fool! She swiped a glove from the box on her desk, pulling it on as she knelt down. If her actions had compromised the page’s condition she might as well give up her job now. She would never forgive herself. Maybe she should give it up anyway, given she’d so easily disregarded her first responsibility. A paper that had survived for centuries only to be destroyed by a thoughtless couple behaving on top of it like hormone-driven teenagers—and one of them the person charged with ensuring its preservation. That would look good in her report. If she wanted to make a name for herself in this industry, a name nobody would ever forget, there would be no faster or surer way.
What the hell had she been thinking?
That was an easy one. Clearly she hadn’t been thinking— not beyond her own carnal desires.
‘It looks fine.’
Maybe to him. Nothing looked fine from her angle. Everything was off-kilter. Everything was wrong. She swiped sudden tears from her eyes, not sure if they stemmed from what had just so nearly happened on the desk or from relief that the page appeared to have survived its ordeal intact. But she was not about to risk dripping salty tears all over the page and add insult to injury. ‘Just go, will you?’
She slid a folio beneath the page, lifting it gently back to the desk, using the opportunity to take a few more steps and put the desk between them at the same time. She would have to check the page for materials and fibres picked up from the rug, but pulling out her tweezers and microscope would have to wait until the Count had gone and her hands had stopped shaking.
‘Dr Hunter …’
‘Haven’t you done enough? I asked you to go.’
His jaw firmed, his eyes grew hard edged. ‘You’re blaming me?’
‘I certainly didn’t kiss you!’
‘No? I distinctly remember there were two of us there. And I sure as hell don’t remember anyone complaining.’
She squeezed her eyes shut, remembering only too well her lack of resistance. ‘I think we both made a mistake. And now, if you don’t mind, I have work to do.’ She curled her hands into fists, willing the shaking to stop, trying to make sense of this unfamiliar recklessness and get her scientific self back together while he loomed there, her very own dark cloud.
‘Have dinner with me tonight.’
Her breath caught. Dinner—and what else? Why the sudden hospitality? Unless he was looking to finish what he’d started?
‘I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.’
‘You have to eat.’
‘I’m very good at eating alone. Luckily, as it happens.’
‘If that’s a dig at the way you’ve been treated here—’
‘Take it how you like. But I live alone. I’m good with it.’
He regarded her coolly from under hooded lids. ‘You’re afraid.’
‘I’m not afraid of you. It’s just that I don’t see the point. Every time we’re together we end up arguing or—’
His chin lifted, a spark glinted in his eyes. ‘You are afraid we will not argue?’
‘Should I be?’
‘I think whether or not we argue is something that is as much up to you as it is to me.’
And that was exactly what she was afraid of. One kiss and she’d forgotten who she even was. How could something as mechanical as the meeting of two mouths do that? She’d had lovers before, and neither of them had come close to making her feel anything like this man did. Okay, so maybe her first time had been more clinical than exciting, and borne of desperation that she would be the sole virgin in her university graduating class, and the second time had been grief sex with a colleague after a child she’d nursed for days in the refugee hospital had died in her arms. It had been bitter and sweet and life-affirming and exactly what she’d needed at the time, but it had been nothing to rival the impact of even this man’s kiss.
Dared she dine with him? If he kissed her again, how would she resist? And with what? She had no defences against such an onslaught. If she even wanted to stop it. She hadn’t before, and if that paper hadn’t fallen to the floor what would they be doing now? She shuddered and squeezed her eyes shut, but it didn’t stop the images dancing in her mind’s eye. Right there, on the desk.
‘You can tell me more of your theories,’ he prompted, clearly sensing her waver, ‘and perhaps I can share mine about