‘I thought we’d both have a swim,’ Dante said, as he stared at her keenly.
And reveal her body? She froze with horror at the thought.
‘You don’t find it cold in here, do you?’ he asked with surprise.
‘I hope the water’s warm,’ she said, to excuse her involuntary shiver.
Dante frowned. ‘You never used to care. You swim too well to feel the cold.’
She never used to have scars to worry about at the time he was talking about. Her body hadn’t just failed her when it had come to carrying Dante’s baby, it had failed her as a woman, and she had paid a heavy price for that. Seeking comfort in someone else’s arms had seemed a solution, the means of forgetting Dante. Looking back, she realised her behaviour had been so out of character she must have had a breakdown. The doctors had been right. She should have sought professional help, rather than trying to go it alone. They’d warned her that her hormones would be raging for quite some time, but they hadn’t explained how that would affect her. She blamed herself for losing the baby, and blamed herself again for everything that had happened afterwards.
‘Take a shower,’ Dante suggested, thankfully oblivious to these thoughts, ‘and then join me in the pool.’
‘I can’t swim in jeans and a top.’ She smiled back at him as she shrugged an apology.
‘No problem. I keep a stock of swimsuits for my guests.’
‘Maybe it isn’t such a good idea.’ Her alarm rose to fever pitch. ‘I’ve got so much work to do—’
‘And a swim first will allow you to clear your head.’
‘I’d rather not.’
‘Give yourself a break, Karina,’ Dante insisted. ‘Work is important to both of us, but we also need to take some downtime.’
She stared at him in silence for a moment, knowing there was no getting out of this.
From the selection of brand-new costumes still in their packets, which had obviously been chosen for women with far more style than she had, she selected a sports costume that covered up a lot more of her body than the flimsy bikinis on offer. There had been a time when she had raced Dante across the lake in freezing water, and had never cared about fashion, so he wouldn’t be surprised to see her in such a modest costume. She might just get away with this if she was lucky.
Dante was slicing through the water by the time she came out of the changing room. His powerful body, so bronzed and muscular, was fully extended, and for a moment it was enough to stand and watch him swim. He had such an easy grace he barely made a ripple in the water. Her heart speeded up when, sensing her arrival, he stopped swimming and looked up. She stepped to the water’s edge, in a hurry to dive in. The sooner her body was fully submerged, the sooner she could relax.
He felt rather than saw Karina enter the pool area. Her choice of costume surprised him when there were so many more attractive options to choose from, but he shrugged it off. He stopped at the far end of the pool and turned to see her framed in light. It was as if the rays of the sun were attracted to her and had fired blue sparks into her ebony hair.
It reminded him of the dozens of times when they’d gone swimming in the lake, when he’d thought her wild black hair looked like a thundercloud with lightning running through it. But then she set about taming it with remorseless resolve. He wanted to tell her not to tie it back, but to let it cascade around her shoulders like a water nymph. She should also take off that regulation costume so she was completely naked. He doubted water nymphs wore anything.
Feeling his stare, she stepped back into the shadows, but not before he had seen the flush of awareness on her cheeks. His body responded instantly. He wanted the wild Karina he had made love to, the Karina who would have chosen the most outrageous bikini in the brightest colour, and would have flaunted it to taunt him. Instead, a wounded woman was hiding in the shadows, having picked out what she had obviously decided was the drabbest choice of costume and the one least likely to entice him.
He raised a hand in greeting, only for her to pull her hair into an even tighter knot on top of her head. As subliminal messages went, that one was clear enough. He could look, but this water nymph wasn’t for touching.
He swam towards her underwater. He wasn’t a saint, and the sight of Karina in a tight-fitting swimsuit, even one as severe she had chosen, made full immersion of his aroused body a practical necessity. The costume showed off her voluptuous figure to perfection. He would have to be unconscious not to notice how good she looked.