‘I like you in this,’ she murmured softly, running her fingers beneath the slender lapels of his white jacket.
‘Tell me I look like a Greek waiter and I will probably toss you over this balustrade,’ he warned.
Her smile appeared wrapped in rueful memories of the time she had once said that to him in an attempt to flatten his impossible ego. ‘I was such a bitch,’ she confessed.
‘No,’ Leandros denied that. ‘You assured me at the time that you had a hot thing for Greek waiters. I think I was supposed to feel complimented,’ he mused thoughtfully.
It was irresistible; she just had to lift her laughing eyes upwards again. It was a mistake. She just fell into those eyes filled with such warm, dark promises. Her breath began to feather, a new kind of tension began circling them like a sensual predator circling its two victims while inside the house, beyond the pair of open terrace doors, a party was taking place. Music was filtering out to them on the warm summer air along with laughter and the general hum of conversation.
‘I love you,’ she said. It came out of nowhere.
He responded with a sharp intake of breath. His shoulders tensed, his whole body stiffened, his grip tightened on her waist. ‘Fine time to tell me that!’ he snapped out thinly. But he wasn’t angry, just—overwhelmed.
She began to tremble because it had been such a dangerous thing for her to say out loud. It committed her, totally and utterly. It stood her naked and exposed and so vulnerable to hurt again that her throat locked up on a bank of emotion which threatened to turn into tears.
He was faring no better. She could feel the struggle he was having with himself not to respond in some wildly passionate way. A verbal response would have been enough for Isobel. A simple, ‘I love you too,’ would have helped her through this.
‘I’ll take it back if you like,’ she shot out a trifle wildly.
‘No,’ he rasped. ‘Just don’t speak again while I…’
Deal with this; she finished the sentence for him. It was silly; it was stupid. They were grown-ups who were supposed to have a bit more class than to put each other through torture in public. She couldn’t stop herself from flicking a glance at his face. As she did so he looked down. A wave of feeling washed over both of them in a static-packed blowback from just three little words.
They could have been alone. They should have been alone. Her breasts heaved on a tense pull of air. His hands pulled her hard against him. ‘Don’t kiss me!’ she shot out in a constrained choke.
‘The balustrade is still very tempting,’ he gritted. ‘I thought Eve was the biggest minx around here but you knock her into a loop.’
Heat was coursing through her body; the shocking evidence that he was on fire for her was shutting down her brain. The music played, the laughter and hum of conversation swirled all around them. In a minute, she had a horrible suspicion, she was going to find herself flattened to the ground with this big, lean, suave and sophisticated man very much on top.
‘All sweetness and light,’ he continued, thrusting the words down at her from between clenched teeth. ‘All smiles and quiet answers for everyone else. The hair is up, so neat and prim—since when did you ever give way to such convention? Everyone back there sees the beautifully refined version of Isobel but I have to get the tormenting witch!’
‘Keep talking,’ she encouraged. She was beginning to get angry now. ‘If you do it for long enough maybe you will wear yourself out!’
‘I am not wearing out.’ He took her words literally. ‘I am just getting started. From the moment you strode back into my life on those two sensational legs of yours you’ve had me standing on pins like some love-lost fool with no idea what is happening to me.’
‘Did you dare use the love word then?’ she taunted glacially.
‘I’ve always loved you!’ he thrust out harshly. ‘I loved you when we flirted across the top of a Ferrari. I still loved you when you left me pining for three damn years!’
‘Three years of pining,’ she mocked unsteadily. ‘I didn’t see any evidence of it.’ But he’d said it. He had actually said it.
‘We’ve been through that already,’ he snapped out impatiently.
‘You brought me back here to divorce me.’
‘It was an excuse. Anyone with sense would have realised that.’
‘You had your next wife all picked out and ready.’
‘I am arrogant. You know I am arrogant. Can you not cut a man a bit of slack?’
‘Which is why I had to say it first, I suppose.’
The air hissed from between his teeth. If an electric cable had been fitted to them, they could have lit up the night there was so much static stress.
‘I think the both of us are about to go over this balustrade,’ he gritted furiously.
‘You will go first,’ Isobel vowed. ‘And I hope you break your arrogant neck!’