‘I can’t imagine looking at someone and seeing the face I look at every day in the mirror.’
She watched one dark brow lift before the motion-detection lights on the gravel-covered forecourt that had illuminated the interior of the car chose to go out, adding another layer of darkness to the enclosed space.
It wasn’t just the lines of his face that the darkness blurred, it blurred her resolve and it lowered her resistance...to what, exactly? she asked herself.
She shivered. She didn’t really want to know the answer. It was bad enough she was unable to pretend that it was Roman she was fighting. The battle was with herself and the forbidden emotions, the hunger he awoke inside her.
She gave her head a tiny shake as if to dislodge the thought. She didn’t want to think about it; she wouldn’t.
She tensed as his deep gravelly textured voice broke the silence. ‘We might look alike, but we are very different people.’
Marisa tore her eyes from his shadowed face, too spooked by the fascination it held for her to ponder the odd inflection in his flat statement.
She turned back and found that Roman was looking at her, making no attempt to leave the car. Her stomach muscles quivered with a combination of fear and something she refused to identify as excitement as she resisted the pull of the invisible silken thread that in her imagination joined them.
‘How so different?’ she asked, though she thought she already knew part of the answer. She had looked at his brother and her nerve endings had not tingled, there had been no silent thread connecting them and she had not wanted to breathe in the scent of Rio. She brought her thoughts to an abrupt halt, realising to her horror that she had begun to lean in towards Roman.
‘From Rio?’ he said, sounding as though he had forgotten what he had been talking about.
‘Yes.’ She straightened up in her seat, pushing her hair behind her ears as the outside lights, perhaps activated by some night creature, clicked on again.
‘People say I am more like my father than Rio.’ The bleak comment was delivered with a twist of his lips.
She felt pinned to her seat like a suicidal moth drawn to a flame by his dark complex stare.
‘Is that a bad thing?’ she wondered huskily.
The question seemed to jolt him, leaving Marisa with the impression that he regretted saying anything at all. She felt a surge of frustration; she had met clams that revealed more about themselves than him. Or maybe that’s just with me, she mused. Maybe he shares his innermost thoughts with other people...other women...?
Unbidden, an image of the blonde with the impressive chest that he’d been glued to during the rash of publicity shots for one of his films a few years ago flashed into her mind. Maybe that woman brought out a different side to Roman? Maybe he showed his vulnerable side to her...?
She pushed the thought away, dodging the accusing voice in her head that was yelling, You’re jealous! The idea was simply ridiculous. The last thing she wanted was to know what made Roman tick. The man was too intense for words, and just breathing the same air as him gave her a headache. As for him having a vulnerable side, it would be her first mistake to imagine he even had one.
No, Marisa, your first mistake was to walk into that hotel over five years ago.
A furrow formed between his sable brows. ‘What’s wrong?’ he barked.
She shrugged at the accusing question. ‘What do you mean? Why should anything be wrong?’
‘You squeaked.’
Her chin went up. ‘I did not—’ she began and then broke off. This, she decided, could get very childish very quickly. ‘I have a headache.’ To her relief he appeared to accept the half-lie, as actually she did have the beginning of a headache. ‘It’s been a long day.’ She glanced up at the building and thought, It doesn’t look like it’ll be getting better any time soon. ‘I still think it would have been simpler if you’d got to know Jamie at home.’
One dark brow elevated. ‘So you were inviting me to be your guest?’
‘God, no!’ The words were out before she could stop them. ‘I mean—’
‘Yes?’ he pressed when she halted, looking interested in her answer.
She compressed her lips and flung him an angry look. She was too tired for a conversational battle of attrition. ‘You could have picked him up, gone for trips—’ And I could have observed from a safe distance, and there would have been no kisses.
‘Trips?’
‘He likes the zoo.’ He didn’t seem too impressed by her hasty improvisation.
‘So your expert advice is that a few day trips to the zoo is the best way to get to know my son? That it would make up for the last four and a half years.’
‘He happens to like the zoo,’ she gritted back.
‘So you said.’
‘I hadn’t given much thought to alternatives because you were so obviously not going to accept the idea.’ No, he’d wanted everything to be all on his terms, and because she felt so guilty she had agreed to it all in a moment of weakness. He’d claimed she owed him and he was right.
‘Look, I’m aware that this isn’t ideal.’ His eyes flickered to the shadow of his ancestral home. ‘It’s not exactly warm and intimate, I know,’ he admitted. ‘But it is away from prying eyes.’
Marisa lowered her gaze, musing ruefully that could only be a good thing. Even thinking of the words warm and intimate in connection with Roman was dangerous.
‘Don’t you have somewhere else that is less—’
‘I keep hotel suites in a few city locations,’ Roman said, anticipating a surprised if not disapproving reaction to a lifestyle choice that had not won
