Hot Summer Flings: A Spanish Awakening / The Italian Next Door... / Interview with the Daredevil. Nicola Marsh

victim of an unwanted pass and he had treated her like some sort of tart.

      ‘Really? That sounds interesting.’

      ‘Well, it wasn’t,’ she said discouragingly. She had no intention of dredging up the humiliating subject for Josh or, for that matter, anyone else.

      She had put it very firmly behind her.

      ‘He is just a friend of Philip’s.’

      ‘For someone who’s not interested you seem awfully concerned about who he’s sleeping with.’ Josh, his blue eyes gleaming, angled a speculative look at her flushed face. ‘Were you two ever …?’

      ‘No, we were not!’

      Chuckling, Josh held up his hands. ‘I just thought maybe he was the man.’

      ‘What man?’

      ‘The one responsible for your nun-like existence.’

      ‘I have a healthy social life—’

      Josh cut across her protest. ‘And zero sex life, and don’t try and deny it, sweetheart, the walls are extremely thin. You could no more have a secret affair than I could.’

      Knowing a defensive comment would prolong the teasing, she had maintained a dignified silence, but it had started her thinking.

      Perhaps she did think a little too much about Emilio Rios?

      He was not even part of her life any longer. He had been a friend of Philip’s, not hers, so there was no reason for him to contact her. They lived in very different worlds.

      Pushing away the memory of that embarrassing conversation, she looked Emilio in the eyes and added, ‘But I’d sooner not read about it while I’m eating my breakfast.’ She pursed her lips primly. Tales of a person’s sexual stamina were not, in her opinion, suitable reading for any time of day.

      Emilio arched a brow as he wedged his broad shoulders up against the glass wall of the elevator as he studied the top of her glossy head.

      The urge to run his fingers across the smooth conker-brown surface and allow the glossy strands to slide through his fingers was almost impossible to resist.

      Megan had renewed her study of the carpeting.

      She mightn’t have strong views on whom he slept with, but he was certainly bothered by whom she spent her nights with, he conceded wryly. If Philip was right about the boyfriend moving out—and Emilio did not think that was an unreasonable conclusion to draw from his comment that Megan was thinking of moving as her present place was too expensive now Josh had moved out—it seemed hopeful that this Josh was no longer one of that number.

      Having managed to remain blasé while convincing him she cared not at all about whom he slept with or where, Megan felt the colour rush to her face the moment their eyes connected.

      ‘Do you live alone?’ You just carry on digging that hole, Megan! And why not jump in for good measure?

      ‘I do. How about you?’ he asked casually.

      ‘Yes, I do.’ Megan cleared her throat and added, ‘I was wondering, is there a problem with the lift?’

      It was actually pretty hard to sound casual when you were trying not to inhale his scent—not scent in a perfume sense. Although soap and shampoo were definitely involved, mingled in there with the more disturbing fragrance was a scent of warm male and Emilio.

      She forced a breath into her oxygen-deprived lungs and shuddered with the effort.

      ‘Are you all right?’

      The mocking light had faded from Emilio’s eyes as, concern etched in the furrows on his broad brow, he took a step towards her. Her skin was as pale as paper, the only trace of colour remaining in her face the rich tawny gold of her wide-spaced eyes.

      Megan shadowed the action, her own hasty step backwards bringing her shoulder blades up against the wall of the elevator.

      Her reaction sent Emilio’s dark brows in the direction of his ebony hairline as he raised both hands to his chest, palm flat out to her. ‘Relax. What on earth did you think I was going to do?’ he asked, his lean face taut with impatience.

      Relax—wasn’t bad advice to take if she didn’t want to give the impression she was a raving lunatic.

      Embarrassed, she peeled herself away from the wall. ‘You startled me,’ she retorted, a defensive note of complaint in her voice.

      ‘Clearly. I have seen rabbits less jumpy than you.’ His eyes narrowed to speculative slits as he slowly scanned her face. ‘Anyone would think you are scared of me.’

      The velvety rasp in his deep voice had a tactile quality like raw silk. She had no control over the shudder that slid the length of her spine like the stroke of a finger. In her mind the phantom finger was long and tanned and— Stop it, Megan!

      Ashamed and exasperated by her escalating physical reaction to every aspect of him, Megan studiously avoided making eye contact as she gritted her teeth.

      ‘Scared?’ She lifted her chin and laughed at the suggestion. ‘I’m sure you make grown men cry, but not me,’ she conceded. ‘But—’ She stopped. He had made her cry, but only the once.

      Refusing to allow her thoughts to slip back to an occasion that rated pretty high in her ‘the worst moment in my life’ league, she sketched a tight smile and added, ‘Not today anyway.’

      And never again. She would never again allow him to make her feel sordid and grubby.

      Emilio looked at her mouth and felt the desire in his veins burn hotter as he thought to himself today would not be soon enough for him.

      He had always prided himself on his ability to keep his libido on a leash. There had only ever been one woman who had breached his defences and she was standing here now, standing here wanting him as much as he did her, so he was damned if he was going to deprive himself of the unspoken invitation that glowed in her incredible golden eyes when she looked at him.

      A nerve clenched in his cheek as his mask of composure threatened to slip. The scorching sexual tension between them was stronger than anything Emilio had ever experienced in his life—she had to be feeling it!

      Or was he projecting his fantasies onto her?

      The question surfaced and was immediately quashed. He exhaled. He knew when a woman wanted him; she was feeling it.

      Megan wanted him.

      The question he ought to be asking, he told himself, was why, given the overwhelming, almost primal attraction between them, was she putting on this ludicrous act?

      Did she think she could pretend that it wasn’t happening and it would go away? Why would she want it to?

      He dug his fingers into his close-cropped hair and tried to think past the sexual frustration pounding in his skull and other parts of his anatomy.

      The Megan he knew had an engaging candour and here she was acting like some shy virgin, which he knew she wasn’t.

      A girl who looked like Megan did not go through college without drawing a lot of male attention. In retrospect he could see that it should not have been a surprise to him when her flat door was opened by a half-naked man with a quiz-show-host smile—he turned out to be a doctor—and eyes that were too close together.

      And yet it had been a surprise. It had been a total bombshell! Emilio had felt as though someone had just gut-punched him, but of course someone hadn’t, the humiliation had been totally self-inflicted.

      A child could have predicted this, but he hadn’t. He had spent a year anticipating this moment, covering, or so he’d thought, every angle, but not once during that time had he thought she would be with someone else.

      The guy, clearly very much at home, had invited him in, explaining Megan was in the shower.

      Emilio