“I’ll explain later.” Then he moved into her, pressing her against the wall. “Stay with me tonight,” he whispered, his voice smoothing along her skin like a silken caress but the words sounded like a request, not an order.
“I… is that an order?” she queried, confused at how to proceed.
He smiled his devastating smile again and shook his head. “No, I’m asking you to stay the night.”
Her heart skipped to a stuttering halt and then started beating again, double time. She was going to have a heart attack, at thirty-two years old, in the hallway of a National Trust property.
Definitely Royce.
“My family –” she started.
“I’ll have the car take them home and return in the morning for you, early if you like.”
If she liked?
She opened her mouth and then closed it. What could she say? She wanted to be with this Colin. She knew it wasn’t fair and it wasn’t right, she was practising an insidious voodoo against her will and his (well, maybe not against hers).
Perhaps she was going to have to bring Mags into deal with it after all. Her mother couldn’t actually do anything but she might know someone in her loopy collective that had some knowledge of how to exorcise a dream man from a real, flesh and blood man.
“Sibyl?” he prompted.
“Colin?” she returned.
She was testing him, saying his name to see his response. His head tilted and he watched her with an expression on his face that even blind Annie could have seen showed he thought she was adorable.
Her heart still racing, she now caught her breath.
“Now that we’ve ascertained we remember each other’s names, perhaps you’ll promise me that you’ll spend the night with me, here at Lacybourne, in my bed, no matter what happens tonight.”
She’d stopped listening on the word “bed”.
She let her breath out in a gush. “Where’s your family staying?”
“Here.”
“I can’t stay with you while your family –”
“Trust me, they don’t mind.”
This was a bizarre statement in a bizarre evening. They were both consenting adults but it wasn’t seemly, especially not the first night she’d met his family. They’d think she was a screaming slut.
She was, of course, his paid for sexual partner but his parents didn’t know that.
“Colin.”
“Sibyl, promise me.”
His voice was silk. His eyes were warm. His lips were less than an inch away.
She was no match for that combination.
“Okay.”
He grinned, his grin filled with triumph and then he kissed her breathless.
Again.
When he released her mouth, he turned and guided her to the dining room. Distractedly, she heard the hushed conversation but, the minute they entered hand-in-hand, all talk ceased and everyone stared at them. Then, covering, they rushed on with what seemed like great determination to appear natural and at any other time in her life Sibyl would have found it curious and, probably, hilarious.