Page 13 of Bedding his Innocent Mistress

*

Rafe’s smile was forced.

Amari was someone he’d known for a long time. Slept with whenever they both happened to be single and available. She was stunning, sexy, intelligent.

Yet he was bored.

He kicked his long legs out in front of him, nodding as Amari continued to tell the story about … he wasn’t sure what.

It was only that it was unusual; no one had ever walked out on him before. Usually he was the one making coffee and then excuses, sending his lover du nuit packing before they could get the impression he was offering flowers and sonatas.

But Ivy hadn’t been there when he’d woken. Her pillow had been cold, and his apartment showed no signs of her ever having been there. She’d disappeared, without a trace, and it was only as he walked from room to room, confused by her absence, that he realised he knew nothing about her. Nothing that would allow him to call her and say, “What the hell?”

He’d wanted her again, too. He’d needed her.

That’s why his mind had kept wandering back to that night.

That, and he was back in London. In his apartment. The apartment he’d made love to Ivy in, again and again, pleasuring her body and watching her fall apart as though the very idea of sexual satisfaction was a wholly new concept.

He shifted in his chair as his arousal stoked to life. Three weeks of remembering the way her body had felt, smelled, tasted, and he was sick of the raging hard-on that never ended.

He needed to get rid of Amari. He wasn’t interested in her, or anyone else. Not now that he’d tasted the perfection of Ivy Hennessey.

Eventually, he’d forget her; he had to. But for now? He was happy to remember, to relive that night again and again, remembering her touch, her sounds, her taste –

She had been perfection, and for a brief few hours, she had been his.

*

“We’re out of teabags, Lizzie!” Ivy shouted, pushing down the annoyance that her cousin was perhaps the worst house-guest known to man. Coming and going at strange hours, buying groceries that, while generous, were utterly bizarre. Truffle oil, gravadlax, chocolate scented coffee pods.

“Sorry! I’ll grab some today, okay?” Lisette called back, sauntering out of the bathroom in Ivy’s robe, her hair wrapped in a hand towel.

And Ivy’s annoyance disappeared.

Lisette was the closest thing she had to a sister, and having her around for the extra few weeks – while a little unexpected – had been just the distraction she needed. Besides, she’d be going soon, and Ivy would miss her like crazy, so she’d just have to put up with the strange grocery habits.

Steve was still in her head. She thought of him often. But less and less.

Ivy told herself that had nothing to do with Rafe.

Even when her dreams seemed to revolve around the unbelievably hot Spaniard, she knew it was just because he’d been her most recent sexual experience. Even that wasn’t fair. Rafe had been… everything. Perfection.

And there had been something so deliciously elicit about their affair. A single night out of time – a night she hadn’t planned for that had been all the more thrilling for its unexpectedness.

Steve would have had kittens.

“Crap! I’m so late!” Ivy stared helplessly at the boiling water, wishing she had one of Nanny Anderson’s dried pre-loved tea bags dangling about somewhere so she could at least throw back a few sips of her favourite morning drink, but it wasn’t to be.

It should have been a sign – perhaps it was, in hindsight. She got to the tube station as her train pulled away and then it was an interminable wait for the next, meaning the platform was squished full of commuters and the train was a hot mess of sweat and stench when she managed to fold herself into it. She rode with her face in some man’s armpit, and no matter how she tried to twist and evade it, she couldn’t reposition herself. It was one of those trips that was completely flawed and she thought longingly of the train behind which was probably much emptier. Why hadn’t she waited?

Because of this damned meeting! All management staff had been told the day before that they needed to attend, and her boss Margerite had given Ivy the distinct impression that failing to be there on time and make a good impression would lead to certain death, or worse. “Shoot, shoot, shoot,” she whispered into the armpit, as the tube stopped deep in a tunnel and everyone collectively heaved a groan.

When it finally pulled into Embankment, Ivy scampered out and climbed out of the tube station as a shaken bottle of soda with the lid popped off. It would be quicker to jump onto another tube but she had a public transport-induced form of PTSD and couldn’t face the idea. It was only a marginally longer walk and, though Margerite’s threat had been explicit, Ivy f

ound it hard to care.

She walked quickly and, as she turned the corner into the street on which her office building stood, she bumped into another woman with a similarly harried and hurried bearing. Unfortunately, she’d armed herself with a coffee. A coffee that Ivy was now wearing down the front of her vintage Dior dress.

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