No use crying over spilt milk. But today was another day. And she was here in his home and Margaret wasn’t.
That was when the idea came to her. Nick had brought her tea in bed yesterday morning. OK, why didn’t she return the compliment? And once she was in his bedroom…
She hurried into the bathroom, had a quick shower and then brushed her hair until it shone with health. After putting a coat of mascara on her eyelashes and a dab of perfume behind each ear, she cleaned her teeth. She hoped he wasn’t up yet but they had been terribly late last night and it was a Sunday. He was probably still dead to the world.
Her nightie was a floaty negligée type which consisted of very little, another gift from her aunt a couple of Christmases ago. She knew it was one of those horribly expensive designer things but she had never worn it until this weekend. She considered herself critically in the mirror. What the transparent film did to her body would have been enough to make her love her aunt for life if she didn’t already.
Cory sped down to the kitchen with wings on her heels, hoping Nick wasn’t already there. He wasn’t. She made a pot of tea in record time, setting a tray with two cups and saucers, sugar bowl and milk jug, and adding a little plate of biscuits for good luck.
She had actually got to the door of the master suite when she stopped abruptly. What was she doing? Was this a good idea? She was going against all reason here. Hadn’t she told herself that if she once got totally involved with Nick it would be emotional suicide? What would she do when he left her? And one day he would leave her.
It was too late anyway. She answered herself with total honesty. She loved him. Utterly and absolutely. She wanted to be with him for as long as he would stay with her. It was as simple as that. It probably was the biggest mistake she would ever make in the overall scheme of things because she didn’t know how she’d survive when she had to do without him, but that was the future. This was the present. And the present was all that mattered.
She opened the door to the bedroom very quietly, tiptoeing into the room and over to the enormous bed. It was empty. She stared at it, utterly taken aback. And then she heard whistling in the bathroom.
Putting the tray on a small table which was half covered with Formula One magazines, she walked over to the bathroom door, which was open a chink. She didn’t think about what she was doing, she was just drawn there by an invisible cord.
Nick had obviously just stepped out of the shower and was drying himself down. He was nude. Cory’s heart did the sort of giant leap for mankind the astronauts had spoken of.
Six foot plus of lithe, tanned muscle and he was breathtaking, that was the only word for it. The wide shoulders and broad chest were strong and sinewy, his lean hips and hard buttocks unashamedly male. The hair on his chest narrowed to a thin line bisecting his flat stomach before forming a thick black mass wherein his masculinity stood out in startling white. He was a perfect specimen of manhood. A male in his prime.
Cory had stopped breathing. She was just looking. And looking. And then it dawned on her just what she was doing. Invading his privacy, spying on him, behaving like the worst sort of peeping Tom. What would she say if the tables were turned and she had caught him sneaking up on her?
She swallowed, panic rising up hot and strong as shame overwhelmed her. Stepping backwards, she stood trembling and weak, her cheeks flaming but her senses still stirred by the magnificence of him. She had to get out of here. She would die, die on the spot if he found her ogling him like a lovesick adolescent.
As the whistling stopped it prompted her to the door like a silent rocket and she shot along to her room with her feet hardly touching the ground. Once inside, she flung off the nightie, pulling on the first clothes which came to hand, which happened to be jeans and a T-shirt. Stopping just long enough to pull her hair back into a ponytail, she hightailed it back down to the kitchen.