Free JUST ONE MORE NIGHT by Fiona Brand Page B

faint snap. “You must have suspected all along that a Medinian engagement ring, a family heirloom, was a strange gift for a mistress.”
    With his waistcoat hanging open, his shirt unfastened partway down his chest, the sleeves rolled up over muscular forearms, Nick looked tough and masculine and faintly dissolute in the narrow confines of the hall. “It wouldn’t be my choice.”
    The thought that Nick obviously gave gifts to women he loved and appreciated ignited a familiar coal of old hurt and anger. After their night together she hadn’t rated so much as a phone call.
    “What would you choose? Roses? Dinner? A tropical holiday?”
    She seemed to remember reading an exposé from a former PA of Nick’s and her claims that she had organized a number of tropical holidays for some of his shorter, more fiery flings.
    His expression turned wary. “I don’t normally send gifts. Not when—”
    “Great strategy.” She smiled brightly. “Why encourage the current woman when there’s always another one queuing up?”
    There was a moment of heavy silence during which the humid, overwarm night seemed to close in, isolating them in the dimly lit hall.
    Nick frowned. “Last I heard there is no queue.”
    Probably because he was never in one place long enough for the queue to form. Nick was more a girl-in-every-port kind of guy.
    Elena found herself blurting out a piece of advice he probably didn’t want to hear. “Maybe if you slowed down and stayed in one place for long enough there would be.”
    And suddenly Nick was so close she could feel the heat radiating off him, smell the clean scents of soap and aftershave, and an electrifying whiff of fresh sweat generated by the stuffy, overheated attic.
    She stared at a pulse beating along the strong column of his throat. Sweat shouldn’t be sexy, she thought a little desperately, but it suddenly, very palpably, was.
    Nick’s hand landed on the wall beside her head, subtly fencing her in. “With my schedule, commitment has never been viable.”
    “Then maybe you should take control of your schedule. Not,” she amended hastily, “that I have any interest in a committed relationship with you. I have—Robert.”
    She didn’t, not really, and the small lie made her go hot all over. But suddenly it seemed very important that she should have someone, that she shouldn’t look like a total loser in the relationship stakes.
    Nick’s brows jerked together. “I’m glad we’re clear on that point.”
    “Totally. Crystal clear.” But her heart pounded at the edge in Nick’s voice, as if he hadn’t been entirely happy at her mention of Robert. Or that she had nixed the whole idea of a relationship with him.
    Nick cupped her jaw, the heat of his fingers warm and slightly rough against her skin. “So this is just friendship?”
    He dipped his head, slowly enough that she could avoid the kiss if she wanted.
    A shaft of heat burned through her as he touched his mouth to hers. She could move away. One step and she could end the dizzying delight that was sweeping through her that maybe, just maybe, they had turned some kind of corner when they had uncovered the reason behind his father’s relationship with her aunt.
    That now that the past was resolved, a relationship between them wasn’t so impossible.
    Heart pounding as the kiss deepened, she lifted up on her toes, one hand curving over Nick’s broad shoulder as she hung on. The tingling heat that flooded her, the notion that they could have a future, were all achingly addictive. She couldn’t remember feeling so alive.
    Except, maybe, six years ago.
    That thought should have stopped her in her tracks. But the gap of time, the emotional desert she’d trudged through, after Nick, had taught her a salutary lesson.
    She needed to be loved, and she absolutely did not want to remain alone. So far the search for a husband had proved anticlimactic. Good character and an appealing outward appearance just didn’t seem to generate