AllFreeNovel
Share Us
So maybe it was time to remind him.
As Valentina disappeared back into the house, Lily put down her cup.
‘Just a point of information. I know you’re not a details kind of guy, but if this is going to work, then you need to understand that there have to be some ground rules for our “arrangement”. My rules.’
‘You have rules for this?’ That mouth of his curved into something that wasn’t quite a smile, something that banged through her like falling scaffolding. ‘And there was me thinking I was your first.’
Her temper flared.
‘You think this is a joke? You’ve put me in an impossible position. That’s why I’ve agreed to do this, Trip, and I will make the best of it. But the best version of this for me will be to spend as little time as possible with you.’
He studied her for a moment. ‘You are aware that we’re going to be married?’
There was that same slight curve pulling at his mouth as if her words didn’t matter to him. But as he stretched out his legs there were different truths layered beneath his casual manner. She could see them in the slight narrowing of his eyes and the sudden elevation of tension in that mouth-watering body of his.
‘I understand that we will have to spend time together in public, and when that happens, I will behave the way that couples do in a real relationship. You know, the kind where one party hasn’t been coerced into the relationship by the other.’
He eyed her across the table. ‘But our way is so much more stimulating, don’t you think?’
She ignored him. ‘I will make conversation and smile but, just so we’re clear, that doesn’t mean that I want to.’ And she wasn’t going to let him forget it. ‘I don’t want anything from you, except my freedom. Unfortunately, you’ve made me a co-conspirator to your lies, but that doesn’t mean I have to lie when we’re alone. So I won’t be making small talk with you when we’re on our own. It’s bad enough that I’m going to have to play-act in public. I won’t do it in private.’
Private. The word jangled inside her head, made her think of low lighting and locked doors, and her stomach cartwheeled, nipples tightening as every single cell in her body quivered into a state of such heightened awareness that just meeting his gaze made her feel dizzy.
‘Nor are there going to be any “benefits” between us,’ she said stiffly, trying to sound like the opposite of the woman who had melted against him less than forty-eight hours ago.
‘Benefits?’
The skin on her face felt suddenly too tight. ‘You know, intimacies,’ she said quickly, ignoring the pulse of heat that beat up over her throat and face as her brain unhelpfully suggested the range of acts that word might include.
Steadying her breathing, she pushed back her seat. ‘And now that we both know where we stand, I’m going to—’
‘What about kissing?’ He frowned. ‘What’s the rule about that?’
‘What?’ Lily tensed all the way through.
‘Kissing?’ he repeated, his eyes finding hers. ‘Does that count as intimate?’
‘Of course it does,’ she said quickly.
‘Then I’m confused,’ he said, mildly enough but there was a gleam in those blue eyes of his that she felt everywhere. ‘Because the other day when we kissed at your apartment, we were one hundred per cent on our own.’
That shimmering thread between them pulled taut as she realised too late that she had stepped into a trap of her own making. There was no answer to that. Or none that she was willing to share with Trip, here in the beautiful Italian sunshine.
At the time she had been lost in the moment and the press of his mouth on hers and the scent of his skin.
It was only afterwards that she had attempted to rationalise her behaviour as something that had needed to be done. So not rational, but understandable. Because she had hated how it had ended before, with her telling him that she didn’t care what he did or where he went. Or even if he came back.
Kissing had felt right, and the rightness of it and the fierceness of it had taken her breath away, and all of it, all her anger and hostility, had melted away and there had just been heat and need and truth.
Only now there was nothing but lies.
‘There will be no kissing at all,’ she hissed, getting to her feet. ‘If we have to look like a couple, we can hold hands.’
‘And why would we have to do that?’ His gaze was so blue, so deep, she felt as though she were drowning. ‘Just for information purposes, of course,’ he called after her as she stalked back into the house.
She stayed upstairs until lunchtime. When Valentina knocked on the door to tell her the meal was ready she was tempted to pretend she had another migraine, but she couldn’t do that every single time Trip annoyed her. Clutching a novel in front of her like a shield, she followed the housekeeper downstairs.
Lunch was light but just as delicious as breakfast. As one of the maids arrived to clear the table, she was fully intending to retreat to her room to read. Trip had other ideas.
