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“No, not even peripherally.”

“So you really think we can separate this from them?”

“Yes, thank Christ. I don’t make a habit of consulting my family when it comes to the women I sleep with.”

That left a strange taste in her mouth. “And you make a habit of sleeping with a lot of women.”

“We’ve already dealt with that.”

“It’s not something we have to deal with,” she said with a lift of her shoulders. “It doesn’t matter.”

“So why bring it up?”

“Forget I did.”

Silence stretched between them. “It bothers you.”

She finished her champagne, letting the liquid fizz and pop in her mouth before swallowing. “Why would it bother me?”

“It’s normal to be jealous when you’re in a relationship.”

“But we’re not in a relationship.”

“Two people regularly having sex is a relationship, even when there’s no expectation of it becoming more.”

She’d gone from feeling sublimely relaxed to something else—a tightening in her chest and tummy that she didn’t like at all. “We’re talking about women you’ve slept with in the past. You’re not still sleeping with anyone else, right?”

He shook his head once.

“So why would I be jealous?”

“I don’t know, but you sound it.”

“Well, I’m not.” Except, they both knew she was lying, and she hated that. She hated that the thought of his past, littered with beautiful, sophisticated, stunning women, a procession of women who’d graced his bed before her, marveled at his beauty and skills, hated imagining him being driven as wild by anyone else as he was by her. Hated the thought of him wanting in a way that lessened what they were doing.

“It’s just…I don’t have the same experience as you. For me, this is new.”

“How so?”

“I’ve never been with someone that’s made me feel…” she clamped her lips together, aware of what she was confessing, and that it was somehow contrary to the rules they’d agreed to. And yet, she’d come this far. Besides, it was the truth. So she barrelled on, uncaring of the consequences of her admission. “I’ve never been with someone who’s made me feel as though my whole body has been flooded with light. When you touch me, I feel like I’m glowing from the inside out, and when I’m not with you, I crave you in a way that is, honestly, kind of frightening. I’ve never felt this before, but I know for you, this is just what you do. It’s just who you are. I don’t…love that, if I’m honest.”

9

THE SECOND SHE SAID it, he felt the danger wrapping around him, like a boa constrictor, making it hard to breathe. Because she was wrong about him, and in realising that, he realised the very real danger of what they were doing here.

He’d been so confident, even an hour earlier, that their agreed upon rules made this easy to contain. That they could sleep together for four weeks and then walk away, no harm, no foul. But the problem was, what Emilia had just described was exactly how Salvatore felt. And despite what she might think, that wasn’t normal for him. He couldn’t remember ever having craved a woman to the point of desperation. He couldn’t remembereverhaving been with a woman in the staircase of a six star hotel simply because he couldn’t bear the thought of letting her go without knowing her again.

But he just sat there, silent, because in admitting how she felt to him, how different this was to what she’d expected, she’d already pushed them out onto a ledge. If he admitted the same thing to her, it would be like dragging them over, into free-fall, with no parachute and no promise. Their rules would only protect them so far.

And so he took the coward’s way out, and half-way hated himself for it when he saw the self-conscious expression that crossed her face.

“Why is it that you have been with so few men?”

She glanced down at the bubbles, shielding her eyes from him, in an attempt to hide how she felt. But he saw it anyway, and he hated having been the cause.

“I guess I’ve been holding out for something special.”

He felt as though a hole had just formed in his chest, expansive and dark, protective and jealous, because that could never be him. “What does that look like?” He reached for the champagne bottle and topped up their glasses, simply because he felt like he needed to act as if everything was normal and fine, even when it wasn’t.