Forty-Nine

VALERIA

The sound of the door of Dimitri's study closing was very loud in the silence of the house. He kept staring at me. He was standing so close that I wondered if he could hear my heart beating. Breathing suddenly became very hard to do with him in such close proximity, so I stepped away from him and went to stand by his desk.

"So er- what did you want to talk to me about?" I asked him.

Dimitri slowly stroked his jaw. His continuous stare first made me cold and then warm on the inside. I felt a flush invade my cheeks, a flush that had nothing to do with embarrassment and everything to do with the way the riotous sensation his look coaxed from my body.

"Tell me... where did you go to after you left the office?" he asked with a return to his earlier brusqueness.

"I went out," I said.

There was no way I was going to tell him that I had been with Noah. I didn't want to have another row with him.

"Out?" he repeated, stretching out the word, probing for an explanation that I wasn't goi