Dropping the damp one, she turned resolutely to the clothing supplied to her and wondered with disgust who had picked all these ridiculous nightgowns. Muttering under her breath, she settled on a black one with a short, sheer skirt, but lace on the top that would mostly cover her breasts. She’d have to wear a thong with it for it to be anywhere near decent, but the top was what Domitian would see sitting at the table and that was her main concern. Most of the other gowns were sheer there too.
She pulled it on quickly, found a black thong, donned it with a grimace and then hurried into the bathroom to run a brush through her wet hair. Her gaze slid briefly to the makeup table as she did, but then slid away. This wasn’t a date. The last thing she needed was to make herself attractive. They already had trouble keeping their hands off each other and she didn’t want to end up splayed on the dining room table and howling for the cameras as Domitian—
Sarita cut that thought off quickly as she felt heat pool in her groin. Honestly, she was like a bitch in heat around the man. Just thinking about him made her . . .
Rather than finish the thought, she threw the brush on the counter and hurried from the room.
Domitian was in the dining room, standing behind a chair that he politely pulled out for her when she entered.
Sarita glanced at his face as she approached, caught the way his eyes started to glow that strange silver as his gaze slid over her latest ensemble and just managed not to shake her head as she took her seat. Much to her relief, Domitian didn’t so much as touch her shoulder, but eased her chair in and then immediately moved around to claim the seat opposite.
Sarita glanced down at her plate and then stopped and said with surprise, “Lomito en salsa de mango!”
“Si.” Domitian smiled faintly when she glanced to him with amazement. “It is what you ordered each of the three times you were in my restaurant, so when I saw we had the ingredients to make it, I did.”
Sarita smiled crookedly. “Well, now I know which restaurant you own. Buena Vida was my father’s favorite. But expensive—it was only for special occasions,” she said with a reminiscent smile. “Before my mother died, Papa took her there every year on their anniversary. The first time I got to go was the night before we moved to Canada. He wanted ‘our last meal in Venezuela to be memorable,’ as he put it, so he took me there.”
She smiled faintly, and then her expression turned sober and she said, “We went again five years ago when Grandfather died. We came back to arrange the funeral and see him buried, and the night before we left for home, Papa took me there again . . . the last time I was there was two years ago when Papa—” Much to Sarita’s horror her voice cracked, and she bowed her head quickly and stared through eyes suddenly glazed with tears at the sirloin in mango salsa on her plate.
“When your father died and you brought him home to be buried between your mother and grandfather,” Domitian finished for her solemnly.
Sarita nodded once, but was concentrating on her breathing. She was taking in repeated deep breaths that she then let out slowly, the whole time thinking, Dammit, I never cry!
“You ate in my restaurant the night before you flew back to Canada,” he added. “This time alone.”
Sarita closed her eyes as that last word cut through her. Alone.
She’d thought she’d lost everything when her mother died and her father moved her away from her friends and grandfather to live in Canada. But Sarita hadn’t felt truly alone until the day her father had a heart attack and left this earth. Oh, she still had the friends she’d made in Canada, and the other cadets who had been in police training with her at the time. But she alone had flown home to Venezuela with her father’s body, and she alone had seen him buried.
Even her grandmother hadn’t been there, which was Sarita’s fault. It had all happened so quickly and there had been so much to do to arrange to fly her father’s body back to Caracas as well as make the funeral arrangements long distance that she hadn’t thought to contact her grandmother until the morning of the funeral. By then it was too late. She hadn’t had a phone number for the woman then. They’d only ever written. So she’d seen her father buried, and then she’d written and mailed a letter to her grandmother with the news of his death. That night she’d followed tradition and eaten at her father’s favorite restaurant, alone.
“I wanted so much to comfort you that night,” Domitian confided quietly and then admitted, “I got the latest report from my detective just that morning. I knew your father had died and that you had flown home with his body to see him buried. The moment I got the lone order for Lomito en salsa de mango I looked out. I could not see your face, you were sitting with your back to the kitchen, but I knew it was you. You looked so lost and alone sitting there all by yourself. It was a struggle for me not to go to you.”
“Why didn’t you?” she asked, her voice sharper than she’d intended. But she had really needed comfort that night. Sarita raised her head to peer at him through watery eyes.
“To you I was a stranger,” he said simply. “You would not have wanted comfort from me. And had the natural attraction between life mates overwhelmed us, I feared you would hate yourself for whatever happened between us at such a tragic time.”
Sarita gave a short nod of understanding, then peered down at her plate and breathed out slowly again. Sirloin in mango salsa. She would never look at it again without thinking of her father . . . and she simply couldn’t eat it.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured, pushing her chair back. “I think I just want to go to bed.”
Domitian didn’t protest or point out that he’d worked hard to make the meal that she wasn’t eating. He simply murmured in understanding and let her go. Sarita was quite sure he couldn’t know how much she appreciated that.
Sarita wasn’t sure how long she’d been asleep or even what woke her up, but suddenly her eyes were open and she was staring into the dark, listening to a soft rustling sound somewhere at the bottom of the bed. Ears straining, she tried to figure out what it was without giving away that she was awake. When she couldn’t, she reached slowly for the bedside lamp, only to pause as her hand encountered material.
Frowning, Sarita slid her hand first to the left and then to the right, but the material appeared to be hanging there like a wall. Easing silently up the bed a bit, she ran her hand along the cloth until she found the end, and then reached around it, felt for the lamp on the other side and turned it on.
Of course, she was immediately blinded by the light, but her eyes quickly adjusted and Sarita noted the wall of white cloth along the side of the bed, hanging from the top frame. Another ran along the bottom as well and Domitian stood on a chair, even now affixing a third swath of white cloth along the frame on the opposite side of the bed.
“Sheets?” she asked with amusement.
“Si.” Domitian continued his work, stepping off the chair and onto the edge of the bed to string the cloth farther along the frame without having to move the chair now that she was awake.
Sarita watched the play of muscles in his arms and chest until she noted that she had an interesting view up the bottom of his boxers from her position. Clearing a suddenly full throat, she asked hopefully, “Are we going to have sex?”
“No.”
“No?” Sarita squawked with disbelief. “Why not? What’s all this for then?” she asked, gesturing toward the curtain of sheets now nearly surrounding the bed. She’d assumed it was so they could have sex without worrying about the cameras in the room capturing it . . . Apparently not, Sarita thought and scowled at him.
Domitian chuckled at her outrage as he continued his work, moving farther up the edge of the bed until she could have reached out and touched him. “First it’s ‘no sexo!’ Now it’s ‘What? No sexo?’” Glancing at her, he arched an eyebrow. “I have plans for you, you will see.”
“Hmm.” Sarita muttered, but resisted the urge to touch him and sat up in the bed. She shifted back to lean against the headboard, but didn’t bother tugging the sheets up to cover her lap despite the fact that she was now nude under the sheer black nightgown. The last thing Sarita had done before climbing under the sheets and duvet was to strip away the latest hated thong she’d donned earlier to wear under it. They really were uncomfortable. She wouldn’t have been able to sleep with it on. Now, she was as good as naked to him from just under the breasts down.