The Best Man's Guarded Heart by Katrina Cudmore

Author:Katrina Cudmore
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2016-07-16T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

LATER THAT NIGHT, back on Kasas, Grace’s heart did a funny little jump of delight when Andreas held her hand all the way from the helipad down to the villa.

When they entered the living room, the silence that had been with them for the entire journey home from Santorini continued to bounce between them. It was a silence born from the intensity of the connection they had shared tonight—a connection of emotional honesty.

Andreas opening up about his marriage had changed everything. He had let her into his world, trusted her. He had reached out to her. And she wasn’t sure what to do with the emotional chasm that sat in her heart as a result. A chasm full of hunger to connect with him even further. To know him to the depths of his very being. A hunger to express her feelings towards him.

The chasm had her wanting to reach out to him, but she didn’t know how. She was scared she would do the wrong thing. Her old self-doubts sat like a cloak on her shoulders.

‘Would you like a drink?’

Uncertainty had her dithering for an embarrassing few seconds before she said, ‘I think I should go to bed. It’s almost two and I have to be up early. Thank you for a lovely night.’

His eyes searched hers for a moment before he nodded. But as she turned away he said, ‘Wait. I have something I want to give to you.’

He disappeared upstairs and, intrigued, Grace waited on the edge of the sofa where he had earlier fastened her sandals, a shiver running through her body when she remembered the tender touch of his hands on her ankle.

When he returned, he reached out and said, ‘Give me your hand and close your eyes.’

‘What are you up to?’

‘Just close your eyes. You’ll see in a few minutes.’

Grace held out her hand cautiously, and it was just as well that he had told her to close her eyes as she did so anyway, involuntarily, when his fingers held her hand. His thumb stroked down the sensitive skin of her inner wrist. Goosebumps ran the length of her body.

In a low voice that had her jerking forward with a need to close the distance between them he said, ‘I was going to give this to you tomorrow, but...’

‘But what?’

‘We’ll probably both be too busy.’

His fingernails lightly grazed against her skin and she giggled. ‘That tickles. What are you doing?’

‘Sit still. You wriggling like that isn’t helping.’

Grace inhaled a deep breath and tried to ignore his fingertips stroking her wrist, the way that simple touch was setting her alight, making her yearn for more.

And then her body stilled, although her heart exploded in her chest as a sudden realisation hit home: the empty ache of loneliness that had been her constant companion for so many years was gone. With Andreas she felt whole, somehow. Safe and protected. Understood.

Panic flared inside her. She needed to see him. Now. ‘I want to open my eyes.

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