To Love, Honour and Disobey. Natalie AndersonЧитать онлайн книгу.
none of your business, Seb.’
It wasn’t. But it was the question burning a hole inside him now. Where had she been, what had she been doing this last year? Because she looked good—so mouth-wateringly good. How irritating.
His last year had been nothing but hard work. But until this moment he hadn’t put the difficulty directly down to her. He thought it had been the situation that had strangled his usually raging sex drive. That their mess of a marriage and the resulting awkwardness had put him off women for a while. But that ‘while’ had stretched on and on. He was still totally uninterested in dating. Hadn’t even had a casual one-night stand since. Mind you, that was how he’d started with her and he wasn’t risking a similar disaster. Besides, he hadn’t met anyone who’d pushed his ‘on’ button.
Except he was switched on now.
By her. He couldn’t believe how attracted he still was to her. Well, that was dumb. Because one thing was for sure: it wasn’t happening again.
Ana suppressed the sigh and tried really hard not to look at her watch again. Every hour seemed to be taking five times as long to pass. Their conversation had just cut out. He’d turned away from her and focused on the scenery. As had she. With rigid determination.
Why hadn’t she sent the papers sooner? Because for those first few months she’d been too ill to do anything. And then when she’d been physically better, emotionally she hadn’t been ready to cope. Finally she’d emerged from the darkness—she’d salvaged something from the experience and she’d begun to dream up her business. She’d concentrated on doing a couple of courses—building her confidence, feeling as if she was achieving something. And she’d worked, saved, prepared to relaunch her life. Only then had she been sure she could deal with Seb—or at least instruct her lawyer to.
Finally they arrived at the campsite. It was part of a snake park where they could look at the deadly Black Mamba—apparently it took only one bite and then you had mere moments to write your will. It’d be good if one could get up close to Seb. Or maybe one of the crocodiles would be better—could swallow him in one big gulp. That would definitely mean she could put the whole thing behind her.
Ana stretched as she jumped down from the truck, trying to uncurl the kinks and soften up the tension that was rampant in every one of her muscles. Another night, another tent pitch—after three weeks of wrestling with the canvas she was a bit over it.
Bundy walked over. ‘You two will want to share a tent.’
What? Ana turned and found Seb right beside her. Every muscle seized again. Why on earth would Bundy think that?
‘Yeah.’ Seb answered before she managed to breathe, let alone think.
‘Set up just beyond that tree over there. That way you’ll get a little privacy.’ He winked.
Ana gaped.
‘Thanks,’ Seb said.
It was one of those all-bloke moments where there was nothing for her to do but turn her back and pretend that that grin swap between the two men hadn’t happened. That she wasn’t going crimson with embarrassment.
No. It was rage.
Seb pulled a tent bag from the pile and went over to where Bundy had indicated. Ana stomped after him. Privacy was indeed necessary because she was about to commit first-degree murder.
‘Why does he think we’d want to share a tent?’ She just managed not to shout.
‘I told him we’re married.’
‘What? Why?’
‘Well, we are. It was how I could get on the truck at this late stage.’
So Bundy thought it was going to be some happy reunion? She narrowed her glare. ‘I thought you said our meeting on the truck was a coincidence.’
He grinned. ‘I lied.’
She whirled on him quick smart. ‘Not for the first time, Seb.’ Oh, yes, in with the knife.
But he just smiled wider with appreciation. ‘I underestimated how good it would be to see you too, Ana.’
As if this were good? She’d never planned to see Seb again. And she certainly wasn’t going to spend a night in a tent with him. Prickling heat washed from her scalp down. The only person who’d known where she’d gone was Phil. She was totally having words with him when she got back to London.
Irritated, she watched how quickly Seb assessed the tent parts lying in a heap where he’d tipped them out. Yeah, it wouldn’t take him the best part of an hour to figure it out first time as it had her. She hated how tiny the school-camp-like pup tents were. It had been almost bearable when she’d been on her own. But with Seb? She was just over six feet. He wasn’t far off six and a half. Neither of them could sleep in there without curling up and they both couldn’t do that in there unless they curled up together. She wouldn’t be able to breathe. She couldn’t breathe now when she was in one of the widest open spaces in the world and he was two metres away.
Because it was still there, wasn’t it? Despite everything, despite all that had happened, she still wanted him. One look—at the back of him—and it had started again. The heightened awareness, the senses that had been dormant for so long were now switched on and scurrying for attention, craving touch—his.
She rebelled. ‘I’m not sharing a tent with you, Seb.’
‘We have to.’
‘No, we do not.’
He shrugged, a hint of apology in his eyes. ‘Bundy said there weren’t any spare tents.’
‘Then you can sleep in a mosquito net under the stars.’ Or in the truck. Or in with the snakes. Anywhere, but not near her. ‘I’ve got one you can use.’
‘OK.’ He held her gaze and softly repeated her words. ‘Under the stars.’
And suddenly she remembered another time when he’d suggested just that. Another dark, wide sky. There’d been no net, no sheets, nothing but warm naked bodies. Their wedding night. On their balcony in Gibraltar and she’d been blinded by those stars.
Ana felt the flush slither across her skin like a nest of snakes disturbed and sliding out in all directions. She bent and started spreading out the tent totally haphazardly.
‘Look, let me do it.’ Seb pushed her out of the way. ‘Why don’t you go get a drink or something? You look all hot and bothered.’
‘I can manage.’ Didn’t he realise she’d been doing just that for months now?
‘I’m sure you can,’ he said. ‘But I haven’t been sitting under the sun for days on that truck. Go and have a minute in the shade.’
She was perfectly capable of pitching the tent. But she wasn’t stupid. He wanted to pitch the tent for her? Fabulous. She might as well get some kind of positive out of this. ‘Thanks.’
She was hot. And breathless. She took the sarong she used as a towel and headed to the bathroom. Cold showers were all there were at campsites like this. And they were wonderful.
Afterwards she wandered off to where the animals were housed. Stared for an age at the big crocodile basking in the sun, lying so still he looked as if he were carved from stone.
‘Do you think he’s actually alive?’ Seb asked.
‘Don’t be fooled,’ she answered, not turning to face him, not surprised that he’d found her. ‘He can move faster than you can blink.’
The snakes didn’t appeal to her, looking at her with their cold and dangerous eyes, but she was fascinated by the chameleon. She stood watching his eyes swivel in all directions at once, amazed by the speckles of bright colour on his skin.
‘He can’t decide what his camouflage should be.’ Seb chuckled.