LITMIR.BIZ

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too idealistic in her assumption that they’d cleaned the slate. Perhaps her confession over supper put him off or something. She couldn’t really see why it would, and the ease of their subsequent conversation hadn’t given her that impression, but with hindsight she had rather let it all out without letting him get much of a word in edgeways.

      Perhaps their conversation, the understanding they’d reached and the catch-up they’d had was exactly what he’d been after—closure—and now he’d got it he was done.

      Maybe he was after nothing more than friendship or something and he was perfectly happy for her to let him know what she thought about that once back in London.

      Maybe the kiss he’d dropped on her cheek had been not one of restraint but one of goodbye.

      Her heart squeezed and her throat tightened. Then she gave herself a quick shake and pulled herself together because on the other hand it was entirely possible she was being a bit melodramatic about where he could be.

      Surely Kit wouldn’t have flown all the way out here just to leave less than twenty-four hours later. Hadn’t he said he was on holiday? And surely he’d want to hang around to hear what decision she’d come to, even though she hadn’t come to one because she still couldn’t figure out what she was supposed to be deciding.

      For her own peace of mind, though, and out of respect for the author of the book she was struggling to concentrate on, maybe she’d better go and check if he was still here. Then at least she’d know one way or another and would know how to proceed.

      Putting her e-reader down and reaching for her sarong, Lily got to her feet and headed inside.

      ‘Good morning,’ she said to the receptionist, with a sunny smile that totally belied the weird kind of tension now clutching at her stomach. ‘I was wondering, could you tell me whether Christopher Buchanan has checked out?’

      ‘Not to my knowledge, madam,’ he replied.

      ‘Oh, thank God for that,’ she said, clapping her hand to her chest and letting out a rush of breath as the tension dissipated and she filled with an overwhelming sense of relief. More overwhelming than the situation warranted, probably, but who cared?

      ‘Would you like to know where he is?’

      ‘I would.’ Very much. Because if he wasn’t coming in search of her, she’d go in search of him.

      ‘I believe he went to the spa.’

      ‘Thank you.’

      Phew, she thought, leaving the main building and walking along the track towards the thatched structure that contained the spa. Kit hadn’t gone. He was just having some time out. Relaxing. Doing what millions of people all over the world did on holiday.

      Although choosing to do it in a spa did seem kind of incongruous. She’d always thought of him as a man of action and purpose, constantly on the move and unstoppable in his drive for more. He’d never been one for navel-gazing and just sitting around doing nothing, but maybe he’d changed in that respect too. It had been five years after all, and no one—not even Kit—could keep up the kind of level of both mental and physical activity she associated with him for ever.

      And even though the idea of him lounging in a steam room or having a massage or something was difficult to reconcile with the Kit she’d once known, she found it surprisingly easy to visualise.

      In her mind’s eye she could see him sitting on one of the wooden ledges, leaning back against the wall while the steam swirled around him. She could see droplets of water forming on his chest, trickling down over the smattering of hair that covered his skin there, tracing the ripples of his abs and then meandering south before melting into the top of the towel wrapped round his waist.

      She could see him closing his eyes and dropping his head back, and her mouth actually began to water as she imagined leaning over and pressing her lips to the skin of his shoulder to catch a droplet and then make the journey it would have made with her tongue.

      Right the way down...

      At the image of what she might do then, a bolt of heat shot through her, nearly wiping out her knees, and she had to grip the door to the spa for support.

      Good Lord.

      Feeling faintly dizzy, Lily gave herself a quick shake to dispel the image, determinedly ignored the heat and cleared her throat. She hadn’t fantasised like that in years and had no business doing so now. She wasn’t seeking Kit out to drool all over him or to melt into a puddle of lust at his feet; she was going after him to see if she couldn’t find out a bit more about what he thought was going on here.

      * * *

      Five minutes later she’d found him. Not in the steam room, thank goodness, but in the Jacuzzi. Which actually wasn’t all that much better. Because he was naked.

      Well, perhaps not entirely naked, she had to concede once her stupefied brain had started working again and the common-sense robbing flush of heat had subsided. Seeing as how the spa was a public space presumably he had swimming shorts on. Not that she had any intention of investigating that too closely.

      Which was just as well as her eyes seemed to have fixed on his chest and rather worryingly weren’t going anywhere, south or otherwise. The way he was sitting, with his arms outstretched and resting on the edge of the pool while water bubbled and popped all round him, displayed it in all its glory, and she couldn’t tear her eyes away.

      It was a good chest, she thought dazedly, every nerve ending she had tingling with awareness. Better now, if that was possible, than when she’d first become acquainted with it. His shoulders were broader, his muscles looked harder, more defined, and his skin was a fraction darker.

      Her head filled with the memory of how he’d felt moving against her, on top of her, inside her and her fingers itched with the need to reach out and touch him and find out if he still felt the same, still responded to her in the same way...

      It was only when one of her feet actually inched forwards that she jerked back to her senses.

      Honestly, what was going on? This was ridiculous. It was Kit. Her ex-husband. She knew every inch of his body, from the thick dark hair on his head to his toes and everything in between, so why was she lusting over him as if she’d never seen a body like it?

      Ignoring the knowledge that it was the bits in between that were causing her such a problem right now, Lily pulled her shoulders back and dragged her eyes up. To find him watching her with an annoyingly knowing little smile playing at his lips, the likes of which made her all the more determined to stay cool and in control.

      ‘Hi there,’ she said brightly. Overly brightly possibly.

      ‘Good morning.’

      ‘Did you sleep well?’ she asked, and immediately wished she hadn’t because all it did was conjure up the memory of her and Kit falling asleep in each other’s arms, hot, satiated and limp with exhaustion.

      And then another, of her waking up alone and sad and aware that while physically he was just across the hall in the spare room emotionally they were a million miles apart.

      ‘Like a log,’ he said with an easy smile that suggested he wasn’t nearly as similarly burdened. ‘You?’

      ‘Beautifully,’ she lied, ruthlessly dismissing the memories and trying to concentrate. ‘I didn’t see you at breakfast.’

      ‘I had it in my room.’

      ‘Oh.’

      ‘I had some work to catch up on.’

      ‘Right.’

      Then her train of thought faded because, gosh, it was hard work keeping her eyes on his and not letting them drift down as they kept trying to do. And verging on impossible to hold back the urge to whip off her sarong and leap into the Jacuzzi with him and make herself stay where she was.

      This was absolutely awful, she thought a little desperately. She’d

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