She came close to smiling. ‘In an icy, rustic stone lodge?’

‘You wouldn’t have felt the cold,’ he assured her.

‘No?’

She shivered, despite the heating, but still he didn’t touch her, even though her body was doing everything but scream at him to go for it, even though she could feel that his hand, still supporting her elbow, was not quite steady…

He was giving her total control. Her call…

She opened the bedroom door and led him inside, turning to face him as the door closed behind them ‘Show me,’ she said, her voice scarcely strong enough to reach him and, lifting her hand, she touched a fingertip to her cheek. ‘Kiss me here.’

His eyes seemed to take on a new intensity and for a moment she was afraid that she’d unleashed a passion that he wouldn’t be able to hold in check but when, after a pause that seemed to last a lifetime, his lips touched her cheek she felt no more than a whisper of warmth. Enough to send a flash of heat through her and for a moment she swayed towards him, dangerously close to flinging herself on him. If he made one move…

But he didn’t. He was leaving her to set the pace, take it where she dared.

If she had the courage.

Responding to his unspoken challenge, she moved her hand, touched her chin.

‘Here,’ she said, on a breath.

His eyes, darker than pitch, warned her that she was playing a dangerous game. Did he think she didn’t know that?

This was their time. Now. It would be brief, glorious but brief, like a New Year’s Eve rocket, and afterwards, when it had burnt out, she would be free of him.

They would both be free…

‘Here,’ she said, raising the stakes, touching her lower lip, anticipating the same exhilarating, no-holds-barred kiss with which he’d stopped her walking away. Would use this time to carry them both over the threshold of restraint and beyond thought.

But he did no more than touch her lower lip, tasting it with his tongue. It was all she could do to remain on her feet; her only compensation was knowing how hard this must be for him. To hold back, wait. It would have been difficult to say which of them was trembling more, but he was forcing her to make all the moves, insisting that she be the one to tip it over the edge from a teasing game into a dark and passionate reality.

‘Now, Max,’ she said. Unfastening her dress, she let it fall in a shimmering puddle of silk at her feet, leaving her naked but for the scrap of silk and lace at her hips, lace-topped hold-ups, high-heeled sandals.

His response was to pull loose his tie, remove his jacket and toss it aside, finally turning the key in the lock without ever taking his eyes off her.

She’d thought she’d die with the sheer force of desire his first kiss brought bubbling to the surface, but now every cell in her body seemed to sigh, melt as his mouth kissed a slow seductive trail over her breasts and down across the soft curve of her stomach.

In that moment she felt like a conqueror, a queen receiving tribute from a vanquished king whom she’d made her slave.

But then he hooked his thumbs under the ties of her silk panties removing the last barrier between them, using his mouth until ‘now’ became not a command, not permission to touch, but a whimpering entreaty, a plea for his hands, his body, for all he had to give, and she knew that she’d made a mistake.

As he finally took pity on her, responded to her ‘Max…please…’ lifting her acquiesent body in his arms, carrying her to the great four-poster, she discovered that, far from being the one in control, she was the conquered.

Louise woke in a series of gentle waves. First there was a boneless, almost out-of-body consciousness in which she was dimly aware that it was morning, but felt no pressure to do anything about it. Then came a gradual awareness of a soft pillow beneath her cheek, limbs heavy with the delicious languor of utter contentment.

She nestled down into the pillow, unwilling to relinquish her dreams.

Something warm tickled her shoulder.

She twitched away, burrowed deeper.

It happened again and this time she reached to pull up the sheet, tuck it in, but instead of the sheet her hand encountered warm skin over hard bone.

Her face still buried in the pillow, she flattened her hand over a nose that wasn’t quite straight, a mouth blowing soft, warm breath against her palm.

Not a dream, she thought, as finally awake she recalled where she was, who she was with. Every word, every touch, every little whimper as she begged him to love her. Every fierce sound she’d wrung from him in return…

She turned her head, opened her eyes.

Propped on an elbow, he’d clearly been watching her, waiting for her to wake. The fact that he’d grown impatient sent a ripple of delight coursing through her veins and she slid her fingers through his hair, fantasy fulfilled; she had never seen his short, thick, perfectly groomed hair without wanting to do that. Disturb the outer perfection, shatter his control. She’d done that, she thought, in a moment that was pure victory. Then she rolled over onto her back, drawing him to her.

She’d wanted to be free of him, of the dark primal need for him that had destroyed every other relationship. But there was no hurry. She had until the fourteenth to put together her PR and marketing plan. All the time in the world.

‘Did anyone ever tell you, Max,’ she said, ‘that when you wake a woman from her dreams, you have to replace them with something more…substantial?’

‘First you have to tell me your dreams, my sweet,’ he said, his smile slow and lazy, his eyes smoky-soft in the early-morning light. ‘Tell me all your dreams, your wildest fantasies, and I promise you that I’ll do whatever it takes to make them come true.’

‘You promise?’ The word sent a tiny shiver of apprehension sweeping through her. She dismissed it, said, ‘Have we got that long?’

CHAPTER EIGHT

‘WELL, that’s a give-away smile. Who is he?’

Louise, lost in her thoughts, hadn’t realised she was smiling and abruptly straightened her face. ‘He?’

‘Oh, come on.’ Gemma, her PA, was grinning fit to bust herself. ‘Only a nomination for an award, or a new man in your life, could put a smile that wide on your face. Since it isn’t the award season…’ She held out her hands, palms up, in a gesture that said ‘case proved’. ‘So, come on. Give.’ Then, slapping her forehead, ‘No, don’t tell me-’

‘If you insist,’ Louise replied, more than willing to change the subject. ‘Did Max send over the artist’s impressions of the Qu’Arim restaurant? He said he’d have them here by lunchtime.’

Was her voice quite steady as she said his name? Should saying ‘Max’ be quite such a secret pleasure when she was supposed to be clearing him from her system?

‘You’ve used your royal connections to hook yourself a Meridian prince,’ Gemma continued as if she hadn’t been interrupted. ‘That’s the reason you stayed over for an extra day.’

‘Just call me Princess Louise,’ she agreed. ‘The drawings?’

‘Hmm, not a prince. You didn’t blush.’

‘I’m a PR consultant, Gem. I do not blush.’

‘If you say so.’ Then, ‘You can’t have any secrets from your PA, Lou. It’s not allowed. If I don’t know what you’re up to,’ she said, sitting down and propping her elbows on the desk, ‘I won’t be able to fend off questions from the press when they get wind of it.’

‘Don’t worry about it. In the unlikely event that the press should show any interest in who I’m dating you have my full permission to tell them everything you know.’

‘Unlikely? Are you kidding? You dropped off the gossip planet when you split with James. As far as the diary hacks are concerned, you owe them three years’ worth of copy.’ Then, her chin in her hands, ‘So, you are dating?’

‘No, Gemma.’

‘Sorry, not convinced. A girl doesn’t get that kind of glow without some serious attention from a man who lights up her soul.’

Max did not light up her soul. She wasn’t that kind of fool. Every other part of her, maybe…

‘I’ve been taking vitamins,’ she said.

‘What kind? I want some.’ Then, ‘Really not dating?’

‘You mean the institution where a man asks a woman out, takes her out to a concert or for a meal or whatever he believes is the fastest way between her sheets?’

Gemma nodded expectantly.

‘No. I’m not doing that.’

It was true.

Dating was part of the getting-to-know-you ritual in which a couple circled around each other, tested each other against their own lives to see if they were a fit. Or, failing that, whether the sexual attraction was powerful enough to counteract common sense…at least for the time being.

With Max it wasn’t like that.

They didn’t have to play that game. They’d known each other all their lives. Why waste time sitting opposite one another in a fancy restaurant where the whole world could see them making small talk and leap to its own conclusions, when they could be sharing supper in bed? Why waste time providing gossip for the tabloid diary writers?

Besides, the secrecy added a certain piquancy, an extra level of excitement to their affair.

‘You’re smiling again,’ Gemma said.

‘I can’t think why when I’m still waiting for those drawings.’

‘They haven’t arrived yet.’ Then, turning her head as someone came into the outer office, ‘Correction, the boss has brought them himself.’

‘Max?’

Louise saw the exact moment when Gemma realised the truth. Not that she said anything. She didn’t have to. She looked at Max standing in the doorway, holding not just the large envelope containing drawings of the Qu’Arim restaurant, but a spray of dusky pink roses, glanced back at Louise and then pointedly removed herself from the office, closing the door behind her.

‘Were all the couriers busy?’ Louise asked as he dropped the roses on her desk.

‘The message I’m delivering is far too personal to entrust with a spotty youth on a motorcycle.’

His hands braced on the arms of her chair, he bent to kiss her, taking his time about it.

The thrill, the tiny shock of delight, was still as new, as startling as the first kiss they’d shared. It made her feel like a giddy eighteen-year-old. And as old and knowing as time.

He pulled back an inch. ‘Besides, I’m on my way to talk to the accountants.’

‘And you decided to take the long way round?’

He grinned, propped himself on the desk. ‘Not because I need the exercise.’

‘Oh, please, I’m not complaining,’ she said, laughing. ‘But I fear that we’ve just been rumbled.’

‘Rumbled?’ He glanced at the closed door. ‘Gemma?’

‘I think the flowers might have been the give-away.’

‘A gift from a grateful employer.’ Then, ‘What, Oliver Nash never sent you flowers?’ he asked, glancing at the vast arrangement that had been delivered to the office, a personal thank-you for the HOTfood launch.

‘He sends Flowers,’ she said, emphasising the capital F with a broad gesture that suggested vast quantities of hothouse blooms. ‘And they are delivered by messenger. He doesn’t drop by with a bunch of roses from the flower seller on the corner.’

‘His mistake.’ He grinned, looked at the roses. ‘Although I didn’t set out with flowers in mind, I have to admit. It was just when I saw these they reminded me of you.’

‘You needed reminding?’

She picked them up, ruffled the velvety petals beneath her fingers and then, aware that he was waiting for her to ask in what way exactly they had reminded him of her she looked up, inviting him to elaborate.

‘Reminded me specifically of the moment when you dropped your dress at your feet. They’re exactly the colour of the incredibly small amount of underwear you were wearing, wanton hussy that you are-’

‘Sh!’ she said, her face turning the same colour as the roses.

‘A wanton hussy who blushes like a schoolgirl.’

‘I don’t!’

He didn’t argue, just reached out, hand closed, and rubbed her hot cheek with the back of his fingers.

‘Is it such a big deal, Lou? Gemma knowing? People saw us dining with Patsy and Derek last week.’

‘No one we knew.’

‘Maybe not. But the maître d’ recognised me and when one Valentine eats in a restaurant that’s not his own, it’s gossip. When two of us do it, it’s news. You’re not exactly low profile, Lou, and Patsy didn’t opt for discretion in her choice of restaurants. She wanted to show you off.’

Louise groaned. ‘I know. Half the staff at that place are probably Diary stringers for the redtops, but I couldn’t bear to disappoint her when she was so excited.’

‘No, of course you couldn’t.’

‘From now on we’ll have to be more discreet.’

‘Will we?’