‘I don’t think so. The staff will have gone home.’ He got up and cleared the dishes from the table, then placed a bowl of strawberries down between them.
She watched him through narrowed eyes as he sat back in his chair. ‘You never had any intention of getting me back to London tonight, did you?’
He shook his head. ‘But I’m a man of my word. If you really want to leave, I’ll arrange for my jet to be on standby and a water taxi to come and pick you up.’
‘In a dressing gown!’
‘Well, as I already said, there’s nothing I can do about that.’ He nonchalantly reached out and picked up one of the strawberries. ‘You should try these; they are lovely with the champagne.’
‘I don’t want anything, Nicholas.’
She had no doubt that if he wanted to get the boutiques downstairs reopened he could make one phone call and it would be magically arranged. She had a good mind to call his bluff and tell him to go ahead and make the travel arrangements for her.
‘Shall I tell you what I want?’ he asked quietly.
When she made no reply he smiled.
‘I want to spend the whole night making love to you.’ He said the words softly as he met the shimmering intensity of her eyes. ‘I want to kiss you all over, hold you in my arms and take you over and over again.’
Something about the way he said that made her heart turn over with longing. He watched the heat rise in the creaminess of her skin and laughed. ‘And I think that is what you want too.’
‘You are an extremely arrogant man, Nicholas,’ she murmured angrily.
He smiled and reached out to touch her hand. ‘But you want me as much as I want you—why do you keep fighting against this truth?’
‘I’m not fighting against anything,’ she lied breathlessly. His fingers ran softly over her hand, stroking against the inside of her wrist and stoking her senses almost absently.
How was it that he could turn her on so effortlessly? She closed her eyes for a moment and strove to find some sense within the torrent of emotion. It was just sex, she told herself fiercely. As long as she recognised that, he couldn’t reach her on an emotional level and therefore she would be safe. ‘But I guess I’m stuck here, aren’t I, seeing as you ripped my dress.’ She tried to make her voice indifferent as her eyes snapped open.
He smiled and she tried to ignore the gleam in his eyes that told her he was not fooled.
‘But tomorrow we should discuss business again,’ she continued hurriedly. ‘Sort out the outside shots and how we can carry the theme through to—’
‘Cat!’
She broke off disconcertedly as he squeezed her hand. ‘Yes?’
‘Come over here.’
‘Don’t talk to me like that!’
He looked at her mockingly. ‘You asked me not to pretend. But you are the one who is putting up the pretence. We moved on from the subject of work—remember?’
She shrugged, at a loss for what to say. Her eyes travelled from the searing power of his gaze to the way his hand held hers. The gentle touch of his skin against hers made her shiver with need.
‘Are you cold?’
She laughed; the summer night was intensely hot, to say nothing of the way he made her feel. ‘No, I’m not cold.’
‘You’re shivering.’ He pulled her hand. ‘Come over here.’
It was hard to ignore the order a second time because there was a gentler note hidden in the deep tone. He pushed his chair back and drew her around the table until she stood before him.
‘That’s better—you were too far away over there.’ There was satisfaction in his voice as he caught her other hand and then pulled her down to sit
facing him on his knee her legs either side of him. ‘You’re too tense, you need to learn how to relax.’ He stroked a hand through her hair, brushing it back from her face so that he could see her more clearly. ‘And I think I might just have the answer.’
‘What would that be?’ she asked huskily.