Page 44 of The Christmas Holiday
‘You’re right. I don’t. Because you won’t talk to me. And that’s your choice. But it’s not your job to protect me from all the bad stuff either. It never was!’
He looked at me for the firsttime then, sandwiched between him and the door. There was no reply but the saddest of smiles flitted over his face.
‘Please. Look, you don’t have to talk about it. I promise I won’t ask you again tonight. But I’d love to see some of the shots you’ve taken so far. Would you show me?’
His eyes travelled over my face, hovering momentarily on my lips before meeting my eyes again. I felt mybreathing change and, now he seemed a little calmer, the proximity of his body to mine seemed to register with my brain. And some other regions. Oh. Crikey. That probably wasn’t good.
‘You didn’t lose any of your tenacity, did you?’
I gave him a quick eyebrow-raise and smile in response.
He took a deep breath, the broad chest rising and falling close to me.
‘OK. You win. I justneed to get my laptop.’
‘OK.’
The corner of his mouth tilted up. ‘You’re kind of in the way.’
‘Oh!’ I bumped back to reality with an embarrassing thud. ‘Yes! I am. Of course, I am! Sorry.’ I scooted out from his doorway and pointed at my own. ‘I’ll... umm... be in here. You know. Whenever.’
Oh God, did that sound like a come on?
‘For the photos,’ I added, just in case.
Hunter studied me for a moment, his expression somewhere between confused and amused. Which, even though it was at my expense, I was happy to trade for the one I’d seen in his eyes earlier.
‘You OK?’
‘Absolutely. See you in a bit.’
He nodded. ‘Give me five minutes.’
‘Sure.’
I beeped my card against the door and went inside, giving myself an eye-roll as I did. Heading into thebathroom, I splashed some cold water on my face, which currently felt as red as the setting sun I’d sat and watched sink hurriedly beneath the horizon earlier this evening. What was that all about? Was it really that I just hadn’t had a relationship in a long time… or was it specifically Hunter Scott who had set off those reactions? I groaned and put my forehead against the cold marble of the bathroomwall. That was definitely not a direction I was prepared to take again. And I was pretty sure the feeling was mutual.
When I opened the door to Hunter a few minutes later, he’d exchanged his shirt for a T-shirt, and his hair looked damp. Unbidden, a vision of him stripped to the waist and splashing water around popped into my mind. I gave the image a good, hard shove out of my head.
‘Hi.’
‘Hi.’ I stood aside, letting him pass. ‘Would you like a drink? I’ve got some sweet lime soda in the fridge.’
He nodded as he took a seat on the sofa over by the balcony door, which I’d kept closed in order to muffle as much of the Diwali celebration noise as possible.
‘You don’t have to keep that shut for me, you know.’ Hunter eyed the window as I carried the drinks over.
‘I’mnot. I just fancied keeping it a little cooler in here with the air conditioning. It was quite warm in here earlier and…’
I drifted off as Hunter reached for his drink and set his gaze on me. It was kind of hard to fib when those intense deep-blue eyes were focused on you. I held out the drink to him and he took it. His hand shook as he did so and he knew I’d noticed. It was hard not to. Ididn’t say anything, taking the seat next to him, and watching from the corner of my eye as, knuckles whitening, he gripped the glass tighter in an attempt to stop the shake. He took a long drink before setting the tumbler on the table. It clattered against the surface momentarily as he did.
‘What did you want to see?’ he asked, shifting the focus from him to his work, his eyes fixed on thecomputer in front of us, refusing to meet mine.
‘Whatever you’re happy to show me.’
He flipped the lid up on the laptop and fired it up, flicking his gaze to mine for the briefest of moments. ‘I bet you say that to all the boys.’
I’d been hugging a fuzzy-textured cushion from the sofa and, at his comment, gave him a bop with it. Hunter smiled and concentrated on the computer. ‘Here.’
