The Man Who Risked It All

He wasn’t there. Her heart started to pump that bit faster. His bathroom door stood open, so she could see that he wasn’t in there. Aware that her limbs had acquired a spongy sensation, making her feel nervously strung out, she pushed away from the door and walked across the room to the only other place she could think he might be.

Stepping outside onto the terrace, she found him sitting on one of the chairs out there with his long legs stretched out in front of him, his feet resting on another chair. He was dressed in pale chinos and a soft pale blue cambric shirt. No socks inside the casual slip-ons he wore on his golden brown feet. On the table beside him stood an uncorked bottle of red wine and two long-stemmed glasses. As he heard her step and turned his dark head to look at her Lexi knew by his steady regard that it was game over.

He knew that she knew she was giving up the fight—with herself.

CHAPTER SEVEN

HE RAISED his hand and held it out to her. That was all it took to draw her to him. Lexi walked the few metres and placed her hand in his. His fingers closed around her fingers, warm, slightly callused, strong.

‘Glass of wine?’ he asked her.

‘Please,’ she said, but it was barely a whisper that scraped over her dry throat.

Dropping his feet to the floor he stood up. She noticed straight away that his movements were smooth and lithe—pain free. As if he’d planned everything down to the smallest detail he drew her closer to his side, slid her captured hand around his waist then let go of it so he could pour out the wine without them losing physical contact.

He handed her a glass, which she took with her other hand. ‘To us,’ he said, and chinked their glasses together, then waited like some powerful dark force for her to raise her glass to her lips.

‘To us—or now.’ Lexi found she had just enough fight left in her to extend the toast before she raised the glass and sipped from it.

It took him a moment or two to accept what she’d said before he lifted his own glass and drank.

In some dark place inside her Lexi knew she wanted to weep.

Maybe he could sense it. Maybe he was aware that no matter how much she wanted him she did not want this. Because he released a small sigh, placed his glass back on the table and took her glass to do the same thing with it, then turned to take her fully into his arms.

‘One small step at a time, hmm?’ he murmured, alongside the kiss he pressed to the top of her silky head.

Lexi lifted her face to look at him, the swirling blue-green in her eyes mocking him for saying such a thing when they both knew that what was going to happen next was not going to be anything like a small step. And, anyway, she had already taken a huge step just by coming here to him, so thinking small did not come close to where she wanted to go with this.

‘Of course if small is all you can manage right now …’ she posed, in an attempt to make light of things.

Franco laughed—not a throw-back-his-head kind of laugh, but a low down, deep-into-his-chest kind of sexy, dark and very masculine laugh. ‘I don’t know what I’m up for,’ he confessed with rueful honesty, ‘though we could make it interesting finding out …’

Lexi turned to release a small, slightly shaky laugh. Franco felt some of the tension ease out of her slender frame. He felt the same easing out of himself. He’d achieved something here he hadn’t dared expect to achieve. He’d brought down her defences without needing to touch on all the ugly stuff still waiting in the background for its moment to shatter them both.

Whether that was being fair to her or not he did not want to consider right now. She was here. She was acknowledging that she wanted—no, needed to be here with him. He turned with her still pressed against him and walked them both inside.

In the soft light of the room he drew her round in front of him and, as if it was the most natural thing for them to do, their lips came together to embrace. She stepped in that bit closer, lifted her slender arms and slid them around his neck. As he buried his fingers in the loose silken flow of her hair he caught her soft whisper just before she took the initiative and deepened the kiss to an open-mouthed probe of hungry passion that unfurled her longing for him like an exquisite flowering that made her ache.

Her cheeks were flushed when eventually he eased back from her; a terrible shyness Lexi had not experienced even the first time she’d been with him kept her eyes fixed on the open collar of his shirt, and the feelings dancing around inside her made her feel quivery and weak. ‘I suppose we should go down and eat dinner f-first,’ she heard herself mumble.

‘Bailing out on me already?’ he quizzed.

Not so you would notice, Lexi thought as he trailed his fingers down the length of her back. It was enough to make her body arch into closer contact with him.

‘Zeta will come looking for me if I don’t go down.’

His answer to that problem was to step back from her and stride across the room to pick up the house phone. The husky lowness of his voice as he spoke to the housekeeper fired up the heat in Lexi’s face.

‘Now she knows what we’re doing,’ she protested as he walked back to her.

‘We are man and wife. Holding back dinner while we make love is not a hanging offence.’

‘Yes, but—’

He stopped walking. ‘You want to eat first?’

Oh, for goodness’ sake, Lexi thought hectically. She didn’t know what she wanted! ‘I want to be with you but I don’t want to be with you!’ The confession arrived as a cry from the heart.