Beneath the Veil of Paradise

He laughed, loving it. Loving that she didn’t play games, not even innocent ones. ‘OK. Fine. By more private, I meant a room in the resort. Chaperoned by wait staff and totally safe. If you’re feeling, you know, threatened.’

‘I have not felt threatened by you for an instant,’ Millie replied, and Chase leaned forward.

‘Are you sure about that?’ he asked softly, knowing he was pressing her in ways she didn’t want to be pressed. He’d seen that shadow of vulnerability in her eyes, felt the sudden, chilly withdrawal as her armour went up. He knew the tactics because he’d used them himself.

It’s not good news, Chase. I’m sorry.

Hell, yeah, he’d used them.

She stared at him for a moment, held his gaze long enough so he could see the warm brown of her eyes. Yes, warm. Like dark honey or rum, and the only warm thing about her. So far.

‘Threatened is the wrong word,’ she finally said, and from the starkness of her tone he knew she was speaking in total truth. ‘You do make me uncomfortable, though.’

‘Do I?’

She gave him a thin-lipped smile. ‘I don’t think anyone likes being told that it’s obvious she eats a bowl of cereal by the sink for dinner.’

Ouch. Put like that, he realised it was insulting. ‘I wouldn’t say obvious.’ Although he sort of would.

‘Only because you’re so perceptive, I suppose?’ she shot back, and he grinned.

‘So shall we go somewhere more private so you can continue to be uncomfortable?’

‘What an appealing proposition.’

‘It appeals to me,’ he said truthfully, and she gave a little shake of her head.

‘Honestly? What do you see in me?’ She sounded curious, but also that thing he dreaded: vulnerable. She really didn’t know the answer, and hell if he did either.

‘What do you see in me?’ he asked back.

She chewed her lip, her eyes shadowing once more. ‘You made me laugh for the first time in—a long time.’

He had the strange feeling she’d been about to give him a specific number. Since when? ‘That’s a lot of pressure.’

Her eyes widened, flaring with warmth again. ‘Why?’

‘Because of course now I have to make you laugh again.’

And for a second he thought he might get a laugh right then and there, and something rose in his chest, an airy bubble of hope and happiness that made absolutely no sense. Still he felt it, rising him high and dizzily higher even though he didn’t move. He grinned. Again, simply because he couldn’t help it.

She shook her head. ‘I’m not that easy.’

‘This conversation just took a very interesting turn.’

‘I meant laughing,’ she protested, and then she did laugh, one ridiculously un-ladylike hiccup of joy that had her clapping her hand over her mouth.

‘There it is,’ Chase said softly. He felt a deep and strangely primal satisfaction, the kind he usually only felt when he’d nailed an architectural design. He’d made her laugh. Twice.

She stared at him, her hand still clapped over her mouth, her eyes wide, warm and soft—if eyes could even be considered soft. Chase felt a stirring deep inside—low down, yes, he felt that basic attraction, but something else. Something not quite so low down and far more alarming, caused by this hard woman with the soft eyes.

‘You changed the deal,’ she told him, dropping her hand, all businesslike and brisk again. ‘You said dinner here, in the restaurant.’

‘I did not,’ Chase countered swiftly. ‘You just didn’t read the fine print.’

He thought she might laugh again, but she didn’t. He had a feeling she suppressed it, didn’t want to give him the power of making her laugh three times. And it did feel like power, heady and addictive. He wanted more.

‘I don’t remember signing,’ she said. ‘And verbal agreements aren’t legally binding.’

He leaned back in his chair, amazed at how alive he felt. How invigorated. He hadn’t felt this kind of dazzling, creative energy in months. Eight months and six days, to be precise.

‘All right, then,’ he said. ‘You can go.’ He felt his heart thud at the thought that she might actually rise from the table and walk down the beach out of his life. Yet he also knew he had to level the playing field. She needed to be here because she wanted to be here, and she had to admit it. He didn’t know why it was so important; he just felt it—that gut instinct that told him something was going on here that was more than a meal.

She chewed her lip again and he could tell by the little worry marks in its lush fullness—her lips were another soft part of her—that this was a habit. Her lashes swept downwards, hiding her eyes, but he could still read her. Easily.

She wanted to walk, but she also didn’t, and that was aggravating her to no end.

She looked up, eyes clear and wide once more, any emotion safely hidden. ‘Fine. We’ll go somewhere more private.’ And, without waiting for him, she rose from the table.

Chase rose too, anticipation firing through him. He wasn’t even sure what he was looking forward to—just being with her, or something else? She was so not his type, and yet he couldn’t deny that deep jolt of awareness, the flash of lust. And not just a flash, not just lust either. She attracted and intrigued him on too many levels.

Smiling, he rose from the table and led the way out of the beach-side bar and towards the resort.

Millie followed Chase into the resort, the soaring space cool and dim compared to the beach. She felt neither cool nor dim; everything inside her was light and heat. It scared her, feeling this. Wanting him. Because, yes, she knew she wanted him. Not just desire, simple attraction, a biological response or scientific law. Want.

She hadn’t touched a man in two years. Longer, really, because she couldn’t actually remember the last time she and Rob had made love. It had bothered her at first, the not knowing. She’d lain in bed night after endless nights scouring her brain for a fragment of a memory. Something to remind her of how she’d lain sated and happy in her husband’s arms. She hadn’t come up with anything, because it had been too long.

Now it wasn’t the past that was holding her in thrall; it was the present. The future. Just what did she want to happen tonight?

‘This way,’ Chase murmured, and Millie followed him into a lift. The space was big enough, all wood-panelled luxury, but it still felt airless and small. He was still only wearing board shorts. Was he going to spend the whole evening shirtless? Could she stand it?

Millie cleared her throat, the sound seeming as loud as a gunshot, and Chase gave her a lazy sideways smile. He knew what she was thinking. Feeling. Knew, with that awful arrogance, that she was attracted to him even if she didn’t like it. And she didn’t like it, although she couldn’t really say why.

It had been two years. Surely it was time to move on, to accept and heal and go forward?

She shook her head, impatient with herself. Dinner with someone like Chase was not going forward. If anything, it was going backwards, because he was too much like Rob. He was, Millie thought, more like Rob than Rob himself. He was her husband as her husband had always wanted to be: powerful, rich, commanding. He was Rob on steroids.

Exactly what she didn’t want.

‘Slow down there, Millie.’

Her gaze snapped to his, saw the remnant of that lazy smile. ‘What—?’

‘Your mind is going a mile a minute. I can practically see the smoke coming out of your ears.’

She frowned, wanting to deny it. ‘It’s just dinner.’

Chase said nothing, but his smile deepened. Millie felt a weird, shivery sensation straight through her bones that he wasn’t responding because he didn’t agree with her. It wasn’t just dinner. It was something else, something scary.