‘Except with no blood involved.’ Just a hell of a lot of self-control. What Roman hadn’t said was that he had opened the door, heard the shower and closed it again, because he didn’t trust himself not to go to her.
She reacted to the comment with a weak smile flashing out before she worked up the courage to meet his disconcertingly intense stare.
Dios, she looked as if stubbornness was the only thing keeping her upright. ‘Sit down,’ he said, his abrupt delivery hiding his concern.
His lip curled in self-disgust as she walked towards one of the sofas. He’d been too busy noticing how great her lush body looked in jeans to notice until now the cell-deep weariness in her body language.
She looked as though it was an effort to lift up her feet as she walked across to the sofa.
‘You’re tired.’
Her head lifted at the accusation.
‘When did you last sleep?’
‘What is this, twenty questions?’
Arms folded across his chest, he stood there waiting for her answer, and finally Marisa gave a sigh of defeat. ‘All right,’ she fired back. ‘I’m tired but I’ve had a lot on my mind. Just don’t fuss.’ She knew from experience that even when you felt you couldn’t go on for another minute—and there had been more days like that than she wanted to recall when Jamie had been ill—there were always reserves to call on.
The water-darkened ends of her hair brushed her neck as she sat down before carefully tucking the offending strands behind her ears.
‘I have not exactly dressed for dinner,’ he said abruptly as he bent forward to lay down the tray he was carrying on the coffee table between the two sofas.
She tucked her legs under her, thinking that he didn’t need to dress for anything; he looked gorgeous whatever he was wearing—or not wearing. She veiled her gaze guiltily as the thought slipped past her tired defences. After a few hours’ sleep this situation was going to be so much easier to cope with.
Want to bet?
‘I’m not really hungry.’
He rolled his eyes. ‘Not that again. You will eat,’ he remarked pleasantly. ‘Or I will feed you myself,’ he promised with a steely smile that left his eyes grimly determined.
She snorted to show how unimpressed she was but, despite her claim, she felt her empty stomach rumble once more when he whipped off the dome cover with a magician’s flourish to reveal a plate containing a selection of delicious-looking, artfully arranged sandwiches.
‘I’d say I made them with my own fair hands but I didn’t. The tea and coffee are, however, all my own work.’ He nodded to the pots he had balanced either end of the tray as, instead of taking a seat on the other sofa or, and this was the preferred option for Marisa, heading for the door, he sat down beside her.
Marisa directed her gaze at the safer option, another plate, this one containing beautifully decorated small cakes that would have graced the window of any high-class patisserie.
Not looking at him didn’t make her any less skin-tinglingly conscious of his closeness.
‘Eat!’
Eyes slitted, she slung him a recalcitrant look, but reached for a sandwich. One bite of the layers of smoked salmon and cream cheese sandwiched between moist rye bread and she forgot her reluctance.
She sampled two more before sitting back with her arms folded. ‘Well,’ she challenged. ‘Do I pass?’
He gave a concessionary grunt.
‘So what happens now? Oh, not now as in we go to bed—’ He snorted as an expression of comical horror spread across her face while she issued a hot-faced correction. ‘That is go to bed, but not together—I mean—’
‘I know what you mean and the answer is it’s up to you what happens next. I’m assuming that Jamie might be tired tomorrow and a little off his game after the journey?’
‘Cranky as hell probably. I usually try to keep to his routine as much as possible.’
‘And his routine is?’
‘When he is not in nursery I allow him to watch one of his cartoons after breakfast.’ She supposed that wasn’t an option here. ‘Ash or I usually take him for a walk later.’ Turning over a piece of rotting wood on the ground and discovering all the creeping life beneath could keep Jamie fascinated for hours. She found herself suddenly wondering what Roman had been like as a child. Had he approached life with curiosity and enthusiasm as Jamie did? Then she stopped wondering because the price was an ache in her chest. ‘In the afternoon it depends.’
‘He mentioned enjoying swimming. We have an indoor pool and a gym complex.’
‘Of course you do,’ she muttered, trying to ignore the arm he had thrown across the back of the sofa.
‘The outdoor pool is heated if you think that would be better for him.’
‘Doesn’t it seem a waste to you? Having all this here and no one to enjoy it?’ Aside from the invisible staff of dozens, which she would no doubt encounter tomorrow.
‘Rio and I never expected to inherit it.’ His eyes flashed her way before he turned back to the contemplation of his threaded fingers. ‘Disinheriting us from this place was always his threat of first resort and we both assumed he’d gone through with it, but he ended up leaving us the lot. I think he expected us to fail, but then he had never made any attempt to include us, or teach us anything about his empire. He was a total bastard, but at least he was a bastard with a golden touch. It wouldn’t have mattered a jot to him that our failure would have a knock-on effect that would deprive so many families of their livelihoods too.’
‘He sounds like—’ Words failed her as indignation for Roman and his twin swelled in her chest, well, mostly for Roman, if she was honest. It was
