London's Eligible Bachelors

Tom topped up his glass. ‘So how’s the new flatmate working out?’ he asked casually.

Guy could recognise a leading question when he heard one. ‘Sabrina?’ he stalled, equally casually.

Tom smiled. ‘Unless you’ve moved another one in.’

‘I must have needed my head examined!’ groaned Guy.

‘That bad, is it?’ Tom threw him a sympathetic glance. ‘She seemed sweet.’

‘Yeah, she is.’ Too damned sweet. Sweet as honey. That night in his bed—all clinging and sticky like honey. A honey trap, he thought with a sudden heat, and drained his glass in one. ‘Where’s Trudi tonight?’ he asked.

‘She’s on a sales conference in Brussels,’ explained Tom. ‘She’s not coming back until tomorrow.’

Guy nodded. Good. Good. ‘Fancy going out for a meal in a while?’ he asked.

‘Oh!’ Tom started grinning. ‘Diversionary tactics to keep you out of the flat, you mean?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Guy shrugged.

‘Oh, we’ve all been there, mate,’ said Tom obscurely. ‘There’s bound to be a woman sooner or later who gets underneath your skin. It’s about time it happened to you!’

‘Sorry.’ Guy’s voice was cool but firm. ‘You’ve lost me.’

Tom put his glass down and narrowed his eyes. ‘And you still haven’t told me anything about Sabrina Cooper…’

‘What do you want to know?’

‘The obvious. Like, is she a friend, or is she a lover?’

Guy opened his mouth and then shut it again. What was the point in trying to explain the whole bizarre situation, even to a man who had known him nearly all his life? Sabrina’s reputation wouldn’t emerge from it unscathed. And neither, he realised grimly, would his own.

‘We’re men, Tom,’ he said flippantly, ‘so we never talk about things like that, right?’

In Guy’s high-tech kitchen, Sabrina unenthusiastically cooked her risotto, and then picked at it without interest. She had made plenty. Enough for two…just in case. But Guy still wasn’t back. Should she pop the rest into the fridge and cover it with clingfilm? Or would Guy go mad if she did that? Probably. He’d blanched with horror when she’d suggested frying up some leftover potato for breakfast.

After supper she forced herself to relax in a long, deep bath, and when she came out she looked at the clock to see that it was getting on for ten. So, his ‘quick’ drink was taking longer than he’d anticipated.

She put her bedroom light out and tried to sleep, but sleep infuriatingly refused to protect her with its mantle of oblivion. In the end she gave up trying and snapped on the light and tried reading her book.

‘Tried’ being the operative word. The words danced like tiny black beetles in front of her and all she could think about was that it was now nearly midnight and all the bars would be closed.

And Guy still wasn’t back.

She pulled on her dressing gown and went to pace up and down the sitting room.

By twelve she was getting frantic, and by one she was just about to pick up the phone and call the hospital when she heard the sound of a key being turned in the lock. She flew out into the hall to find Guy with his back to her, shutting the door with exaggerated care and hanging up his overcoat with the other hand.

Sabrina didn’t even stop to think about it. She just blazed right in there. ‘Where the hell have you been?’ she demanded.

He turned round, the grey eyes narrowing to cold chips of slate as he saw Sabrina in her satin dressing gown, her tiny breasts heaving, a look of complete fury on her face. ‘I beg your pardon?’

That frosty little question should have been enough to stop her in her tracks, and normally it would have done, but, then, this didn’t feel normal. None of it did. Surely ‘normal’ would have meant a complete numbing of her senses until she was properly over Michael?

‘You told me you were going out for a quick drink!’ she stormed, her breathing coming through in great ragged bursts.

Guy felt torn between incredulty and irritation. ‘And?’

‘And it wasn’t, was it? Not quick at all. It’s way past midnight—what time do you call this?’

‘It’s none of your damned business what time it is!’ he roared. ‘I’ll live my own life, the way I always have done! I’ll go out when I want and where I want and with whom I want—and I’ll do it without your permission, thank you, princess!’

Through her shuddering breaths Sabrina stared at him, realising just how preposterous she must have sounded. And realising that if she didn’t get away from him pretty quickly, she risked making even more of a fool of herself.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said tightly. ‘I spoke out of turn.’ She half ran along the corridor and into her room and then pressed her forehead to the door, her eyes closed, her breath still shuddering.

He’d seen the awful whitening of her face and the brief glimspe of terror which had iced the blue of her eyes, and in an instant he’d begun to comprehend just what had motivated her reaction.

‘Damn!’ he swore softly. Swiftly following in her footsteps, he went and banged his fist on the door. ‘Oh, damn!’

Behind the door, Sabrina froze. Just keep quiet, some instinct of preservation told her. Keep very quiet and just don’t answer and he might go away.

‘Sabrina! Open the damned door. We both know you can’t possibly be asleep.’

She shook her head. ‘Go away.’

‘I’m not moving from this spot until you open the door and come out and talk to me. That way neither of us will get to sleep and that means we’ll both be bad-tempered at work tomorrow.’

You and your precious work, thought Sabrina, trying to concentrate on something—anything—other than how she wanted to open the door and fall into his arms, and…and…

‘Alternatively, I could kick it down,’ he promised in a voice of silky intent.

It was such an outrageous proposal that Sabrina very nearly smiled. ‘You wouldn’t do that,’ she sniffed.

‘Not unless you make me,’ he agreed mockingly. ‘So, are you going to open the door now? Or not?’

Slowly, she complied, her fingers clutching onto the handle as if they were petrified, gearing herself up to withstand Guy’s fury at her presumptuous behaviour. But when she dared to look up into his face it was to see a look of bitter regret written there, and Sabrina felt the trembling approach of tears. If she weren’t careful, she was in terrible danger of exposing all her desperate insecurities to him.

‘I’m s-sorry,’ she said shakily. ‘I had no right—’

‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry. It was the most stupid and insensitive thing to do and, oh, God, Sabrina…’ His voice deepened to a caress as he saw her face crumple. ‘Princess, don’t cry. Please, don’t cry.’

‘I’m n-not c-crying,’ she sobbed quietly, trying simultaneously to push him out of the room and close the door after him, and failing miserably to do either.

Saying something that she couldn’t quite make out, Guy just grabbed her by the hand and steered her into the sitting room.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she spluttered.

‘What does it look like? I’m taking you somewhere where we can talk.’ Somewhere that didn’t involve a bed. ‘I’m damned if I’m going to have you fainting on me for a second time!’

‘I’m not going to faint. I want to go to bed,’ she said plaintively.

‘Well, we need to talk,’ he said grimly. ‘Or, rather, you need to talk, princess.’

He pushed her down very gently on the sofa and covered her with a cashmere throw, which was as light as a feather and as warm as toast.

‘That’s nice,’ she said automatically.

It was also vital, in his opinion, that she cover up. If he wanted to talk to her—or, rather, have her talk to him—then he needed to concentrate. And it would be damned nigh impossible trying to concentrate on anything—other than an urgent need to possess her—when that silky robe was clinging like honey to the sweet swell of her limbs and moulding the perfect outline of her tiny breasts.

He sat down next to her and stared into the pale heart of her face. ‘It was thoughtless of me. I should have telephoned—told you I was going to be late.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’ She shook her head. ‘I had no right to expect—’

‘You had every right to expect consideration,’ he refuted heatedly. ‘And at least a modicum of understanding.’ There was a grim kind of pause and his grey eyes glittered with self-recrimination. ‘And I showed you neither.’ He had deliberately stayed out tonight—and he still wasn’t sure why—without thinking through the consequences of his actions. ‘Neither,’ he finished bitterly.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ she repeated, and even managed to raise her shoulders in a shrug, as if it really didn’t matter, but he shook his head like a man who was onto something and wouldn’t give up.

‘Why don’t you tell me,’ he said slowly, ‘about the night Michael died? Is that what happened? Were you waiting for him and he never came?’

Something in the burning intensity of his eyes pierced right through the barriers she’d built around herself. She’d pushed the memories of that night to the far recesses of her mind. Deliberately. It had been a defence mechanism to shield her from the bitter pain, and the guilt. She’d refused counsellors and her mother’s faltering requests that she open up and talk to someone.

But something in Guy’s face completely disarmed her, and her words of defiance and denial died on her lips.

‘OK, I’ll tell.’ She nodded her head slowly. ‘I’ll tell you everything.’ There was a pause while she struggled to find the right words. ‘Like I said, Michael wanted to go out that night and I didn’t, and it was more than about the fact we couldn’t afford it. It was a filthy night. The weather was awful…snow and ice.’

She took a slow, shuddering breath and stared at him as she forced herself to face up to the truth for the first time. ‘Just awful. I said that it wasn’t a good night to be out driving…but he wouldn’t listen…He just wouldn’t listen!’

Guy nodded as the strands of her story began to be woven together, beginning to make some sense of her guilt.

‘I told him to be sure and ring me when he got to the pub, only the phone call didn’t come, and I wasn’t sure if he was sulking because he was angry with me…and…’

‘And?’ His voice was soft. Too soft. How could you resist a voice that soft?

‘And when I rang the pub…’ Sabrina bit her lip ‘…they said they hadn’t seen him. So I thought he must have changed his mind about going there, never dreaming…never dreaming—’

‘Never dreaming that the inconceivable had happened,’ he said carefully, ‘and that he’d never be coming back again?’

His words were edged with anger, and an emotion it took her a moment or two to recognise. Pain. ‘That’s right,’ she agreed slowly.

‘So you think that you should have stopped him from driving that night?’

‘Of course I should have stopped him!’ she shot back bitterly, but Guy shook his dark head.

‘Don’t you know that we can’t govern other people’s lives?’ he demanded quietly. ‘Or decide their destiny. You could have stopped him from going, but how do you know that he wouldn’t have been hit by a bus on his way to work the next day? Maybe,’ he added, with slow deliberation, ‘maybe it was just his time.’

Her lips froze. ‘His time?’

‘To die.’ His mouth hardened.

‘Fate,’ she elaborated painfully. ‘That’s fate.’

‘Yeah, fate.’

She stared straight into the burning silver gaze, dazzled by it. ‘You honestly believe that?’ she whispered, and he gave a hollow kind of laugh.

‘Sometimes it’s easier to think of it that way.’ He shrugged. ‘Easier for the living to let go and carry on. And you have to let go, Sabrina, you have to—you must realise that. Don’t you?’

‘But I feel so guilty!’

‘Because he’s dead and you’re alive?’

His perception took her breath away. ‘Yes.’

He gave a brittle smile. ‘But nothing can change that, Sabrina. Nothing can bring him back. You owe it to yourself to let go. And to Michael.’

‘Yes.’ She sighed with a kind of surrender made all the easier by that luminous look of understanding. ‘Yes.’

He watched as the thready breath made her lips tremble, he saw her wide-eyed look of trust, and he knew what she wanted and needed more than anything else at the moment. Pure animal comfort. Even if doing it would half kill him.

He drew her into the circle of his arms and hugged her tightly against his chest, the wetness of her tears warming his skin through his shirt. Her breasts were soft and pointed and her hair was full of the scent of lilac, and it took every bit of his self-control to dampen down his instinctive desire as he smoothed the bright strands down with a distracted hand.

‘It’s going to be OK,’ he muttered, and prayed for his body not to react to her proximity. ‘I promise you.’

Through her tears it occurred to Sabrina that his kindness and understanding were just two more facets of a complex personality which perplexed and intrigued her more with each day that passed. And that simply wasn’t on the agenda. Her stay here was only temporary, she reminded herself as more tears spilled onto his shirt.

Guy let her cry until her sobs became dry and shuddering, and then he went and made her some hot chocolate, sitting in front of her like a determined nurse while she drank it.

He thought how unselfconsciously provocative her movements were. Thought that she shouldn’t look that sexy with eyes bright red from crying and hair which was matted by those tears. But sexy she looked. Extremely sexy.

‘So.’ He sat back on his heels. ‘Are you going to let it go now, Sabrina?’

She couldn’t have said no, even if she’d wanted to, not with that silver gaze compelling her to start living her life again. ‘Yes,’ she said slowly. ‘I am.’

‘Good.’ He smiled. ‘And are you going to let me take you out for dinner next week?’

She forced herself to remember that the question wasn’t as warmly intimate as it sounded. ‘Sure,’ she said lightly. ‘Is this the client dinner?’

‘That’s right,’ he agreed. ‘I have a Middle-Eastern potentate I’ve just bought a picture for. How would you like to have dinner with Prince Khalim?’

‘Prince Khalim?’ She gulped. ‘Just how many princes do you know, Guy?’

He smiled. ‘Khalim is my oldest friend. I’ve known him since schooldays—it was through him I got most of my contacts.’

‘But, Guy—’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ he soothed. ‘You’ll like him—a little old-fashioned perhaps, but he’s a nice guy.’

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