Chapter Seven #3
He glanced up when she entered, and the way his gaze quickly ran over her made her glad she’d got dressed.
The simple cotton nightshirt she slept in left little to the imagination.
Up until last night, she would have said that didn’t matter—as if Aristotle would notice—but she had proof, and knowledge now, to the contrary.
‘How did you sleep?’
Her lips tugged into another small smile. ‘Like a baby.’ Her hand pressed over her stomach. ‘That bed should be illegal. It’s so comfortable.’
His eyes narrowed imperceptibly. ‘I’m glad. Coffee?’
She nodded. ‘I’d kill for one.’
He slid a cup into the machine and pressed the button. ‘How do you take it?’
‘White, no sugar.’
He strode to the fridge, and her eyes did their own unapproved inspection, slipping from his face to his broad shoulders, narrow waist and strong legs. He wore a suit, but no socks or shoes, and her heart did a funny little leap at the sight of his bare feet.
Which was ridiculous.
She’d seen bare feet before.
She’d seen his bare feet before.
A memory seared her, catching her completely by surprise and driving the breath from her body.
Aristotle, one summer, striding out to the pool where she’d been reading The Travels of Marco Polo.
He’d barely even glanced in her direction but she—at sixteen—had practically burned him into her retinas.
She’d never known anyone like him in the real world.
Her boarding school was female only, and when she did socialise with boys, they were smaller.
Paler. More two-dimensional. Aristotle was all shimmering gold, Greek god Adonis, and in that moment he’d been stripped down to a pair of black swimming trunks that showed his lithe athleticism and sculpted masculinity to perfection.
She’d practically drooled into her medieval book.
‘Rosemary.’ His voice had a hard edge, a sharp current of warning in the syllables of her name.
She forced her eyes to drag back to his face, only to realise she’d been caught shamelessly staring. And probably drooling again.
Yes, he’d clearly caught her. Heat flamed in her face.
His chest moved with the force of his exhalation.
‘There are some things we need to discuss. Everything happened very quickly yesterday, but now that you’re here, and the dust has settled, we can start working out the logistics of all this.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I was just reflecting to myself about what a whirlwind yesterday was.’
He added the milk to a jug and began to froth it with all the skill of an actual barista.
She stared at his hands, fascinated by the way he held the jug, fingers so confident as he swirled it around.
Then, she wasn’t seeing his hands on the jug, but rather on her breasts, the contrast of his dark brown skin against her creamy fair skin, the way it had struck her that they were so different, even then.
Her lips parted as her breasts tingled, as though trying to beg him to not only notice them, but also to touch them.
They were aching for his attention, just as they had been in bed this morning.
She glanced away, but not before her eyes skated upwards and found him looking at her, a small frown etched on his face.
‘I have a meeting this morning. I would reschedule it, but the King of Al Anja is flying in particularly for it. Shall we say lunch?’
She tried not to look disconcerted by the fact he was casually mentioning a meeting with one of the most powerful royals in the world. It wasn’t Al Anja’s royal family’s wealth she was thinking of, though, but their treasure trove of historical sites.
‘Have you ever been?’ she asked, as he handed the coffee over to her.
He raised a brow.
‘To Al Anja,’ she elaborated.
‘Yes.’ He sipped his own coffee—a short black—in one sip. ‘Have you?’
‘Three times.’ She sighed. ‘It’s an incredible country. I could lose myself in their history. So much culture and tradition, such incredible artefacts. My second dig was there.’
‘Where exactly?’
‘The mountains to the west—the tomb of Akhamandi.’
‘I haven’t heard of it.’
‘I’m not surprised. He was just a village leader from the second century BC. Lost, really, to obscurity and time, except for the fact his tomb was so excellently preserved. The things we uncovered there, and what they told us about daily life…’
She tapered off to find his eyes roaming her face, an expression on his own she couldn’t interpret.
‘You love what you do.’
She sipped her coffee, nodding once. ‘Yes.’
‘This is something we have to discuss. I have no intention of allowing our baby to prevent you from following your dreams.’
She ignored the way her heart warmed at that.
But, in truth, it had been one of her primary considerations, and concerns, since discovering her pregnancy.
She’d never planned on having children, mainly because she’d never wanted to get involved with someone, knowing that it could lead to the sort of acrimonious marriage breakdown she’d witnessed between her parents.
From the moment she’d known about her little baby on board, she’d known it closed the door on a lot of the fieldwork she relished.
‘So, lunch?’
She nodded once.
His eyes, obsidian black, seemed to shimmer like a gemstone. ‘I’ll have my assistant send a car.’