“Emily?”
Marco spoke softly but the sound of his voice still made her jump. He frowned and put his hand over hers.
“What is it, cara?”
“Nothing. Really. I was just—I was just thinking of the last time I saw Paris.”
He smiled; his hand lifted to her face and cupped her cheek.
“Isn’t that a line from an old song?”
She wanted to turn her face and kiss his hand. It felt so right against her skin. Warm. Comforting. And wasn’t it crazy that his touch could be comforting when only hours ago it had been exciting?
Wasn’t it more than crazy that a man she hardly knew should have the power to affect her this way?
“Emily. Tell me what you are thinking.”
His voice was low. Thick. She looked at him and felt it again, that rush of electric excitement.
“I don’t know,” she whispered, because suddenly lying was impossible. “That’s the problem, Marco. I don’t know what I’m thinking.”
He made a sound halfway between a groan and a growl. Slowly, he lowered his head to hers and kissed her.
It was a soft, brief kiss, the simple whisper of his mouth against hers. She could have turned away.
But she didn’t.
She let the kiss go on and on.
In the end, it was Marco who took his lips from hers.
His eyes were the color of the night.
And she thought, oh God, I could fall into those deep, dark pools and drown.
******
They made the rest of the drive into the city in silence.
Say something, Marco told himself.
An excellent idea—but what should he say? Should he apologize for kissing her? No. How could he do that when, dammit, he didn’t regret that kiss, didn’t regret any of the kisses they’d shared?
That last kiss, especially. The sweetness of it. The tenderness.
No apologies—even though kissing her was a mistake.
He’d meant what he’d told her in his office. He did not mix pleasure with business. Not ever. A business dinner, no matter how elegant, was all about business. A game of tennis or golf played with a rival was business. Every decision of his adult life had been made with business in mind, even before he’d had his own business to run.
It was how he had gotten to where he was today.
Emotion was emotion. Logic was logic. A man who mixed the two was a man asking for trouble.
Another lesson learned from his brief marriage.
Marco shifted his weight as the Bentley entered the city.
Sex. Desire. Those were provable things. They were measurable. They had their place, and it was not the office.