One Night On The Virgin's Terms - Melanie Milburne Page 0,52

ignore it no longer. Her love for him had been in the background for so long, she hadn’t recognised it until it had moved to centre stage. The passion he awakened in her had turned a spotlight on her emotions. Emotions she had shied away from at first, keeping them in the shadows in case she got hurt. But they were out of the shadows now, spreading light over all her self-delusions, revealing the truth at the heart of her involvement with Louis. She loved him. She wanted him, not just during a fling, but forever.

Louis came out from the bedroom and she turned to face him. He was still naked, apart from a white towel wrapped around his lean hips, and his hair looked as if it had been recently combed with his fingers.

‘Are these for me?’ She pointed to the items on the coffee table, keeping her expression neutral... Well, as neutral as she could, which wasn’t saying much.

‘Who else would they be for?’ His tone was guarded, as if he sensed the undercurrent of tension in her face and body that she was so desperately trying to hide.

Ivy turned back to the coffee table and leaned down to pick up the roses, lifting them to her face to breathe in the sweet fragrance. She put them back on the table and turned sideways to look at him again. ‘You don’t have to buy me gifts, Louis. You’ve spent enough money helping my mother without going to any more expense on me as well.’

He came further into the room to stand on the other side of the coffee table. ‘I have plenty of money, and if I want to spend it I will.’ His tone had a clipped edge, as if he was annoyed at her attitude to his generosity.

Ivy elevated her chin, locking her gaze on his inscrutable one. ‘I don’t want you buying me hideously expensive gifts. I don’t need compensation for when our...fling is over.’

A savage frown divided his brow. ‘Compensation? Is that what you think this is?’ He waved a hand at the gifts on the table between them, his grey-blue eyes glittering with something that very much looked like anger. Good, because she was angry too. Furiously angry that he was paying her off. Softening the blow with fancy gifts when all she wanted was his love. Not his money, just his love.

Ivy arched her eyebrows in a haughty manner. ‘Isn’t it?’

He muttered a swear word in both French and English, his hand reaching up to rub the back of his neck, as if to relieve sudden tension. He dropped his hand back by his side, every muscle in his body rigid. Unyielding. As though he was putting up a physical barrier as impenetrable as his emotional firewall.

‘No. It is not that at all.’ Each word was bitten out, his mouth set in a tight line. ‘The flowers and chocolates are to thank you for coming with me to Paris. The jewellery is for your birthday—I thought I’d give it to you early in case I don’t see you on the day. If you want to read anything else into it, then fine, go right ahead.’

Ivy’s anger deflated like a pricked party balloon. ‘Oh, Louis, I’m sorry. I almost forgot about my birthday.’ He had made her forget everything but how wonderful it was to be in his arms. And how, within a matter of four impossibly short days, she would be out of them and alone again.

He shrugged one broad shoulder in a dismissive manner. ‘Forget about it.’ His tone was gruff, offhand, but she could read a thread of lingering hurt in it too.

She stepped around the coffee table and placed her hand on his leanly muscled forearm, meshing her gaze with his screened one. ‘I’m sorry for being tetchy when you’ve been so generous. Forgive me?’

He made a soft grunting sound and wrapped his arms around her and brought her close against him, his head resting on the top of her head. ‘There’s nothing to forgive.’ His deep voice reverberated against her cheek where it was resting against his broad chest. She wanted to stay there forever, just like this, in the warm, protective shelter of his arms.

After a long moment, Ivy tilted her head back to look at him. ‘Can I open my present now?’

He smiled and gave her bottom a playful pat. ‘Go for it.’

She slipped out of his arms to pick up the jewellery box, holding her