With a vicious curse, Sinclair wrenched himself away from me and pulled his phone out of his pants pocket. He stared at the screen taking tight, controlled breaths before looking up at me with rapidly cooling eyes. “I have to take this.”
I nodded mutely.
He strode through the room in to the adjacent bedroom as he answered the phone, “Hello.”
It was her – the girlfriend – obviously. I took a shaky deep breath and closed my eyes. My sweat-dampened skin was stuck to the cool glass and my underwear hung off me in disarray. I had never been this girl before and the realization of what I had almost done shocked my system.
Suddenly freezing in the air-conditioned room, I pulled together my clothes and got changed. I considered running away into the night but the thought of it chilled me, like a thief or a whore stealing away in the night.
Berating myself for not bringing a cardigan, I stepped through the glass door and onto the massive patio. The breeze was ribbon soft and smelled fresh, faintly of citrus. I took a deep, bracing breath and leaned over the railing to gaze at the graceful sea.
I had never met anyone like the Frenchmen. The moment I had laid eyes on him, I’d known that, that there was something inextricably compelling about him. I was in over my head. Sinclair was older, coupled off and the head of an obviously very successful company. But there was something else, bellow all of it that called out to me. It may have been naïve of me, but I believed him when he said he hadn’t cheated on his partner before. It didn’t make the situation any better or worse, but maybe it was something.
“Have you been to Mexico before?”
I closed my eyes and didn’t turn around to face him but I could picture him, leaning against the door jam with his arms crossed, protected and casual.
“No.” My voice was quiet but I had no doubt he could hear me. “I’ve lived in Europe all my life.”
We lapsed into silence. I don’t think either of us really knew what to say and it made me feel better to know that the sophisticated Frenchmen was at a loss too.
“Look at me,” he said softly. When I didn’t he repeated himself firmly, ordering me this time.
When I did turn around, he stood exactly as I had imagined, propped against the doorframe with the light from inside silhouetting his mouth-watering physique. He looked cool and unruffled despite our almost lovemaking but there was something in his silence that was as vulnerable as me.
“Stay.”
It wasn’t a question or a plea but I knew how badly he wanted me to stay because I felt the same inexplicable need.
I shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know how to do this. I’ve never had a holiday affair or sex with a stranger, let alone someone in a relationship. I’d probably just screw it up, say something too intimate or do something to cross the boundaries.”
“Try it,” he coaxed, stepping forward into the moonlight.
His beauty caught me like a sucker punch to the gut. I braced myself on the railing to steady my resolve.
I couldn’t find the words to refuse him though. I knew that if I opened my mouth I would say yes to this man, this man with the electric blue eyes and the ability to turn me into live nerve endings with only a look. So, I smiled at him with my lips closed and my eyes downcast as I moved, carefully in a wide arch, away from him and back into the suite.
He didn’t follow me as I crossed the palatial room to the front door but when I turned around, unable to help myself as I opened the door to leave, he was standing in the darkness just outside the door watching me with an impassive expression but for the telltale tightness in his jaw. Quickly, I stepped out of the room and closed the door behind.
Only once I was in the elevator did I close my eyes, bang my head against the wall and moan.
Chapter Four.
I hadn’t slept well. Hours after I returned to my room, I tossed and turned, tangled in my sheets, wishing they were Sinclair’s sinewy limbs. Finally, around six thirty in the morning I threw the covers off and dragged myself out of bed. I spent the morning cree
ping around the resort, swimming in the ocean instead of the pool, walking down the beach past other resorts so that, if by chance, he happened to be looking for me, it would be nearly impossible to find me.
When the sun began to blister in the midday sky, I retreated to my room for a siesta instead of finding a shady spot beneath a palapa on the sand. I woke up restless around four o’clock, too eager to catch the last of the sunrays to continue my childish hiding. I was in Mexico to relax and I wasn’t going to let some inconsequential, albeit extremely gorgeous man, ruin it.
As I assembled my beach bag, I dialed the one person who could help me make sense of something like this.
“Cosima,” I gushed when she answered the phone in her lilting accented voice. My youngest sister was the only woman on the planet who sounded just as gorgeous as she looked.
“Bambina, I miss you too much.” The sound of city life interrupted her speech and I could imagine her floating down the streets of New York on her way to a photo shoot. “I seriously cannot wait for you to get here. How is Mexico? Any hot men come up to you on the beach?”
I blushed even though she couldn’t see me.
She laughed delightedly at my pause, clapping in the background. “Oh, tell me everything. And I mean everything. People always skip the best parts without realizing it. Is he unbearably handsome?”