Page 48 of Midnight Surrender to the Spaniard

‘So, why would we...?’

‘Because we want each other.’

She couldn’t deny that truth.

‘Because we can,’ he said.

And his hand moved from her waist up to her ribcage, as it had when they’d danced. He stroked her gently, but not in a calming way.

‘I don’t want anyone finding out,’ she said.

‘I’m sure we’re not anyone’s priority,’ he said. ‘We don’t have to hide.’

‘No!’

She was adamant. He confused every principle she held, and all her thought processes, but she was clear on this. They stood in the water, hearing the laughter and the sounds of summer around them.

‘I will always be friends with Emily, and I don’t want anything awkward—’

‘Why would it be awkward just because we’ve had sex?’

And therein lay the difference between them—and Anna knew it.

Sex was sex to him. A need. A want fulfilled.

She was deliciously crazy about him and wishing itcouldjust be sex...wishing that his kiss moved only her body and not her soul as well.

‘Next time I’m here it will be with my daughter.’ She held firm. ‘I don’t want there to be even a hint that you’re anything more to me than my best friend’s husband’s brother.’

‘Believe me,’ he said, ‘if you are here with your child I will be staying well back. I don’t do relationships, and certainly not complicated ones. Stop making something simple so involved.’

He kissed her again, his mouth soothing the doubts—or was he just inflaming her desire, so that there was no room for anything other than the lust that rippled through her?

‘Let’s go back to the villa...’

Their foreheads were touching, their bodies barely an inch apart, but she prickled in a way that told her they very soon would be skin to skin. Anna wanted to take his hand and go to the delicious places he promised, but she attempted one last stab at reason.

‘I don’t want Emily to—’

‘How could she know?’ He attempted to reassure her. ‘I go back to Jerez tomorrow.’

She felt as if the water surged beneath her as disappointment that he was leaving tomorrow hit like an invisible wave in beautiful, calm water. The shock of his words was enough to make Anna see sense.

‘I can’t...’ She peeled herself away from him. ‘I thought we had all week.’

‘Anna, my brother can’t work because of the baby...nor can my father because he is unwell. Carmen certainly doesn’t do anything at the bodega, so someone has to be there.’

‘Of course.’ Logically she understood that, but her brain was pointing out that one night...or six...it didn’t really matter. It was a very temporary arrangement whichever way she looked at it...

But she’d done that before, Anna realised, and she did not want the rest of her time here to be spent getting over him. Did not want to be pulled in further for only a fleeting time.

He thought she was the woman he’d met at the wedding, the persona she’d stepped into, but she was back in her own skin now.

Or halfway between the two...

‘I can’t,’ she said, then repeated it more firmly. ‘I can’t be yours again just for a night. It’s not enough. I want a holiday at least.’

She could justify that in her mind, Anna felt. A holiday romance, but not just sex.

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