Page 21 of The Tycoon's Shock Heir

She snapped out of her memories as Matteo finished his call and walked across the wooden floor. Her heart began to skip and her stomach flipped again against her ribs. He had been the perfect gentleman since they’d left the restaurant. Faultless. Too faultless. Attentive and caring and kind. He’d asked after her knee...asked was she still hungry? Could he prepare her some food? Bring her some wine? Could he kiss her here and here?

He paused in the doorway, his white shirt unbuttoned at the neck and the dark shadow of hair and muscle excruciatingly close and alluringly touchable. Once again she felt that deep tug in her core. But she didn’t fight it—she couldn’t. The battle was well and truly lost.

‘I’m sorry about that,’ he said, walking up to her and circling his arm around her waist.

He delivered another soft, leisurely kiss to her lips and then pulled back and smiled at her. Just as he’d done several times already in the past hour.

‘I hope you don’t mind. But that should be the end of it until tomorrow morning.’

‘I guess there’s never any real downtime in your world. There’s always someone’s needs to take care of. High net worth people must be very high maintenance.’

‘You’re right. And I can’t pretend that that’s my favourite part of the job. You know, in the summer I’ll be on the Riviera most weekends? We host a regatta for charity. All the big names come. Sounds amazing, yes? But it’ll be full-on. Entertaining can be draining.’

‘Yes—so I witnessed tonight.’

‘But you were the best possible antidote,’ he said, leaning in for another kiss. ‘I’d never have thought I’d hear myself saying I had a great time at the ballet. But I did. He tugged her close and started to trail kisses on her neck. ‘Thanks to you...’

Once again she felt herself melt into his arms, felt those overwhelming urges rise up within her. She turned around in his arms, aching to feel his lips on her mouth, his hands on her body, but every time she thought he was going to finally lead her off to bed he cooled them down again—like the conductor of an orchestra, setting the beat and the heat of their passion.

She’d never had an experience like it.

He walked to the wine bucket and lifted the champagne bottle, topped up her glass and handed it to her, looked around for his own. The tray of petits-fours and strawberries lay untouched. She sipped the champagne, but truly she only had an appetite for Matteo now.

‘What do you think of the view?’ he said, leaning beside her. ‘Isn’t it spectacular? I never tire of this city. Even Rome doesn’t do it for me the way that London does. And Rome is in my blood.’

He hooked his arm around her shoulders as they stared down at the river. Two party boats, illuminated and booming with the deep bass sounds of dance music, sailed past one another in opposite directions, while on the bridges above them traffic rumbled back and forth.

‘Honestly? I’ve never seen the city from up high before. This is a totally different place from the London I know. Even though we’re only a few miles apart. You see those buses down there? That’s usually me on one of them, while you’re up here—or up there. Do you have one of those?’

She pointed at a helicopter hovering above the roof of a nearby tower block.

‘Not at the moment, no. But where is your world? Can you see it from here? Show me.’

He circled his arm around her waist once more and laid his hand on the wall, tucking her close to his body.

‘Way over there is Croydon. That’s where I grew up. Before Mum moved away and I became a boarder at the British Ballet.’

She paused, expecting him to ask her for more details. It was a subject of great interest to most people—how her mother had moved three hundred miles away with her boyfriend and started a new family, conveniently forgetting the child she already had. She barely understood it herself, but she didn’t blame her mother.

She’d started with good intentions, but it had all fallen apart after a year or so. There had been visits and phone calls during which Ruby had forced herself not to cry. Because she had known that if she’d cried she’d have had to leave ballet school and move to Cornwall. And be eclipsed there for ever, in the shadow of George and the twins that were about to be born.

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