The Summer Seekers

She swallowed. “Are you being polite?”

A smile played around his mouth. “I’m neither polite, nor kind. I’m buying it because I want it, and when I want something—” He left the pause hanging there and it grew and grew, fed by the tense atmosphere.

She wouldn’t have thought so much could be said without either of them uttering a word.

His face hovered close to hers and she had a crazy instinct that he was about to kiss her, right here in the leafy shadows of the garden.

She could barely focus, her mind hazy from need and wine. “I’m married.”

“I know.” His smile widened, seductive and knowing.

She shook her head, acknowledging the differences between them. And those differences, and the lure of the forbidden, were what made him so attractive, of course. It was hard not to feel flattered. Harder still not to be tempted. “Maybe you’re as bad as the rumors suggest.”

“Maybe I am.” His gaze lowered to her mouth and the heat in his eyes almost singed her skin. “How about you, Liza?”

How about her?

She’d always thought she was the type of woman who would never look at another man, but she was looking at Finn.

She was being pulled by an invisible thread to the edge of a cliff, and there would be no recovering from the fall.

His mouth was dangerously close to hers. “Think about it.”

She swayed, disorientated. “You mean about selling the paintings?”

“That too.” He stroked a finger lazily over her cheek. “Thank you for a great evening. Come over to my place tomorrow.”

Come over to his place? For dinner? For sex?

“What exactly are you offering?”

“That’s up to you.” He was so close that a fraction of movement on her part would have meant they were kissing.

“Finn—”

“Come at 7:00. That way we’ll have time for a swim before.”

Before what?

She opened her mouth to ask, but he was already strolling up the path away from her.

She stood, torn between calling him back and letting him go.

What was she doing?

Of course she couldn’t go to his place tomorrow. She wasn’t naive. It was obvious that he wasn’t inviting her to sample his cooking.

He hadn’t even touched her, but she felt as if he had. She rubbed her palms up her arms. Her skin felt warm, her whole body engulfed in a delicious melty feeling.

Shaking her head, she closed the door of the summerhouse and walked on unsteady legs back to the house, but Finn had gone.

She felt different, and it wasn’t the dress or the heels. It was the way Finn had looked at her. He’d made her feel attractive. Aware of herself as a woman.

But she wasn’t going to go tomorrow.

Or was she? She was going to be opening Ruth’s

letters with her mother tomorrow afternoon. It could be upsetting. An evening with Finn would give her something to look forward to.