CHAPTER FIVE
THEGONDOLAHADbeen a mistake. He should have refused. But her eyes had been so hopeful as she’d looked out on the canal, watching the little boats bobbing past, and before he’d been able to stop himself Ares had heard himself say, ‘Would you like to take a ride?’
Of course, he’d simply been being polite. She’d smiled awkwardly and for a moment he’d held his breath, thinking she’d say no, but then she’d nodded, a simple shift of her head.
It was tighter than he’d imagined in the boat, the seat designed for lovers, so they had no choice but to sit hip to hip, her body lightly pressed to his side, her warmth permeating him. ‘You’re good with children.’ The words were cool, and he was glad. This wasn’t a date—she wasn’t a woman he was looking to bed.
‘Thank you.’
Silence stretched between them, long and taut. He should continue it, ignore her, get this evening over. But again, almost against his volition, he asked, ‘Do you have siblings?’
Her smile seemed to communicate something he couldn’t understand. Uncertainty? Pain? ‘My adoptive parents had twin girls when I was seven. Annelise and Amarie.’
‘So you must have been given plenty of opportunities to babysit?’ The moon overhead was almost completely full, only a fingernail snippet missing from one side. It cast the canals of Venice in a glorious silver light, the water lapping gently at the edges of the wooden boat.
‘I went to boarding school shortly after the girls were born. I really only saw them during the holidays—a few weeks a year at most.’ Her words were robotic, as though she’d practised the line many times.
‘How old were you when you were adopted?’
Her fingers fidgeted in her lap; she stared down at them, the matte black nail polish the perfect complement to her dress. ‘Three.’
He waited for her to continue and was eventually rewarded with a shaky explanation.
‘Ronnie and Alice tried to fall pregnant for a long time. Years and years of IVF and fertility treatments, all with no luck. Adoption was their last resort—definitely not the kind of parenthood Alice had envisaged, but better than nothing.’
Ares was very still, the rejection she was describing making him pity the little girl she’d been.
‘The twins were a miracle. She was in her forties when she conceived, and without fertility assistance, after years of being told it would never happen. You can imagine how doted on the girls were.’
‘And you felt pushed aside?’
Bea’s smile was iced with years of pain. ‘I felt that way because I was.’ She fixed him with a gaze that was like steel, and yet it didn’t deter him. He could see through it easily. ‘Anyway, I don’t really like to talk about my family.’
But he wouldn’t let her turn away. His finger caught her chin, guiding her face back to his, and now he was so close to her, grey eyes morphing to silver in the moonlight reading her as he had been all evening. What the hell was he doing? She was pushing him away with her words, and he should let her do exactly that. Not caress her face and draw her towards him. ‘Families can be complicated.’ His voice was throaty.
‘Yes.’ Just a whisper, the word caught on the air, brushing across his cheek towards his ear. She was a beautiful woman, but he hadn’t brought her to Venice with this in mind. Yet sitting in the gondola, his body so close to hers, he felt a drugging desire to throw sense to the wind and act as though she was any other woman. What harm could come from that?
‘Amy and Clare are my family.’ It was a strange thing to say. Was she simply explaining that she didn’t need her adoptive parents and siblings? Or was she looking to remind him—and herself—of her best friends and business partners?
The gondola moved to the side to let another boat past, and some waves formed in its wake that caused the craft to rock from side to side, lurching Bea towards Ares. She made no attempt to resist the gravitational movement and he was glad.
Her hands lifted to his shirt; her face stayed tilted to his.
He stared at her, torn between doing the right thing and getting the hell back to Enrico and sending her back to London, or doing what he desperately wanted and closing the distance between them completely. His eyes dropped to her lips, staring at their pouting form, aching for her. She lifted one finger to her mouth, tracing the line his eyes were taking, her fingertip trembling at the intimate gesture. It was an invitation and an entreaty; what she wanted was blatantly obvious.
And so? Why fight this? He’d explained to her that he didn’t believe in romantic relationships. He’d been explicit in telling her that all he looked for when he dated a woman was sex. If she was interested in him, and what he was offering, then he’d be a fool to resist. Right?
‘Tell me, Bea, did you have a rule about kissing?’
Her breath hitched in her throat at his low-voiced question. She tried to think straight but it was almost impossible. ‘We agreed no kissing.’
‘I think you said no touching too,’ he suggested, dropping the hand that held her chin to her knee, where he cupped her flesh there, sending sharp arrows of pleasure through her skin. She leaned infinitesimally closer to him, her skin lifting in a veil of goosebumps.
‘And definitely no flirting.’
‘Tell me, Counsellor, how does one go about revising the rules?’ he asked.
Her mouth was dryer than dust. She was on the precipice again, nudging closer to the edge even when she knew she should turn and walk away.