Page 66 of Lela's Choice

Her stomach did a slow roll. The decadently long shower hadn’t taken the edge off her nerves. She squeezed a few drops of the hotel’s body lotion onto her palm. A quick sniff reassured her. Not too highly perfumed, so she rubbed the soft cream into her skin.

The sight of herself in an oversized and worn T-shirt labelled “simply the best”—an old Tina Turner song used along Australia’s east coast as a football rallying cry, in the full-length bathroom mirror—reduced her to giggles. The thick terry-towelling robe blunted her hilarity. The woman in the mirror was now a shapeless blob. Finger-combing her hair into a semblance of order made her feel marginally more attractive. Applying the scent she carried in her purse boosted her confidence further.

“My heart’s going pitty-pat.” She rested her hand over the suddenly unreliable organ.

The wide-eyed woman in the mirror groaned at the cliché. Lela sank to the side of the bath, her legs refusing to hold her. She’d refused to make space for fantasy while she showered, forcing her imagination to shut down when it started to weave images of Hamish being dazzled by her. Bedazzled enough to lose his lawyerly control and ravish her. Her fantasies came tumbling back now, only this time she imagined ravishing him.

In the downstairs bar, when he’d told her she was beautiful, the warm glow of appreciation in his eyes had stalled her breath. He was gorgeous, inside and out, and she was stunned at how long that word, that want, had been in her subconscious, and she’d refused to give it room.

“Are you drowning in there?” Hamish, un-lover-like, rapped on the door.

“Coming,” she croaked, as if her voice was out of practice.Ready or not.Warning or promise, she didn’t know. With a final tug on her belt to make sure the knot would hold, she opened the door, staring fixedly away from the bed.

“You won’t find me in the closet.” His amusement snapped Lela’s attention back to the bed. He’d discarded his jacket and boots, propping himself against the bedhead, with all the pillows piled behind him. “The storm’s refusing to clear.” He pointed the remote at the huge screen on the wall facing the bed. “The weather channel seemed the place to start.”

“Um, right, good idea.”

“Nice robe.”

The folded back sleeves, the tight knot and the drape below her knees didn’t flatter. “There’s only one size.”

“Then it won’t cover as much of me as it does of you.” He swung his legs off the bed. “Which side of the bed do you want?”

Her gaze shot back to his, his eyes hunter green at this distance. A hot flush of heat rose up her neck, blessedly hidden by the robe’s thick collar. “I’ll take the other side.”

“Room service might call while I’m in the shower. I ordered toasted sandwiches and asked them to bring up the bottle of red wine we started.” He ran a finger down her nose on his way to the bathroom. “You were too upset to eat much at dinner. This is comfort food.”

Comfort took on a whole new meaning when he touched her. Featherlight and soul-deep, the flutter that started around her heart refused to settle. Replacing his mountain of pillows with two piles set at a distance from each other satisfied her immediate need to prove she expected nothing, assumed nothing. She jumped at the knock on the door.

“Room service.”

“Thank you.” She signed the chit. “Mr. MacGregor’s in the shower.” The waiter’s gaze was neutral. She was an idiot to think he’d spent even a second speculating on her relationship to Hamish.

She set the tray on the table set against the large picture windows. Below their balcony and stretched out as far as there was light, electricity wires flapped in the wind, water dripping from them and the poles, which ringed the harbour. The terminal stood as a beacon in the middle, shrouded in the dark blanket of night, not a star visible, not a wisp of light breaking through the clouds. Wind whistled and beat against the balcony doors, while beyond them an eerie stillness hung over the scene.

Tiny people darted between cars and the terminal, gesticulating to communicate above the storm. This morning’s beautiful harbour scene had vanished. Being dry, warm and with the unmistakable odour of melting cheese tantalising her tastebuds was a welcome alternative to the chaos below.

“Perfect timing.” He emerged from the bathroom.

Lela couldn’t stifle her laugh, although she lifted a hand to her mouth to try and hold it in. “Nice robe,” she repeated his words.

“It does what it needs to.” He padded across to the table. When he settled on a chair, the robe slid off his knees.

“You have freckles on your knees.”

“It’s rude to draw attention to someone’s blemishes.” He flicked out a linen serviette and draped it over his bare knee. “Especially as we’re about to eat.”

“Are freckles a blemish?” She took the seat opposite, letting him lift the cover from the plate of sandwiches. “Mm, I’ve been salivating waiting for you.”

“Have you?” A sparkle in his eyes accompanied the teasing, mixing the formal with the crazy informality of sitting across from each other in bathrobes, with a huge bed behind them and uncharted territory ahead. At least for her. This couldn’t be the first time he’d found himself in a hotel with a woman. His wife had been dead five years. “Will you serve?”

I’m going to jump his bones, an expression she’d never considered in reference to herself. Impatience and lust were a heady cocktail.

While she divided the sandwiches between the plates, he poured two glasses of wine. They ate in silence, demolishing the food—the meal at the Stone Crab might never have been.

“Here’s to Malta.” He raised his glass in a toast.

“I can see the attraction for Sophie.”

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