What am I doing?
‘I thought it was a ghost.’
‘There are no ghosts here. The past is dead and gone and it would be a mistake to try to resurrect it.’
Well, that didn’t sound as if he was talking about nocturnal birdlife, but it did sound as if he was talking about their almost kiss. She was grateful the half-light hid her shamed blush.
She got the message loud and clear. Once he had wanted more than she was able to give, now it seemed that all he wanted from her was sex—and then only on his terms.
‘I’m not trying to resurrect anything. I just want to get Jamie indoors and settled for the night,’ she explained quietly. ‘So what are we waiting for—the reception committee?’
‘Don’t worry, there won’t be anyone around at this hour.’
He had reasoned that it would be less stressful for a child to arrive at a new place if there weren’t lots of new people to cope with, as well, though he had to admit Jamie seemed a remarkably resilient child.
The swell of pride that tightened his chest as he turned to look at his sleeping son took him by surprise.
‘So how do we do this?’ Finding it hard to be the person asking for instructions, he directed his question to Marisa, aware as he looked at her of a fresh flare in the hunger that was still thrumming through his body. He’d told her he didn’t want to resurrect the past, but that was because he had enough to deal with in the present without going around opening old wounds. He just hoped the logic would filter down at some point to his rampant hormones.
The things this woman did to him remained stronger than anything he had ever experienced; nothing had changed over the years they’d spent apart, and that was the problem. There was no volume control on the hunger she aroused in him; there was no halfway house. It was full on, and it controlled him.
He shouldn’t have to remind himself that acting on it was a bad idea considering what had happened the last time.
Circumstances had brought her back into his life but Roman had moved on. Marisa was still his weakness but he told himself he had strengthened his defences. He lifted his avid gaze from the cushiony softness of her lips and swallowed.
‘Will he wake up if we move him?’ he asked huskily.
‘That’s really doubtful. He’s flat out.’ Despite her claim, as she scooped Jamie up, she closed her car door quietly and saw that Roman was following suit. As her eyes brushed his she hastily stepped back to put some distance between them, in the process backing into a low hedge. Immediately the warm night air was filled with the heavy summery scent of lavender.
‘This way.’ He gestured for her to walk ahead of him and tried not to notice the lush tautness of her bottom and the gorgeous length of her slim legs.
CHAPTER NINE
THOUGH THE PREDICTABLY massive space of the hallway was empty it was flooded with light. Marisa blinked and looked around with genuine pleasure.
The heavy dark wood panelling and stone walls could have been oppressive but somehow they weren’t. The darkness was alleviated by the brilliant glowing threads of the antique rugs underfoot and the series of framed photographic landscapes on the walls.
‘Did your mother plan the decor?’
‘My mother hasn’t been here since the divorce.’ His lips quirked into a fleeting ironic half-smile as he added, ‘As I said, other than a staff of thirty or so we will have our privacy.’
She couldn’t return his smile; privacy of any sort was the last thing she needed. What she needed was space.
So why are you just standing there?
The question could have just as easily been directed at Roman, who continued to stare at her over Jamie’s curly head.
‘It’s a lot to take in,’ she said quietly.
‘I’ll show you to your rooms.’
He led her up the curved stone staircase to the galleried landing above.
‘There a small salon just down there.’ He nodded to the right-hand side of a long corridor with an ornately stuccoed barrelled ceiling. ‘Your rooms are this way.’ He took a right turn, this corridor a twin of the other.
‘Here they are.’ The door opened into a sitting room, but she didn’t waste much time looking around as Jamie had woken up and started crying.
Correctly assessing her priorities, he pointed her to an open door. ‘His bedroom is through there at the end.’
It took her hardly any time at all to settle Jamie, who’d fallen straight back to sleep before she had even pulled down the covers on his bed.
Checking the baby monitor, which was standing on a low table in the room, was working, she explored the other rooms in this guest suite before she returned to the sitting room.
She paused in the doorway. Roman was standing with his shoulder wedged against the wall, staring out of the stone mullioned window. He levered himself away and half turned.
‘Did he go back to sleep?’
Lingering in the doorway, fighting a reluctance to enter, she nodded. You’re acting as if he’s about to leap on you, mocked the voice in her head.
It was the mortifying possibility she might be the one to do the leaping that continued to hold her back.
‘He was so exhausted he barely stirred at all, not even when I put him in his pyjamas. He’s totally out.’
‘I asked for some supper to be left for us.’
It wasn’t the idea of sitting in some dauntingly enormous room at a table laden with candelabra and antique crystal that made her stomach flip, it was the knowledge of the person who would inevitably be sitting opposite her, which was ridiculous. It was something she was going to have to learn to cope with—but not today, she decided, pushing this hill to climb into the future with a mental sigh as the almost-kiss outside by the car still weighed guiltily on her conscience.
‘That’s thoughtful.’ Marisa, who had
