And she didn’t want that. Dear God, she really, really didn’t want that.
She’d seen where that could lead.
Feeling intensely vulnerable and incredibly alone, Lindsay sank down on the edge of the bed and forced herself to do something that she never usually allowed herself to do.
She thought about her childhood.
Instead of blocking out those memories, she allowed them to filter through to her brain. What started as a trickle became a flood, and for a brief, horrible moment she was a little girl again, curled up in her tiny bed with her younger sister asleep in her arms. And she was listening to the sounds through the wall. Those sounds.
The sounds she hated.
The sounds that meant that her father would be coming back home for a while. ‘It’s all right, Lindsay, we’ll be a family again. Everything is going to be different no
w.’
Breathing rapidly, Lindsay rose to her feet, slamming the lid back down on her thoughts, appalled at how quickly she could regress from competent professional to needy child.
She was well aware of how vulnerable the needy child was. Look at Ruby. There was no doubt in her mind that her mixed up little sister flitted from one relationship to another because she was looking for the love and security she hadn’t had as a child.
Impatient with herself, Lindsay paced barefoot into the bathroom.
But she wasn’t going to do that.
Sex wasn’t love.
Sex wasn’t security.
Sex was just—well, sex.
Turning on the taps, she leaned over the washbasin, filled her palms with cold water and splashed her face as if washing her face might also wash away the memories that she’d conjured up.
It had only been a brief glimpse, but it was enough.
Enough to strengthen her resolve.
With the cool water came a feeling of calm and she blotted her face with a towel and stared in the mirror.
It didn’t matter what dress she chose to wear. It wasn’t going to make a difference to who she was or how she’d chosen to live her life. She was never, ever going to let sexual chemistry cloud her judgment.
Never. It just wasn’t going to happen. No matter how sexy the man. No matter what the temptation.
Having seen first-hand the devastation that such a relationship caused, there was no way she was going to make that mistake herself. And wearing a sexy dress and a pair of gorgeous shoes wasn’t going to change that.
She made decisions with her head and her brain, not with her body.
It didn’t matter that she was in paradise with a dangerously sexy man and a wardrobe to die for.
She was still using her brain. She was still in charge of her decisions.
She could wear any one of those sexy dresses and it wouldn’t make a difference to the outcome of the evening.
‘Let’s see which one of us suffers most, Alessio Capelli,’ she murmured under her breath as she selected a lip gloss from the basket of make-up that had been left for her use. Removing it from its packaging, she applied it to her lips and stared at herself with satisfaction.
Clothes and make-up didn’t dictate your choices in life.
She could be naked and she’d still be able to resist Alessio Capelli because that was what she wanted to do.
It was all about choices and she knew which choice she was going to make.