One Night with Her Ex

SEVEN


Lily didn’t sleep well—largely because she’d spent most of the night tossing and turning while her body hummed with frustration and unsatisfied desire and her mind churned with confusion—and when dawn broke she was still wide awake, the questions that had plagued her all through the night still rattling around her head.

What on earth was Kit playing at? she wondered, staring up at the slowly rotating ceiling fan that hung over her bed and listening to the soft whirr it made.

Last night she could have sworn he’d been as aware of her as she had of him. She’d been convinced that the practically tangible tension and attraction had been mutual. And what with the endearment, the one she hadn’t heard for years, and the touch to her cheek, a gesture so familiar and so missed it made her heart ache just to think about it now, she’d been certain he’d ask to come in for a nightcap, and equally certain that she’d say yes.

But how wrong she’d been. How disappointingly, confusingly wrong.

After the urgency of what had happened in her hall last week and the way he’d crossed half the globe to come and find her—not to mention the interest she’d thought he’d displayed over dinner—the fact that he’d suddenly backed off baffled the hell out of her. She hadn’t been expecting—or wanting—the restraint she’d got, the chaste little kiss, nor the tossing of the ball neatly into her court.

And what was that all about anyway?

What had he meant when he’d said that what happened next was up to her? Why was it up to her? And up to her how?

What was he expecting her to do? Make a move? Jump his bones or something? Well, that was never going to happen without some kind of signal from him, she thought darkly. Not now. No way. She needed to know how he felt about her before she made herself vulnerable like that again. She needed to know that there was more to this than just sex.

And unfortunately she didn’t, because, while last night she’d had all kinds of ideas about how he might feel about her and had been so ready to drag him into her bed, this morning she didn’t have a clue. For all she knew the endearment and the touch had merely slipped out of him from habit and meant nothing.

So where did they go from here? Where did she want them to go? Where did he?

Bending her head from side to side to stretch out the kinks in her neck, Lily frowned. Gosh, why was this so difficult? So complicated?

With a sigh of resignation and despair because she was now more at sea than at any point since he’d reappeared in her life, Lily swung her legs round and got off the bed.

Whatever was going on, she thought, heading into the bathroom and flicking on the shower, she had no doubt she’d soon find out, because given the way Kit had gone about things so far it was surely only a matter of time before he turned up demanding to know what she was going to do with that ball.

* * *

Or perhaps it wasn’t.

Two hours later Lily had had breakfast—by herself—and had hovered by the pool for plenty long enough to be found, but to her agitation and disappointment there was no sign of Kit anywhere.

Where was he? Busy? Avoiding her?

Or had he left?

Maybe he had, thought Lily, lowering the e-reader that she’d been staring unseeingly at for the last ten minutes, and frowning with distaste as the idea shot into her head and took root.

Perhaps she’d been too idealistic in her assumption that they’d cleaned the slate. Perhaps her confession over supper put him off or something. She couldn’t really see why it would, and the ease of their subsequent conversation hadn’t given her that impression, but with hindsight she had rather let it all out without letting him get much of a word in edgeways.

Perhaps their conversation, the understanding they’d reached and the catch-up they’d had was exactly what he’d been after—closure—and now he’d got it he was done.

Maybe he was after nothing more than friendship or something and he was perfectly happy for her to let him know what she thought about that once back in London.

Maybe the kiss he’d dropped on her cheek had been not one of restraint but one of goodbye.

Her heart squeezed and her throat tightened. Then she gave herself a quick shake and pulled herself together because on the other hand it was entirely possible she was being a bit melodramatic about where he could be.

Surely Kit wouldn’t have flown all the way out here just to leave less than twenty-four hours later. Hadn’t he said he was on holiday? And surely he’d want to hang around to hear what decision she’d come to, even though she hadn’t come to one because she still couldn’t figure out what she was supposed to be deciding.

For her own peace of mind, though, and out of respect for the author of the book she was struggling to concentrate on, maybe she’d better go and check if he was still here. Then at least she’d know one way or another and would know how to proceed.

Putting her e-reader down and reaching for her sarong, Lily got to her feet and headed inside.

‘Good morning,’ she said to the receptionist, with a sunny smile that totally belied the weird kind of tension now clutching at her stomach. ‘I was wondering, could you tell me whether Christopher Buchanan has checked out?’

‘Not to my knowledge, madam,’ he replied.

‘Oh, thank God for that,’ she said, clapping her hand to her chest and letting out a rush of breath as the tension dissipated and she filled with an overwhelming sense of relief. More overwhelming than the situation warranted, probably, but who cared?

‘Would you like to know where he is?’

‘I would.’ Very much. Because if he wasn’t coming in search of her, she’d go in search of him.

‘I believe he went to the spa.’

‘Thank you.’

Phew, she thought, leaving the main building and walking along the track towards the thatched structure that contained the spa. Kit hadn’t gone. He was just having some time out. Relaxing. Doing what millions of people all over the world did on holiday.

Although choosing to do it in a spa did seem kind of incongruous. She’d always thought of him as a man of action and purpose, constantly on the move and unstoppable in his drive for more. He’d never been one for navel-gazing and just sitting around doing nothing, but maybe he’d changed in that respect too. It had been five years after all, and no one—not even Kit—could keep up the kind of level of both mental and physical activity she associated with him for ever.


And even though the idea of him lounging in a steam room or having a massage or something was difficult to reconcile with the Kit she’d once known, she found it surprisingly easy to visualise.

In her mind’s eye she could see him sitting on one of the wooden ledges, leaning back against the wall while the steam swirled around him. She could see droplets of water forming on his chest, trickling down over the smattering of hair that covered his skin there, tracing the ripples of his abs and then meandering south before melting into the top of the towel wrapped round his waist.

She could see him closing his eyes and dropping his head back, and her mouth actually began to water as she imagined leaning over and pressing her lips to the skin of his shoulder to catch a droplet and then make the journey it would have made with her tongue.

Right the way down...

At the image of what she might do then, a bolt of heat shot through her, nearly wiping out her knees, and she had to grip the door to the spa for support.

Good Lord.

Feeling faintly dizzy, Lily gave herself a quick shake to dispel the image, determinedly ignored the heat and cleared her throat. She hadn’t fantasised like that in years and had no business doing so now. She wasn’t seeking Kit out to drool all over him or to melt into a puddle of lust at his feet; she was going after him to see if she couldn’t find out a bit more about what he thought was going on here.

* * *

Five minutes later she’d found him. Not in the steam room, thank goodness, but in the Jacuzzi. Which actually wasn’t all that much better. Because he was naked.

Well, perhaps not entirely naked, she had to concede once her stupefied brain had started working again and the common-sense robbing flush of heat had subsided. Seeing as how the spa was a public space presumably he had swimming shorts on. Not that she had any intention of investigating that too closely.

Which was just as well as her eyes seemed to have fixed on his chest and rather worryingly weren’t going anywhere, south or otherwise. The way he was sitting, with his arms outstretched and resting on the edge of the pool while water bubbled and popped all round him, displayed it in all its glory, and she couldn’t tear her eyes away.

It was a good chest, she thought dazedly, every nerve ending she had tingling with awareness. Better now, if that was possible, than when she’d first become acquainted with it. His shoulders were broader, his muscles looked harder, more defined, and his skin was a fraction darker.

Her head filled with the memory of how he’d felt moving against her, on top of her, inside her and her fingers itched with the need to reach out and touch him and find out if he still felt the same, still responded to her in the same way...

It was only when one of her feet actually inched forwards that she jerked back to her senses.

Honestly, what was going on? This was ridiculous. It was Kit. Her ex-husband. She knew every inch of his body, from the thick dark hair on his head to his toes and everything in between, so why was she lusting over him as if she’d never seen a body like it?

Ignoring the knowledge that it was the bits in between that were causing her such a problem right now, Lily pulled her shoulders back and dragged her eyes up. To find him watching her with an annoyingly knowing little smile playing at his lips, the likes of which made her all the more determined to stay cool and in control.

‘Hi there,’ she said brightly. Overly brightly possibly.

‘Good morning.’

‘Did you sleep well?’ she asked, and immediately wished she hadn’t because all it did was conjure up the memory of her and Kit falling asleep in each other’s arms, hot, satiated and limp with exhaustion.

And then another, of her waking up alone and sad and aware that while physically he was just across the hall in the spare room emotionally they were a million miles apart.

‘Like a log,’ he said with an easy smile that suggested he wasn’t nearly as similarly burdened. ‘You?’

‘Beautifully,’ she lied, ruthlessly dismissing the memories and trying to concentrate. ‘I didn’t see you at breakfast.’

‘I had it in my room.’

‘Oh.’

‘I had some work to catch up on.’

‘Right.’

Then her train of thought faded because, gosh, it was hard work keeping her eyes on his and not letting them drift down as they kept trying to do. And verging on impossible to hold back the urge to whip off her sarong and leap into the Jacuzzi with him and make herself stay where she was.

This was absolutely awful, she thought a little desperately. She’d always been drawn to his body, had always known that the magnetism that existed between them was hard to ignore, but what was going on here was another thing entirely. This was an attraction that she could almost taste. It was intoxicating. Addling. Becoming frighteningly irresistible.

‘Did you want something, Lily?’

Him. She wanted him. With a need that was almost blinding. And one that she had to resist until she knew how he felt and what he wanted. For her sanity, her self-respect and her sense of self-preservation. But, goodness, it was going to be hard.

‘Lily?’

She blinked and came to. ‘What? Oh. Yes.’ Although right now she couldn’t really remember what it was she wanted. Something to do with finding out what was going on in his head, perhaps.

Well, that was clearly out of the question when her own head was such a mess. She could barely think straight. And if she did embark on the kind of conversation she’d been vaguely contemplating she had the horrible feeling that if he admitted they were done, she might well be reduced to begging, which didn’t appeal in the slightest.

She needed time to get used to the situation as well as the scorching attraction she felt for him before attempting a deep and meaningful conversation about what he wanted from her. She needed to see how the land lay a little longer and give him a chance to play his hand first.

So maybe now wasn’t the time to go in guns blazing.

‘I was thinking,’ said Lily, feeling a fraction calmer now she’d come to some kind of a decision about how to handle him and the situation, ‘when you’re done here, what are your plans for the rest of the day?’

‘I don’t have any.’

She blinked, faintly taken aback because this was the second time that Kit had surprised her recently. He didn’t have plans? That was unusual. It seemed to her that recently he had plans for everything. ‘None at all?’

‘None at all. Why do you ask?’

‘Oh, well, I was thinking of going fishing.’ Huh? Was she? That was news to her. Given she’d never done it before she didn’t even know if she liked fishing.

‘That’s nice.’

‘And I was wondering if you’d like to join me.’

He shot her a friendly, casual smile that for some reason made her want to slap him. ‘Why not?’

* * *

Fishing went swimmingly. So swimmingly, in fact, that the following day Lily suggested a tour of the island. Which was such a success that the day after that she and Kit went diving.

The experiences were fabulous, exhilarating, fun, the fishing unexpectedly so. The tour of the island had been fascinating, and when they’d gone diving she’d been overwhelmed by the beautiful and exotic marine life she’d never encountered on any of the dives she’d done before.

What was going on between her and Kit, however, was not so fabulous. Or exhilarating. Or fun. Instead it was downright perplexing.

Three days into their holiday, and Lily didn’t know what was going on now any more than she had at the beginning of the week. She and Kit spent all day together, ate every meal together, yet went to bed separately, and, while there had been plenty of laughs and endless conversation, the lie of the land hadn’t become any clearer and, more frustratingly, Kit hadn’t made any kind of a move.

The word she’d use to describe their relationship at the moment, thought Lily, stuffing a towel into her beach bag and scowling, was platonic.

OK, so most of the activities they’d engaged in hadn’t offered the kind of privacy or conditions needed to deal with a potential unstoppable overspill of desire. Such as the day they’d spent fishing and then the tour of the island. On both occasions there’d been other guests and guides around. And when they’d gone diving, yes, there’d been times they’d been alone, but that had generally been underwater, and, while the sight of him in just his swimming shorts had made her stomach flip and her temperature rocket, masks and aqualungs were hardly conducive to either conversation or the intimacy she craved.

But there’d been many an opportunity for non-necessary touching and many a chance of a stolen kiss or two over the last three days. None of which, annoyingly, had been taken up.

They’d never done platonic, and Lily didn’t think they should because not being able to touch a body she’d once had permanent and all-over access to, not having the right to it, was driving her nuts.

And that was why over breakfast this morning she’d suggested hiring a speedboat and taking a picnic to one of the private, deserted coves she’d heard of on the other side of the island. That was why she’d dressed in her most flattering bikini, had carefully blow-dried her hair even though it would undoubtedly tangle the minute they set off and had buffed and moisturised every square inch of skin and redone her nail varnish.


She was looking as good as she could under the circumstances, the setting was guaranteed to be conducive to seduction and the food bound to be sublime, and if all of that didn’t give him the impetus to make a move, she thought, eyeing herself in the mirror and picking up her bag and hat, then nothing would.

* * *

Kit, who was in the resort office and filling in the paperwork relating to the speedboat rental that Lily had suggested earlier, was fast running out of patience. Deciding to wait for her to make up her mind about what she wanted and then let him know was all very well, but at no point had he considered the possibility that she might not. Ever.

But it looked as if that was exactly what was going to happen because he’d been as encouraging as he knew how and yet for three days now she’d shown no interest in him whatsoever. At least none of the sexual kind. And so, while the last few days had been fun and Lily had been great company, he’d slowly been going insane.

He’d seen the look in her eye when she’d happened upon him in the Jacuzzi, and, after thanking the Lord that the lower half of his body was submerged beneath the hot bubbling water and therefore out of sight, had seen it as an encouraging sign.

Fishing, he’d thought, had been an odd choice of activity but he’d been looking forward to it. Looking forward to spending time with her and seeing how she’d handle the attraction that sizzled between them.

But unfortunately she hadn’t followed up on the promising start, and day three into his holiday Kit was beginning to wonder why the hell he’d embarked on a strategy of letting her come to him in the first place. And why he wasn’t simply abandoning it and dragging her into his arms and to hell with it.

But he couldn’t, he reminded himself for what felt like the hundredth time. He had his principles. His strategy was a good one. A necessary one because if they stood any chance of making another go of things it had to be on equal terms. She had to want it as much as he did. Want him as much as he wanted her.

So no way was he going to make the first move. He’d made enough of those already and he was feeling too slavishly in thrall to her as it was. He wasn’t going to do a thing until he found out how she felt about him, so if Lily wanted him she could come and get him. The beach they were heading to was quiet. Deserted. Private. They had good food, good wine and the entire day together. All she had to do was give him a sign.

With the paperwork finished, the key in his hand and his resolve once again firm, Kit strode down the jetty to where the boat and picnic were waiting. Climbing aboard and with the morning sun beating down on him, he started carrying out the necessary checks, channelling every drop of his focus into the task and putting his frustrations with Lily from his mind.

Which worked like a dream until he felt his skin prickling with awareness and his muscles tensing and he realised that she’d arrived.

Forcing himself to relax, he glanced up and flashed her a quick, cool smile as if the sight of her didn’t make his heart lurch and his mind go blank.

But it did because standing there on the jetty she looked absolutely incredible. She was wearing some sort of translucent thing that floated around her body, moulding itself to her with every breath of breeze and hinting at the luscious curves beneath. She looked like something out of an advert. Cool. Gleaming. Gorgeous. And she blew him away.

‘Hi,’ he said, once he’d managed to regain his power of speech and gathered the wits she’d scattered.

‘Hi.’

Realising that he was in danger of gawking and only a stone’s throw from abandoning his very well-thought-out and sensible plan, he moved over the deck to where she was standing and held out his hand.

She took it, and despite his principles, despite his strategy, it was all he could do not to tug her towards him and ‘accidentally’ have to save her as she overbalanced by wrapping her in his arms.

Once she’d boarded he thought about holding on to her a fraction longer than was necessary. Saying something about how beautiful she looked, how sexy he found her. Giving her hand a squeeze and providing her with the opportunity to squeeze back.

But before he could, she tugged her hand free as if he were suddenly burning her or something, tore her gaze from his and then busied herself with stowing her bag beneath the passenger seat, and he mentally cursed both her for her indifference and himself for his moment of weakness.

‘Ready to go?’ he said, feeling his frustration simmer, his patience thin even more and his mood begin to blacken.

Sitting down and sticking her hat on her head, Lily shot him a dazzling smile that reminded him he really had to get a grip of himself if he stood any chance of hanging on to his self-control today and said, ‘I’ve never been readier for anything in my life.’