as she tightened the belt on her robe and flicked her wet hair back from her face.
As she entered the sitting room cautiously it was immediately clear there had been considerable activity in her absence. The table beside the open doors that led to the Juliet balcony had been laid with silver cutlery and fancily folded Irish linen napkins, and the antique candelabra in the middle was lit. It looked like a classic stage set for seduction…She could only assume that the staff had got the wrong idea.
She didn’t immediately see Isandro, who had been sitting on a leather chesterfield in an alcove. She was alerted by the creak of leather before his throaty drawl.
‘Feeling better?’
She flinched and spun around just as he got to his feet. Her skin had tingled when she’d ruthlessly scrubbed it, but now the tingle went deeper…I was better, but I’m not any more, she thought as she pasted on a polite smile.
‘Yes, thank you. That smells good.’ She nodded towards the domed covered serving dish set on the console table before looking at him—or, rather, past him.
‘Clothes maketh the man’ was not a phrase that applied to Isandro. He looked good in clothes, but he looked equally good, actually much better, without them…well, almost without them. He was wearing a robe similar to her own but on him the superior hotel-issue garment reached his thigh and revealed more of his dark hair-roughened skin than she was comfortable with.
‘I almost came to look for you.’
It had taken all his willpower and the seemingly constant flow of waiters through the place not to follow the sound of the running water and his own instincts.
His own shower had been ice cold, which had given him a temporary partial relief from his agony, but the moment she’d walked into the room with a freshly scrubbed face and nothing more than an ankle on show he had been painfully aroused and unable to think about anything but throwing her on the bed. His desire had no subtlety; it was sheer primal hunger.
He wanted her so badly he could taste it.
‘I only need rescuing once a day.’ Her lips formed a smile but her eyes conspicuously avoided making contact with his. Isandro could feel her tension from where he stood. ‘Did you contact Alex?’ she asked, as businesslike as someone could be when bare-faced and barefoot. She ran her tongue across her dry lips. She didn’t even have any lipstick to hide behind, though it was doubtful if a slash of cherry red would have made her feel more confident.
‘Yes, he’s got Rowena to come over and babysit.’
‘Rowena.’ Zoe gave a sigh of relief, losing some of her stiff formality as she smiled. ‘Thank you.’
Isandro’s eyes travelled up from her bare feet to the top of her wet head. The section in between was covered in a thick layer of fluffy white bathrobe, but the suggestion of curves, the thought of the soft skin it hid, sent his imagination into overdrive.
‘What can I get you?’ He walked over to the table and lifted a lid on one of the dishes.
You on a sandwich, she thought, but bit her lip. ‘Thanks, but I can’t eat. I should get back.’ Before I make a total fool of myself.
‘Why?’ He looked irritated by her response. ‘The twins are being well cared for. Or don’t you think Rowena can cope?’
‘It’s not a matter of her coping.’ Rowena was totally capable. The young woman’s parents had been good friends of Dan and Laura, and the twins loved their daughter, who ran the local stables. ‘I don’t want to take advantage.’
Her sister and brother-in-law had had a lot of friends and it was good to know that in an emergency they were there. But it was important to her to stand on her own feet and not become reliant. Or infatuated, she thought, looking directly at him for the first time.
He arched a strongly delineated ebony brow. Everything about his face was strong. ‘Have you ever said no when someone asks a favour? No, you haven’t. But when they want to return the favour it becomes “taking advantage”?’
The mockery in his voice as he adopted a very shaky falsetto to mimic her brought a lump to Zoe’s throat.
‘I’m glad I give you something to laugh about.’
‘I’m not laughing. I admire independence but not when it becomes bloody-minded stubbornness.’ Sometimes he wondered when she slept, or if. His critical glance moved to the violet smudges beneath her spectacular eyes. She was struggling to fit into a job she was unsuited for, and struggling to be the perfect parent. It was admirable but impossible. Why couldn’t the woman embrace her imperfections? He had!
The insight sent a stab of shock through Isandro. She roused feelings that he flatly refused to recognise as protective tenderness. He refused because he associated the emotions with weakness. It made him angry. She made him angry!
‘What are you trying to prove, Zoe?’ he asked, his voice hard.
‘I’m not trying to prove anything!’
Glaring, her eyes slid down his body as he sat down and leaned back on the leather sofa. Stretching his long legs out, he folded one ankle across the other. The hair-roughened skin of his muscular calves looked very dark against the white of the hotel robes. She was wearing nothing underneath. Was he…?
Shivering, she stopped the speculation from progressing into dangerous territory and dragged her gaze back to his face.
‘In that case take five minutes off from being a martyr and give us all a break.’
She sucked in a gulping breath, embracing the rush of anger as she clenched her fists. ‘There’s nobody here but you and me.’
‘Exactly, and I won’t tell if you fall off your perfect parent pedestal. Just you and me…what could be cosier?’
The question drew a gurgle from her throat. ‘Oh, I don’t know—how about hang gliding over an active volcano?’
And there was something combustible about him, even when he was still and silent like now, his long, lean body relaxed. She had the impression that he could explode into action at any moment.
He let out a low chuckle, his expression sobering as he added, ‘Are you planning to put your life on hold for the next ten or fifteen years?’
‘Fifteen years!’ She snorted. ‘I’m not thinking any farther ahead than next month’s bills.’ She found his anger inexplicable. ‘I’m a single parent. My priority has to be the twins.’
‘Single parents have been known to have sex.’
ZOE BLINKED, THE COLOUR flying to her cheeks as she lost any fragile illusion of composure. ‘Since when were we talking about sex?’
‘It’s part of a healthy, well-balanced life. We’re always talking about sex, even when we’re talking about the weather. It’s the subtext.’
She flushed and snapped in protest, ‘I was drunk when that happened before.’
‘You’re not drunk now.’ So there was zero reason for gentlemanly behaviour. ‘And I’m not a teenager. I’m tired of the game.’ And the frustration was killing him.
He had come up with a workable solution. Now all he had to do was sell it. Isandro did not doubt his ability to do so. That was what he was good at: selling ideas; producing packages that made everyone think they had a good deal.
Zoe had anticipated his anger. After all, from his point of view she was a grade A nuisance. But she had not imagined this level of simmering fury. Even while he had been yelling at her over capsizing the boat, there had been an underlying gentleness, almost a tenderness, in his manner.
Searching