‘I know.’ She gave a little forced laugh. ‘Just think what Ronan would say if he knew we were having a fling. Or Mum.’
The frown between his eyebrows deepened. ‘Yes, well, all the more reason to stick to the rules. I don’t want anyone’s expectations raised and then dashed when our...fling ends.’
His slight hesitation over the word ‘fling’ made her wonder if perhaps a part of him—a secret, well-buried part—was already compartmentalising his involvement with her as something completely different from his normal flings. He rolled away from her, got off the bed and disposed of the condom in the bathroom.
Ivy used the opportunity while he was in the bathroom to wrap herself in a plush bathrobe. His bathrobe that contained the tantalising scent of him on its soft fibres. It completely swamped her, but at least it covered her nakedness. But it wasn’t really her physical nakedness she was most worried about covering—it was her emotional nakedness. The raw hope filling her heart more and more each day that he would come to love her. A hope that refused to give up even though it was hanging by a silken thread.
She desperately hoped he would want more than a scratch-an-itch fling. That the chemistry between them would prove to him that what they’d experienced together was special, unique, something to be treasured and not put aside as a distant memory.
Louis disposed of the condom and gripped the edge of the basin in front of the mirror. He looked at his reflection and wasn’t sure he liked what he saw. A man who was seriously questioning if he’d done the right thing in sleeping with Ivy. Not because he didn’t enjoy every moment of having her in his arms—he did. Too much. Way too much. So much, he was finding it harder and harder to think of their involvement as a fling. As a casual fling, like any other he’d experienced. It wasn’t and it could never be. It was in an entirely different category. Not just because he was her first lover. Not just because the sex was so fulfilling and mind-blowingly pleasurable and made his body hum for hours afterwards. But because it was Ivy. Sweet, cute, adorable Ivy, with her dimples and her curls and her curves and her funny little bunny twitch.
But one day, in the not too distant future he would have to see Ivy move on with someone else. Someone who would give her the things she wanted—love, marriage, babies, commitment for a lifetime. And she had every right to want those things. She deserved no less than wholehearted commitment and love.
His gut twisted like writhing snakes. One day, he would even have to attend her wedding or think of a very good excuse not to accept the invitation, thus hurting her, her mother and her brother in one fell swoop. God, how had he got himself into this mess? A beautiful mess he didn’t want to end.
Not yet.
CHAPTER NINE
IVY WANDERED OUT to the salon, still dressed in Louis’ bathrobe, where there was a huge bunch of pink roses wrapped in white paper and tied with a black satin bow resting on the coffee table. There was a box of chocolates from a Parisian chocolatier next to them, as well as a flat, rectangular black velvet jewellery box.
Her breath stalled, her heart tripped, her stomach flipped. Flowers. Chocolates. Jewellery. Gifts a man in love gave to the woman he adored. Hope spread throughout her chest, lifting her spirits, sending a burst of happiness through her.
But then a doubt slipped into her mind like a curl of toxic smoke wafting under a door, slowly but surely poisoning her fledgling hopes. For all she knew, he might buy all his lovers gifts. Consolation prizes, trinkets to remember him by when their fling came to its inevitable end.
She wanted more than memories. She had been trying to ignore it from the first time he’d kissed her, but she could ignore it no longer. Her love for him had been in the background for so long, she hadn’t recognised it until it had moved to centre stage. The passion he awakened in her had turned a spotlight on her emotions. Emotions she had shied away from at first, keeping them in the shadows in case she got hurt. But they were out of the shadows now, spreading light over all her self-delusions, revealing the truth at the heart of her involvement with Louis. She loved him. She wanted him, not just during a fling, but forever.
Louis came out from the bedroom and she turned to face him. He was still naked, apart from a white towel wrapped around his lean hips, and his hair looked as if it had been recently combed with his fingers.
‘Are these for me?’ She pointed to the items on the coffee table, keeping her expression neutral... Well, as neutral as she could, which wasn’t saying much.
‘Who else would they be for?’ His tone was guarded, as if he sensed the undercurrent of tension in her face and body that she was so desperately trying to hide.
Ivy turned back to the coffee table and leaned down to pick up the roses, lifting them to her face to breathe in the sweet fragrance. She put them back on the table and turned sideways to look at him again. ‘You don’t have to buy me gifts, Louis. You’ve spent enough money helping my mother without going to any more expense on me as well.’
He came further into the room to stand on the other side of the coffee table. ‘I have plenty of money, and if I want to spend it I will.’ His tone had a clipped edge, as if he was annoyed at her attitude to his generosity.
Ivy elevated her chin, locking her gaze on his inscrutable one. ‘I don’t want you buying me hideously expensive gifts. I don’t need compensation for when our...fling is over.’
A savage frown divided his brow. ‘Compensation? Is that what you think this is?’ He waved a hand at the gifts on the table between them, his grey-blue eyes glittering with something that very much looked like anger. Good, because she was angry too. Furiously angry that he was paying her off. Softening the blow with fancy gifts when all she wanted was his love. Not his money, just his love.
Ivy arched her eyebrows in a haughty manner. ‘Isn’t it?’
He muttered a swear word in both French and English, his hand reaching up to rub the back of his neck, as if to relieve sudden tension. He dropped his hand back by his side, every muscle in his body rigid. Unyielding. As though he was putting up a physical barrier as impenetrable as his emotional firewall.
‘No. It is not that at all.’ Each word was bitten out, his mouth set in a tight line. ‘The flowers and chocolates are to thank you for coming with me to Paris. The jewellery is for your birthday—I thought I’d give it to you early in case I don’t see you on the day. If you want to read anything else into it, then fine, go right ahead.’
Ivy’s anger deflated like a pricked party balloon. ‘Oh, Louis, I’m sorry. I almost forgot about my birthday.’ He had made her forget everything but how wonderful it was to be in his arms. And how, within a matter of four impossibly short days, she would be out of them and alone again.
He shrugged one broad shoulder in a dismissive manner. ‘Forget about it.’ His tone was gruff, offhand, but she could read a thread of lingering hurt in it too.