He didn’t answer. Instead, he simply stood there, wordless, unable to conceal the dark hunger surging through his body.
Her eyes were the color of the midnight sky overhead. A lock of her ebony hair flew across her face, and without thinking, he reached up, pulling it back and tucking it behind her ear.
Those midnight eyes widened as if in shock, but she didn’t move. She didn’t pull away.
Slowly, his fingertips traced the velvety curve of her ear and moved down the column of her throat. The tendons in her slender neck felt taut as harp strings, and when he felt the pulse at the base of her throat, as rapid as his own pounding heart, the arousal in him flared into outright lust. With an abrupt move, he slid his hand to the nape of her neck and pressed his thumb beneath her chin to lift her face.
Her lips parted, but she didn’t protest.
She was close enough that he could feel the warmth of her body, and the arousal inside him deepened and spread, making his heart pound in his chest like a trip-hammer. He pressed his fingers into the nape of her neck, urging her to come closer.
She complied, and the knuckles of her hand brushed his chest. It was the barest contact possible, but he sucked in a sharp breath just the same, and somehow, that sound succeeded in penetrating the sensuous haze enveloping him.
“Good God.” He jerked, letting her go and taking a long step back, staring at her in dismay. “What the hell am I doing?”
She laughed, a low, throaty chuckle that threatened to send the last vestiges of his control to the wall. The tendrils of her hair floatedaround her laughing face, making her look a bit like a witch in the night. “I think you were about to kiss me.”
He wanted to deny it, but that would have been a lie. “We should go,” he said instead and took another even longer step back, putting some much-needed distance between them. “It’s late, and I have to catch the early train for Berkshire in the morning.”
Her smile faded away, and the laughter went out of her eyes. Puzzlement and a hint of what might have been hurt shimmered across her face. It was gone before he could be sure, but nonetheless, the mere possibility that he’d hurt her cut him to the quick.
But kissing her would be a serious mistake. It was unethical, for one thing, since he had full power over her job. It would also cloud his judgment, muddy his thinking, and make it impossible for him to be objective when the time came to decide her fate, and that would be a betrayal of the trust Richard and Helen had placed in him.
He had to walk away now, while he still could. It was the only honorable thing to do.
He turned abruptly and started back toward the hothouse, but as he did, it felt as if he were ripping himself in half, making him curse his sense of honor. Being a cad, he thought, would have been easier. And far more enjoyable.
10
Delia watched as he walked away, her head in a whirl, her heart thudding hard in her chest, her emotions tilting from pleasure to amazement and back again.
She knew now that she had not been mistaken. That look in his eyes the other day in her office had not been her imagination or a trick of the light. It truly was desire.
“But how can that be?” she whispered, staring through the glass, watching as he vanished amid the fig trees and ferns of the hothouse. “He hates me.”
Even as she said it, she gave a delighted little shiver, remembering how he’d touched her, tracing his fingertips over her ear, caressing her neck, and she gave an incredulous laugh as she realized he didn’t hate her as much as he’d led her to believe.
But then, why hadn’t he kissed her?
Her laughter faded away as she contemplated that question.
Of course, Simon was one of those upright, straightlaced, honorable men. He was stubborn and often infuriating as hell, but he was not the sort to do anything improper. He played by the rules.
On the other hand, it wasn’t as if she were a young girl, with chaperones hovering about. There was nothing improper about kissinga widow, for heaven’s sake. She had no innocence to protect and no reputation to keep pristine. Granted, he’d tried to avoid coming to dinner by using some lame excuse about how it wasn’t appropriate because they worked together, but that was ridiculous, too. Who would know? Who would care?
He emerged from the trees again and glanced around. When he saw that she hadn’t followed him inside, he turned his head in her direction, and though she knew he couldn’t see her out here in the darkness, she could see him, stone-faced, looking as if he’d rather eat nails than kiss her.
But it was too late for that sort of pretense to fool her. Delia smiled, hugging that knowledge to herself as she straightened away from the balustrade and started for the door into the hothouse. In one unbelievable moment, they had both felt the same spark of desire. The question now was what she intended to do about it.
She considered her options as they journeyed together back to the Savoy. She could ignore the whole episode, of course, which was quite proper and horribly dull. She could shamelessly fling herself at him the next time, a much more agreeable possibility, at least until she slid a glance at him in the seat opposite. He was looking out the window, and the grim set of his profile warned her that hurling herself into his arms was a risky business. He was just as likely to toss her out of the carriage and into the street as he was to kiss her back.
Despite his desire for her, it was painfully clear he didn’t like her much. And that, she acknowledged with a grimace, was the reason he intrigued her so. He wanted her, but he didn’t want to want her, and she found that both deliciously enticing and aggravating as hell. Especially since she wasn’t sure why.
Delia took a deep breath, hoping she wasn’t about to make a complete fool of herself. “There’s three of us in this carriage, it seems.”
At the sound of her voice, he turned his head to look at her. Therewas a quizzical line between his brows, but other than that, his expression was unreadable in the dim light. “I beg your pardon?”
“You, me, and the elephant. You know,” she prompted when he didn’t reply, “the big, obvious elephant sitting right here between us. Maybe we should talk about it?”
