Page 32 of One More Sleepless Night

‘Must be a trick of the light.’

‘Right,’ she said with a slow nod. ‘And I suppose the way your eyes are darkening, the way you’re clenching your fist and that muscle hammering in your jaw must be tricks of the light too?’ Her gaze dropped to the zip of his shorts behind which he was helplessly swelling and hardening. ‘Not to mention the way your—’

‘OK, enough,’ he said, and slammed his glass down on the counter, suddenly so sick of the way his body, his senses and everything about this conversation were so out of control that he couldn’t hold back. ‘Maybe I am attracted to you.’

‘Aha, I knew it,’ she said with a triumphant little smile.

‘Maybe I would like to kiss you again,’ he continued, now on an unstoppable roll. ‘Maybe I would like to drag you to the floor, strip you naked and bury myself inside you, but it’s not going to happen.’ About that he was absolutely certain. ‘Nor am I going to let you kiss me, however seductively you try and dress up your request.’

For a second Nicky just looked at him, that damnably distracting mouth dropping open in shock at his outburst. ‘But why ever not?’ she said, her breathing ragged and her cheeks pink.

‘Because you’re not well,’ he said tightly.

Her eyebrows shot up. ‘What?’

‘You’re not well.’

She frowned. ‘Have you been speaking to Gaby?’

‘Yes.’

‘What did she say?’

‘That you needed a rest.’

‘Which I’ve now had,’ she said, taking a step towards him. ‘Yes, I’ll admit that I haven’t been all that great, and my lack of response to you initially was part of it, but I’m better now. Much better.’

As if that made any difference, he thought, wishing he could take a giant step back and get out of her mind-scrambling orbit. ‘I’m delighted to hear it,’ he muttered roughly.

‘So much so that over the last couple of weeks I’ve found myself thinking about you. About that kiss.’ She paused and tilted her head. ‘And whenever I did there was this kind of spark. Right here.’ She splayed her hand low on her abdomen.

Rafael focused on a huge arrangement of flowers sitting on the breakfast bar to her right. ‘Good for you.’

‘It was. It is. And it could be good for both of us because now there’s more than just a spark.’

‘You could spontaneously combust and it wouldn’t bother me one little bit.’ Were those dahlia pinnatas?

‘I feel I’m about to.’

‘That’s your prerogative.’ They were, and if he wasn’t much mistaken there were some spathiphyllum wallisii in there too. He looked a little harder. Yep. Definitely spathiphyllum wallisii.

Nicky let out an exasperated sigh. ‘Rafael, what is your problem?’

He reluctantly dragged his gaze back to her and pushed his hands through his hair. ‘You’re a friend of Gaby’s,’ he stated flatly.

A pause. ‘And?’

‘And I don’t get involved with friends of any of my sisters.’

‘Why on earth not?’

‘I did it once and it didn’t work out well.’

‘What happened?’

God, what hadn’t happened? ‘I married her.’

‘Oh.’

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