Page 32 of Ravishing Camille
Good.
She paused to study her reflection in her cheval glass. Her hair mussed. Her dark eyes vivid. Her nipples, rigid. Her body, swollen in liquid yearning.
Protection was not precisely what she would have prescribed.
But on that she might build.
She had plotted fiction wherein the couples learned to care for each other. She knew each one’s past, their motives, their aspirations, their faults. Here she knew well her own.
But Pierce’s?
His life was not a mystery. Nor his character. But aside from his desire to remain her friend, she could not fathom what he thought of her.
Or if he might change his mind.
Chapter 8
He stayed well away from her the next few days. It was rather easy. She chose to write in her rooms, coming down to dine or walk along the beach, then return to her work.
They did not speak or even give the other any indication that they remembered the kiss in her bedroom. He thought he did well at that. She seemed superb at it, so they marched onward. But the truth was that only a few times in his life Pierce Hanniford had been ashamed of himself. This was the worst. What had he been thinking to permit himself to do such a thing as kiss her?
He damned well had no idea.
Two evenings later, Connor came to dinner. Polite, socially adroit, he seemed presentable. But his veneer was thin. Pierce saw beneath to the shrewdness of the man.
Connor was nothing but suave, natty and on his game. His quarry, of course, was Camille, who knew her worth and did her duty to act as his hostess, his introduction to her wider family. Her mother, Liv, greeted him as if she had no qualms about his character. His father—the man who’d met thousands and conquered others for millions—took Connor’s measure and left him to others to pick apart. Ada and her husband Victor had showed no hint of disapproving of him. Pierce noted his father’s affable manner toward the man, ever an indication that Killian was waiting to be impressed. Liv was her usual self, a magnificent and accommodating hostess. Camille appeared sprightly, irritatingly friendly toward the man.
Connor, it appeared, had not won much favor.
To Pierce, the man simply was not suitable.
He hated the fellow.
* * *
“Good morning!” His step-mother Liv greeted him the next morning. It was unusual for the lady of the house in England to come down for her breakfast. But Liv, formerly Lady Savage the widow of a minor English nobleman, now his father’s wife, had eaten her breakfast from a tray in her room only twice. Both times had been after she’d given birth to Liam and Dylan. And then, each time, for fewer than seven days.
An interior designer and decorator of mansions and townhomes all over Britain, she was a successful business woman who claimed she had little time to fritter away. Like his father, she was devoted to her work and loved each moment. This morning, though it was fifteen past seven, she took her place at the table and spread her napkin. “You’re up early.”
“I have new monthly reports I need to review so I thought I’d get started.” He finished the last of his coffee. “In fact, I am off to Victor’s office.”
“Your father was up at dawn. No good company there, I must say. But are you running off, too, now just as I get here?” She appealed to him with a false look of dismay. “I wanted to talk to you and I haven’t had any time alone with you.”
“Oh?” He couldn’t help fearing the topic. He doubted Camille would share with anyone what had happened between them a few nights ago. He certainly had not, nor would he ever. But he took it as a measure of his remorse that he went lifeless at the possibility. Instead, he forced himself to sit back. “What’s on your mind?”
“You.”
He took a breath. “Why?”
“You’ve not been yourself since you arrived. I thought perhaps there might be something I’ve failed to provide or that you feel…” She lifted her shoulders. “Homesick?”
He barked in laughter. “You’ve gone out of your way, Liv. The footman, James, is an excellent valet. My shoes are buffed so high, I can shave in the reflection. The cuisine is superb. I think you have ordered up balmy weather. So not a thing is missing. You’ve made me very comfortable. And no, I am not homesick, Liv. I am home.”
She met his gaze with a long examination for truth. “Good. I wanted to affirm that before I went on and made a fool of myself.”
“You’ll never do that.” He acknowledged the footman’s silent offer to refill his coffee cup. “Talk to me.”
“I have a favor to ask.”
