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  Maddy smiled, the familiar flirtation helping to stem the apprehension that had been building inside her ever since her conversation with Ruth that afternoon. ‘Ruth promised me she only has one more set of buyers to introduce me to. Then we can make a run for it.’

  Hearing the orchestra in the ballroom next door strike up a slow, seductive waltz, her smile became wistful. ‘Did you know, we’ve never danced together,’ she murmured before she could think better of it.

  Standing up, he tugged her gently out of her chair. ‘That’s easily remedied.’

  She held back. ‘Are you sure?’ She hadn’t meant to pressure him into doing something he wasn’t comfortable with. ‘What about your leg?’

  He sent her a wolfish grin as he led her into the ballroom, which was already crowded with beautiful people dancing in the muted glow of the chandeliers. ‘I’m sure I can handle a slow dance,’ he said as he rested one hand on her hip and pulled her into his arms. ‘Especially if it means I can get my hands on you before midnight,’ he whispered against her hair.

  She tilted her head back and looked into his handsome face, thrown into stark relief by the shadowy light, suddenly desperate to store up as many memories as she could tonight. In case they were all she had left in the morning.

  She clung to him as he swayed her gently in his arms, his limp barely noticeable.

  Dropping her cheek onto his shoulder and nestling against the crisp linen of his dress shirt, she listened to the pounding of his heart and revelled in the warmth of his body against hers. The fresh scent of pine soap and the musky scent of male pheromones enveloped her.

  So far, despite an extreme case of nerves, the night had been magical—and she didn’t want it to end.

  The Savoy had been a spectacular venue, done out in its festive finery, the baubles and bows and fairy lights adding a childlike air of expectation to the sedate luxury of the landmark hotel.

  The show had been elegant and beautiful and her silk work, which Ruth had incorporated as the signature pieces, had complemented the dramatic setting perfectly. After a standing ovation during her bow on the catwalk, Maddy had sat through the four-course charity dinner afterwards with Rye by her side. And as he’d teased her about the number of people who came up to sing her praises or press business cards into her hand, she’d barely been able to eat a bite.

  The thought of what lay ahead, when they returned to the suite Rye had booked for the night, had been hovering at the back of her mind all evening, but it hadn’t managed to dim the wonder of being in such a beautiful place with Rye as her attentive escort.

  And he had been attentive, playful and charming and ridiculously proud of her achievement. And if she’d noticed the tiniest tension in his tone, the guarded looks he flicked her way when he thought she wasn’t looking, she hadn’t let it bother her.

  Whatever happened tonight, at least she would finally know what he felt for her. Whether what they had was real or imagined. And whether they had any hope at all of making a life together.

  As they moved together to the swelling strains of orchestral music, the significance of the moment hit her. She had been a coward, and a foolish one at that, letting her parents’ miserable excuse for a marriage stop her from fighting for what she wanted. She’d held back and let Rye take the lead when he knew even less about love than she did.

  His arm tightened around her waist as hope and determination made her heart swell to impossible proportions.

  Tonight didn’t have to be the end. It could be the start of a wonderful new beginning.

  ‘Are you sure? There’s a bathroom in the suite,’ Rye said, frowning.

  ‘I need a few minutes to freshen up,’ Maddy replied, enjoying his frustration maybe more than she should.

  ‘Fine. But hurry up. I feel like I’ve waited months already.’

  Picking up the skirts of her designer gown, Maddy rushed to the Ladies Lounge in the lobby of the grand hotel. Really she could have waited until they got to the suite. But she’d needed a few moments more, to go over in her head exactly what she planned to say to Rye and how she was going to say it.

  As she bustled into the ornate cubicle, not paying much attention to the stick-thin woman at the vanity unit who had been one of the models in the show, she realised she wasn’t nervous any more. She was excited.

  Rye had been so loving tonight, so supportive and so sexy—and the distance, the caution she’d noticed in the last few weeks hadn’t been nearly as apparent.

  After entering the cubicle, she put the toilet seat down and sat for a moment to collect herself. As excited as she was, she needed to calm down a bit before she went upstairs with Rye. The events of the evening had been overwhelming. She wanted to appear totally sane when she told him she loved him. Babbling would not be good.

  As she concentrated on getting her heartbeat back to an acceptable level, she heard the swish of a woman’s skirts on the plush carpeting as someone else entered the Lounge.

  ‘Marta, you look fabulous,’ the newcomer said in an aristocratic voice. ‘How do you manage to stay so thin?’

  ‘Starvation, darling,’ the supermodel Maddy had spotted by the basin said in a wry Germanic accent.

  The other woman laughed.

  Maddy stood, ready to leave the cubicle.

  ‘I saw your old squeeze Ryan King outside,’ the posh woman remarked. ‘No man has a right to look that good in a tuxedo.’

  Maddy’s hand stilled on the lock, disconcerted by the news that the supermodel was yet another of Rye’s conquests.

  ‘What were you thinking, letting him get away?’ the woman added. ‘He still looks delicious, even with that unfortunate limp.’

  ‘Looks can be deceiving, darlin’,’ Marta replied dryly.

  The posh woman giggled. ‘What does that mean?’ she said, her voice eager with curiosity.

  There was a slight pause. Maddy sat back down on the toilet seat, annoyance catching in her throat. Hadn’t Rye suffered enough without these women gossiping about him as if he were a piece of meat?

  ‘He’s impotent, darlin’. Can’t get it up.’

  Maddy gasped at Marta’s blunt statement, her astonishment masked by another even louder gasp from Marta’s companion.

  ‘You’re joking. But he was the most sought-after stud in London.’

  ‘I know, it’s devastating,’ Marta replied, not sounding remotely devastated.

  ‘That’s so ironic it’s almost funny,’ the posh woman continued, sounding both scandalised and amused by the juicy titbit of gossip.

  Maddy’s stomach clenched, her anger choking her.

  How dared these women make fun of Rye’s accident? And they were totally wrong about his abilities in bed. If he’d been briefly impotent after the accident, he certainly wasn’t any more. She could testify to that.

  But, rather than bursting out of the cubicle to set them straight, she found herself anchored to the seat as confusion and inadequacy drowned out her outrage.

  A part of her had always wondered why Rye had found her so irresistible. Why he had pursued her. Why he had wanted her so much—a man who could have any woman.

  In the weeks since their first few days together, all those silly worries had faded away. Their sex life had been amazing. All his attention, all his eagerness and enthusiasm in bed had bolstered her confidence, not just in her sexual abilities but in so many other areas of her life.

  But what if it had all been built on a lie? What if it was her inexperience that had been the real turn-on all along? Had she been his Little Miss Fixit in bed without even realising it?

  Was that the real reason he’d become distant in the last few weeks? Because now he was fully recovered he was bored with her?

  The thundering in her ears made it impossible to hear the rest of the conversation between Marta and her friend. She felt as if she’d been rooted to the toilet seat for an eternity when she realised she was alone.

  Forcing herself to leave the safety of the cubicle, she
washed her hands on autopilot, the face that stared back at her in the mirror bleached of colour, all the sweet excitement, all the enthusiastic certainty of a few minutes before sucked out of her.

  Rye swore softly as he glanced at his watch for the fiftieth time.

  What was she doing? Replumbing all the toilets? She’d been in there over twenty minutes. And, not only that, he’d narrowly avoided bumping into Marta, which would have soured his mood completely.

  Shoving his hands into his pockets, he propped his butt against the lobby wall and forced his gaze away from the door of the Ladies Lounge. As he stared at the other guests milling around in the lobby, he tried to swallow down his desperation and a sharp frown creased his brow.

  What the hell had happened to his careful plan to back off, to gradually let Maddy go? He’d done all the right things in the last two weeks, even though it had nearly killed him, but he was more desperate to be with her now than ever.

  He’d made sure they went out every night since she’d been in London, determined to avoid the intimacy they’d shared in Cornwall.

  Several times she’d suggested cooking a meal for him in the penthouse but he’d vetoed the idea, determined not to succumb to the urge to keep her all to himself. If they started living in each other’s pockets again, he’d be sunk.

  But, every time he deflected her suggestions, he heard the confusion in her voice, saw the hurt in her eyes and it had crucified him.

  And, before long, the evenings out had become a major chore. The noise and glamour of London’s most exclusive nightspots didn’t hold the appeal they once had. And having her with him only made him more aware of how shallow and pointless his old life had really been. He hadn’t just missed Maddy. He’d missed the quiet, soothing intimacy of their evenings together in the cottage.

  Even so, he’d stuck to his guns—refusing to give in to the weakness.

  He’d planned to be politely supportive tonight but not too supportive in case she got the wrong idea. But after she’d gripped his hand during the show, her body vibrating with nerves, his protective instincts had come to the fore. And then when she’d stepped onto the catwalk to take her bow, her face flushed with stunned pleasure, her lush, toned figure in that show-stopping dress making him cross-eyed with lust, he hadn’t been able to contain his excitement or his pride a moment longer.

  When she’d stepped into his arms on the dance floor and swayed against him to the old-fashioned waltz, he’d found himself holding onto her a bit too tightly. With the weight of her head nestled trustingly on his shoulder, her intoxicating scent making him instantly hard, he was convinced he could have tap danced if she’d wanted him to.

  His impatience to get her upstairs, to get her undressed, to claim her in the most basic way possible confirmed what he already knew—and had been desperately trying to deny for weeks. That he didn’t just want her any more. He needed her. He depended upon her. In a way he’d promised himself he’d never depend upon anyone again.

  He shifted uneasily against the panelled wood, glanced back at the still unmoving door to the Ladies. And felt as if he were teetering on the edge of an abyss.

  A cold, black, bottomless abyss which he’d fallen into once before—and which he had vowed never to fall into again.

  ‘Where did all those people come from?’ Rye said as he fumbled with the keycard, one hand gripped on Maddy’s. ‘And why did they all have to pick our lift?’ Finally the green light blinked and he hauled her into the suite. ‘We must have stopped at every damn floor.’

  He pulled her round to face him, pressed her back against the closed door, trapping her body against his and feeling her shudder of response. ‘Remind me never to get a suite on the top floor again,’ he quipped in a strained voice.

  Her eyes were wide and unfocused, her face a little pale, and she’d barely spoken a word since she’d walked out of the Ladies Lounge. But then he hadn’t given her much chance, he’d hauled her into the lift so fast.

  Bracing his hands against the door, he buried his face against her neck, the erotic scent of her making him harden as she shivered.

  ‘This has been the longest evening of my entire life,’ he murmured, the thin leash on his control stretched to breaking point.

  He kissed the pulse point on her collarbone, exposed by the off the shoulder gown, skimmed his hand down satin-clad curves, then bent to grasp the hem of her dress. He groaned as he ran questing fingers up the silky skin to the apex of her thighs.

  She jumped as he pressed the heel of his palm against the thin silk of her panties, and then writhed as he plunged into velvet heat.

  ‘Please stop, Rye.’ She shrank back, her hands flattening against his chest.

  He didn’t hear the words at first, his heart thundering in his ears, the painful arousal pulsing against his fly. He had to be inside her, had to be seated deep so he could ride them both to orgasm and calm the frantic beats of his pulse.

  He moved back to release the straining erection.

  ‘Don’t, Rye.’ She grabbed his wrist to still his hand on the zip. ‘We have to talk.’

  He lifted his head, the words registering this time but not making any sense. ‘Later.’

  But as he bent to kiss her, she twisted away, forcing him to draw back.

  ‘No, now,’ she said, her eyes dark with arousal but shadowed with regret. ‘We have to talk now.’

  Damn, she was serious.

  ‘What’s so important we’ve got to talk about it right this second?’ he said, struggling not to snap. Not easy when he had an erection the size of Mount Everest in his pants and panic was skittering up his spine.

  She flinched, her emerald eyes widening.

  He stepped back, trying to get a chokehold on the need and frustration.

  ‘I want to make love to you, Maddy,’ he said, lowering his voice. ‘And it’s pretty obvious you want to make love to me. So what’s this all about?’

  She shut her eyes, a sad little sigh issuing from her lips. The dejection in the pose had apprehension twisting in his gut.

  ‘But you wouldn’t be making love, would you?’ she said, her voice firm but fragile. ‘You’d be having sex.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ he rasped.

  Her eyes opened and he tensed, seeing hurt and accusation.

  ‘I know what you went through,’ she said. ‘After your accident. That you couldn’t perform sexually for a while.’

  Horror came first, followed swiftly by denial. ‘What?’ he croaked.

  She straightened, squared her shoulders as if she were gathering her courage. ‘You never really cared for me at all, did you? This was always just about the sex.’

  He could hear the unhappiness in her voice, see the aching vulnerability in her eyes, and the terrifying abyss widened to an enormous chasm beneath his feet.

  Maddy saw him recoil, his face blank with shock before the shutters slammed down.

  ‘What exactly am I supposed to say to that?’ he said, his voice hoarse.

  ‘That you do care about me?’ she said wearily, but the last lingering flicker of hope had already guttered out. He probably did care about her. But it would never be enough. Not if she had to beg him to admit it.

  ‘For God’s sake, Maddy, stop being melodramatic. Of course I care about you. Believe me, the sex wouldn’t be as good as it is if I didn’t.’

  She let out a hollow laugh. How could she have been so blind? So foolish? Hadn’t she learnt anything from watching her mother go through this same charade throughout her childhood? Debasing herself to get something from her father which he had never been capable of giving her.

  ‘You really don’t get it, do you?’ she murmured, incredulous at her own stupidity. She blinked furiously, struggling not to let the misery engulf her.

  The whole time they’d been together in Cornwall, they’d never even gone out together. All they’d really done was make love in almost every spare minute they had. In the past few weeks, ever since she’d realised how de
ep her feelings were, she’d deluded herself into believing that those long, lazy, seductive evenings had been a sign of their growing intimacy, their burgeoning love. But they hadn’t been. Not for him.

  ‘Don’t get what?’

  ‘That I’ve fallen in love with you, Rye.’

  He dropped her arm as if he’d been burned. ‘That’s insane. Why would you do that?’

  Because I thought you needed me. As much as I needed you.

  The words burned in her throat but she refused to say them. What would be the point? She’d seen the flash of horror in his eyes at her admission and all the hopes and dreams she’d nurtured so foolishly had finally died.

  ‘I have to go,’ she whispered through jerking breaths, her lungs screaming with the effort to hold back the flood of tears.

  He’d used her, but she’d let herself be used. And for that she had to take some of the blame.

  But, as she turned to leave, he clamped his hand onto her wrist. ‘You don’t love me, Maddy. You just think you do. You don’t even know me.’

  She pulled her hand out of his. ‘I know you better than you think.’ She drew a gulping breath. ‘I know you use sex to replace intimacy. I know you refuse to let me get close to you. And I know you’d rather push me away than admit you need me.’

  She walked to the door on unsteady legs.

  ‘I’m not pushing you away,’ he shouted. ‘I want you to stay, damn it.’

  Keep breathing. You can get through this.

  ‘Maddy, come back here. Did you hear what I said? I want you to stay.’

  She opened the door, refused to look back at him. ‘And I want you to love me,’ she said. ‘But I know you can’t.’

  Ignoring the angry shout as he tried to follow her, she picked up her skirts and fled.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  MADDY waved the local cabbie off, so exhausted she felt as if her bones were about to melt.

  Seeing a dim glow coming from the cottage’s living room, she thanked whatever stroke of fate had made her forget to turn off one of the lights when she’d left in such a hurry what felt like a lifetime ago—but had only been sixteen days.