He reached for her, pulling her close. When he kissed her, she could feel all the tension buzzing between them. Last night hadn’t even begun to sate it; instead, it had only made it grow.
‘Upstairs.’ He whispered the word, but it still held all the promise of a command.
‘Yes. Upstairs.’
It was odd. Before they’d been sleeping together, no one had doubted their devotion to one another. The papers had used the official photographs taken to celebrate their engagement and painted a rosy picture of a couple who were completely in love. But now...
Hugo was laughing on the phone with his mother as he walked her from the car to the front door. He walked into the kitchen, pulling a carton of juice from the fridge, and Nell fetched two glasses.
‘Yes, I’ll give her your love... Love you, too.’ Hugo had seemed more openly affectionate with his mother in the last few weeks, and he’d even taken to chatting with his father on the phone.
‘What was that all about?’ Nell picked up her glass, taking a sip from it.
‘Apparently we’re cooling off.’
‘Really?’ Nell raised her eyebrows. She hadn’t noticed anything of the sort. The last two weeks had been all heat.
‘My mother was talking to a friend of hers who was at the gala we went to at the weekend. She said that I hardly looked at you all evening.’
Nell grinned. ‘Perhaps we’d had an argument.’
‘Perhaps. Maybe I was just looking the other way, trying not to imagine what you were wearing under that dress.’
‘Oh. So you can do that, can you? Look the other way and get your imagination under control.’
‘No, not really.’ He took a step towards her, laying his hand on her waist. ‘What are you wearing under this dress?’
‘What if I said long johns?’
He laughed, taking the near-empty glass from her hand and putting it on the kitchen counter. Nell backed away from him and he followed, closing in on her.
‘Long johns would be fine. Just as long as you’re in them.’ He wound his arms around her waist, pulling her against him, his body suddenly taut.
‘Ah. What about something in stout cotton? Plenty of buttons and safety pins.’
‘Wonderful. They’d take a bit more concentration to get off. I might just faint from anticipation while I do it, and then you can revive me.’
Nell laughed. Hugo loved the act of undressing her. Made an art of it, as if he were slowly unwrapping something precious. She loved it, too. It was one of the ways he made her feel special.
‘I’ve been wanting you all day...’ Every time she touched Hugo, she wanted him. That was probably why she studiously avoided touching him in public.
‘I’m glad to hear that. You want me now?’ His hand slipped beneath her jacket, moving towards her breast. Nell began to tremble and she felt his lips curve into a smile against hers. ‘You do want me. I can feel it.’
‘Come and find out how much...’
* * *
Nell couldn’t remember being any happier than she was now. Hugo was becoming stronger and the scar on his chest was fading. It felt as if maybe the scars in Nell’s heart might be finally fading, too.
They reached their fundraising target, and celebrated it with champagne in bed. All that mattered in these early days of their heady romance was that every moment spent alone was spent in each other’s arms.
They sat on the patio, eating breakfast, and Nell tore open the thick envelope, drawing out the heavily embossed paper. Hugo was watching quietly. He knew it must be a letter from the legal team he’d persuaded Nell to use in her complaint against Martin.
‘What do they say?’ He gave her time to read, hope kindling in his eyes when he saw her smile.
‘Four other women have come forward and said that Martin made persistent and unwelcome advances towards them. Apparently one of them had the presence of mind to record him on her mobile phone.’ She grinned at him. ‘He used exactly the same phrases as I wrote in my complaint.’
Hugo chuckled. ‘Open and shut case, then.’