The expression in Grace’s eyes had the blood in Jamie’s veins leaping. One finely arched eyebrow rose, silently asking if he wanted to continue fighting their attraction or whether he wanted to surrender to it.
Surrender, please! But… ‘Are you sure?’
‘Oh, I’m sure.’ He loved that she knew her own mind and owned it. ‘But I want to make a couple of things clear first.’
He tried to slow the racing of his pulse, pause the vision that rose in his mind of their bodies entwining. ‘I’m listening.’
‘This isn’t about your offer to invest in my future business. The fact you believe in me means a lot, but I expect I’m going to turn down your offer.’
It didn’t surprise him, but… ‘I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed.’
She leaned towards him. ‘I want to do this on my own. Like you did your robotics company.’
He leaned forward too. ‘While I consider JC Robotics mine, I sought investment from the outset. I wanted to scale up as quickly as possible. I’ve good business instincts and I decided to follow them.’
She blinked.
‘I’ll respect whatever decision you make, but let me plead my case further before completely dismissing it.’
‘Okay.’
‘Thank you.’ He let out a breath. ‘Now, what else did you want to make clear?’
‘This—’ she gestured between them ‘—feels like unfinished business. But you’ve been through an ugly divorce and I’ve been through an ugly break-up. Neither of us is ready for forever, Jamie.’
He loved the way she said his name.
‘Whatever happens between us, I can’t see it being anything more than a brief-but-glorious fling.’
He digested her words, tried to work out how he felt about them. This woman had once meant the world to him. Yeah, when you were sixteen. He’d grown up in the intervening years. He straightened. She was right—this was unfinished business, nothing more. ‘A chance to get it out of our systems,’ he murmured.
‘A chance to give ourselves a more fitting ending,’ she murmured back. ‘We don’t have a future together—you’re a city slicker with a huge company to run, and I’m firmly wedded to life out here in the Kimberley—but…’
‘But?’
‘It’d be nice to look back on our time together and smile about it, feel good about it, rather than remembering the misunderstandings and hurt feelings.’
He stood and held out his hand, his eyes gleaming. ‘I’m in.’
She placed her hand inside it.
They didn’t speak on the walk to the cottage. The moment he kicked the door closed behind them and he tugged her into his arms, though, their mouths collided with a heat and passion that had him reeling back to brace himself against the door, taking her with him. Hands tugged up T-shirts to touch bare skin, and the air hissed from his lungs as her familiar touch danced patterns across his overheated flesh.
With a groan he grazed his teeth along the sensitive flesh behind her ear, making her gasp, making her fingers dig into his biceps as she arched against him. Closing his eyes, he hissed out a breath and pushed a hand into his pocket, pulling out a condom. ‘I came prepared.’
‘Me too.’
He opened his eyes to find a whole string of foil packets dangling from her fingers.
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