‘No, well, that wasn’t pleasant. It took me a while to get over it all, the loss of my parents, the new reality my sister faced, the bullying and then the guilt that my brother had been forced to leave university to come and look after me. And then when I did—which was no mean feat, I can tell you, not least because part of me was convinced that it wasn’t fair of me to live
my life when Milly’s had been so devastatingly curtailed—it was to discover that even grown men are put off by my height. Apparently it’s emasculating. Not to mention intimidating.’
A tiny muscle began to hammer in Theo’s cheek. ‘That’s pathetic,’ he said grimly.
‘I know,’ she said with a casual ‘what can you do?’ kind of shrug, as if the years of bullying and rejection that had crippled her self-esteem and destroyed her sense of self-worth meant nothing. ‘But, well, it was what it was and on the upside, all that time my classmates and fellow uni students were dating I spent studying. I got a first-class degree and now have a career I love.’
‘I find your height neither emasculating nor intimidating,’ said Theo, his eyes not leaving hers for a second.
‘Why would you?’ she said as a tiny shiver raced down her spine. ‘You’re a hugely successful businessman with the world at his fingertips. I doubt you’re intimidated by anything.’ Or emasculated. He oozed such virile masculinity it simply wasn’t possible.
‘You’d be surprised.’
As his mouth curved into a faint smile, Kate thought that this was another of those occasions she wanted to look away. More than she wanted to know what intimidated him, which was saying something. The intensity of his gaze was making her skin feel all hot and prickly and yet again she was finding it oddly hard to breathe. She felt trapped. On fire. And suddenly, quite out of the blue, acutely aware of him.
Inexplicably, the tiniest of details began to register. The minute scar that bisected his right eyebrow. The slight bump on the bridge of his nose. And was that a silvery grey hair she could see at his left temple in amongst all the ebony? She rather thought it was.
And it wasn’t only the physical details that she now noticed. She could sense the tension radiating off him and the power he was keeping tightly leashed. The non-verbal signals he was emanating gave her the impression he was furious. On her behalf. And although she had no idea why that would be the case it made her go all warm and fuzzy.
What would it have been like to have had someone like him on her side when she’d been at school? she couldn’t help wondering as the silence stretching between them thickened. What would it feel like now?
Come to think of it, what would he feel like? He’d be hard and muscled, she was sure. All over. He wasn’t the type to tolerate softness. Except maybe where his lips were concerned. Those looked nice and velvety. And what about the sprinkling of dark hair she could see on the backs of his hands? Would it be rough to the touch or silky? And where else might he have it? She had no way of knowing, and now, bizarrely, that, as well as the realisation she’d never find out how soft his lips actually were, seemed a shame.
‘Anyway,’ she said, baffled by the unexpectedly carnal turn of her thoughts and suddenly really rather keen to lighten the weirdly tense atmosphere, ‘your experience of height has probably been far different from mine.’
Theo started, as if she’d jerked him out of deep thought, and his brows snapped together. ‘Has it?’
‘Has anyone asked you what the weather’s like up there?’
‘No.’
‘Suggested a career in basketball?’
‘No.’
‘I bet you haven’t ever had to put up with tiny little aeroplane seats and bashed knees.’
‘I have a private jet.’
Of course he did. ‘I always wanted a little zippy convertible,’ she said with a whimsical sigh. He nodded and she thought for a nanosecond that maybe he did understand after all. ‘Being hugged is a problem.’
‘Is it?’
‘Yes,’ she said with a nod, although it wouldn’t be a problem if it was Theo doing the hugging, would it? Her head would tuck into his neck perfectly. Her body would fit against his beautifully. And then she’d know exactly how hard and muscled he was...
‘Doorways.’
What? Oh. ‘Pendant lights.’
‘Hotel showers.’
Not helping. But what was going on? Why was she so flustered by the thought of Theo in the shower? Why was she even thinking about Theo in the shower? And why did she get the impression he was thinking about her in the shower? Unanswerable questions all of them, so she put them out of her mind and focused. ‘Much of the world is structurally tallist, don’t you think?’ she said, thankfully sounding more in control than she felt.
‘It is,’ he said with the glimmer of a smile so fleeting the minute it was gone she thought she must have imagined it.
‘Sleeves?’
‘My clothes are tailor-made.’ Naturally. ‘Shoes?’