Better question—who are you wearing it for?
“I thought I did lock it,” Tilda shot back. “You have these fancy tumblers that don’t click when they’re turned so I thought it had engaged. We’ve both learned otherwise.”
Her accent had deepened with her distress and that was not helping matters because, God, was it sexy. Coupled with the secrets he’d learned about her—hot kisser being first and foremost in his mind right after hot lingerie wearer—he was about to come apart.
“Are you…covered?” he rasped, terrified that if the answer was no, he’d cop another peek. He squeezed his eyes shut so hard that sparks exploded against the dark of his eyelids. “I’m not sure I can edge out of here blind.”
“You can open your eyes.”
He did. She’d burrowed so far down into the robe that her face was half covered by the lapels, and somehow she’d managed to get her hair mostly swept up into her trademark twist, but bits of it were falling down into her face, which was nearly as hot as when her hair was down.
Frankly, it wouldn’t matter if she cut armholes in a potato sack and wore a bird’s nest as a hat. Everything about her was a turn-on now.
“So, the problem is that I can’t unring this bell,” he muttered and, no, he should not have spoken aloud. He should have been exiting stage left and ordering diamond earrings that doubled as an apology to his wife. Instead, he was standing there staring at her like an imbecile.
“Sorry?”
Warren shook his head and was a half second from spinning on his heel to flee the torture chamber his bathroom had become when he had a flashback to last night. Tilda had been the one doing the fleeing then—after asking him to kiss her. As a result, he’d spent the day in a crappy mood, and there was too much unsaid.
His wife was a fascinating, maddening mix of temptress and puritan, and he wanted to know which one was the real Tilda Barrett.
“We’re dancing around some things, you and I. And we need to settle them.” Her eyes went wide and, again, there was the flash of distress that he’d noted last night. His pulse stuttered. “Please. I just want to have an honest conversation with you, but not like this. Get dressed and meet me in the solarium.”
Then he left.
* * *
Tilda spent a solid ten minutes after Warren vacated the bathroom getting her lungs working again. He’d been so close and she’d been so aware of how little she had on under the robe—and so very aware that he knew.
Her panic was only matched by the level of wanton heat that the whole scene had generated. If only she could just stop being such a freak long enough to have a simple physical reaction to a gorgeous man who kissed like a dream, life would be a lot easier. And better. But it wasn’t like she could snap her fingers and change or she would have stuck around on that terrace last night instead of scrabbling away as fast as her scaredy-cat legs could carry her.
And now Warren wanted to have a little chat, did he? Because he’d figured out that she wasn’t being on the square about her demure suits, most likely. He expected her to answer for her deception. Now what was she going to do? If he was angry enough, he’d fire her for being a liar and send her back to Melbourne, wouldn’t he?
Nothing to be done about it now. The cat was out of the bag and, by God, she was wholly sick of sticking her natural personality under wraps. He’d said he wanted a candid conversation; maybe it was time to take him at his word, whether he knew what he was asking for or not.
As such, there was no way she was putting on a suit to talk about why she wore atrocious suits. Tilda slipped into a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, one of two sets she owned, tried not to think too hard about what a horrifically bad idea it was to have kept on the lacy white bra and panties under her clothes, then strode to the solarium before she lost her nerve.
Too late. The second she spied Warren sitting in one of the wicker chairs, staring out over the pool through the glass walls, everything inside started quivering. He held her life in his hands and she’d thoroughly messed up, first by kissing him and second by not figuring out the locks to the bathroom better.
When a competent woman had secrets, she didn’t screw up. This was all on her and she needed to fix it.
Her bare feet squeaked on the hardwood floor and Warren’s gaze flicked to her, darkening with something she could only misinterpret if she’d arrived in the solarium blindfolded. Maybe not even then. The awareness that had permeated the bathroom had followed them to the solarium, not at all lessened by the fact that she’d traded her easily untied robe for jeans and a T-shirt.