‘What about my background doesn’t add up?’ she asked. Was he really that cynical? To believe her perfectly normal upbringing was somehow suspicious?
‘You’re the age she would be, and you have the same genetic abnormality that Roman—’
‘Which is notthatuncommon,’ she interrupted him. Wondering if he realised this whole conversation said so much more about him than her.
‘Yeah, I know... But your eyes are a similar shade to his, too. It’s almost certainly just a coincidence but... There’s also the fact your parents were the only people to witness your birth.’
‘For goodness’ sake, Alex. That’s mad. There was probably a midwife there, they just never talked much about my birth to me. But what’s more, you’re missing the obvious here...’
‘Which is?’ he asked, clearly not getting it.
She puffed out a breath that pearled in the frozen air. ‘For me to be Eloise, my parents would have had to steal me. And then have lied to me about it my whole life.’
‘Yeah, so what—how can you be certain they didn’t?’ he said. He was playing devil’s advocate, she got that. He couldn’t really believe she was Roman Fraser’s sister.
But still she felt desperately sorry for him, the brittle scepticism making her wonder how anyone could be so cynical, so disillusioned to believe a parent would lie with such impunity to their own child.
‘Because they wouldn’t do that, they loved me,’ she said simply.
He blinked, momentarily confused, and then the seductive smile that had prompted her into bed too many times to count twitched on his lips. But this time there was superiority in it. As if she’d said something impossibly naïve, which he found adorable.
‘Okay,’ he said slowly, humouring her. ‘That’s cool, and you’re probably right, but where’s the harm in doing the DNA test?’
Because then it would seem as if I didn’t trust them.
She cut off the thought. Why was she making a big deal about this? Ross and Susan MacGregor were dead. They would never know.
She shrugged. ‘Okay. But I still think it’s bonkers.’
He laughed, then gripped her round the waist to lift her off her feet.
She grasped his shoulders, a muffled laugh popping out when he spun her around in the frosty air. Then let her body sink down against his. He gripped her cheeks and captured her lips.
Heat speared through her torso, the hot brick pulsing between her thighs, as his hands cupped her backside under the heavy jacket and he pressed the hard ridge in his pants against the place where she ached for him. Always.
By the time he released her they were both panting, and the need had become razor sharp.
How did he do that?
Grasping her hand, he headed back towards the log mansion, the winter sunset throwing red and gold glimmers across the afternoon sky above the snow-laden trees and shimmering off the glassy surface of the lake.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We’ve got time for a quickie before the turkey’s done.’
She laughed and scrambled to keep up with him, pushing the wariness down. This was a sex obsession, nothing more.
Alex Costa could never be the man for her in the long term... But in the short term, he was irresistible.
CHAPTER EIGHT
ALEXDRAGGEDOFFhis headset as the company helicoptor settled onto the disused lot behind Sully’s Bar.
Eleanor sat across from him, her gaze fixed on the bar as her boss appeared and waved. She waved back before Bethany retreated back into the bar.
The noise from the engine faded and she sent Alex a sweet smile that didn’t reach her eyes. And finally he knew, he couldn’t wait any longer.
He wanted her to come to Manhattan with him. He’d waited to see if the need would die—because he’d never invited any woman to live with him before now. But it hadn’t.
The co-pilot appeared to open the door.