Modern Romance Collection: March 2018 Books 1 - 4. Cathy Williams

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       CHAPTER EIGHT

      THEY SAT BENEATH a canopy of tangled green leaves as the Mediterranean sea glittered in a blue haze in front of them. The waiter had just brushed away the remains of the seafood platter but Nicole could see a shiny pink piece of prawn shell he must have missed, which sat on the tablecloth like a picked-off piece of nail varnish. She leaned back in her chair, knowing she couldn’t keep staring at the table or distracting herself with the amazing view for much longer. Wishing there were somewhere else to look than at Rocco’s ruggedly handsome face.

      Yet there was nowhere else she would rather look. She could have feasted her eyes on him all day—on those fiercely intelligent eyes and lips which smiled so rarely, but, when they did, it was like the sun coming out from behind dark cloud. She wondered what he was trying to do to her. To beguile her with a glimpse of how life could have been as his wife, if he’d loved her rather than being programmed to hurt her?

      Today they had played tourist in his adopted city where he’d shown her the Monaco which was hidden behind the façade of glitzy shops, exploring narrow streets which felt as if they were full of secrets. They walked through the beautiful Saint Martin gardens and the Byzantine cathedral and the Place du Palais, where they joined all the other sightseers watching the daily changing of the guard. Side by side they stood, their bodies close but never quite touching while Nicole’s skin tingled with unwilling frustration.

      And they’d ended up in this beautiful restaurant where the waiter had just placed two leather menus in front of them and Rocco was still studying her with those mesmerising eyes, which spoke of his distant Greek ancestry.

      ‘Would you like dessert?’

      She shook her head. ‘Not really. How about you?’

      His gaze became speculative. ‘What I want isn’t on the menu.’

      ‘You want them to make you something special?’

      ‘Like what?’

      She opened her eyes very wide because suddenly she realised they were flirting. ‘Oh, I don’t know—a soufflé maybe, or some crepes suzette?’

      He leaned forward and lowered his voice, even though nobody could possibly overhear them. ‘After what we were doing last night, I’m amazed you can ask those questions with such an innocent look on your face,’ he said. ‘Which makes me wonder whether it’s real or whether it’s feigned. Or whether it’s an invitation for me to acknowledge the heat which has been building between us all morning and won’t seem to go away. Is that what you’d really like me to do, Nicole?’

      She met his gaze before turning her head away, afraid of what he might be able to read in her eyes, when she didn’t even want to admit it herself. ‘I don’t know what I want,’ she confessed.

      ‘Then perhaps I will make the decision for us. I think we ought to discuss this matter further, only in private.’ His words filtered over her skin. ‘So why don’t we leave the table and do just that?’

      The sudden tightness in Nicole’s chest was making it very difficult to breathe. ‘You mean...you want to go back to the house?’ she croaked.

      He shook his head. ‘No. That’s not what I mean. Who wants to waste time trailing back through the city?’

      ‘Well, what, then?’

      ‘We could get a room.’

      ‘Where?’

      ‘Right here. This restaurant serves some of the best food in the city, but it also has rooms.’ He paused as he looked at her. ‘But you might not want that.’

      Nicole shifted uncomfortably beneath his searching expression. Of course she wanted to. She’d wanted nothing else since they’d left his house that morning when the world had seemed to blur so that Rocco had become her only real focus, no matter how detached she had been when studying the architecture of the city or how many paintings she’d looked at. When just having him that near had been like electricity firing over her skin—making her long for them to get properly close. She’d told herself sex wasn’t going to happen again. That she’d emerged from that passionate bout last night with her heart just about intact and she wasn’t sure she’d be so lucky if there was a next time.

      But her body was hungry and her desire was strong—and maybe Rocco had picked up on that. She licked her lips, trying not to be affected by his raven-dark glint of his hair in the sunshine, or the pure muscular power of his body. If she was being sensible she would say no. She would suggest he call for the bill and take her back to the house while she whiled away a few blameless hours by the pool, before getting ready for cocktails on his yacht. She would play at being his wife in public and for the rest of the time she would do her best to avoid him, just as she’d originally planned.

      But being sensible wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. When was the last time she’d been reckless? When she’d thought about what she really wanted rather than what she needed? Next week she would be back in Cornwall with damp clay underneath her fingernails and bills to pay, but today she was on a sunny Mediterranean terrace and the only man she had ever really wanted was asking her to go to bed with him. Surely only a fool would turn down an opportunity like that.

      ‘They might not have a room,’ she said.

      His eyes gleamed. ‘We could try.’

      Of course, they did have a room and Nicole felt like a naughty schoolgirl as Rocco handed over his credit card and was given a key. And crazily, she found herself wishing she were wearing her wedding band, which was the only piece of jewellery she’d kept from her marriage. She wondered what the staff thought of customers who came for lunch, then booked themselves a room. Did they think she was Rocco’s mistress and he was about to spend an illicit afternoon with a woman who wasn’t his wife? And wasn’t it ironic that somehow she seemed to fit that role much better? She’d made a much better mistress than she had a wife, she reflected.

      The ride in the elevator was conducted in a breathless kind of silence, mainly because of the presence of a middle-aged woman who was decked in diamonds and carrying a small white dog in her handbag. But Nicole honestly didn’t think СКАЧАТЬ