‘I’m sure Luke is nothing like his father.’
‘He’s not, but that doesn’t mean he’ll change his mind about settling down,’ Ella’s voice had a note of warning. ‘I know what my big brother is like. Luke is so stubborn he could be conducting workshops and tutorials for mules.’
Abby couldn’t help smiling. ‘Believe me, I know.’
* * *
Luke bought an outfit and some lingerie for Abby at a boutique in Bloomsbury and walked back to his house, but he couldn’t help feeling conflicted. Making love with her was amazing. Amazing and fulfilling and unlike anything he’d experienced before. But he couldn’t quite dismiss the niggling worry he was stepping out of his comfort zone.
Way, way out.
Letting someone close, that close, was like peeling back the edges of a wound and preparing for the lightning strike of pain. So far it hadn’t happened. So far. But how soon before it did? Letting someone into his life made him uneasy. As if he was walking over a lake of ice and not being sure where it was thick and where it was thin, every step a potentially dangerous one.
A potentially lethal one.
Abby had got under his guard like someone slipping under crime scene tape while the forensics team turned their backs. He had told her things he had told no one. But then so had she revealed things about herself to him that were painfully private.
Her disclosure made him feel…trusted. Yes, that was the word he was looking for. She trusted him with the truth about her difficult background. The shameful truth she had deliberately and desperately hidden behind a complicated web of white lies, like a magician using smoke and mirrors to fool the audience.
Abby’s seemingly perfect life was exactly that—just an illusion.
So what the hell was he doing getting stuck in the middle of it? Pretending to be her Mr Perfect. Taking her on a luxury holiday for two like a freaking romantic honeymoon.
What was he thinking?
That was the trouble when he was around Abby. He didn’t think. His body took over his mind and every primal desire in his system pumped and pounded and pushed against his willpower like a bulldozer against a cardboard box.
Because he couldn’t resist her.
That first kiss had been his downfall, the second splintering his self-control like a sledgehammer on glass. Those kisses had flicked a switch inside his body, making every attempt on his part to withstand the potent lure of attraction a dismal failure.
Abby was his kryptonite. His peanut. He had to have more and more of her because it was impossible to resist her.
And for the next week he wasn’t even going to try.
* * *
Abby had never been on a shopping spree before where someone else footed the bill. Shopping for herself was usually a tricky business of balancing her bank balance with her constantly overstretched credit card. She knew she couldn’t really blame her background on her issues with money. In spite of her parents’ woeful example, she had witnessed her various foster families balance delicate budgets and still provide meals and essentials, although not too many luxuries. She had great intentions of saving but something would always crop up—another bill, a friend in need, a charity she just had to make a donation to because she perceived their need to be greater than hers.
But when Luke took her shopping there was no question of her whipping out her credit card. He took care of everything and was a surprisingly helpful shopping wingman. And he was great at carrying all the bags.
Abby was in a boutique with him where there was swimwear as well as other casual fashion items. She ran her hand along the row of hanging bikinis and wondered if she had the courage to wear one. She had always worn a one-piece because it held in her less than toned stomach.
‘Why don’t you try one on?’ Luke said.
Abby dropped her hand from the rack. ‘I don’t have the figure for it. I’d be too embarrassed.’
‘There won’t be anyone else but us on the island so what’s to be embarrassed about?’
She turned back to the row of colourful bikinis in the section where her size was located and sighed. ‘I don’t know…’
‘Here.’ He reached past her shoulder and took three bikini sets off the rack: a black one, a vividly hot pink one and a bright canary-yellow one. ‘You’d look great in any of these. Go on. Try them on.’
Abby took them from him but she was still feeling uncertain. ‘Do you really think—?’
Luke bent his head to just near her ear. ‘Personally, I’d prefer you totally naked, but yes, I think you’ll look fabulous in all three of them. Now get in there and try them on.’
She shivered at the erotic promise of his words and the way his warm breath caressed her skin. She gave him a mock salute. ‘Yes, sir.’