palm.
‘I should have asked if you wanted wine. I’m the designated driver.’ He held her eyes as he poured the water over the chinking ice in his frosted glass, then, lifting it in a silent toast, he looked at her through the glass.
‘I don’t.’ The last thing she needed was her inhibitions loosening.
‘Well, cheers to me.’
She looked at him, her brow furrowed.
‘It’s my birthday.’
‘Seriously?’
He arched a satirical brow. The emotions that lay just below the smile in his eyes sent a deep shiver rippling through her body, like the silver light on the moonlit sea.
‘I’d forgotten.’
‘How can you forget your birthday?’ In her family birthdays were a big deal. Last year was the first one that she and Lara had not celebrated together.
‘A lot of things have been happening.’
‘Well, happy birthday.’ It sounded inane.
He responded with a tilt of his head. ‘It is certainly one I won’t forget.’
‘What did you do on your last birthday?’
‘Actually I do remember that one. I spent it in bed.’
CHAPTER FOUR
‘YOU WERE ILL?’
There was a moment’s startled silence that was broken by his laughter. It was pitched low but an unexpected lull in the conversation on the tables around them had made the sound travel.
‘Then why were you—?’ she began, then stopped, her eyes flying wide as understanding dawned. The hot mortified colour flew to her cheeks and with it came a breath-catching knife thrust of concentrated corrosive jealousy.
The blush fascinated him... Did it go all over? His eyes dropped, the laughter fading from his face replaced by something much harder as his glance fell and lingered on the upper slopes of her breasts, where they strained against the silky green fabric.
Lily reacted to his glance as if it were a caress. She had zero control over the reaction of her disastrously receptive body to the brush of his eyes and she lifted her hand far too late to hide it from him.
‘Oh.’
The sound that left his throat this time was more growl than laugh. It made the fine downy hairs on her body lift from her sensitised skin. When his eyes lifted and levelled on hers, they were several shades darker.
‘Relax. I’ve never expected a woman to sleep with me for the price of a dinner.’ He lifted his glass with a clink of ice. ‘That’s not to say an evening hasn’t occasionally concluded that way,’ he drawled provocatively.
‘I can imagine,’ she snapped back and lifted her chin, unwittingly drawing his attention to the long, lovely line of her graceful neck. ‘So long as you know that this one isn’t.’ In her head the delivery had been amused but to her frustration when it actually left her lips the comment was throaty...a little breathless.
His thoughts swung back to earlier when he had arrived at the hotel just as she’d emerged. That traffic-stopping dress that hugged the curves of her body and the long, sinuous line of her endless legs.
Unable to control the consequences of the testosterone rush her emergence had produced, he had been forced to remain in his seat and let her climb in with the help of the porter.