Page 60 of The Invitation

“How are you settling in?” His voice glides across my skin, my back straightening as I look around.

“It’s very extravagant for a spa day,” I say quietly.

“And night.”

I swallow, nodding. He’s booked this room out for us.Oh God.“I don’t sleep with a man on a first date.” I usually don’t kiss them either,but I’ve already broken that rule.Andhe was a whisper away from getting me off over the phone. I stand and start walking up and down, feeling a bit stifled and even more nervous than before.

“So you came all this way for ... what?” he asks.

He’s got me. “A massage, of course.”

He laughs, low and throaty, and I stop my pacing, looking up at the ceiling for strength. I’m fooling myself.Irresistible.“You wore your hair down.”

I still, my eyes automatically searching the corners of the ceilings. My God, they wouldn’t have cameras in the guest rooms. What am I thinking? He’s laughing lightly again. He needs to stop that. It makes me disintegrate.

“I’m not spying on you, Amelia. Go to the window.”

I turn to the window by the drinks cabinet and slowly tread towards it, looking across the glass roof of the Orangery to another wing of the mansion. Five large windows stretch from one end of the wall to the other, all with pulled-back drapes at the windows. I breathe in when I see him emerge from the darkness of the room, putting himself in one of the windows.

A towel wrapped around his naked waist.

“Oh God,” I whisper, the beads of wet on his smooth chest glistening. He rakes a hand through his hair and then rests it on the window frame, leaning into it. My eyes cross. His lazy eyes sparkle, his smile small.

“I’m glad you came.”

“I’m still on the fence,” I reply, not holding back, making sure he knows I’m all over the place.

“You think I’m bad for you.”

“Aren’t you?”

“Maybe,” he muses, serious. “I have a feeling you could be bad for me too.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re on my mind. Constantly.”

“I know how that feels,” I admit.

“So are we done playing games?”

“It was never a game to me.”

He nods mildly. “You look incredible.”

“You look . . . naked.”

“Nearly.” His voice is quiet. Husky. So damn sexy. “There’s something on the chair by the bed for you.”

I narrow my eyes, glancing toward the bedroom. “What?”

“Go see.”

I walk backwards as far as I can, only turning when I reach the door to the bedroom. I spot a gift-wrapped box that I completely missed before on the cream brocade, high-backed wing chair.

“Open it,” he says gently.

I click him to speakerphone and set my mobile on the floor as I kneel and pull the bow free, dragging the ribbon away. On a deep breath, I lift the lid and find a mass of black tissue paper. I move it aside. “Lingerie,” I whisper, reaching for the straps of the black lace balcony bra and lifting it out. The quality is sublime, the lace delicate, the detail exquisite. A gold disk hangs in the centre between each cup, a white pearl in the middle. I look at the tag and don’t know whether to be delighted or insulted that he’s got my size spot-on. “How did you know my size?”

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