She stopped, and the lines of her body were tense. For a moment Ben had a premonition that she was going to turn around and say enough was enough, that she wanted to go home tomorrow... And in all conscience he realised that he couldn’t really say no if she wanted to. Even as everything in him rejected the thought.
&nbs
p; But she turned quickly and just said, ‘Okay—fine.’
And then she was disappearing from view and Ben let out a long breath, more relieved by that small concession than anything he could recall in a long time.
* * *
As soon as Lia made it back to her room she closed the door and leant back against it, breathing deeply to calm her racing heart. What the hell had just happened down there? She’d been moments away from curling up on the couch and spilling her entire guts to Benjamin Carter, as if he was some kind of confidant she could trust.
It had only been when he’d responded to what she’d revealed about her mother, and she’d had the distinct impression that he was angry on her behalf, that she’d snapped back to reality. First of all, she never spoke about her mother to anyone—the old wound of rejection still smarted, and she usually avoided being drawn into any discussion about it. Usually.
And what about telling him that she wasn’t interested in dating? And letting him provoke her into talking about her failed engagement?
Lia groaned and kicked off her shoes, walking over to the French doors that led out to the balcony.
The air was still deliciously warm and balmy, caressing her bare skin. She couldn’t see anything in the inky darkness but she could hear the gentle lap of waves against the shore and it soothed her jittery nerves a little, and her sense of exposure.
She thought of his apologising for calling her a princess, and his observation that she was more than corporate wife material, and something inside her felt weak. And yet hadn’t she almost settled for that? Because after yet another stroke, her concern for her father’s health had been so great that she’d given in to his plea that she give Simon Barnes—the nice but dull solicitor—a chance.
When she’d started dating him and they’d had a frank discussion he’d admitted that he’d pursued her to get into her father’s good graces, thus potentially securing a job on his legal team. Simon had then assured her that he would not stand in the way of her ambitions, and so—foolishly, maybe—Lia had seen a way to keep her father happy, and also to forge a life for herself within a marriage that wouldn’t confine her.
After all, she’d never entertained romantic notions of a happy-ever-after marriage—not after witnessing her own parents’ disastrous marriage and her father’s subsequent heartbreak. Lia had vowed from an early age never to be so destroyed by giving someone else that control over her.
But then her chest grew tight when she recalled that oh, so vivid image of her fiancé’s head buried between his secretary’s legs, and the humiliation washed over her again. It hadn’t been his infidelity that had hurt her—after all, they hadn’t been in love—it had been the stark knowledge of the fact that she hadn’t been able to rouse that passion in him.
Lia curled her hands around the balcony railings as if that would centre her again. The truth was that as much as she wished she could find it easy to dismiss Benjamin Carter...she couldn’t.
Something about this place, about him, was making her loosen up. Dangerously so. She’d all but accused him of being boorish and she had outright accused him of being crass. But this beautiful house didn’t belong to a crass man, and a boorish man didn’t climb up to hammer slates into a roof with his housekeeper’s husband. And, an overly arrogant man who had made no bones about the fact that he wanted to take her to bed wouldn’t exercise such restraint that he’d actually let her go to bed. Alone.
Lia hadn’t mistaken the heat in his eyes... It was one of the reasons, apart from her over-sharing, that she’d practically run from the room.
She had to remind herself that the man was a consummate playboy; he knew exactly what he was doing. He was like a big jungle cat playing with a tiny helpless mouse—letting it believe that it could get away when all he had to do was bring down a big paw and that would be that. Game over.
She’d been here less than twenty-four hours and the man was already playing her like a fiddle. Lia was very tempted to go back downstairs and demand that he take her home immediately.
Funnily enough, she suspected that if she insisted he would let her go. But, perversely, she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction, or let him suspect for a second that she was perturbed by all that she’d revealed to him. One more day in his company... She could keep her mouth zipped and keep him at a distance. She could. She had to.
* * *
Lia sat beside Ben in the open-top Jeep as they drove down the main route to Salvador from his villa. Her dark hair was pulled back into a practical ponytail and the warm breeze made it look like skeins of silk behind her head. He was finding it hard to maintain some semblance of control. It was as if he’d never seen a woman dressed in a sleeveless T-shirt and shorts before. But he’d never seen this woman dressed like that before, and it was all he could do not to stop and ogle her slender pale limbs.
She seemed ethereal and delicate beside him. Even though he knew he shouldn’t be thinking of her as delicate at all. When she’d arrived in the kitchen earlier she’d had a determined look on her face and had kept up a general patter of inane conversation. No doubt signalling to Ben that the little confidences of the previous evening wouldn’t be happening again.
And that the sooner this weekend was over the better.
In fact—and his jaw clenched when he thought of it now—she seemed to be determined to treat him as if he was just a hired tour guide. Bestowing bright smiles upon him and sticking to annoyingly trite and inconsequential conversation.
Determined to crack through that cheerfully icy veneer, Ben asked, ‘So, did you sleep well?’
The dark glasses she wore hid her eyes, and when Ben glanced at her she was smiling brightly. ‘I slept like a log, thank you. All this fresh sea air makes such a change from muggy city pollution.’
His jaw clenched again. Time to ruffle her feathers a little. ‘Aren’t you going to ask how I slept?’
She looked at him, and he could sense the glare behind those protective shades. ‘I hadn’t planned on it, no.’
‘Well, if you must know,’ he said, ‘I didn’t sleep well at all. Lots of tossing and turning.’ He grimaced. ‘And I had to take a shower during the night.’