She thought about a man who hired helicopters and Maseratis like other people hired a power tool, and who knew how to find someone who could turn tomboys into Cinderellas.
And she wondered if it were possible …
But then she shook her head free of such thoughts as she stepped from the gown and struggled her way free of the clutches of the boa constrictor beneath. It didn’t pay to wonder.
‘How was the shopping?’ Franco asked half an hour later when he returned with a package in his hands.
‘No good,’ she said with a thumbs-down from the sofa where she was reading up on her competition for the award. Some of them she already knew or had heard of, but reading their bios had made all of them depressingly good. Depressingly deserving. The dress might well turn out to be a complete waste of money. Unless they decided to award a prize for best-dressed female. Given she was the only female amongst the six, she was at least in the running for that one. ‘What’s in the box?’ she said, and Franco looked at it, frowning.
‘Just that koala picture. I had it framed. But hang on …’ he said, his expression bubbling over from surprise to annoyance, and she could see the pressure building in his grey eyes. Excellent. ‘What happened?’ he demanded, right on cue.
She shrugged and tossed the magazine away. ‘The woman simply had no clue about fashion. So I’ve decided to use the gown I bought the other day at Betty’s Drapery, just in case I couldn’t find a thing to wear in Sydney.’
It took him all of a split second to realise she was joking. It took another split second for her to be scooped in his arms and whirled around, giggling, towards the bedroom. ‘Don’t mess with me,’ he warned.
‘Or what?’ she said provocatively, already wending her fingers through his gorgeous wavy hair, tingling all over because she already knew the answer to her question.
‘Or you’ll pay for it.’
She smiled up at him as he tumbled her on the big four-poster bed. ‘I was hoping you’d say that.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
IF HEDONISM MEANT the pursuit of pleasure, Holly idly thought as the warm stones were strategically placed on her well-oiled back, then the receiving of pleasure must be the definition of day spa.
The pleasure had begun the moment she’d walked through the doors of Chatsfield’s Lotus Harmony Day Spa and relaxed with a cup of fragrant tea.
Since then she’d been pampered and oiled by angels in soft pink uniforms with gentle voices and even gentler hands. They’d massaged every inch of her body until she tingled all over and now she had stones.
Oh, God, it was so relaxing.
And it didn’t end there because next up was the hairdresser and a new style and colour after which Franco had promised to take her to dinner.
She couldn’t remember another time when she’d felt so spoiled and pampered.
A girl could get used to this.
Then again, she thought, thinking more wisely this time, a girl better not.
He lay in bed, listening to the breathing of the woman in his arms and feeling more heartsick with every slow breath. They’d dined on seafood tonight, the best Sydney had to offer, and then they’d taken a walk along a sandy beach where the sea provided the music in the crash and shoosh of waves on shore. Then they’d come back to the hotel and made love long into the night.
And that was half the problem. He’d recognised the danger—he’d known where this would lead—and yet still he’d talked himself into believing he could enjoy a few more nights of instruction, of passing on what he knew, and then simply walk away.
And now a one-night stand—a favour—had gone to spending the night in the same bed and waking up together in each other’s arms.
His gut told him he was headed for a fall.
Too restless to sleep, he eased his arm out from under her neck. She stirred and muttered an unintelligible protest and slipped back into sleep the moment her head was back on the pillow.
He padded to the windows and looked out—the city of Sydney lay dressed up for the night in lights of every colour and the harbour shone silver under a fat moon.
He was a fool. He should have done what she’d asked. Relieved her of her virginity. And then walked away.
Wrong.
He should have left her well alone, because this was always bound to happen.
He’d seen the looks she’d given him when she thought he wasn’t looking. The longing. The need.
And now she expected to curl against him and sleep with her head upon his shoulder. It didn’t matter that for that first moment when he woke, with her warm body in his arms and her head curled against his shoulder and her breath softly fanning his chest, that he might wish for something more.