The same glow was inside her, suffused through her, so that it seemed she was part of the warm golden light all around her. It dazed her, bemused her—and she gave herself to it because she couldn’t do anything else.
As she sipped at her hot, fragrant tea her eyes slipped of their own accord to the man sitting opposite her. He lounged back, his pose so relaxed that he was like a young, lithe leopard taking its ease, taking indolent mouthfuls of espresso coffee every now and then, one arm spread out across his chair-back, one long leg casually crossed over a lean, bare thigh. He was chatting to Ben, answering the child’s questions with lazy good humour, but his eyes would flicker over her as he chatted, sending tiny little shots of electricity quivering through her.
Her glow deepened.
What was happening was beyond her—completely and absolutely beyond her—and she didn’t care. She didn’t want to question, or analyse, or examine or understand. She just wanted to give herself to this wonderful, dazed bemusement that had taken her over, filling her with this rich, warm glow that reached through every cell of her body.
After Ben had eaten his tea, they played cards. A noisy, fast game that involved a lot of slapping down of cards and crows of triumph from both Ben and Rico. Yet even in the midst of the game Rico could still find time to glance at her, still feel the echoes of that incredible shock wave that had slammed through him as she’d approached him along the terrace, her transformation so incredible he could not, even now, fully believe it.
And yet it was there in front of him, the evidence of his own eyes. A miracle.
Her hair by itself was a miracle. The frizz had simply vanished—he hadn’t known it was possible, and yet clearly it was. Her skin was clear and glowing, her make-up bringing to life
features which he’d thought nondescript and unremarkable.
And now his eyes kept going back to her, time and time again.
He wanted her. He knew it, and he had no intention of denying it.
It was impossible to do so. His body had recognised it in the first moments of seeing her walk towards him, displaying that fantastic lush figure which had so incredibly been there all along—invisible under the shapeless, baggy clothes she’d worn.
How the hell had she kept it hidden?
He still couldn’t get his head round it. To have such a full, lush body as that, and yet to hide it.
Well, there was no hiding it now. None at all. Never, ever again would she ever hide herself.
Especially not from him.
He felt his body react again, and had to struggle to subdue it.
He must not rush this. Dared not. She was walking a knifeedge, still in a state of shock, of disbelief about herself.
I’ve got to take this slowly. Very slowly.
Let her get used to it. Let her come to believe it. Take her slowly, so slowly, every step of the way.
His eyes rested on her yet again, while Ben dealt out another round, his little voice counting the cards diligently as he set them down in three piles.
He could see her awareness of him even as she oversaw Ben’s dealing. Saw it in the swift, covert glance, the slight tremor of her hand as she picked up her cards.
Lizzy could see him looking at her, see it and feel it. It was tangible, like the lightest caress on her skin.
She felt her heart skip a beat, skitter inside her…
What’s happening—what’s happening to me?
It was a stupid, idiotic question to ask. She knew exactly what was happening to her. And she couldn’t stop it. Could no more stop it than she could have stopped a whirlpool sucking her down.
She was responding to the core-deep, devastating sexuality of the man she had married to keep Ben safe with her. And how could she help it?
Ever since she had first set eyes on him, that terrible traumatic night in Cornwall, she had responded to him. She had crushed it down, embarrassed by it, knowing that she must never show the slightest sign of her response because for someone like her to do so would be…grotesque.
It had been easy enough to do. To him, she had simply not existed as a female. Nor did she to any man, she knew. So, although her instinctive reaction to him had been embarrassing and pointless, she had also known that it really hadn’t mattered at all—it had been completely irrelevant.
All that had mattered had been Ben.
And these last few days, when he had visibly gone out of his way to try and make her feel more at ease with what had so traumatically happened to her, when he’d been kind, and nice, and nothing like the Playboy Prince of his reputation, it had still not mattered. More than not mattered.