by Leah Ashton
So they stepped aside—around the side of the last stall and into almost darkness, with only a few lonely-looking lanterns hanging above their heads. The move had brought Gray closer to her—close enough that she needed to tip her head up to look at him.
‘What was I saying?’
‘Something about being nice,’ she said.
‘No, not that,’ he said. ‘Your CV. If all that experience isn’t accurate, then what have you been doing for work? Or were you paid to swim?’
Lanie gave a brief laugh. ‘No! Surprisingly, an unknown relay swimmer is not a target for lucrative sponsorship deals.’ She briefly explained her old job at the swim-school, which she’d taken to support the limited government funding her swimming had received.
He looked at her curiously. ‘Why are you working for me?’
‘Because you’re such a nice guy?’ she said, trying another laugh. But this one was even less successful.
‘No, I’m serious,’ he said. ‘Is this what you want? A career in business?’
Lanie wrapped her arms around her waist. Her stomach was feeling strangely empty, despite their recent meal. ‘Why not?’ she said.
Gray shook his head, and the small action made Lanie’s jaw go tense.
‘You’re not young for a swimmer,’ he said, oblivious to Lanie’s narrowing eyes. ‘So I’m guessing swimming has been your life for—what?—ten years?’
‘Longer,’ she said.
‘So after all those years focusing on and striving for one thing—being completely driven by your own goals and aspirations—you walk away to be my assistant?’
Lanie felt her nails digging into her waist. ‘It was the right time for me to retire,’ she said very tightly. ‘And there’s nothing wrong with being a personal assistant.’
‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘If that’s what you want.’
She couldn’t listen to this. ‘I don’t have the luxury of doing what I want, Gray. Not many people do.’
Lanie didn’t want to stand still any longer. She stepped away, needing to walk somewhere. Away from Gray.
But his hand, light on her upper arm, slowed her. Then his voice, quiet but firm, stilled her. ‘What do you want, Lanie?’
She shrugged his touch away, not needing the distraction. Gray was standing directly below the small cluster of lanterns. Their light was inconsistent, putting his face into flickering shadow. She couldn’t quite make out what she was seeing in his gaze—but she could guess.
Concern.
Pity.
‘I wanted a gold medal, Gray,’ she said. She spat the words out, as if it was a dirty secret. ‘But you know what? I soon learnt not to be fussy. Then I just wanted a medal. Later it was enough to be on the team, to swim in a final. Then just being a heat swimmer was okay.’ She paused, taking a step closer to Gray. ‘I’ve got pretty good at downgrading my dreams. And how is it any of your business what my new dream is? Maybe I’ve just figured out that it’s better to choose a dream I’ve got some hope of actually achieving.’
She dropped her gaze, staring at nothing over his shoulder. Somewhere at the back of mind she didn’t understand her reaction. Wasn’t this question exactly the one she’d pondered as she’d swum yesterday?
But then, maybe that was the problem. Yesterday she’d had no answers.
Today she still didn’t.
She wasn’t going to admit that to Gray.
She didn’t even want to admit that to herself.
Gray shifted closer, and now the lantern light revealed his expression to her more clearly.
‘Lanie...’ he began, then paused.
If his gaze had held the pity she expected she would have walked away. If it had been compassion, or worry—everything she saw in Teagan’s eyes and heard in Sienna’s voice—she would have been gone. Out of there.
But it wasn’t there. None of it was. He looked at her with...something. A mix of understanding and maybe respect?
Could you even see that in someone’s eyes?
He reached for her again—this time for her hand. His fingers were warm and firm as they wrapped around hers.
‘Don’t do that,’ she said, although she didn’t pull away.
‘Touch you?’ he asked.
She nodded. ‘You keep doing it. At the airport, the beach, just before...’
Lanie realised it sounded as if she’d burned every instance of his touch into her brain, and she felt a blush steal up her cheeks. He probably had no idea. It had probably all been subconscious actions—nothing to do with her.
‘Why is that a problem?’ His voice had become very, very low.
She was looking down again. At their joined hands. She had pretty big hands—they were in proportion with the rest of her—and long fingers. But Gray’s made hers look normal.
Almost, but not quite, small.
‘I can’t concentrate when you do,’ she said. And then immediately wanted to whisk those words away. She tried to make a joke. ‘See? I don’t know what I’m saying.’
But the atmosphere didn’t lighten. If anything, the shadows in which they stood felt even more intimate.
Here at the end of the stalls there was no one. No tourists, no shopkeepers—nothing.
They were alone.
‘Really?’ he said. His grip shifted, moving a little way up her arm so his fingers brushed the sensitive skin of her inner wrist.
The tiny, delicate movement made her breath catch.
‘You don’t have to hold my hand, you know,’ she said, her voice not sounding at all like her own. ‘I’m not going to walk away. Not because you don’t deserve it, but because I don’t know how to get back to the hotel.’
Gray’s lips quirked upwards.
‘Maybe I’m not touching you for purely practical reasons,’ he said.
Lanie didn’t know what to say to that.
Her instinct was to argue. To say, Don’t be stupid.
But as she looked up into his eyes, as she felt the gentle touch of his fingers and realised it was most definitely a caress, words failed her.
Electricity was shooting up her arm and her whole body felt warm. Different. Certainly not entirely her own as she felt herself sway towards him.
He was looking at her as he had in the ocean. With an intensity and a certainty that she didn’t know how to handle.
She was familiar with a Gray who barely registered her existence. This Gray, who was making her feel as if she was all he was capable of looking at...whose gaze she felt travel from her eyes slowly, slowly to her lips...this Gray was completely overwhelming.
But, unlike that afternoon at the beach, she just couldn’t make herself look away.
It was crazy. It was stupid. She wasn’t even sure if they liked each other.
He’d moved closer. Close enough that she could feel his breath against her lips. Close enough for her to register that his breathing had quickened.
Had she done that?
His other hand reached out, but it wasn’t gentle like the brush of his fingers against her wrist. No, his hand at her waist was firm and sure as it tugged her closer. A whisper away from their bodies touching.
It was as if he was impatient—as if he couldn’t wait around for her to make up her mind about what was going to happen.
And it was that—that little glimmer of familiar Gray, exasperated, focused, impatient, imperfect—that shoved all the other thoughts and doubts from her mind.
Right here, right now, all that mattered was that she wanted to kiss him. Needed to.
And incredibly, remarkably—and unquestionably—he wanted the same thing.
She looked straight into his eyes and he must have seen what she was thinking. Instantly there was no longer any gap between them at all.
&
nbsp; The touch of lips against hers was firm. There was no caution in his kiss. But then, would she expect anything less from Gray?
His hand slid from her waist to the small of her back, although Lanie hardly needed any encouragement to move even closer. Both her hands snaked up and around his neck, and her fingers into his too long hair.
She wasn’t sure who deepened the kiss but it didn’t really matter. All she knew was the brush of his tongue against her lips and then the amazing sensation of their tongues touching and tangling.
She leant into him, enjoying how broad and solid and tall he felt, needing to get closer to all that strength and warmth. His hands traced random patterns at her waist and then moved upwards to the bare skin at her upper back. There, his touch made her shiver—and wish that she had more of his own skin to explore than just the nape of his neck.
Lanie didn’t know how long they kissed or how many times they broke apart to kiss at some other wonderfully perfect angle. It was a confident, passionate kiss, giving them both the time to explore each other’s lips and tongue—and to experiment with kisses both soft and hard. And everything in between.
It was like no other kiss Lanie had ever experienced.
She’d never felt quite so involved in a kiss, never felt so focussed on the touch of mouth and hands. It was as if her whole world had narrowed down to this kiss, to this moment, and absolutely nothing else mattered.
Gray had pulled his lips from hers and was kissing his way along her jaw. The luscious sensation made her tremble and hold on tight as otherwise she had serious concerns her legs were incapable of holding her upright.
‘Lanie?’ Gray murmured against her skin.
‘Mmm-hmm?’
‘We should probably head back to the resort. I’m not one hundred percent on Vietnamese law, but I’m pretty sure if we stay here we’ll be arrested.’
The words were light and casual, but they were enough to snap Lanie’s eyes open.
She froze. Immediately in her line of vision was that poor, forgotten cluster of lanterns—at first a blurry mass of colour but, as reality rapidly descended, soon refocussed into sharp relief. For a moment she watched as they swayed in the evening air and the rest of her surroundings also rushed back into her awareness. The buzz of the market. Music playing, somewhere in the distance. And the almost silent swish of a bicycle along the street.
Oh, God.
Her fingers were still tangled in Gray’s hair, and she was still pressed chest-to-chest to his body. She felt a hot blush accelerate up her chest as she yanked her hands away, but before she could step back Gray’s grip hardened at her waist.
‘Lanie?’
Keeping her eyes on those lanterns, she aimed for a tone that was hopefully breezy and matter-of-fact. ‘Now, we can’t go getting arrested, can we? Wouldn’t be good PR for the resort.’
More brittle than breezy. But it would have to do.
‘No,’ Gray said. For an instant his grip tightened again—but then he let her go entirely. Taking his own step away.
She should be relieved. It frustrated her that she wasn’t.
She risked looking straight at him and he caught her gaze.
He watched her with questions in his eyes—questions she definitely had no intention of answering.
So she filled the silence before he could. ‘We’d better head back to the resort. Busy day tomorrow.’
Gray nodded—a slightly awkward movement. Then he fished his phone out of his shorts pocket and led the way from the relative seclusion of the dark to the multi-coloured brightness of the market.
Lanie kept her gaze straight ahead as she followed him, just putting one foot in front of the other, trying not to think about anything.
But her body—her hormones or something—was determined to keep reminding her how she felt, and it took an effort to push all that away. She didn’t want to remember how she’d felt in his arms. How she’d enjoyed the romantic flutter of his fingers against the skin of her shoulder almost as much as the more earthy, more blatant way he’d claimed her lips.
She wasn’t doing too well on that front.
As they stepped back onto the bridge a woman ran up beside her, a sea-blue lantern in her hand. Automatically Lanie took it and thanked her, but she didn’t really want the lantern any more.
Which should be unsurprising, given that Gray had so adeptly brought to her attention tonight that she had no idea what she wanted.
Except for a short while, in the darkness just beyond a wall of hundreds of rainbow-coloured lanterns, she’d definitely wanted Grayson Manning.
TEN
He should have said something in Vietnam.
Gray knew it. And he kept on knowing it with each painfully awkward conversation with Lanie back in Perth.
After their kiss beside the Night Market they’d travelled back to the resort in total silence. He’d studied her as she’d stared out of the window, trying to figure out what to do or say.
At the time the issue had been that what he’d wanted to do and what he’d known he should say were very different things.
Even in the back seat of that car, with Quan only metres away, the temptation to reach out and touch Lanie had been almost impossible to resist.
When they’d arrived back at the resort there’d been a moment when they’d both stepped out of the car and Gray had been sure Lanie had swayed towards him. He’d been sure that whatever barriers she’d built since their kiss were just going to fall away.
And even though he’d known exactly how wrong it was for him to want that to happen he had wanted it.
But then she’d given a little shake of her head—like a reminder to herself, maybe—and walked away.
Thankfully, somehow he’d had the presence of mind not to follow her.
But even so his behaviour had shocked him.
He was her boss.
Even his dad and his too-quick-to-love heart had never had an affair at work.
And to think he’d been so smug about his relationship history when compared to his father’s: dotted with mutually convenient temporary relationships, but never, ever anything hinting towards permanency.
He’d decided long ago that marriage was not for him. His career was his life’s focus—he didn’t need or want anything else. No distractions, no loss of control, and certainly no risk of losing what he’d spent his whole life working towards.
Besides, he had no doubt that he’d inherited his dad’s propensity for divorce. All he had to do was look at his track record with his staff—it was clear he did not do long-term well.
But apparently he did think it was okay to kiss his personal assistant. In public, no less.
Gray realised he’d read the same e-mail three times and was still yet to comprehend any of it—so he pushed his chair away from his desk, spinning it around so he faced his window, and the view down to the magnificent Swan River.
He should have said something in Vietnam. Or on the plane home. Or when they’d arrived in Perth.
So many opportunities and yet here they were—almost forty-eight hours after their kiss and he’d done nothing.
Except maybe subconsciously hope that the whole issue would just go away.
Kind of the way his memories of their kiss had so successfully gone away?
Hardly.
The opposite had happened, in fact.
Lanie Smith.
She was not like anyone he’d ever met...
She intrigued him.
And she’d understood that stuff about his dad—stuff he hadn’t told another soul.
When he’d kissed her it had felt as if they’d been building up towards it. As if he’d been waiting for that moment. Wanting that moment.
And then, when they had kissed...
He hadn’t cared about where they were, who he was or who she was. He hadn’t cared about Manning, or the investors, or his dad, or his dad’s new wife—or anything.
He’d just cared about kissing Lanie. And then, later, he’d just cared about getting her back to the resort and to his villa as quickly as possible.
But that hadn’t gone so well.
He needed to talk to her.
As if on cue, an instant message from Lanie popped up on his computer screen.
Raquel would like to organise a meeting later today.
This was good—one of the potential investors for the Hoi An resort.
Great. Can you come into my office to organise a time?
Of course that didn’t really make any sense—this was definitely a task more efficiently sorted by instant messages. But, well...no time like the present and all that...
His office door swung open and Lanie stepped inside.
She wore a simple outfit—a knee-length slim-fitting charcoal skirt and a pale blue shirt. She looked tall and elegant, with the shirt skimming her curves and her legs appearing to go on for ever. Having seen her in her swimsuit, he now knew they did. She also looked neat and professional, and the gaze she had trained in his direction—as if she was making herself look him dead in the eyes—was equally so.
It also revealed nothing.
She had a tablet in her hand, and she turned its screen to face him as she walked to his desk.
‘You’ve got a few meetings already in your calendar today, but I think you can safely move this one.’ She zoomed in on the appointment. ‘Or otherwise—’
‘Lanie,’ he interrupted.
She watched him calmly. ‘Yes? Do you have another suggestion?’
‘I don’t want to talk about the meeting,’ he said.
‘What would you like to talk about?’ she said.
Again, very calmly. Although as he watched she shifted her weight awkwardly from foot to foot.
‘I’ll give you one guess,’ he said.