CHAPTER FOUR
THE SURPRISE WAS MUTUAL.
Any idea that Ivy might have known who he was and why he’d been flying back and forth to London for the past six months flew from his mind when all the colour drained from her face.
She hadn’t expected to see him again.
No, she hadn’t wanted to see him again.
It was as abundantly clear as it had been the morning she’d crept out of his apartment, without leaving a card or number.
“Ivy’s just been promoted to director of online content. She’s really got her finger on the pulse of all that stuff.”
Something in the way Margerite said it brought Ivy back to earth. She did have her finger on the pulse of online content. She was great at what she did; and what she did was one of the most important aspects of modern-day media. Digital was a department that was growing exponentially.
“Great to have you,” he drawled, and Ivy’s pulse fired at the intentional double entendre.
“Sit down, Ivy,” Margerite commanded and Ivy took the only empty seat in the room -opposite Rafe. She tried not to think about the fact that the table top was glass. That her lower half was clearly visible beneath its translucent top. About the fact he’d be able to see the slight wobble in her knees if he cared to look. She made an effort to relax her body, to look focussed, but the meeting was a whirlwind of missed comprehension.
So Rafe was the new owner of GBRTV?
She hadn’t even known it was being sold, but then, that was how these things often happened, wasn’t it, to appease shareholders and avoid panic?
At least now she knew what he did. He bought things. Expensive things.
Like television and radio networks that must have cost billions of pounds. Had he known who she was? Where she worked?
She quickly discounted the idea. Their meeting had been pure chance. This was one of life’s coincidences. Her eyes flicked upwards. He was watching her.
The smile, always so quick to flick across her face, was quivering somewhere in her gut. He didn’t smile either. His expression was a thundercloud. As the meeting dragged onwards, and Margerite talked herself to a point of hoarseness, Ivy became aware of two things.
He was looking almost exclusively at her.
And Margerite was interpreting his expression as one of abject disapproval. Nervousness was making her verbose and Rafe was barely listening.
“In any event, it will be business as usual. For most of you, the fact there’s a new corporate owner shouldn’t have much impact on day to day running.”
The corner of his lip twisted in an acknowledgement of the remark that carried with it a silent refutation.
The coffee had soaked through her dress and her bra and the arctic air-conditioning of the meeting rooms was making her shiver.
“I’d like to know more about your online content,” she heard him murmur and her eyes slid to his with almost a look of panicked apology in them.
“Absolutely,” Margerite was swift in response. “Ivy can answer your questions. Ivy?”
His stare was the same, but different. Eyes that had been filled with heated need were now impossible to read. He wasn’t the only one looking at her. The whole room seemed to be collectively homed in on Ivy, waiting for her to drop some pearl of wisdom about online content and digital reporting.
“What would you like to know?”
“More than we can discuss now,” he said simply. “And I see no point in monopolising the entire management team while I get to grips with the operation.”
“No, of course not, there’s too much work to do as it is.” Margerite in this guise, eager to please and quick to agree, was reminiscent of a grovelling stick insect, all obsequious nodding. “Ivy can make herself available to you privately.”
The words were so perfectly, exactly what Ivy might have liked that she felt a hint colour spread through her cheeks. “Yeah, of course,” she mumbled. “I can meet you afterwards.”
“Once you’ve changed?” He prompted, his eyes dropping to the mark on the front of her dress.
Pink cheeks became red, but his lips were smiling and his eyes were teasing. He wasn’t trying to embarrass her so much as share a joke. Danger, danger, danger, a little internal red flight flashed. Flirting with him was a very bad idea.
“Great,” she scraped her chair back. “Would you excuse me now?”
Ivy practically ran to her office and slammed the door shut with more force than she’d intended. She rifled through her drawer, pulling out a black pencil skirt and a silk blouse. Her office wall was made of frosted glass. Only about head-height and upwards was transparent. Still, she locked the door and turned her back to it, changing as though wild-horses were upon her.
She discarded the beautiful white dress in a Tesco bag then quickly fastened the buttons of her shirt, trying not to think of undoing Rafe’s. Button by button, like some kind of sensual breadcrumb she had followed down his chest until she’d seen all of his glorious torso.
The knock on the door didn’t surprise her, but it set her pulse hammering and when she pulled it inwards, she held her breath.
He was so beautiful.
She could only stare at him, at first, letting her eyes linger on his face for several seconds before shaking her head to clear the confusion.
“Ivy.” Her name on his lips was sublime. It conjured every memory of how it had sounded when he’d whispered it into her ears, warm and spiced, filled with sunshine. But there was a different kind of passion stirring his features now. An anger she didn’t understand. “May I?” He asked tersely, nodding towards her office.
“Oh!” As if belatedly realising she was standing in the middle of the door frame, she moved backwards, waving a hand vaguely towards her desk. “Please. Have a seat.”
His eyes were mocking as they slid past her, taking in the details of her office. The fiddle-leaf fig she had in one corner, the mess of papers that ran across most surfaces, and the photograph of Steve and her that she still had propped beside her computer.
She swallowed, a guilty flush crossing her cheeks at the moment of recognition.
“So,” he turned around, his hands on his hips, drawing her attention to his neatly muscled waist, to the strength of his physique. As if she needed any further reminders.
“So,” she repeated, a frown pulling at her lips.
“What happened?”
Her frown deepened. “When?”
“You were gone when I woke up. Why?”
“Oh.” She pushed her door shut, leaning against it for a moment, hoping to receive some strength from its solid structure. “I left.”
If possible, the glint of mockery in his face grew. “Yes. I just said that. Why?”
She shook her head, and stood up, taking a step into her office. “Isn’t that how those things work?”
“What things?”
She blushed. “One-night stands.” Her eyes dropped to the floor, unable to hold his gaze.
“I don’t generally have one-night stands, Ivy. I wouldn’t know.”
“You don’t?” An absurd burst of hope shot through her, like fireworks and magic.
“No.” He drawled the word slowly. Electricity seemed to arc between them. “I have lovers. And they do not sneak out on me in the middle of the night.”
Her stomach churned. “I didn’t sneak out,” she demurred. “I left. And it was early in the morning.”
“You wish to discuss semantics?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Because it doesn’t matter. It was just one night. I never thought I’d see you again.”
“And that’s what you wanted,” he prompted darkly, propping his hip on the edge of her desk and crossing his arms over his chest. A chest that was broad and strong, that was warm and roughened by a line of dark hair that spiked all the way down to his pants. Oh, she couldn’t see that now, but in her mind’s eye, it was all too easy to picture him as he’d been that night. Crap.
She swallowed; it did nothing to dislodge the visual.
“Ivy?” She jerked her head up, meeting his eyes. The way he’d said her name had been tortured. Frustrated. Annoyed.
“I don’t know what to say,” she said truthfully. “I didn’t lie to you, Rafe. About what I wanted or what that night was. And you didn’t lie to me either. You told me you live in Spain. That you don’t like London. We both knew what we were doing – it was just one night.”
His scowl was like a thundercloud above them. “I don’t recall us delineating that boundary.”
Ivy’s breath was locked inside of her. She was finding it hard to concentrate. “I don’t understand.”
“Apparently not.” He straightened, and she waited, her lungs burning with the deprivation of air. Her body prepared for him, knowing he was going to reach for her, to touch her. But he didn’t. He spun around and lifted the picture frame from her desk, studying it as though he had every right. “This is him?”
She nodded, but he wasn’t looking at her, so she said, thickly, “Yes. Steve.”
“The man who left you?”
“Yes.” She swept her eyes shut, the pain still a pointy, sharp blade inside of her.
“You’re still in love with him.”
It wasn’t a question, and yet Ivy asked it of herself anyway. Was she?
“I…” she shook her head, and her gaze was unknowingly bleak. “It’s complicated.”
Something seemed to glow from within the embers of his eyes. Challenge? Determination? “How is it complicated?”
Ivy shrugged her slender shoulders. “We only just broke up…”
“Six months ago,” Rafe interrupted, showing that he had an excellent recollection of their night together.
“Right. Nearly seven.” She winced at the way that sounded, as though she was counting off every day on a sad little calendar somewhere.
“And you were together how long?”
Ivy was deflated. “Does it matter?”
“Answer me.”
Her gaze flew to his face, surprised by the command in his tone. But this wasn’t Rafe Santoro as he’d been in that exclusive casino, nor the Rafe Santoro who’d made love to her and told her he loved the way she looked when she was falling apart in his arms. This was Rafe Santoro, billionaire tycoon, used to commanding a room of far more intimidating people than her.
“I don’t think it’s any of your business,” she said quietly, moving towards her desk and taking the seat. On the one hand, she knew she should stay standing, to maintain some semblance of strength and power. But her legs were weak and she was tired.
“If you think that, then you are stupid.”
She drew in a pained breath. “How dare you?”
He leaned forward, so his face was only an inch from hers. “I dare, Ivy Hennessey, because you have taken over my mind. Because I have not been able to think of anything but you since that night. I dare because you left with no way of contacting you, no way of finding you, no way of ever seeing you again.”
His words were pouring warmth and confusion through her, making her blood gush and her eyes glow.
“I dare,” he said, leaning closer still, “because I don’t believe it’s an accident that our paths have crossed once more. Call it fate, coincidence, stupid dumb luck, but I am not a man to look a gift horse in the mouth. I want you. Do you understand that, querida? I want you in my bed, for as long as I’m in London, and I believe you want that too. So let’s talk about what’s going to happen.”
Ivy’s jaw dropped and she was incapable of speech for several long seconds. She could only stare at him, her mind taking in his decree, her body responding automatically, passionately, filling with lust and need and desire and a soul-deep, fervent ache to do just what he said. To admit that she’d thought of little else but their night together; that she wanted more. All of him.
But Steve.
He was a wound from which she’d never recover, and she didn’t dare allow Rafe to wield the same power.
“Nothing’s going to happen,” she whispered, running her finger over the edge of the desk, feeling a little bump that her chair arm had made one day.
“You’ll come to my apartment tonight,” he said, as though she hadn’t spoken. “And we’ll pick up where we left off.”
Her breath was shaky. “I don’t think you understand. I wanted a one-night stand. I wanted to sleep with you and then leave.”
His eyes narrowed, as he digested that.
“You wanted someone else to make love to you,” he said, the words somehow stony. “You didn’t want your ex to be the only man to have touched you.”
She didn’t tell him the truth – that Steve had barely touched her. That they’d made love a handful of times over the years, but that it had never been a big part of their relationship.
“Is that it?” He prompted, and while she’d been distracted, Rafe had moved closer, his body now looming over hers.
“Partly,” she said with a quiet honesty. She cleared her throat, knowing that she should finish explaining. “He’s engaged to someone else.”
“So I was revenge?” Rafe prompted, still giving away little with his words.
“No!” She spoke emphatically, and the idea curdled her gut so much that she reached over and put a hand on his. “No.” She shook her head. She wouldn’t have their night together reduced to that.
“At first,” she conceded slowly, “I wanted to sleep with you because of Steve. Because I’ve never done anything like that and I wanted to just… have fun. But once we got to your apartment, it was all about you. And us. What I felt.”
His eyes flicked to hers; emotions swirled in them. “And what you feel now.”
She opened her mouth to deny it, but he shook his head, and lifted a finger to her lips, pressing it to her. “Don’t lie to me.”
She squeezed her eyes together. “But I’m not that person. I thought I could be more like Lisette or you, that I could do the casual sex thing, but it’s just not… I know I’m boring and old-fashioned, Rafe, but I can’t help that.”
“You were neither boring nor old-fashioned when you were in my bed.”
She blushed to the roots of her hair.
“Ivy? Stand up a moment.”
She blinked up at him, uncertainty washing across her face. “Why?”
“I want to show you something.”
Curiosity fired inside of her and she did as he said, lifting to her feet. There was still a height gap between them, but less so.
“Well?” She prompted, waiting for him to speak or do something.
Slowly, as though she might startle at any point, he curved his palm around her cheek, and ran the pad of his thumb across her lower lip. She opened her mouth in response and he dropped his head, his lips meshing with hers, his kiss gentle, at first, before deepening, moving into a place of demand and need.
She swayed forward instinctively, whimpering deep in her throat as she felt his tight body hard against hers.
“You want to get over him?” He kissed the question deep into her soul.
The sob that bubbled out of her was unexpected. He lifted his head, and that same sense of challenge and determination ran across his handsome face.
“Yes.”
“I’ll send a driver to pick you up this evening. You’ll come to my house, and together, we’ll put him out of your mind.”
She stared at him, doubts making her mute.
“Say yes.”
She shook her head. “Why?”
He lifted a hand and ran it through her hair. “Really?”
“Yes. I mean, I’ve never… done what we did… before. But you have. You do. Right? That wasn’t new for you.”
His expression flashed with impatience. “You were new to me. You were different.”
Pleasure flamed inside of her, but she tamped down on it urgently.
“Steve … when we broke up, I didn’t see it coming. We were together a long time and then, bam, it was over. He moved out, moved on, and I’m left behind, still trying to find a rhythm to my life, to work out what the heck I’m doing with myself.” She shook her head angrily.
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m not telling you that because I want your sympathy. It’s just… I can’t get hurt again, Rafe. I can’t.” she said seriously.
His eyes narrowed, his attention focussed on her face.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Ivy. I’m going to make you fly.”