Mediterranean Mavericks: Greeks. Кейт Хьюит

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ on end and one touch was enough to reduce her to instant meltdown.

      After a life of carefully made choices, Rose was not equipped to defend herself against the overwhelming force of what she felt.

      Anyway, she didn’t want to. She wanted to be reckless.

      She wanted to have his arms around her as they sat on the beach and watched the sun set. She wanted him to close that bedroom door and move towards her, every muscle in his body alert with the same hunger she felt for him. She wanted to cling to her dreams that her perfect love would be returned.

      Which, on the last night of their stay, brought her to the very delicate matter of how, exactly, she might find out what his intentions towards her were.

      ‘Tonight’s meal was fantastic,’ she said, which was the most roundabout route she could think to discuss the fact that their holiday was now at an end. ‘In fact, the food over here has been exquisite. Such flavours. I love the multi-ethnic cuisine.’ Thinking that she was beginning to sound a little like a restaurant critic, she bit back the temptation to carry the theme through.

      ‘You’re gabbling, Rose. Lie back and enjoy the stars and the sound of the sea.’

      Rose obediently lay down next to him on the wide beach towel provided courtesy of the hotel, which seemed to know that sun loungers were not to everyone’s taste. Especially, she thought, late at night when you wanted to be physically close to someone. Like now.

      She tried to submerge herself in the ambience but her thoughts were whirring around in her head and she finally said, casually, ‘Bit of a change, all this, isn’t it? From London, I mean…’

      ‘Huge change.’

      ‘Be strange to go back tomorrow.’

      ‘Very strange.’ He sounded faintly surprised at that admission. ‘But reality’s never further than a stone’s throw away.’

      ‘I thought that was rats.’

      ‘In my line of work, the two are often interlinked.’

      Rose could feel him grinning in the dark but she didn’t want to relax and enjoy his sense of humour, as she had done for the past few days. She wanted to pry beneath the surface and find out what happened next in their chapter, because she was sure that there would be a next.

      ‘Will you miss…being here?’ With me?

      ‘All good things come to an end.’ Nick shrugged, his hand, under her neck, hanging, almost touching her breast. ‘That’s just the way it is.’

      ‘Which…’ Rose decided to take the bull by the horns because they could sit around talking in metaphors all night and get nowhere ‘…leaves us where?’

      Well, Nick thought with disappointment, it had to happen eventually. The bubble had to burst. He had idiotically thought that Rose, who was in a league of her own, would be the exception to the rule, the one woman who didn’t start questioning the future and trying, thereby, to pin him down to promises of ever afters he had no intention of making.

      ‘Well, I think we can safely say that your stint working for me is now over. Shy of a week or so, but we’ve accomplished what we set out to do, wouldn’t you agree? You must be looking forward to getting back to your old routine. Are you?’

      ‘Yes, of course I am.’ In truth, she had barely missed her old job and was certainly not looking forward to returning to the grindstone having sampled the excitement of working for Nick, where every day brought new challenges. However, she wasn’t a fool. She might have abandoned common sense, she might have dared to hope that her flight of fancy would bring her the result she wanted, but she could read nuances as well as the next person. Better. Over the years her ingrained sensitivity had fine-tuned her antennae and her antennae were now telling her that he was backing away from giving her a direct answer for a reason and there could only be one reason. Whatever he felt for her, it wasn’t love. It wasn’t even enough to give her any kind of commitment. The man who had always walked away from relationships of any depth was walking away now and Rose felt as though her lifeblood were draining out of her system.

      What had she been thinking? That the way his eyes darkened when he saw her naked counted as love? Or that the easy way they talked and laughed and touched really meant something?

      Inside she was hurting so much that she suddenly couldn’t bear the feel of his arm around her. Outside, though, she controlled her voice and schooled her expression even though he couldn’t see her face and made sure to sound as calm as she could as she started to chat about what had been happening in her old job, updates from her friends whom she had barely seen over the past few months.

      ‘Naturally, this doesn’t have to mean the end of…what we have,’ Nick murmured, and Rose could feel him turn towards her. What, she wanted to ask, exactly do we have? For him, yet another pointless relationship based on satisfying sex and for her…more heartbreak, more involvement, more misery in the end.

      ‘Oh, I think it should, really…’

      ‘You don’t mean that.’ Nick turned completely towards her and tilted her head so that he could kiss the side of her neck and Rose shrugged him off and sat up.

      ‘I do.’ She looked over her shoulder at him. Moonlight becomes him…wasn’t there a song that went like that? He was just wearing an old tee shirt and a pair of faded jeans, but she knew every inch of his perfect body now, knew the lazy strength and muscular body encased in the casual clothing. She wondered how she could ever have thought that he might actually fall in love with her, the way she had fallen in love with him.

      Would he return to England and be embarrassed to be seen with her? He had told her often enough that he loved her curves, found them incredibly sexy, that stick-thin, in comparison, was a turn-off. But that was here, where everything had been in a state of unreal suspension. She would bet her newly refurbished house that the minute they stepped back onto English soil stick-thin would suddenly be desirable because stick-thin represented the sort of model type he needed hanging on his arm.

      He would always run true to form and she had been a fool to have thought otherwise. He was, and always had been, out of her league.

      Rose stood up and dusted herself down. He, of course, was still lying on the towel, hands behind his head, probably, she thought, convinced that he could talk her round. Maybe for a few more romps in the hay back in England, where he would keep her hidden away and out of sight.

      ‘This has been great.’ She gesticulated vaguely around her. ‘The scenery, the atmosphere, the romance of being out of England and in the hot sun. Now it’s finishing…’

      ‘You asked what was going to become of us.’ Nick sat up. ‘That implies that you consider us an item.’

      ‘I meant in connection with work,’ she lied. ‘I thought it would be awkward being stuck in each other’s company, pretending that nothing had happened between us.’

      ‘Stuck in each other’s company?’

      ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. What I meant was…’ Now he was standing up, which instantly made her feel a lot less assured. ‘Look, this has been brilliant. I never thought…well, my first impressions of you weren’t all that flattering but I’ve enjoyed every minute of being here with you. We had fun, didn’t we?’

      Nick СКАЧАТЬ