Free The Seduction of Suzanne by Amelia Hart Page B

we have a spark, Dad,” she said indignantly, taken aback that he should doubt it. “I love Michael!”
    “Or perhaps you are in the habit of thinking you do,” said he soberly.
    Feeling more furious with him than she had ever been before, Suzanne had sat in stony silence as he drove them both to the ferry. Despite her anger she stiffly gave him a hug goodbye, a ritual she would not relinquish, regardless of her feelings. Then she stomped aboard the boat.
    It was a week before she would admit to herself that her fury had been a knee-jerk reaction, covering her sudden fear that he was right about her relationship with Michael. Or more, he was right she needed more. She didn’t want to need more. She wanted to settle for safety, find fulfilment without threatening her guarded heart.
    She wanted for this to be enough.
    And it wasn’t.
    In the dark fastnesses of her woman’s soul she wanted more, but lacked the courage to chase it.
    She couldn’t hold on to Michael, knowing he wasn’t enough to keep her happy. He deserved a wholehearted love.
    Deeply apprehensive, she broke the news she couldn’t be his girlfriend anymore. He took it calmly, once she reassured him that it wasn’t because of anything he’d said or done.
    “I don’t want to stop being friends, though,” he said. “That would really hurt, because I can talk to you about things that I can’t tell anyone else, and you always understand.”
    If anything, their break-up had seemed to strengthen their friendship. Michael often came to stay for a weekend or even longer in the holidays, now that she lived alone. He would bring a stack of videos if it were winter, or the weather forecast was particularly bad, and she would catch up on all the movies that she never saw on the island, or they’d stay up late talking. When the weather was fine they would usually go tramping, which he particularly enjoyed. Suzanne never stopped being glad that the end of their romance hadn’t damaged their friendship. These days – knowing rather more about the world – she wondered if her increasingly self-assured friend might someday produce a boyfriend for her to meet.
    Yet she hadn’t had any significant relationship with a man since she had broken up with Michael. Sometimes being steadfastly single made her feel out of kilter with the rest of the world. More often she simply felt lonely, despite her friends and the other talkative, nosy individuals on the island.
    This intensity of attraction she felt for Justin Walker was a total break from the norm.
    She simply wasn’t equipped to deal with it. Not in any sense of the word.
    Despite Anita’s urgings, the jungle of casual sex was an untracked wilderness to her. She had no idea how to find a way into or through that. Or even if she wanted to go that way.
    But a deeper relationship was out of the question. He was a short-term visitor to the island. She had no future with someone like that.
    He was also the most attractive, physically arousing man she’d ever met. She could barely think straight around him. Even holding a conversation was a significant effort of will.
    He belonged exactly where she had originally placed him: in the “Too Hard” basket.
    And then she spent several delirious moments remembering just exactly how ‘too hard’ he had been by the end of their kiss.
    She ground her teeth together in frustration. Just thinking about him turned her brain to mush, and he wasn’t even present.
    And that was where things got really dangerous. She knew what came of believing in a handsome, unprincipled man. And she had no basis for believing he was anything else. She didn’t trust her own judgement. She didn’t trust him. She didn’t trust the growing urge to follow him around like moronic lapdog, panting and eager to please.
    And yet. . .and yet. . .
    If he left the island this second, and she never saw him again, how long would it take to stop thinking about him, stop wondering if there was something