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‘I don’t normally drink much but I was nervous.’
His frown deepened and he reached for a glass on the bathroom counter and filled it from the tap and then handed it to her. ‘Is this a big deal for you? This wedding expo?’
Sabrina took the glass from him and took a couple of sips to see how her stomach coped. ‘It’s the first time I’ve been invited to exhibit some of my designs. It’s huge for me. It can take new designers years to get noticed but luckily the fashion show floor manager’s daughter bought one of my dresses and she liked it so much she invited me along. And then Naomi, the journalist in the bar, asked for an interview for a feature article. It’s a big opportunity for me to get my name out there, especially in Europe.’ She drained the glass of water and handed it back to him.
He dutifully refilled it and handed it back, his frown still carving a trench between his brows. ‘What did you tell her about us?’
‘Nothing. I didn’t even mention your name. I just said I was sharing a room with a friend.’
‘Are you sure you didn’t mention me?’
Sabrina frowned. ‘Why would I link my name with yours? Do you think I want anyone back home to know we’re sharing a room? Give me a break. I’m not that stupid. If I let that become common knowledge our parents will have wedding invitations in the post before you can blink.’ She took a breath and continued, ‘Anyway, you were the one who made it look like we were having a dirty weekend. You called me “baby”, for God’s sake.’
‘Drink your water,’ he said as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘You need to get some rest if you want to look your best for tomorrow.’
Sabrina scowled at him over the top of her glass. ‘Do you have to remind me I look a frightful mess?’
He released a slow breath. ‘I’ll see you in the morning. Goodnight.’
When Sabrina came out of the bathroom after a shower there was no sign of him in the suite. She wondered if he’d left to give her some privacy or whether he had other plans. Why should she care if he hooked up with someone for a night of unbridled passion? She pulled down the covers on one of the beds and slipped between the cool and silky sheets and closed her eyes...
* * *
Max went for a long walk through the streets and alleys of Venice to clear his head. He could still feel the imprint of Sabrina’s body pressing against him in the lift. He’d been hard within seconds. His fault for holding her like that, but the temptation had caught him off guard. Had it been his imagination or had she leaned back into him?
He wanted her.
He hated admitting it. Loathed admitting it but there it was. He was in lust with her. He couldn’t remember when he’d started noticing her in that way. It had crept up on him over the last few months. The way his body responded when she looked at him in a certain way. The way his blood surged when she stood up to him and flashed her blue eyes at him in defiance. The way she moved her dancer-slim body making him fantasise about how she would look naked.
He had to get over it. Ignore it or something. Having a fling with Sabrina would hurt too many people. Hadn’t he hurt his parents enough? If he started a fling with her everyone would get their hopes up that it would become permanent.
He didn’t do permanent.
He would get his self-control back in line and get through the weekend without touching her. He opened and closed his hands, trying to rid himself of the feeling of her soft skin. Trying to remove the sensation of her touch. What was wrong with him? Why couldn’t he just ignore her the way he had for most of his adult life? He’d always kept his distance. Always. He avoided speaking with her. He had watched from the sidelines as she’d spoken to everyone at the various gatherings they’d both attended.
There was no way a relationship between them would work. Not even a short-term one. She had fairytale written all over her. She came from a family of doctors and yet she had resisted following the tradition and become a wedding-dress designer instead. Didn’t that prove how obsessed with the fairytale she was?
His mistake had been kissing her three weeks ago. He didn’t understand how he had gone from arguing with her over something to finding her pulling his head down and then his mouth coming down on hers and... He let out a shuddering breath. Why was he still thinking about that damn kiss? The heat of their mouths connecting had tilted the world on its axis, or at least it had felt like it at the time. He could have sworn the floor had shifted beneath his feet. If he closed his eyes he could still taste her sweetness, could still feel the soft pliable texture of her lips moving against his, could still feel the sexy dart of her tongue.
The worst of it was he had lost control. Desire had swept through him and he still didn’t know how he’d stopped himself from taking her then and there. And that scared the hell of out him.
It would not—could not—happen again.
* * *
When Max entered the suite in the early hours of the morning, Sabrina was sound asleep, curled up like a kitten, her brown hair spilling over the pillow. One of her hands was tucked under the cheek; the other was lying on the top of the covers. She was wearing a cream satin nightie for he could see the delicate lace trim across her décolletage peeking out from where the sheet was lying across her chest.
The desire to slip into that bed and pull her into his arms was so strong he had to clench his hands into fists. He clearly had to do something about his sex life if he was ogling the one woman he wanted to avoid. When was the last time he’d been with someone? A month? Two...or was it three? He’d been busy working on multiple projects, which hadn’t left much time for a social life. Not that he had a much of a social life. He preferred his own company so he could get on with his work.
Work. That’s what he needed to concentrate on. He moved past the bed to go to the desk where he had set up his laptop the day before. He opened one of the accounts he was working on and started tinkering.
There was a rustle from the bed behind him and Sabrina’s drowsy voice said, ‘Do you have to do that now?’
Max turned around to look at her in the muted light coming off his laptop screen. Her hair was a cloud of tangles and one of her cheeks had a linen crease and one spaghetti-thin strap of her nightie had slipped off her shoulder, revealing the upper curve of her left breast. She looked sleepy, sexy and sensual and lust hit him like a sucker punch. ‘Sorry. Did I wake you?’
She pushed back some of her hair with her hand. ‘Don’t you ever sleep?’
I would if there wasn’t a gorgeously sexy woman lying in the bed next to mine.
Max kept his features neutral but his body was thrumming, hardening, aching. ‘How’s your head? Have the construction workers started yet?’
Her mouth flickered with a sheepish smile. ‘Not yet. The water helped.’
He pushed a hand through his hair and suppressed a yawn. ‘Can I get you anything?’
‘You don’t have to wait on me, Max.’ She peeled back the bed covers and swung her slim legs over the edge of the bed. She padded over to the bar fridge and opened it, the light spilling from inside a golden shaft against her long shapely legs.
‘Hair of the dog?’ Max injected a cautionary note in his tone.
She closed the fridge and held up a chocolate bar. ‘Nope. Chocolate is the best hangover cure.’
He shrugged and turned back to his laptop. ‘Whatever works, I guess.’
The sound of her unwrapping the chocolate bar was loud in the silence. Then he heard her approaching from behind, the soft pfft, pfft, pfft of her footsteps on the carpet reminding him of a stealthy cat. He smelt the fragrance of her perfume dance around his nostrils, the sweet peas and lilacs with an understory of honeysuckle—or was it jasmine?
‘Is that one of your designs?’ She was standing so close behind him every hair on the back of his neck lifted. Tensed. Tickled. Tightened.
‘Yeah.’
She leaned over his shoulder, some of her hair brushing his face, and he had to call on every bit of self-control he possessed not to touch her. Her breath smelt of chocolate and temptation. In the soft light her skin had a luminous glow, the creamy perfection of her skin making him ache to run his finger down the slope of her cheek. He let out the breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding and clicked the computer mouse. ‘Here. I’ll give you a virtual tour.’ He showed her the presentation he’d been working on for a client, trying to ignore the closeness of her body.
‘Wow...’ She smiled and glanced at him, her head still bent close to his. ‘It’s amazing.’
Max couldn’t tear his eyes away from the curve of her mouth. Its plump ripeness, the top lip just as full as the lower one and the neat definition of the philtrum ridge below her nose. He met her gaze and something in the atmosphere changed. The silence so intense he was sure he could hear his blood pounding. He could certainly feel it—it was swelling his groin to a painful tightness. He put his hand down on hers where it was resting on the desk, holding it beneath the gentle but firm pressure of his. He felt her flinch as if his touch electrified her and her eyes widened into shimmering pools of cornflower blue.
The tip of her tongue swept over her lips, her breath coming out in a jagged stream. ‘Max...’ Her voice was whisper soft, tentative and uncertain.
He lifted her hand from the desk and toyed with her fingers, watching every micro-expression on her face. Her skin was velvet soft and he was getting off thinking about her hands stroking his body. Stroking him. Was she thinking about it? About the heat they generated? About the lust that swirled and simmered and sizzled between them? She kept glancing at his mouth, her throat rising and falling over a series of delicate swallows. Her breathing was uneven. He was still seated and she was standing, but because of the height ratio, he was just about at eye level with her breasts.
But the less he thought about her breasts the better.
Max released her hand and rose from the desk chair in an abrupt movement. ‘Go back to bed, Sabrina.’ He knew he sounded as stern as a schoolmaster but he had to get the damn genie back in the lamp. The genie of lust. The wicked genie that had been torturing him since he’d foolishly kissed Sabrina three weeks ago.
‘I was sound asleep in bed before you started tapping away at your computer.’ Sabrina’s tone was tinged with resentment.
Max let out a long slow breath. ‘I don’t want to argue with you. Now go to—’
‘Why don’t you want to argue with me?’ Her eyes flashed blue sparks. ‘Because you might be tempted to kiss me again?’
He kept his expression under lockdown. ‘We’re not doing this, Sabrina.’
‘Not doing what?’ Her mouth was curved in a mocking manner. ‘You were going to kiss me again, weren’t you? Go on. Admit it.’
Max gave his own version of a smile and shook his head as if he was dealing with a misguided child. ‘No. I was not going to kiss you.’
She straightened her shoulders and folded her arms. ‘Liar.’
Max held her gaze, his body throbbing with need. No one could get him as worked up as her. No one. Their verbal banter was a type of foreplay. When had it started to become like that? For years, their arguments had just been arguments—the clash of two strong-willed personalities. But over the last few months something had changed. Was that why he’d gone to the dinner party of a mutual friend because he’d known she’d be there? Was that why he’d offered to drive her home because her car was being serviced? There had been other people at the dinner who could have taken her but, no, he’d insisted.
He couldn’t even recall what they’d been arguing about on the way home or who had started it. But he remembered all too well how it had ended and he had to do everything in his power to make sure it never happened again. ‘Why would I kiss you again? You don’t want another dose of stubble rash, do you?’
Her combative expression floundered for a moment and her teeth snagged her lower lip. ‘Okay...so I might have been lying about that...’
Max kept his gaze trained on hers. ‘You’re not asking me to kiss you, are you?’
The sparkling light of defiance was back in her eyes. ‘Of course not.’ She gave a spluttering laugh as if the idea was ludicrous. ‘I would rather kiss a cane toad.’
‘Good.’ He slammed his lips shut on the word. ‘Better keep it that way.’
CHAPTER THREE (#u1823e158-4542-51c7-88a0-f5d8c40d2ebd)
SABRINA STALKED BACK to her bed, climbed in and pulled the covers up to her chin. Of course she’d wanted Max to kiss her. And she was positive he’d wanted to kiss her too. It secretly thrilled her that he found her so attractive. Why wouldn’t it thrill her? She had all the usual female needs and she hadn’t made love with a man since she was eighteen.
Not that what had happened back then could be called, by any stretch of the imagination, making love. It had been selfish one-sided sex. She had been little more than a vessel for her boyfriend to use to satisfy his base needs. She’d naively thought their relationship had been more than that. Much more. She had thought herself in love. She hadn’t wanted her first time to be with someone who didn’t care about her. She had been so sure Brad loved her. He’d even told her he loved her. But as soon as the deed was done he was gone. He’d dumped her and called her horrible names to his friends that still made her cringe and curl up in shame.
Sabrina heard Max preparing for bed. He went into the bathroom and brushed his teeth, coming out a few minutes later dressed in one of the hotel bathrobes. Was he naked under that robe? Her mind raced with images of his tanned and toned flesh, her body tingling at the thought of lying pinned beneath him in the throes of sizzling hot sex.
She couldn’t imagine Max ever leaving a lover unsatisfied. He only had to look at her and she was halfway to an orgasm. It was embarrassing how much she wanted him. It was like lust had hijacked her body, turning her into a wanton woman who could think of nothing but earthly pleasures. Even now her body felt restless, every nerve taut with the need for touch. His touch. Was it possible to hate someone and want them at the same time? Or was there something wrong with her? Why was she so fiercely attracted to someone she could barely conduct a civil conversation with without it turning into a blistering argument?
But why did they always argue?
And why did she find it so...so stimulating?
It was a little lowering to realise how much she enjoyed their verbal spats. She looked forward to them. She got secretly excited when she knew he was going to be at a function she would be attending, even though she pretended otherwise to her family. No wonder she found joint family functions deadly boring if he didn’t show up. Did she have some sort of disorder? Did she crave negative interaction with him because it was the only way she could get him to notice her?
Sabrina closed her eyes when Max walked past her bed, every pore of her body aware of him. She heard the sheets being pulled back and the sound of him slipping between them. She heard the click of the bedside lamp being switched off and then he let out a sigh that sounded bone-weary.
‘I hope you don’t snore.’ The comment was out before she could stop herself.
He gave a sound that might have been a muttered curse but she couldn’t quite tell. ‘No one’s complained so far.’
A silence ticked, ticked, ticked like an invisible clock.
‘I probably should warn you I’ve been known to sleepwalk,’ Sabrina said.
‘I knew that. Your mother told me.’
She turned over so she was facing his bed. There was enough soft light coming in through the gap in the curtains for her to see him. He was lying on his back with his eyes closed, the sheets pulled to the level of his waist, the gloriously naked musculature of his chest making her mouth water. He looked like a sexy advertisement for luxury bed linen. His tanned skin a stark contrast to the white sheets. ‘When did she tell you?’
‘Years ago.’
Sabrina propped herself up on one elbow. ‘How many years ago?’
He turned his head in her direction and opened one eye. ‘I don’t remember. What does it matter?’
She plucked at the sheet covering her breasts. What else had her mother told him about her? ‘I don’t like the thought of her discussing my private details with you.’
He closed his eye and turned his head back to lie flat on the pillow. ‘Bit late for that, sweetheart.’ His tone was so dry it could have soaked up an oil spill. ‘Your parents have been citing your considerable assets to me ever since you hit puberty.’
Sabrina could feel her cheeks heating. She knew exactly how pushy her parents had been. But so too had his parents. Both families had engineered situations where she and Max would be forced together, especially since his fiancée Lydia had broken up with him just before their wedding six years ago. She even wondered if the family pressure had actually scared poor Lydia off. What woman wanted to marry a man whose parents staunchly believed she wasn’t the right one for him? His parents had hardly been subtle about their hopes. It had been mildly embarrassing at first, but over the years it had become annoying. So annoying that Sabrina had stubbornly refused to acknowledge any of Max’s good qualities.
And he had many now that she thought about it. He was steady in a crisis. He thought before he spoke. He was hard working and responsible and organised. He was a supremely talented architect and had won numerous awards for his designs. But she had never heard him boast about his achievements. She had only heard about them via his parents.
Sabrina lay back down with a sigh. ‘Yeah, well, hate to tell you but your parents have been doing the same about you.’ She kicked out the rumples in her bed linen with her feet and added, ‘Anyone would think you were a saint.’
‘I’m hardly that.’
There was another silence.
‘Thanks for letting me share your room,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t offered. I heard from other people at the cocktail party that just about everywhere else is full.’
‘It’s fine. Glad to help.’
She propped herself back on her elbow to look at him. ‘Max?’
He made a sound that sounded like a God, give me strength groan. ‘Mmm?’
‘Why did you and Lydia break up?’ Sabrina wasn’t sure why she’d asked the question other than she had always wondered what had caused his fiancée to cancel their wedding at short notice. She’d heard the gossip over the children issue but she wanted to hear the truth from him.
The movement of his body against the bed linen sounded angry. And the air seemed to tighten in the room as if the walls and ceiling and the furniture had collectively taken a breath.
‘Go to sleep, Sabrina.’ His tone had an intractable don’t push it edge.
Sabrina wanted to push it. She wanted to push him into revealing more about himself. There was so much she didn’t know about him. There were things he never spoke about—like the death of his baby brother. But then neither did his parents speak about Daniel. The tragic loss of an infant was always devastating and even though Max had been only seven years old at the time, he too would have felt the loss, especially with his parents so distraught with grief. Sometimes she saw glimpses of his parents’ grief even now. A certain look would be exchanged between Gillian and Bryce Firbank and their gazes would shadow as if they were remembering their baby boy. ‘Someone told me it was because she wanted kids and you didn’t. Is that true?’
He didn’t answer for such a long moment she thought he must have fallen asleep. But then she heard the sound of the sheets rustling and his voice broke through the silence. ‘That and other reasons.’
‘Such as?’
He released a frustrated-sounding sigh. ‘She fell in love with someone else.’
‘Did you love her?’
‘I was going to marry her, wasn’t I?’ His tone had an edge of impatience that made her wonder if he had been truly in love with his ex-fiancée. He had never seemed to her to be the falling-in-love type. He was too self-contained. Too private with his emotions. Sabrina remembered meeting Lydia a couple of times and feeling a little surprised she and Max were a couple about to be married. The chemistry between them had been on the mild instead of the wild side.
‘Lydia’s divorced now, isn’t she?’ Sabrina continued after a long moment. ‘I wonder if she ever thinks she made the wrong decision.’
He didn’t answer but she could tell from his breathing he wasn’t asleep.
