‘I think you are not as immune to me as you would like to believe,’ he crooned in her ear.
And then he was setting her away from him. Stepping back. Giving her room to breathe.
Leaving her hot and flustered and confused.
He straightened his silver tiepin. ‘Those are my terms.’
His tone had turned crisp, businesslike, his face impassive, and she wondered with a touch of hysteria if the lust she’d seen in his eyes had been imagined or real.
‘Take it or leave it, Helena. But I need your answer—now.’
She hesitated, her thoughts splintering, scattering in too many directions. Too unexpected...too overwhelming...too crazy...
She drew a shaky breath and expelled it. ‘I... I don’t know...’
‘In that case we have no deal.’
And just like that he turned to go.
Stunned, she stared after him, motionless at first, then with teeth clenched, hands fisting by her sides. She closed her eyes, the throb in her temples building to a painful crescendo. What was she doing? Was she really going to stand here and watch him leave? After he had, in essence, offered her what she wanted? He’d asked for one week in return—one week out of her life. Was that sacrifice so unthinkable?
For her mother?
She snapped open her eyes. ‘Wait!’
He stopped, glanced back, one hand raised to the door. ‘Si?’
‘Five days,’ she croaked.
His arm lowered. ‘Scusi?’
She cleared her throat. ‘Five days,’ she repeated, certain he’d heard her well enough the first time. ‘And my own room.’
‘Seven.’ He turned, his dark eyes glinting. ‘And I can guarantee you’ll find more satisfaction in my room.’
Cocky bastard. She smiled thinly. ‘My own room.’
He shrugged, unconcerned. As if, for all his baiting, where she slept mattered to him not one way or the other.
‘And my father gets six weeks.’
A mirthless laugh rumbled in his chest. ‘Nice try.’
‘Five, then.’
‘Four.’
They stared at one another, eyes locked in challenge, each waiting for the other to concede. He wouldn’t, she knew, but she needed this final moment of defiance. Needed to savour these last precious seconds of sanity before she plunged off the edge into madness.
The prospect alone had fear clawing her insides, but it wasn’t the promise of night-time pleasures with the man who had once owned her heart that frightened her beyond measure. It was the hot, delicious, burgeoning spark of desire in her belly she could neither extinguish nor control.
She squared her shoulders. Hiked up her chin. Please don’t let me regret this.
‘We have a deal.’
* * *
On Thursday, close to noon, Helena’s mobile phone rang. She answered on the run, dashing out to collect a sandwich for David and a salad for herself prior to a lunch meeting.