Love Islands…The Collection. Jane Porter

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       ‘Lily!’

      Benedict had always been one of the few people who never mistook her for her twin.

      He handed her the book that she’d dropped and fatally his tanned fingers brushed hers. No teenage sexual fantasy—so safe because it had never been going to happen—had prepared her for the nerve-stripping effect.

      The electric sizzle shook her so badly she barely remembered her name as slowly they both rose to their feet, the book they both still grasped acting as a connection they seemed reluctant to break.

      It was a passer-by bumping into them that made them break apart, the book falling again to the floor.

      The spell broken, they both laughed.

      This time she let him pick it up. Staring at the top of his dark head, she gave herself a mental shake and put some defensive tension into her spine. She saw him raise a brow when he looked at the title and this time when he handed it to her she made sure to avoid contact. This triggered a quizzical look that she didn’t react to beyond the flush she was incapable of controlling.

      ‘You always were a bookworm,’ he said, smiling. ‘I remember the time I caught you in Grandfather’s library, you hid his first-edition Dickens under your jumper.’

      ‘You remember that?’ She stopped in her tracks, her amazement giving way to horror. ‘It was a first edition?’

      ‘Don’t look so worried—the old man didn’t mind.’

       ‘He knew?’

      The lines that fanned out from the corners of his eyes deepened as her astonishment drew a laugh from his throat. ‘That you used the place as an unofficial lending library? Well, he did, he doesn’t miss much...so...’ He lowered his gaze from her flushed face, turning his wrist and with a flick of a white cuff revealing his paper-thin watch.

      Lily watched with a smile she really hoped said I’m in a hurry too.

      The next time you are in danger of believing in magical connections, Lily Gray, she told herself, or a sexual awareness too strong to deny, remember this moment.

      ‘I was going for a coffee...’ He stopped, his remarkable eyes filled with warmth and other things that made her stomach flip as he gave a twisted, rueful smile and admitted huskily, ‘No, I wasn’t, but I am now.’ Head tilted a little to one side, he smiled into her face. ‘If you’d like...?’

      Her knees just stopped short of buckling. They were shaking. She released a carefully controlled sigh, her emotions a mingling of excitement and fear as she thought, if a smile could do this much to her what would a touch do...a kiss...?

      Getting ahead of yourself here, Lily. He’s offering you a cappuccino, not a night of wild, head-banging sex! It was just coffee, she reasoned.

      ‘Yes.’ Too keen, Lily. She gave a smile. ‘I’m not meeting Sam until half four.’

      His dark brows twitched into a line above his masterful nose. ‘Is Sam your boyfriend?’

      ‘A friend,’ she said. And it wasn’t a lie: Samantha Jane was a friend, the first one she’d made at the drama college. Sam wouldn’t mind if she was late; Sam would approve. She often lectured Lily on her love life, or lack of it.

      ‘You have to stop being so picky,’ Sam had told her. ‘Look at me—I’ve lost count of the number of frogs I’ve kissed but when my prince comes along I’ll recognise the difference, and actually frogs can be fun.’

      An hour later Lily and Benedict were still sitting in a cubicle in a small coffee shop and she couldn’t remember what they’d talked about. But she had made him laugh, and he had made her feel smart and sexy. He thought she was funny so she was. After the first five minutes she had relaxed and lowered her guard as their conversation moved from literature, to politics, to her favourite ice cream, to her drama school course and the great opportunity that had recently fallen in her lap. It was only later she’d realised that he’d hardly told her a thing about himself, but then it was, oh, so easy to be wise with hindsight.

      ‘So I’m going to see you on the big screen?’ Elbows on the table, he’d leant forward, his interest seeming genuine and unfeigned. He had ignored all the women who had eyed him up, not even seeming to notice them. It seemed he only had eyes for her and Lily was flattered. If she’d been a cat, she’d have purred.

      ‘A small part.’

      ‘I’m not sure actresses are meant to be self-deprecating.’

      ‘I’m not, just factual. It’s a small part.’

      ‘But the TV drama, that’s the lead?’

      ‘I’ve been really lucky.’

      ‘You could do with a few lessons in self-publicity.’

      She looked at him through her lashes and asked huskily, ‘Are you offering?’

      His slow smile made her insides melt and her heart race even faster.

      Over her third cup of coffee, looking into his electric-blue eyes, Lily made the dizzying discovery that it was potentially addictive having a man look at you with undisguised desire. Especially when the man in question had, for a large part of your life, represented the perfect ideal and you’d spent your life measuring other men against him—inevitably they had fallen short.

      Could that be why she’d still not had a single serious relationship?

      The possibility drifted into her head and then was gone because he had caught her hand and, holding it between his thumb and forefinger, was massaging the pad of her palm. The light arabesques sent deep tremors through her body. What she was feeling bore no resemblance to any teenage crush. It bore no resemblance to anything she had felt or imagined feeling.

      She didn’t even know she’d closed her eyes until he spoke in his deep husky voice.

      ‘I have a room.’

      She didn’t say anything; she couldn’t.

      Her voice sounded throaty and deep, unfamiliar to her own ears, when she finally managed a response: ‘Yes.’