An Innocent, A Seduction, A Secret. Эбби Грин

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СКАЧАТЬ a moment their eyes locked. Hers were deep blue, but even from here he could see the long lashes. And then, as if waking from a trance, she stalked over and dragged the drapes shut, leaving Sebastio looking back at his own distorted features in the glass.

      He had the strangest sensation of déjà-vu—as if he had seen her somewhere before. But the feeling was too ephemeral to pin down.

      He was stunned. No woman had ignited his interest or his desire so forcibly and immediately in four years. Not that anyone would believe it. Sebastio was a master of misdirection—covering up his flatlining libido with a series of high-profile dates that never went beyond a kiss. His reputation as a skilled lover and a connoisseur of beautiful women served as a smokescreen he used willingly.

      He thought of the display in the window again. It had effortlessly captured his attention, taking him unawares, which was unusual when he had such an aversion to Christmas. He thought of the advice he’d been given to decorate his home and something occurred to him...

      That woman might have sparked his libido back to life, but he needed her for something far more practical.

      Sebastio went back the way he’d come and turned the corner into the main street, thronged with people. He saw the main doors of the shop and strode towards them purposefully.

      * * *

      Edie Munroe was standing looking at the closed drapes like someone who’d been hypnotised. Or hit over the head. She’d never in a million years expected to see that guy again and yet...she just had.

      And it had struck her today as forcibly as it had four years ago, when she’d first laid eyes on him in a crowded nightclub in Edinburgh.

      It couldn’t be him, she told herself now, feeling her skin rise into goosebumps. It couldn’t be Sebastio Rivas.

      The fact that she even remembered his name was not welcome.

      What were the chances it was him? It had to be someone who looked liked him. After all, Sebastio Rivas was a mega-famous international rugby star. What on earth would he be doing walking down a random side-street in London?

      But her accelerated heart-rate told her it was him.

      It was galling to be reminded that no other man in four years had had the same effect on her. And she’d tried. She’d gone on Tinder dates, blind dates and internet dates. But on each date, when the guy had tried to take things a step further, Edie had felt herself shutting down.

      Because she couldn’t get out of her head how he’d made her feel four years ago. Alive and energised. Buzzing. Connected. Hopeful.

      And aroused.

      For the first time in her life she’d understood what people were talking about when they spoke of instant attraction, or said, You’ll know it when you feel it. She had felt it like a palpable energy. Electricity.

      It had been a wholly new sense of desire, and she’d known instinctively that only he could assuage the building sense of excitement in her core. A crazy assertion to have about a total stranger, but one so deep she could still feel it today.

      It was pathetic. Her entire exchange with Sebastio Rivas had lasted about five minutes. He’d told her to run along. He’d been out of bounds, out of her league, and he hadn’t hesitated in letting her know.

      The fact that she’d gravitated across a heaving dance-floor to orbit the sun of his smouldering sexuality—like every other woman in the room—was as freshly humiliating today as it had been then, especially after he’d sent her on her way.

      She’d been so sure she’d seen something...sensed something in him. Their eyes had locked and a silent communication had throbbed between them. She’d seen something in his demeanour, in his eyes, a kind of brittleness. And it had resonated within her because she’d felt the same.

      She’d just come through a major ordeal—cancer, which she’d contracted when she was seventeen, throwing her life into instant turmoil. It had become a fight for survival, an endless round of toxic treatments and sterile hospital rooms.

      For the previous eighteen months she hadn’t known if she would live or die, and some of the time she’d been feeling so sick she’d almost wished—

      Edie clamped down on that thought, remembering her parents’ worried, pinched faces.

      That very day she’d been given the all-clear, and that night had been her first foray back into the world. She’d felt as if a layer of skin had been removed, making everything feel too bright, too sharp. Too much.

      She remembered that she’d been wearing a dress borrowed from a friend. Short, silver and slinky. Not her style at all. But then, that whole night had been about a celebration she’d never expected to experience. A celebration of life.

      And, because her hair hadn’t yet started to grow back, she’d been wearing a wig. A shoulder-length bob. Bright red and hot and scratchy. Yet none of that had stopped her from approaching the most beautiful man in the room.

      She’d never seen or met a man who’d come close to his sheer charisma and good-looks. Well over six foot, he’d had the leanly muscled build of an elite athlete. The power in his body had been evident under his dark suit.

      A little desperately, she tried to tell herself again that the man she’d just seen outside couldn’t be him. But she’d never forget that face. Sculpted from stone. All slashing lines and sharp bones. Hard jaw. Deep-set eyes under black brows. Thick dark hair flopping messily over his forehead. Curling around his collar.

      And a mouth made for sin. Full and sensual. Softening those hard lines and the stern demeanor he’d exuded like a force-field.

      ‘Edie... Earth to Edie... Can I come down now?’

      She whirled around, aghast at her reaction to someone who probably wasn’t even the man she was thinking of. She was losing it.

      ‘Of course, Jimmy.’ She gabbled, ‘I think the man in the window—I mean, the man in the moon decoration works better than the star.’ She hoped Jimmy wouldn’t see her face flaming at her Freudian slip.

      ‘Not that anyone will see it,’ grumbled the young man as he came down the ladder. ‘We’re all the way around the corner from the main windows.’

      Edie said brightly, ‘It means we can be more creative with our wee display.’

      ‘Wee being the operative word. I hate the way the big designers get to dress the main windows now. It’s so...commercial.’

      ‘I know,’ said Edie, hiding a smile at the art student’s dismay and forcing her mind away from the past. She’d never got to college herself and had worked her way up the ranks to be a creative display artist. ‘That’s the way it is now, and I’m sure they’ll be beautiful.’

      ‘Yes, but they won’t be magical.’

      Privately Edie agreed. She too loved the magic and fantasy surrounding Christmas. She loved everything about Christmas. She was trying to create a little of that magic in this window, in spite of the fact that not many people would see it.

      But, times had changed, and now the big fashion СКАЧАТЬ