‘I know, and I’m glad you liked it. It means I’m doing a good job.’
‘Oh, you’re doing an excellent job.’
‘Why do I get the feeling you’re not wholly talking about the property hunt?’
He held up his hands. ‘I’m not dismissing your abilities as an estate agent whatsoever. You’ve found Julia a home already and this, well, this is spot on,’ he said, placing the tablet onto the table. ‘So what say you to sacking off the next viewing and filling our time in other, more pleasing ways?’
She considered him, rolling the stem of her champagne glass between her fingers. ‘I want you to see the next one.’
‘You do?’
She nodded.
‘You really do?’
She nodded again and he spied that same spark in her eye, the one that she got when something about a property got to her. Kristus, there was no denying her, not when she looked at him like that.
‘Fair enough,’ he said, sitting back in his seat and telling himself to behave. He’d have her soon. Plenty of times over. They had the whole night ahead.
But then what?
His gut twisted. He couldn’t string her along for ever. She had commission to earn and, hell, he’d seen half of London already—or he might as well have. But it was the properties that were keeping them together. No properties, no agent. No agent, no Zara.
It doesn’t have to be that way, you idiot.
He looked across at her—every perfect angle to her face; the hair that had fascinated him from day one; those soft, full lips that even now glistened with traces of champagne and gloss; her eyes that sparkled with her own private joke—and he felt his heart squeeze even as his gut twisted tighter. Fear, confusion and an alien desire that had nothing to do with sex, and everything to do with wanting to be in her company, always.
He now lived every day to see that perfect exterior break with a smile, a laugh, an orgasm that he had driven... What would every day look like when that was no longer possible?
‘You okay?’ she asked, her smile turning into a frown, her eyes warm with concern as she leant towards him.
‘Of course,’ he said, too quickly, sending his eyes back to the window and his thoughts to the gutter.
It’s just great sex; she’s addled your brain with it.
Because what was the alternative? Feeling something for her? Loving her?
It wasn’t possible, surely? He’d spent his life avoiding the strings that had seen his family torn apart. Could she really have changed him that much in so little time?
And what if she hadn’t? What if it was just some weird emotion driven by the finite time frame they’d given themselves? And once that was lifted, he hurt her, just as his parents had done to one another? Just as Edward had done to Julia? Kristus, even Charles had done it to her.
He couldn’t run that risk. Not with her.
But could he walk away?
He knew the answer in his gut and it terrified him.
* * *
She didn’t care that he wasn’t keen; she wanted to show him this place. She’d not seen it herself yet. It was an empty shell ready for someone to make their mark. And she’d busted a gut to gain access.
They passed the main foyer in silence, her doing her damnedest to ignore the physical reminder of that photograph taken against the very same glass. She nodded to the staff as they greeted them both and headed straight for the residential access, using the key card she had obtained earlier that morning to gain entry and open the awaiting lift.
‘How did you manage to arrange this?’ He was standing directly behind her, his awe evident, and she smiled. ‘When you said south of the river, I hadn’t thought you meant here. I heard the place was in some weird lockdown, impossible to view, even more impossible to buy.’
Her smile grew. She knew the intrigue would appeal, had known her ability to get him in would impress. The boost to her ego contended with the champagne in her blood and she entered the lift, her footing light. ‘That’s for me to know,’ she said secretively, directing the lift to the penthouse and sending him a look beneath her lashes as the lift doors closed behind them. ‘And you not to find out.’
He grinned down at her, his hand coming to rest in the crook of her back and sending heat radiating through her. ‘You sure about that?’