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‘What do you mean? I’m fabulous at my job.’
‘I have no doubt. But you won’t be working in the fight game, Clementine. Not while you’re with me.’
She looked at him sadly. Why did he have to bring that up? The sense there was a time limit on everything? She wanted to forget that, to be in the moment with him if the moment was all he could give her.
‘Listen.’ He took her chin between his thumb and index finger. ‘I can send you in the direction of any number of high-profile fashion firms in this city. Getting you a job, beautiful girl, is not a problem.’
She hadn’t thought of that. His contacts. The water foamed around their feet. ‘I’d prefer to get my own job, Serge.’
‘Does that mean you’ll stay, kisa?’ He slid his hands behind her shoulders.
She tossed her ponytail. ‘I could be persuaded.’
He had her. Serge tried to ignore the rush of hot excitement that thought brought with it. Any other woman arranging her life to suit his would have rung serious warning bells, but he wanted this. He didn’t want Clementine going back to London. He needed her a little longer—just until this craving for her was worked out of his system in increasingly inventive sex.
Except it hadn’t been particularly inventive. His imagination came up with the scenarios, but the reality was that when she was in his arms he found it became much more about losing themselves in one another, in the kissing, the touching, but especially her soft touch. She didn’t display any skills, or even really initiate anything between them. Not that he gave her much time to. He couldn’t get enough of her, and the only thing that slowed him down was the impression Clementine was still adapting to him and the realities of their sexual relationship. Sometimes she would have a vulnerable look on her face, and instead of stripping her naked he would just cuddle with her—which, he told himself, proved nothing except that he was sensitive to her needs, and that made her more susceptible to future approaches.
That night the sex was fast and furious and then finished. Clementine fell into a deep sleep almost immediately it was over.
He’d worn her out. The thought stroked a male ego he hadn’t known needed stroking. Yet he lay awake long afterwards, with the moonlight spilling over the bed and Clementine’s face illuminated in the pale light on the pillow beside him. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. But her features were slightly irregular, there were freckles all over her body, and she had the most endearing snore. Why all of this should enhance her beauty he didn’t know. Only it did.
He must have dozed, because he awoke to hear her voice soft in his ear. She was telling him things, and at first all he did was listen. How overwhelming it had been for her, arriving in London three years ago, not knowing anyone, all the trouble she’d got into, the jobs she’d endured. But always she’d kept thinking: I can’t go back. I can’t put my tail between my legs and go home. There’s a bigger life out in the world for me.
He figured he was only hearing all of this because his eyes were closed. His mysterious little Clem was opening up, and he wasn’t about to let the cat out of the bag by shifting an inch. He could feel her hair sliding over his arm and chest, the warm press of her breast and belly and leg. He was thinking how sweet she was, confiding in him like this.
She had run into her old schoolmate and neighbour Luke in a pub—’You remember Luke? He was going to punch you on the nose.’ And suddenly her life had started to open up. On Luke’s advice she’d switched to her first good job with the Ward Agency, spruiking for up-and-coming fashion designers. Her name had got passed on until she’d landed the job with Verado.
She told him how Luke had always told her it was who you knew before it was what was you did, and how she tried to make every contact count. She had learned to work a room, learned to make the most of what she had and flirt up a storm, and as a result she’d got jobs.
Da, he got that. He’d worked out for himself the sexy-girl persona was just that—something designed to get attention. He just hadn’t connected that to her working life. But it made complete sense. It was why he never got that sexy girl in his bed. He got someone better, a lot less knowing, a lot more real, sensual, genuine.
As he lay there, debating whether to roll over and get up, pull the cord on this little confessional skydive, she nuzzled his neck and he opened his eyes to look down at her.
‘When I first left the army I floundered around trying out a mess of jobs.’
She gave a little gasp. ‘You’re awake?’ She sounded dismayed.
