Head On (Strength And Love)(29)

I ought to check my emails, and the thought makes my heart sink. I don’t want to do it while Isla is around, but work is work.

I go and log in, turning the bacon down, and see four messages. Two from clients, one that looks like spam, and one from an address I don’t recognise. I click on it and it’s from a photographer. She says she’s seen my website and would I model for her? I tap my chin. What sort of modelling? I’m not interested in porn or anything like that. I don’t show my face on my website, only a couple of moody black and white shots of my body. Clients get a headshot if they contact me privately. I also don’t use my full name. Simply Ethan.

Curious, I copy and paste the woman’s details into google and her site comes up. Wow, okay, she’s talented. She takes photographs of men for fitness magazines, book covers, that sort of thing. Nothing shady or underhanded. Some of her work has won awards and she has three books out. I fire off a quick email back asking her what she wants to photograph me for exactly, and then head back to the kitchen.

As I’m finishing off plating up the eggs, and bacon, and juggling the toast and the baked beans, Isla comes into the room.

“Something smells delicious.” I turn to look at her and see she’s unsure. Nervous even. I don’t want her feeling that way and try to put her at ease.

I don’t think ignoring the previous night is the way to go, so I make a joke. “Thought we’d both worked up a healthy appetite last night, don’t you?”

She smiles but it doesn’t reach her eyes. Shit.

I gesture to the coffee pot and hold a cup, which I start to fill when she nods. I turn all the burners off and take the cup to her. As I put it by her, she places both hands around it in a hug as if she’s warming herself. But it’s a warm day, and the gesture seems more about comfort to me. Time to talk.

I tilt her chin up with my finger and look into her eyes, trying to read her. “What’s going on? Why the sadness?”

I hate that she seems down, when I’ve been feeling good after last night.

“I’m fine.” She smiles at me, but she’d make a lousy poker player.

“No, you’re not. Talk to me.”

She blows out a breath and looks out the window. I’m shocked to see tears in her eyes.

“It’s silly. But last night was amazing. And I want more of it, more of you. But I get it was a one-time deal and why it must be that way. I know we’d be disastrous together, so what’s the point of taking this any farther. It’s sad though, because I enjoyed it…a lot.”

She’s honest. Most women I know play games, and they do so because most men do as well. Dating these days is like some complicated game of chess. It’s exhausting. It’s one reason I don’t do it, other than my job. Who needs all that bull. People not opening up about how they’re feeling because they’re playing it cool or trying to seem hard to get. Isla doesn’t do that. She puts it out there.

She meets whatever she’s feeling head on, and the thought brings my words of last night to me. We meet this head on and then we move on. Except I don’t want to move on just yet.

I don’t want this to stop at last night. To be honest, I’m scaring myself because when she said we’d be disastrous together, I started to come up with arguments why we wouldn’t. I can’t go there. She’s right, we wouldn’t work long term, sadly. For the first time in a long time, I’ve found someone I want to spend time with. Not only in the sack, either.

Yet, I’m totally wrong for her. I screw for money, and I need the fucking money because I need to help my sister out. We have a nice lifestyle, I doubt getting a nine-to-five job will replace that. And I’m a lot older than Isla. I’ve been around the block, yet she’s fresh faced and starting out on her adventure. I’ll hold her back. Drag her down. I need to let her go, but I want to enjoy her some more first. I’m not that virtuous.

“It doesn’t have to end with last night.”

Her eyes widen at my words. “I know what I said, but we’ve got something special going on between us. Not many people have chemistry like we do. Yes, you’re right, we can’t work long term, because we’re too different. I’m not in the place to commit to anyone, and you need to live before you do, but we can have some time together now. If you want?”

She nods, and beams at me. “I want to do what we did last night all over again.”

It seems I’ve opened Pandora’s Box with her sexuality. And I can’t say I’m sorry.





Chapter Fourteen



Isla



Ethan suggests a walk after breakfast, so we’re hiking over the fields, the dogs trotting by us. I know this is only supposed to be a short-term thing, but I keep getting flashes of how we might make some sort of life together, which is insane. I’m comfortable with him at moments like this, but then other times I feel all at sea and out of my depth. Plus, I don’t know him, not really, and he’s every kind of wrong for me.

On paper, he’s a terrible prospect for a partner. Or even a boyfriend. He’s a male prostitute. He was in the army, and clearly still has some issues from it if the punch bag routine is anything to go by. He’s already helping raise someone else’s kid, not that kids will ever be on my agenda.

And there’s my other reason to be cautious.