Terms of Their Costa Rican Temptation by Pippa Roscoe

Author:Pippa Roscoe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2020-11-23T14:42:37+00:00

* * *

Skye clamped her teeth together to prevent whatever reaction was welling up within her from escaping. Because she didn’t know what would come out. Embarrassment, anger, hurt, arousal, cries, screams, sobs. She felt it all.

She might as well have been a virgin.

‘Alistair was...we were young.’ Why was she defending him? Because they had been young. They hadn’t known better. Not really.

‘How young?’ Benoit demanded hotly.

‘Not that young,’ Skye said with a small smile at the strange kind of protectiveness that seemed to be on display. ‘He just...’

‘You were pressured?’ Benoit had gone very still.

‘No. Not in the way you think. We’d been together for the last two years of school. I don’t even know what he was doing with me, even now. We hardly saw each other; I was so busy with Summer and Star and school. And he’d been patient and kind and understanding.’ Sweet. It had felt sweet. ‘But when it came time to leave school, to move onto the next stage in our lives, he thought I was going with him to London.’

‘You didn’t want to?’

‘I did. But Summer was starting GCSEs, Star her A-levels. I couldn’t go. He was hurt, sad. And...’ She shrugged, unable to find the words as an adult, the ache in her chest, the awkwardness clogging her mind.

‘You slept with him because you couldn’t go with him to London?’

‘I wanted him to have something that he wanted,’ she said, heat in her cheeks. It seemed wrong, looking back over the distance of time.

‘But did you want to?’

‘Yes,’ she replied. She’d wanted him to have that.

‘You shouldn’t make a gift of yourself like that. Your sexuality, your pleasure—that’s not something to give away. You can share it, but you must have it for yourself at the same time.’

‘Do you need to know anything else about him or are we done?’ Skye forced the words out.

‘You can ask me anything you like,’ he said, his tone immediately lighter, for which she was eternally thankful. Because what he’d said had made her warm, ache, hurt and happy all at the same time.

‘Your girlfriends? No, thanks.’

‘Really? You don’t want to ask me anything?’

‘Not particularly. Though...the headline about the sisters... No. Actually, I don’t want to know,’ she said, laughing as she reached for the glass of wine on the table. It tasted dry but fruity on her tongue and she wondered whether it was just because he had an exquisite wine collection or he’d chosen it for her.

‘What about your parents?’ Benoit asked, studying her gently over the rim of his own wine glass. ‘You said your mum is a free spirit?’

‘Yes. The full package—tie-dye flowing skirts, flowers in her hair, the festival circuit. Her head is in the clouds but her heart is bigger than anyone’s I’ve known,’ she said, smiling at the memory of Mariam Soames dragging them out of school to play with them in a wildflower field, but feeling sad that she hadn’t been able to fully enjoy it because she’d been too worried.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.