Her Last Night of Innocence by India Grey Page A

his body into the gap between the door and the wall.
    ‘Wh-what are you doing here?’
    Kate’s chest was rising and falling rapidly, her breath coming in uneven gasps, but he was perfectly unruffled. His face was completely expressionless, his eyes dark and opaque.
    ‘I want to talk to you,’ he said softly.
    Kate couldn’t stop the bitter laugh from escaping her. ‘Really? That wasn’t what it looked like back there.’
    Her voice was breathless and shaky. He made no movetowards her, but her heart was hammering viciously against her ribs, and beneath the jumper she was suddenly boiling hot.
    ‘We were interrupted.’ Leaning back against the wall with deceptive nonchalance, he was still looking at her steadily. ‘I hoped you’d wait.’
    ‘I did.’ Suddenly the narrow space by the door seemed horribly claustrophobic. Whirling round, Kate walked quickly back into the room, desperate to put some space between them. ‘Last time. I waited last time—remember?’
    ‘What?’
    Something in his tone made her turn back to look at him. He had levered himself away from the wall and was advancing across the room towards her, his eyes burning with an intensity that was almost frightening.
    ‘Forget it,’ she muttered, going into the bathroom to collect the things she’d left in there. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
    She threw her toothbrush into her washbag and, going out again, collided with him in the doorway.
    Before she could back away, he caught hold of her shoulders and looked down at her with a twisted, ironic smile that skewered her heart. ‘Actually, it does.’ Noticing the washbag, he frowned. ‘What are you doing?’
    ‘Packing. I’m going home.’
    His grip on her shoulders didn’t loosen, but his gaze shifted from hers, sliding downwards. ‘That’s a shame,’ he said gravely. ‘I would have liked to get to know you better.’ He lifted a hand, brushing a strand of hair back from her cheek. In the soft light his face wore an abstracted expression, and was almost impossibly perfect. ‘Could I persuade you to stay?’
    Agonising desire zigzagged through her like lightning, rooting her to the spot for a second as every nerve in her body sang beneath his touch and her senses reeled at his nearness. For all this time she had carried the scent of his skin in her memory, and now it was in her head, and the eyes she had looked into so often in her dreams were staring straight back into hers…
    But their expression was different now. Gone was the emotion that had reached inside her and tugged her heart from her chest, and in its place was something darker. Harder. Colder.
    ‘ No. ’
    Wrenching herself away, she took a couple of steps backwards, gathering up folds of satin, twisting them in her damp fists as she walked around to the other side of the pristine hotel bed. ‘I don’t want to be another notch on your bedpost, another anonymous name on your list of one-night stands.’ Grabbing her case, she viciously shoved the washbag into it and gave a shaky, slightly hysterical laugh. ‘I suppose that if you take into account that night four years ago that would technically make it a two -night stand, but it would also make me doubly stupid to fall for the same routine tw—’
    The knock at the door made her jump and stopped her mid-sentence. Rushing to open it, she was dimly aware that she was still wearing the blue satin dress and had just put all the rest of her clothes in the suitcase. What was it about Cristiano Maresca that made it impossible to think straight?
    ‘Good evening, mademoiselle .’
    It was the concierge—a short, sleek man, with a neat moustache like Hercule Poirot. A strange mixture of relief and panic churned inside her at the thought of leaving here now. Walking away down the wide, thick-carpeted corridor. Walking away from Cristiano for good.
    ‘You asked to be booked on a flight back to Leeds, England, as soon as possible?’ the concierge asked politely.
    ‘Yes. I’ll just