Playboy Boss, Pregnancy of Passion

A pink rose.

She thanked him, and he gave her a deep bow before disappearing to see to another customer.

Luke grinned. ‘Trust you to make sure we take time to smell the roses.’

She flushed. ‘Sorry. I wasn’t showing off, just then—Gianfranco was struggling and it’s hard enough dealing with customers without the language barrier. He’s only been in England for a week; he’s come over to work in his uncle’s business in his gap year.’

Luke was impressed that she’d found out so much information in such a short space of time. Then again, there was something about Sara that made you want to trust her.

Which made her dangerous.

He pushed the thought away. ‘It was kind of you to help out. So you speak Italian fluently.’ Then he remembered. ‘And I’ve stolen your week in Italy.’

She shrugged. ‘I hadn’t booked my ticket, so it wasn’t a problem. I can go to Sorrento some other time.’

‘Well, I feel guilty.’

‘Good.’ She grinned at him. ‘You can buy me pudding to make up for it.’

That zest for life, that love of food…and it was so refreshing, after the time he’d spent with women who nibbled on a lettuce leaf and made a fuss about counting carbs. ‘Deal. So do you speak any other languages?’

‘French. A bit of German. And I can scrape by in Greek, provided I have a dictionary.’

‘Impressive.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘I never really learned languages at school. I haven’t needed to, for work.’

‘You can speak the universal language, though. Money.’

‘Well enough.’ He shrugged. ‘Have you been to Scarborough before?’

‘No—we always tended to go south, down to the coast at Sussex. You?’

‘A long time ago,’ he said. It was one of the few memories from his childhood that was happy.

‘You’re right. The pizza’s excellent,’ she said after her first mouthful. ‘And so’s the bread—I love it that they do it with rosemary here. It reminds me of Florence.’

‘So you like ruins?’ He remembered her degree was in history, so it was pretty obvious she’d be interested in that kind of thing.

‘It’s the way the past still echoes down through to the present, and the beauty never fades.’

When she talked about something she enjoyed, she was really animated, he noticed. And her enthusiasm was infectious. ‘You could’ve been a teacher. You would’ve really inspired your classes,’ he said.

She wrinkled her nose. ‘I did think about it. But there’s so much red tape in education—it would just suck the joy out of it, for me. Besides, I like what I do now.’

And if she’d been a teacher, she wouldn’t have walked into his life.

Although Luke didn’t join her in having a pudding, he indulged in a rich, dark coffee, and when they returned to the office he was shocked to discover they’d been out for an hour and a half. Considering that lunch for him was usually just long enough to eat a sandwich… He made a mental note to put in the extra time that evening, and forced himself to concentrate on figures and phone calls for the rest of the afternoon.

He’d just replaced the receiver when she put a mug of coffee on his desk. ‘Problem?’

‘Nothing major. The guy I was playing in a league match tonight—he needs to reschedule because something important cropped up at work. Which means I have a court booked but no partner.’ He looked speculatively at her. ‘I don’t suppose you…?’

‘Absolutely not.’

‘I thought you said exercise was good for you?’

She shook her head, laughing. ‘I’m hopeless at racquet sports. Justin tried to teach me, and I was so embarrassingly bad that he had to admit defeat.’

‘I could teach you.’

Her eyes met his and awareness zinged through him. Both knew he hadn’t been talking about just squash.

‘Thanks for the offer, but it’s not really me.’ This time, she was the one to give the speculative look. ‘Though if you’re at a loose end…’

‘What?’

‘You didn’t look that convinced at lunchtime when I told you why I loved ruins. Come and see something with me. And you don’t have an excuse—you just told me your squash match was cancelled.’

‘Has anyone told you that you’re a bulldozer in disguise?’

She laughed. ‘Yup. So are you game?’

He should say no. Use the time to work. But his mouth didn’t seem to be working in synch with his brain. ‘Sure.’

‘Something’turned out to be the British Museum. ‘I love the courtyard here,’ she said. ‘It’s the light and shade—just lovely.’

A big, wide open space with a glass ceiling, triangles radiating out from a central column. He could see exactly what she meant.

He’d never really spent any time in museums. But when she took him to see the Egyptian mummies and the Roman mosaics, he could see it through her eyes and was enchanted.

‘Haven’t you ever done this before?’ she asked, clearly surprised.

‘I guess when you live in a place, you take it for granted and don’t get round to doing the touristy things.’

‘True, and doing them on your own’s not such fun because you don’t get to share them and talk about them with someone.’ She reached out and took his hand for a moment, squeezing it. ‘Maybe we can come back together some time.’

‘That’d be nice.’

What really shocked him was that he meant it. He wanted to spend time with her. He liked the sound of her voice and could’ve listened to her all day when she told him about the things that clearly grabbed her attention. And he really liked the touch of her skin against his.

Ah, hell. This wasn’t supposed to happen. He didn’t do relationships. He always had brief and mutually satisfying affairs with women who knew the score. Women who moved in the same glittering social circles. Women who didn’t have wedding bells in their eyes or want him to meet their families.

Sara Fleet was a mass of contradictions. Efficient and businesslike, and yet warm and touchy-feely at the same time. He still hadn’t quite recovered from that kiss on the cheek earlier that afternoon. God only knew how he’d stopped himself turning his face to hers and capturing her mouth.

And right now her hand was curled round his.

It was oh, so tempting. All he had to do was raise her hand to his lips. Kiss the backs of her fingers. Turn her wrist over and press his mouth to the pulse point, see if it jumped as hard and fast as his own heart was beating right then.

It didn’t matter that they were standing in the middle of a public place. The rest of the world just faded away. He could pull her into his arms. Cup her face. Lower his mouth to hers. Taste the sweetness on offer…