‘And what part would that be?’
‘Well, now, let’s see...’ he began, undoing the butto
ns of her coat and sliding it off her shoulders. ‘How about hot wedding guest about to get the ravishing that was interrupted earlier?’
He draped her coat over the chair and set to work on the zip of her dress.
‘I think I could make that work,’ she said huskily.
‘Why don’t you just let me do all the work?’ he said, lowering his head and putting his mouth to the spot where her jaw met her ear.
She shivered, just as he’d known she would. ‘Oh, all right, then,’ she said with a long-suffering-sounding sigh, ‘if you insist.’
Dan let her dress fall to the floor and sank to his knees in front of her, and murmured, ‘Oh, I absolutely do.’
And as conversation faded and the only sounds in the room became moans and groans and harsh ragged panting and desperate little cries he thought he could feel her touching him a little more possessively and holding him a little more tightly.
By the time she was clutching at his shoulders and convulsing around him and he was buried deep inside her, his heart thundering with everything he felt for her, the only thing he could think was that he wanted to stay there for ever.
Because while the night before he’d left for the States he’d thought he might be falling for her, Dan knew that there was no longer any ‘might’ about it. Zoe was brave and strong, protective and loyal, faced her problems head on and feared nothing, and he was head over heels in love with her.
* * *
He was still reeling from the discovery of it the following morning when he stepped out of the shower, wrapped a towel round his waist and at the knock at the bedroom door headed over to open it. Still a bit stunned by the strength of his feelings for her and the mad combination of happiness and panic that they aroused in him. And still recovering from the blistering hot shower he and Zoe had just shared.
So when he opened the door to collect the breakfast and variety of newspapers he’d ordered and caught sight of the headline, when he turned the pages and saw what she’d done, the devastating sense of betrayal hit him like a punch strong enough to throw him against a wall. It winded him, ripped his heart from his chest and filled him with such awful bone-crushing pain that in defence his body went numb and his brain shut down.
THIRTEEN
Zoe caught sight of her flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes in the steamed up mirror of the bathroom and couldn’t help grinning.
Last night had been amazing. She’d talked her head off, danced willingly for the first time in her life, so high on champagne and love that she hadn’t wanted to come down. She still didn’t because last night had been one of the best nights of her life and she wanted to cling onto it for as long as possible.
Everyone had been so friendly, so warm and so interested in her. Talking to Lizzie about everything and nothing had been such a blast, and Celia had been lovely and then moving on to dinner, well, she’d managed to negotiate that with none of the dread she usually felt at such things. Conversation had come to her more naturally than it ever had and for the first time in her life she’d felt completely at ease and normal.
And it had all been down to Dan and the wonderful effect he’d had on her. He’d helped her release her full potential. He’d uncovered the real her and given her the courage to locate and build up her self-esteem. He’d turned her into the person she’d always wondered if she could be and she’d be for ever grateful to him for that.
She liked to think that she’d had as positive an effect on him as he’d had on her too. He certainly seemed a whole lot more relaxed now than he had been when they’d first met, she thought, turning away from the mirror to pull on one of the complimentary dressing gowns hanging on the back of the door and slip into it. He laughed more, talked more openly and readily.
During the long hot shower they’d just shared, he’d lavished such care and attention on her that she’d felt worshipped. Cherished. Adored. It had been different, and it made her wonder if maybe he felt the same way about her as she did about him.
Zoe felt her heart ache with hope at the possibility that he might. Could she really be so lucky? She, who’d always been so hopeless at relationships... Could it really be her turn?
The more she thought that maybe she could and maybe it was, the more the uncertainty over whether he might love her as much as she loved him began to bug her. She wanted to know. One way or another. Now. She’d chickened out last night when he’d asked if the rampant swans were really the highlight of her evening, but she couldn’t hold back any more. She was absolutely nuts about him and she couldn’t not let him know how she felt a moment longer.
She heard the bedroom door slam and she jumped into action. With her heart hammering, her body zinging with excitement and her head swimming with visions of the possible future, Zoe tied the belt and flung open the shower-room door.
And at the sight of Dan striding towards her, stopped dead.
As did he.
His face was white, she saw, concern instantly obliterating all thought of asking him how he felt about her. His eyes and his expression were blank and he stood there as still and solid as a rock, but his jaw was tight and his body was vibrating with such tension that she had the impression that all she’d have to do was touch him and he’d shatter.
Behind him the breakfast cart with its shining domes and mouth-watering aromas remained abandoned at the door. The papers lay strewn all across the bed. It felt as if the temperature in the room had plummeted and a sudden feeling of dread swept through her.
‘What is it?’ she asked, rushing to him and recoiling in shock when he jerked away from her. ‘What’s happened?’
‘This happened,’ he said, his voice cold and tight with barely restrained fury as he thrust a paper—one of the tabloids—at her. ‘You happened.’