“Yes.”
“Do you meet people here often?”
“Yes.”
“Oh!” Surprise showed in her features when she turned to face him. “You really shouldn’t do that. My manager was quite clear about the rules. If he’d found you, you’d likely be under arrest for trespassing, particularly if it’s not your first time.”
“Then it is lucky you were the one to find me.”
She bit down on her lower lip, pleasure humming in her veins. “I suppose it was.”
They were quiet for a moment. It wasn’t awkward, but it was charged, the air around them hummed with awareness, the crackle impossible to ignore. At least, for Skye.
“What is your name?” After all, how could she be so attracted to a man she knew nothing about?
He tilted his face towards hers, then looked straight ahead again. “Matthieu,” he offered, pronouncing it in his husky French accent, so to Skye’s Australian ears, it sounded like Matt-yerr. So sexy.
“Matthieu,” she repeated, trying it out and finding she enjoyed the feel of it in her mouth immensely. “I like that. It suits you.”
“Thank you.”
Two minutes had passed. They were drawing closer to the winery. Regret formed in Skye’s stomach. “Will the person you were planning to meet know not to go into the vines?”
“I’ll text him soon,” Matthieu said with a shrug.
Him. Relief fired through Skye. So he wasn’t in the midst of a romantic assignation. Unless, he was. She frowned. “Are you—is it—,” she floundered, not knowing how to ask the question.
“Yes?” He drawled, encouraging her.
She expelled a long breath. “I was just going to say how romantic the vines are. I can see why you’d think it a great setting to meet with someone.”
He tilted his head, analyzing her words, and then laughed, gruffly. “I was not meeting my lover, Skye.”
“Oh.” Relief exploded through her.
“As I think you are well aware, I am not gay.”
“I—how would I be aware of any such thing?”
He stopped walking, turning to face her with his whole body. She did the same, even when her throat felt parched and her knees weak.
“You are not a good liar.”
“I’m not trying to lie.”
His lips curled with a hint of mockery. “Then tell me you are not attracted to me.”
She gaped at the question, the unfairness of it. She stared up at him, searching for a response that wouldn’t completely humiliate her. “I’m—what does that have to do with anything?”
“Chemistry can’t be faked.”
Did that mean he felt it too? Her pulse was rioting wildly. She couldn’t think straight. Her lips tingled, and then parted, a silent invitation in the tiny, betraying gesture. She wanted him to kiss her. She yearned to feel his lips on hers.
A sound penetrated the intimacy of the moment, but barely. It took Skye several moments to realise that she was hearing footsteps crunching on gravel, even longer for her to wrench her eyes away from Matthieu’s face. She turned in the direction of the sound to see her manager—a cranky, intimidating man named Etienne—stalking towards them.
“You have to go,” she said quickly, turning back to Matthieu.
He didn’t take his eyes off her face. “Why?”