She turned towards him. ‘That’s mad, isn’t it?’
And she looked up at him, appealing to him with those turquoise eyes and with flushed lips parted in question and the loose ends of her hair flying free around her face and he did the only possible thing he could.
He leaned down and kissed her. No more than a brush of lips against lips, no more than a tasting, a sampling, feather-light and barely there.
But enough to learn she tasted salty and womanly, like he imagined a mermaid would taste, plucked fresh from the sea.
Enough to have her go perfectly rigid at his side. Her tongue flicked at her lips, almost as if checking for evidence. ‘Why did you do that?’ she asked, her voice husky and raw, her cheeks sucking the heat from her eyes.
He wasn’t entirely sure he knew. How did you explain away an impulse? ‘Because you looked like a woman who needed a kiss.’
‘I don’t even know why I told you all that,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I don’t know what I was thinking, but I do know this. I do not want you to do that again! ‘
‘Holly, I—’
‘I don’t want your pity. And I do not want your kisses!’
‘Holly!’
‘It’s time we went home.’
She headed for the shore as quickly as she could, allowing for the safest placement of her feet and the least risk, and she knew she probably looked ridiculous sidestepping and dancing down the jetty, while all the time her heart thudded in her chest and her stomach flipped and flopped with every creak and groan of the timbers.
She hated jetties with a vengeance. Hated the movement and the creaking and the ever-present risk of being plunged into the sea at any moment.
But she hated men who thought she was part of the package deal even more.
Ten years. Ten years since Gus had turned down Mark Turner’s offer and he’d walked out of her life with not even a goodbye and still the only man she could find who was interested in kissing her was far more interested in the vines and the wines.
Nothing had changed in ten long years.
God!
Franco had kissed her.
Why? He didn’t even like her. She sure as hell didn’t like him.
Especially now.
‘Holly,’ he said alongside her, because of course she was never going to outrun his irritatingly long legs. ‘What is your problem? It’s not such a big deal.’
Maybe not to him.
‘Holly, it meant nothing.’
No, it never did apparently.
‘Holly!’ He hooked his fingers around one elbow and swung her around to face him. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I’m not stupid, you know.’
‘I know that.’
‘I’m not part of this deal and you better remember that.’
‘I never thought you were.’
‘And I certainly won’t be signing that contract any sooner just because you think I’m so naive I might be flattered that a Chatsfield pays me a little attention.’
‘I do not think that!’
‘Good. Keep on not thinking that and there’s a chance we might even survive this six weeks of hell you’re putting us through. Now, let me go and get out of my way.’
‘With pleasure,’ he snarled, dropping her arm and stepping clear and watching her pick her way as quickly as she could down the jetty.
Why had he kissed her? He asked himself the same question, examined it from every angle and from back to front, and still he could come up with no logical explanation. A mere impulse didn’t cut it. He’d heard sad stories before and not been moved to kiss the person telling them, so why today? Why with this woman, someone who already had reason to hate him? And while he didn’t care what she thought of him personally, why would he risk getting her back up? What the hell was wrong with him?
An impulse. A stupid impulse. But it didn’t make him any happier knowing that this time he couldn’t blame it on jet lag.
She stumbled her way along the timbers, hating jetties and creaking timbers and men who only wanted to take advantage. But the thing that she hated most of all was a man who tasted so good that she hadn’t wanted to stop.
Where had that come from?
He was a Chatsfield, for heaven’s sake!
The worst kind of man.
And he had some kind of nerve to think she was going to fall at his feet.
They barely spoke on the way back, an hour of excruciating tension, where thoughts seemed louder than words and where every breath reminded her of how good this man had tasted.
God, but she was a fool. She’d watched his face descend. She’d known without a shadow of a doubt he was going to kiss her, and like a rabbit stuck in headlights, she’d stood there transfixed, waiting for it to happen.
Willing it to happen.