Page 32 of One Night in My Rival's Bed

Grayson pushed back his own chair and came to stand in front of me. His hands reached for mine and he gave them a gentle squeeze. ‘Still angry with me?’

I gave him an upwards glance from beneath my lowered lashes. ‘You haven’t apologised yet.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Apology accepted.’

He tipped up my chin with his finger and meshed his gaze with mine. ‘Do you want to grab a late dinner somewhere before I take you home?’

My stomach chose that moment to audibly growl, which made it almost impossible to say I wasn’t hungry. ‘That would be nice.’

He bent his head to plant a soft kiss on my upturned mouth. Then he raised his head to lock gazes with me again. ‘We’re going to have to be careful when we have dinner with Ethan and Niamh on Saturday night. We’ll have to make sure we don’t show any signs of being involved.’

‘Yes, I know, but Niamh already knows I was at your house the other night. She tracked me via the app on her phone. I completely forgot she could do that. I usually keep track of her, not her me.’

Grayson frowned. ‘Do you think she suspects anything?’

‘I don’t think so. I played it pretty cool. I told her we had dinner and talked about stuff. But I do think she’s keen for us to like each other because she hates conflict of any sort. It would distress her to think her relationship with Ethan was causing trouble between you and him.’

He placed his hands on my hips and brought me closer. ‘It’s going to be hard to keep my hands off you.’

I linked my arms around his waist, delighting in the hard contours of his body probing me so intimately. ‘We can make up for it later when we’re alone.’

He gave me a wolfish grin that sent a bolt of heat to my core. ‘Good plan.’

We arranged to arrive at Ethan’s penthouse separately to avoid any hint of anything going on between us. I arrived a little earlier to see if there was anything I could do to help Niamh, but she was determined to keep me out of the kitchen.

‘No, Ethan and I have got this,’ she said as she greeted me at the door. ‘You go through to the sitting room with a drink and wait for Grayson. Oh, here he is now.’

I turned and looked at Grayson and mumbled an impersonal ‘Hi’ and he grunted something unintelligible in return.

Niamh shifted her gaze back and forth between us, her forehead creasing in a reproving frown. ‘Have you two been bickering again?’

I hastily smothered a laugh by pretending to cough, and Grayson answered before I could think of something to say. I could hardly tell her Grayson and I had been making love, not war, could I?

‘We’ve established a temporary truce, haven’t we, Ash?’ There was a gleam in his gaze that thankfully Niamh couldn’t see for he had turned to face me.

‘Indeed, we have,’ I said, keeping my expression neutral. Our temporary truce was the code name for our temporary fling. Nothing could be anything but temporary between us, even if Ethan and Niamh did marry.

‘That’s good because I don’t want anything to spoil tonight,’ Niamh said. ‘Ethan and I have gone to a lot of trouble over dinner.’

Ethan came towards us in his motorised chair with a smile on his face. ‘Y-you’re t-too generous, babe,’ he said, looking meltingly at Niamh. ‘You’ve d-done most of the work.’

It was heart-warming to see the pride Ethan had in my sister. It made Niamh glow like I had never seen her glow before. It also made me feel a little envious. Apart from my sister, I hadn’t had anyone in my life who was proud of my achievements. Even before my father died, I can’t remember either of my parents being all that impressed by my academic success. And certainly, after Niamh’s accident, there was no way my mother would ever draw attention to my stellar school record when my sister’s abilities were so damaged. I was glad Niamh now had someone to be proud of her, to support her in any endeavour she made.

Grayson and I ended up in the sitting room with drinks in hand while Ethan and Niamh went back to the kitchen. I took a sip of my champagne and looked at the view over Finsbury Park. How was I going to make small talk with the man who had seen me in my smalls? Who had seen every inch of me? And made love to me for hours?

‘You look stunning in that dress,’ Grayson said from just behind me.

I turned around and breathed in the citrus scent of him, my heart tripping and skipping and flipping as his gaze ran over me hungrily. ‘You’re going to give the game away if you keep looking at me like that,’ I said in a hushed tone, glancing nervously towards the sitting room door in case my sister or Ethan returned.

‘How am I looking at you?’

‘Like you want to peel this dress off me and ravish me.’

Grayson’s lips curved in a smile, and he lifted his hand to my face and trailed a lazy finger down the slope of my cheek. ‘That’s exactly what I’d like to do.’ His voice was so deep and low it sounded like it was coming from the core of the earth. Speaking of cores—my feminine core was pulsating with liquid heat at being so physically close to him.

My pulse was pounding, my heart hammering, my self-control wavering. I could feel myself swaying towards him as if my body was an iron filing and he was a powerful magnet. ‘You’d better hold that thought until later.’

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