‘Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t have to prove anything.’ His tone was curt and cold but his blood was hot. Smoking hot. He placed his hands on her upper arms, ostensibly to keep her from him, but somehow his fingers sank into the softness of her cashmere sweater and the distance between their bodies closed. Had he moved or had she? Her hips brushed against his, her breasts poking into his chest, and a wave of hot, tight longing barrelled through him like a tornado.
‘Kiss me, Louis.’ Her voice was just shy of a whisper, her vanilla-scented breath dancing across his lips. ‘Prove to me you don’t find me a total turn-off.’
He’d kissed lots of women and had always been able to walk away. Always. It was his modus operandi. No strings. No follow-up dates. Just plain and simple one-night sex. But if he kissed Ivy he would be crossing a line he’d sworn he would never cross. He kept his relationships short—if you could call them relationships. Those ‘relationships’ were easy to walk away from without regret. But he already had a long-term relationship with Ivy. Not a sexual one, but a friendship that would be completely changed if he acted on her wishes. The last thing he wanted to do was rush into a one-night stand with Ivy until he understood exactly what she wanted from him.
His conscience leaned indolently against the back wall of his mind and smirked. Oh, so you’re actually going to consider sleeping with her?
Louis summoned every bit of self-restraint he possessed and stepped back from her, dropping his hands from around her arms. He schooled his features into suave city playboy. ‘If I kiss you, things could get hotter than you can handle. Are you sure you’re ready for that, ma petite?’
A flicker of uncertainty passed over her face. ‘Not completely, but if you won’t do it then I’ll have to resort to my Plan B.’
‘Which is?’
Her small chin came up to a defiant height. ‘I’ll have to ask a stranger to do it.’
He held her gaze for a throbbing moment, his mind whirling with images of creepy strangers taking advantage of her guilelessness, and his guts churned with bile. No way was he going to let some filthy jerk touch her. There were some real weirdos out there these days, men who wanted to fulfil their darkest pornographic fantasies without considering their partner’s wishes. Ivy wouldn’t have the experience to handle something like that. It would totally destroy her.
‘No, you will not do that.’ He channelled his best schoolmaster voice, throwing in a deep frown for good measure.
Her expression became hopeful. ‘So, you’ll agree to help me?’
Louis speared a hand through his hair, then stood with his hands on his hips in a braced position. ‘We’ll come to that later. For now, I want to know why you got to the age of almost thirty with your virginity intact.’
Her gaze drifted away from his, her cheeks firing up again. ‘I’ve always been a little bit uncomfortable even talking about sex, mostly because my mum has always been so out there about it—especially since she and Dad got divorced.’ She glanced up at him. ‘Did you know she’s studying to be a sex therapist now? Sex is all she talks about.’
‘Yeah, I heard about her new venture. But why not talk to her about...?’
A look of horror passed over her face. ‘No way! I want to fix this on my own... Well, not quite on my own...with your help.’
He went back behind his desk and pulled out his office chair. ‘Look, I’m on a tight deadline, but can we talk about this over dinner tonight? I’ll pick you up at eight.’
Dinner? His conscience smirked again. Dinner and then what? Dinner and nothing, that’s what. Nothing to see here, as the saying goes.
‘Are you still in the flat in Islington?’
‘Yep. My two friends Millie and Zoey have moved in with me now. The rent on my own was killing me.’
‘Why didn’t you say something? I could have helped you.’
A glimmer of pride entered her gaze. ‘You’ve done enough for my family already—helping Mum with the mortgage last year when she got behind with the payments. She’ll never be able to repay you, you know. She’s always been hopeless with money.’
Louis’ frown was back. Harder. Deeper. Seemed no one kept a promise these days. He’d insisted Deirdre Kennedy keep quiet about his offer to help her out of yet another financial hole because he genuinely hadn’t wanted Ronan or Ivy to suffer any more stress than they already had. He’d been particularly worried about Ronan. Finally coming out to your divorced parents and then being rejected by your father was enough to set off an existential crisis in the most stable of people. It had taken the best part of two years for him to feel comfortable Ronan was out of danger.
Louis sat in his chair and absently straightened some papers on his desk. ‘She told you about that?’
Ivy nodded, her look grim. ‘I forced it out of her. Ronan doesn’t know, does he?’
He leaned back in his chair, picked up his fountain pen and rocked it back and forth between his thumb and index finger. ‘It wasn’t a big deal to me. It’s just money. And I didn’t want to worry you or Ronan. You had enough going on with your father’s reaction to Ronan’s situation.’
She gave a tight-lipped smile, but it was at odds with the shadow that passed through her gaze. ‘All the same, it was nice of you to step in like that. Mum would have lost the house if it hadn’t been for you.’
Louis let the pen drop back on the desk with a little clatter. ‘Have you told Ronan about this hare-brained scheme of yours?’
Ivy brought her gaze back to his. ‘No. But he’s hardly likely to find out now he’s in Australia with Ricky. Anyway, he’d worry too much. He’s been warning me for years about not getting fanciful ideas about you.’
‘What fanciful ideas?’ Louis knew he shouldn’t ask.
‘He said you weren’t the marriage-and-babies type. But I told him not to worry about me because I would never be interested in a man who didn’t want marriage and babies.’
If she mentioned ‘marriage and babies’ one more time he was going to blow a fuse. Not his most favourite words in the English language. His parents had married and had one baby and look how that had turned out. Thirty-five-plus years of misery for all concerned. ‘I’m not sure falling in love works quite that way,’ Louis pointed out. ‘People fall in love with the wrong people all the time.’ His parents being a case in point. Totally unsuited to each other but they soldiered on regardless. ‘Soldiered’ being a pertinent word, since every day was a battleground of injured egos, resentments, grievances and bitterness.
Ivy tilted her head and studied him for a moment. ‘Have you ever been in love?’