Even now, when she had vowed to start anew this morning. When she had vowed not be so affected by him.
“Good morning,” he said, and she was all too aware of the amusement that lurked in his gaze, his voice, the slight twist of his sensual lips.
Settled in her seat, the thick white linen napkin draped over her lap, Bethany faced him fully, to offer the expected polite greeting that would prove her to be as unaffected as he was. To present him with the cool and calm façade that she knew she needed to use if she was to survive any of this intact.
But she froze when her eyes met his. The dark, passionate, starkly sexual dreams that had kept her half-awake and tormented with longing the whole of the endless night rose again in her head, taunting her. Shocking her. She could see all of that and more in his black-coffee gaze.
He did not merely look at her—he devoured her, his eyes hot and hard.
Hungry.
Her lips parted slightly as her breath deserted her. She felt her eyes glaze over, and that same tell-tale flush begin to heat its way along her breasts and neck.
It was as if he’d touched her, as if he was touching her right now—as if he’d reached over, yanked her into his lap and finally fixed that wicked mouth of his to hers. When all he had really done was greet her and then watch her, hard male satisfaction gleaming in his eyes and stamped across his beautiful, impossible face.
She did not need to be a mind reader to realize that he knew exactly what her flush meant—that he suspected she had tossed and turned, her body aching for him, all night long. Leo knew exactly what he did to her—what she felt—simply because of his proximity.
He knew.
“All you need to do is touch me,” he said now, his intoxicating voice slightly hoarse, as if his own want shook him as it shook her. “It would take so very little, Bethany. You need only reach your hand to mine. You need only—”
“Leo, please,” she said, trying desperately to sound stern instead of weak, all too aware that she fell far short. “The only thing I want right now is coffee.”
“Of course,” he said, not even attempting to hide his sardonic amusement. “My apologies.” He did not even need to call her a liar. It hung between them like a shout.
Bethany scowled at her plate as the efficient staff poured her thick, aromatic coffee and placed the toast and jam she had always favored before her. She did not want to think about the fact that her preferences still registered here. She would not consider the ramifications of that.
Instead, she somehow managed to keep her hands from shaking as she lifted her delicate china coffee cup to her lips and drank the rich brew. Only after she’d taken a few bracing, head-clearing sips could she bear to look at him again.
He had placed his newspaper to the side of his plate. He lounged back against his chair, his expression brooding, one hand supporting his jaw. He looked every inch the prince, the magnate, the duly crowned emperor of his vast and ever-expanding personal empire.
He wore another perfectly tailored suit, the charcoal fabric molded to his shoulders, pressed lovingly to his fine chest. He was freshly shaved, newly showered—his dark hair glossy, begging for her fingers to run through it. He was like a dream made flesh. Her dream, specifically. The explicit, delicious dream that had tortured her all night long.
But she could not reach across the divide between them, no matter how much she longed to do it. She could not allow herself to fall again, not when she knew exactly how hard that landing was. And how impossible it seemed to her that she would ever truly climb back to her feet and walk away from him.
“I must go to Sydney,” he said into the simmering silence. She had the sense he picked his words carefully, for all his voice remained cool and unemotional. “There are fires to put out, I am afraid, and only I can do it.”
“You are going to Australia?” she asked, jolted from her own depressing cycle of thoughts. “Today?”
“I am interested in some hotels there,” he said. Again, with care. “We are at a delicate stage in the negotiations.” He shrugged, though his gaze did not leave her face or soften at all. “I did not expect that I would have to attend to this personally.”
Her mind raced. What exactly was he saying? But then, she knew. Hadn’t she been here before? Repeatedly? There was always something, somewhere, that required his attention. A day here. A week there. Always at the last minute. Always non-negotiable.
“How long will you be gone?” she asked with as little expression as she could manage. She picked up a piece of perfectly toasted bread then dropped it again, unable to conceive of putting anything in her mouth when her throat felt too dry and her stomach clenched.