And because the warm dark night had been still and silent Caro had heard the harshly painful intake of his breath but had made herself ignore it. So he was hurting—well, so was she—but, for pity's sake, she had been a whisper away from making love with a married man! The very thought gave her the moral shudders.
What type of alchemist was he, for goodness' sake? How black was the darkness of the spell he had cast?
Blinking rapidly, she pushed herself out of bed, away from her shameful recollections, and found a smile of sorts for his delightful baby.
'OK, sweetheart, if you promise to be quiet about it, we'll have a bath and start our day,' Caro promised in a husky whisper as she lifted the bright-eyed child from her cot. 'We don't want to wake Daddy, do we?'
Heaven forbid! Six o'clock in the morning was far too early to have to face him. She needed time to get her head together. One thing she did know, she assured herself as she plopped Sophie down on the floor while she collected up fresh day clothes for them both: things had to be brought to a head very soon.
She wanted it over. She needed it to be over. She wanted to get her life back.
Besides, the game she was playing was beginning to look scary. She was beginning to like him, to enjoy being around him, despite all the rotten things she knew about his character.
And worse, much, much worse, she had enjoyed having him touch her, caress her body, kiss her, and to her eternal shame she had w
anted very much more. Something had happened when he'd held her in his arms—the birth of an elemental sexual chemistry that made her forget who he was and what he was, and why she was here. And that wasn't part of her game plan.
So the sooner everything was brought to a head the better, she reminded herself, hurrying her charge through the ritual of bathing and dressing, making sure what noise they made was as muted as possible.
'Shall we have breakfast in the garden?' Caro whispered as she carried Sophie to the head of the twisty stairs. She was going to have to flirt with Finn all day, lead him to believe she was just dying to jump into his bed, but she wanted some respite—she deserved some respite; besides, she'd walked away, hadn't she, told him it was all happening too soon?
Now she was going to have to convince him she'd had second thoughts and couldn't wait—she had all that work to do over again!
'Da-da, Da-da, Da-deee—!' Sophie's sudden, ecstatic shrieks made Caro feel ill with nervous tension.
She had hoped so desperately that he wouldn't wake for at least another hour.
After the intimacy of that physical encounter last night the thought of coming face to face with him again was deeply embarrassing. As the baby strained against her, holding her arms out to her father, Caro turned reluctantly and felt her face go red.
Finn Helliar was obviously on his way to the bathroom she and Sophie had recently vacated. Finn Helliar was almost naked. Cotton boxer shorts did nothing to detract from the masculine grace of that perfect body. Big-boned and strong, he carried no surplus flesh. Just looking at him made Caro's mouth go dry.
'Mornin', girls.' He looked aggravatingly relaxed—far too relaxed to have spent the night twitching and pillow-punching the way she had—his eyes a sleepy silver gleam. Or was that sleepy look due to lust? Could well be, Caro decided, her heart giving a sickening thump as those slumberous eyes slid lazily up and down the length of her shorts-and-T-shirt-clad body.
He took a step towards them, leaning forward to drop loving kisses on his little daughter's rosy cheek, and this close Caro could see every pore on his firm, tanned skin, the tiny laughter-lines at the corner of his eyes, the length of those thickly curving black lashes, the hard sweep of his stubble-darkened jaw.
This close. Almost as close as they'd been last night when he'd kissed her, stroked her disgracefully willing body. Close, intimately so. And just for a few breathless moments, as he leant forward to kiss the child she held in her arms, it felt as if they were a single entity, his hand resting lightly on her shoulder completing the circle. Inexplicably, for some remote and crazy reason, it made her want to cry.
'Did I hear you say something about breakfast in the garden? Sounds good to me. Toast and coffee will do for me. Ten minutes?'
He stepped back and the illusion of family intimacy was gone, the vacuum filled by another type of intimacy altogether. Elemental sexual desire glinted in his eyes as they transmitted a silent, timeless message deep into her own, making her body go limp and boneless, making her flesh ache for him.
Then it was gone, for him at least, gone in the flash of a wide white smile as he turned slowly away, the lean, spare breadth of his shoulders very effectively underlining his male dominance, the power he must know he held over her senses, leaving her trembling because that elemental desire was still there for her; for her it hadn't gone at all.
Not trusting her shaky legs to support her and the baby, Caro put Sophie down on her plump little legs, and, holding hands tightly, they bumped down the twisty staircase on their bottoms, giggling wildly, making a game of it.
An undignified but safe descent, and with Sophie crawling around her feet in the cute but cramped kitchen the makings of breakfast were quickly assembled—more quickly than her return to a state of equilibrium, a state she had barely and precariously achieved when Finn entered the tiny room and sent her senses haywire all over again.
He was dressed in lightweight, stone-coloured, narrow-fitting trousers and a collarless black cotton shirt, his dark hair curling damply into the nape of his neck, and his pervasive masculinity overwhelmed her all over again, plunging her straight back to square one.
She felt shattered and stupid—too stupid to do more than swallow convulsively when he gave the tray she'd loaded with Sophie's cereal and orange juice and coffee and toast for the adults the once-over and told her, 'I'll take it out. Bring Sophie, would you?'
She did as she was told, like a good little nanny, desperately wishing she didn't have to. She wanted out. Although she shouldn't be complaining, she reminded herself tartly; this farce was her idea. And the only way to get even the smallest amount of revenge was to stick to her plan.
'You know, I could get used to this.' Finn sat at the picnic table under a cloudless blue sky and took his daughter on his knee while Caro tipped cereal and milk into her bowl.
'Who couldn't? Until it rains—or winter comes!' She smiled, forcing herself to appear relaxed and natural. She poured coffee for herself and Finn and sat down opposite him and Sophie, cradling the steaming cup in both hands. 'But yes, it is a lovely morning and the garden's really pretty. I wonder how it's kept so nice—with the owners only coming here at weekends?'
She was babbling and she knew it, and he knew it too. She could tell he did by the way his eyes smiled into hers, his mouth curving into a slow, sexy smile.