Dear Reader,

I’ve known for a long time that I have the best job in the world—writing stories about powerful, complicated men and the women who love them—what’s not to like? Some of these stories have stayed especially close to my heart and I’m delighted to announce that you can now read them for yourself if they’re new to you—or maybe rediscover them if you loved them as much as I do.

I love them for different reasons. Sometimes because there’s a heroine I can particularly identify with—like Rose in Surrender to the Sheikh or Sabrina in The Unlikely Mistress. Sometimes because I am unable to forget the hero—and I confess that they all have an unforgettable hero. I think about Dominic Dashwood in Settling the Score and all the fuss that book caused at the time. I think of the proud Russian, Nikolai, in Too Proud to be Bought and Ross in One Husband Required, who was a very different kind of hero. I can feel as if they’re all in the room with me, urging you to read their stories, and I hope you will.

The collection runs from May through to October 2015, so please write or tweet me @Sharon_Kendrick and tell me which are your favourites.

Happy reading,

Love,

Sharon

SHARON KENDRICK once won a national writing competition by describing her ideal date: being flown to an exotic island by a gorgeous and powerful man. Little did she realise that she’d just wandered into her dream job! Today she writes for Mills & Boon, featuring often stubborn but always to-die-for heroes and the women who bring them to their knees. She believes that the best books are those you never want to end. Just like life …

Revenge is Sweet

Getting Even
Kiss and Tell
Settling the Score
Sharon Kendrick

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

Dear Reader

About the Author

Title Page

Getting Even

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

Kiss and Tell

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

Settling the Score

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

Endpage

Copyright

Getting Even

CHAPTER ONE

‘PINCH me, quick! Who the hell is he?’

‘No idea—but just watch me find out!’

Lola, who had been shamelessly listening in to this conversation, watched as the two women tottered across the clubhouse towards the object of their desire.

And then her heart missed a beat. Or rather it missed several.

Lola blinked as the man glanced up and looked at her. And just carried on looking.

It was the classic, corny situation—the kind that Lola had read about in books and had never really believed could happen.

Well, it was happening now, and to her! Eyes meeting across a crowded room and all the things that went with it whether you liked it or not—the heightened awareness and the not so subtle body language which shrieked out mutual attraction.

Lola recognised him immediately. But he wouldn’t recognise her; of that she was certain. People never did! Lola was an air stewardess, and once she changed out of her uniform she was anonymous—it went hand in hand with the job!

She swallowed, unable to tear her eyes away from him.

As well as being the most outrageously attractive man in the room, he was making no effort to disguise his rather bored indifference. With eyes like storm clouds he was moodily surveying the proceedings as if he would rather be somewhere else.

Well, you and me both, buddy, thought Lola, with a touch of defiance!

She usually adored parties—the fact that she was invited to so many was one of the perks of her job with the airline—but this party was slightly different.

For a start she knew no one.

Everyone seemed to be standing around in large, impenetrable groups which didn’t look particularly welcoming. And she didn’t really feel like going up to one of them and saying in her best stewardess voice, ‘Hi, I’m Lola—who are you?’

The man with the stormy eyes was in the middle of just such a clique, and a scrumptious-looking blonde who had clearly poured herself into her black, sequinned dress without much thought of how she was going to get out of it was gazing into his eyes as if all her Christmases had come at once. And she wasn’t the only one. He seemed to have that hypnotic effect on just about every female in the room.

Lola could see exactly why.

He wasn’t precisely what you’d call good-looking, she decided, not in a boring, even-featured sort of way. His nose looked as though it had been broken—probably on the rugby field, thought Lola as she took in the broad, strong shoulders. But the imperfection only seemed to add to the rather devastating overall attractiveness of his face.

His mouth was sublime—he had the most sensual lips that Lola had ever seen—but there was an unmistakably hard, almost cruel curve to its corners which hinted at a powerful, sexual mastery which Lola loathed herself for finding attractive.

His shoulders were broad, as she had already noted, and his legs were long, and you could sense, rather than see, that every muscle in his hard-packed, spectacular body had been honed to perfection.

This was no rich, pretty boy, thought Lola, with the sense of being in the presence of someone remarkable; this was a real man—tough and strong and uncompromising. Unwillingly, she felt the first faint stirrings of desire.

The man glanced up from listening to the blonde bombshell who was now whispering excitedly into his ear, and, much to Lola’s fury, caught her watching him again.

He raised one quizzical black brow in a look which somehow managed to be both insulting and yet captivating, and Lola angrily stared down into her glass, which contained nothing more exciting than tonic water with a piece of lemon bobbing around in it.

Arrogant so-and-so! she thought disparagingly. And you are not to look at him again. He’s the kind of man who will misinterpret even one look—and have you down under his favourite category: easily seduced!

The buzz of party conversation, fuelled by ever increasing amounts of alcohol, was gradually getting louder and louder. More for something to do than because she was interested in the music, Lola moved towards the front of the stage, where the band who had been hired for the evening were now tuning up, and wondered how soon she could politely make her escape.

She had been awake since five a.m. this morning, and had only arrived back from Vienna an hour ago. Common sense made her wonder why she had bothered to come at all.

Simple. She had come because she had been invited by the Residents’ Association of the plush St Fiacre’s Hill estate.

St Fiacre’s Hill was the most amazing place to live, and she herself, unbelievably, was now a resident there—thanks to the totally unexpected generosity of one of Lola’s airline passengers who had taken a great big shine to her—and left her a house on one of the most exclusive developments in England!

She had come tonight because even after six months of living there she still did not really feel part of the luxury estate, and because sometimes she suspected that she never would.

But one thing was certain—she never would fit in if she shunned the events which studded the busy St Fiacre’s social calendar.

Which was why she was standing awkwardly and alone in the ultra-plush clubhouse, wishing that she were safely tucked up at home in bed. Alone!

A pretty boring ambition for a twenty-five-year-old, she thought wryly as she took another sip of tonic, then winced because it tasted flat and stale.

‘That looks as if it could do with a new lease of life,’ came a deep-voiced, confident observation from just behind Lola’s left shoulder, and she knew without looking that it was the man with the stormy grey eyes.

She forced herself to turn slowly, to meet what turned out to be a predictably mocking gaze, and gave him a steady and deliberate ‘You-don’t-impress -me’ kind of look, though in this case it was difficult because the man exuded a kind of earthy sensuality which made Lola’s breath catch in the back of her throat.

In her job as a flight attendant, she met gorgeous men every single day of her life—although, admittedly, they weren’t usually this gorgeous. Men who had women eating out of their hands like pussycats. Men whom Lola avoided like the plague. Men like this equalled heartbreak!

‘What does?’ she answered rather coolly, just as the lead guitarist chose that moment to break one of his strings. ‘The guitar?’

He shot her a deadpan look. ‘Actually, I’m clean out of guitar strings,’ he murmured, in the most amazing voice that Lola had ever heard—it was soft and deep and dark, with an attractive, almost musical lilt underlying it. ‘But no, that wasn’t what I had in mind.’

Something about the clean-cut sensuality of his mouth affected Lola in a very frightening and fundamental way. She felt tiny shivers of awareness skate tingling little pathways across her skin, and such a primitive, physical response to a man she did not know brought all her self-protective instincts to the fore.

In her job she observed human nature at close quarters most days and she knew that predatory men were intimidated by women who gave as good as they got. Even so, it still took an effort to make her voice stay calm as she said, ‘And just what did you have in mind?’ Which was, of course, the very worst thing she could have said!

‘Oughtn’t we at least be introduced before I start propositioning you?’ he mocked, the mouth hardening into a sexy line.

So he didn’t recognize her! He had no recollection of her bending forward, with her brightest smile, to put his drink down in front of him on the aircraft table.

For some reason, Lola felt slightly let down by this. There was nothing so insulting as not being noticed!

Ignoring the proposition bit, she held her hand out towards him. ‘Lola Hennessy,’ she said as evenly as she could, which was a bit difficult when confronted by that thoughtful stare.

‘Lola,’ he said slowly, and took the proffered hand in a firm grasp that felt quite wonderful. ‘Is that your real name?’

Lola shook her dark head. It was, at least, an improvement on the usual comment—most people assumed she had been named after the pop song! ‘I was christened Dolores.’

He nodded. ‘Yes,’ he murmured. ‘Lola is the pet form, isn’t it? So is Lolita.’ His grey gaze was ironic as his deep voice caressed the word. ‘Do they never call you Lolita?’

She gave him a steady look. ‘Lolita was a fictional nymphet,’ she answered acidly. ‘Are you trying to make a point?’

‘No, I’m not,’ he drawled, mocking amusement lighting the depths of the stormy eyes. ‘And besides, you’re a little too old to be classified as nymphet, aren’t you?’

It was hardly surprising, in the circumstances, that she should blush, and blushing only added to the feeling of intense vulnerability which had been present since he had first started talking to her. However, at least Lola had a pale olive tint to her skin, which masked the colour far more than a classic English rose complexion would have done.

‘Yes,’ she answered shortly, and tried to freeze him with an angry look which would have had a lesser man scuttling off in the opposite direction. ‘Much too old.’

But he seemed unmoved by her embarrassment, and uncaring of her anger—and instead allowed a grey gaze that was now cool rather than stormy to rove speculatively over her.

‘And you look like a Dolores,’ he remarked suddenly. ‘With that mane of curly brown-black hair and skin which looks as creamy as the best cappuccino. But your eyes should be dark, shouldn’t they? Mysterious and black. Yet yours are blue. Bright blue. The blue of a Mediterranean sky.’

Lola met many men in her job, but she had never met anyone who was quite so self-assured as this man—and she found herself stung into defence. ‘I’m an odd mixture,’ she found herself telling him. ‘Mum says she doesn’t know where I get it from.’ And then she looked down to discover that he was still holding onto her fingertips, in a parody of a handshake!

His grey eyes followed the direction of her gaze, to where her hand lay so acquiescently against his. ‘And what else are you going to tell me about yourself, Lola Hennessy—other than the fact that the touch of my hand makes yours tremble with awareness—?’

Furiously, she snatched her hand away. ‘Or revulsion, perhaps?’

He laughed. ‘I don’t think so. Unless your eyes are lying, of course.’

She pretended to consider this, both invigorated and unsettled by the game she was allowing herself to play. ‘And do you think that is possible?’ she queried. ‘For the eyes to be able to lie?’

‘I don’t just think so, I know so. Deception is an art which can be learned through practice just like any other.’

Lola felt like a child who had tentatively dipped her toe into a puddle and become submerged right up to her neck. ‘There speaks a true cynic,’ she observed caustically.

He shrugged his wide shoulders, and a look of faint surprise crossed the dark, handsome face. ‘I’m thirty-four,’ he stated, with an air of finality. ‘Therefore I am a cynic.’

Lola laughed nervously as she mentally worked out that he was nine years older than she was. ‘And why should that follow?’

His eyes were smoky with a kind of regret. ‘Because I have seen enough of life, and of women, to know that there are few surprises left. But even cynics are interested in young women who send out such mixed messages. Or should I say especially cynics...?’

His voice held a slumberous quality now, and to her horror Lola found herself imagining what that voice would sound like first thing in the morning, all husky and heavy with sleep.

‘And do I?’ she ventured boldly. ‘Send out mixed messages?’

‘Most certainly you do.’

‘How?’ she asked, even though something inside her urged her to walk away from him. Before he snared her completely in the silken bonds of his charm.

He lowered his voice, as if he recognised that the question had been unwise. ‘You recognise the danger in me, and you want to dislike me—even, perhaps, hate me,’ he stated huskily. ‘But you can’t quite bring yourself to, can you, Lola?’

And he was absolutely right, damn him! Lola adopted the unstressed, unflappable smile she usually reserved for passengers who had been hitting the duty-free in a big way. ‘Why on earth should I want to dislike you?’

The laughter which had lurked at the depths of the grey eyes disappeared and Lola was taken aback by how hard his face suddenly looked. And how cold. ‘I have absolutely no idea,’ he answered slowly, and his eyes narrowed into cool, granite chips.

Lola registered that her heart was racing, that the blood was thundering in her head in a most uncomfortable and unwelcome way. What would he do, she wondered, if she told him that the reason why she was reacting so bizarrely and so uniquely was because at the ripe old age of twenty-five she was experiencing an overwhelming desire to be in his arms and to have him crush his mouth down on hers?

Lola shivered, acknowledging her relative inexperience with men, despite working in the seemingly glamorous air travel industry.

Oh, she had been attracted to men in the past—of course she had. She had even come very close to having a proper love-affair. But she had never experienced feelings like this before. These dark, powerful, grown-up stirrings were a whole new and rather frightening ball game.

And she could not have chosen a worse candidate to be wildly attracted to—a rich, arrogant, gorgeous cynic! Lola was not an idiot, and she knew without someone having to tell her that this man was way, way out of her reach!

His voice had now dropped to a velvet caress. ‘So tell me, Lola Hennessy, just why you dislike me so.’

Sure! And boost his already massive ego still further? She was full of tricks like that! Lola gave him a bemused stare before delivering a gentle put-down. ‘How could I possibly dislike you, for heaven’s sake? I don’t even know you.’

Had he guessed that her indifference was feigned? Was that why his stormy eyes were now sending out shadowy messages which made another shiver of foreboding tiptoe its way up Lola’s spine?

‘Well, that’s one thing that is easily remedied,’ he replied silkily. ‘I’m Geraint Howell-Williams,’ he said, and his slate-grey eyes narrowed by a fraction as he waited for her reaction.

He was obviously someone, thought Lola—that much was evident just from his appearance—but did that infinitesimal pause after he had introduced himself mean she should have heard of him?

Arrogant so-and-so! Even if she had heard of him she would have pretended not to have! ‘How do you do, Mr Howell-Williams?’ she responded, her reply coming out all wooden and formal, and she saw his mouth harden very briefly before dazzling her with the most transfixing smile that Lola had ever encountered.

There was a hint of wicked amusement lurking in the depths of those eyes now. ‘Oh, call me Geraint, please,’ he murmured.

‘If you insist,’ she answered stiffly.

‘I wouldn’t dream of insisting,’ he mocked softly. ‘I’ve always found persuasion to be a much more effective tool.’

Now that she could believe! One more dazzling smile like the one he had displayed earlier and Lola could easily imagine being persuaded into doing almost anything he wanted...

‘I’m sure you have,’ she said softly, a wry note to her voice, and their eyes met for a moment of complete understanding, which left Lola feeling slightly shaken...

He threw her a thoughtful look. ‘This is some building,’ he commented slowly, as if determined to put the conversation back on a more conventional footing.

‘Yes, it is.’ Lola dutifully looked around the clubhouse, taking in the high white moulded ceiling and the pale marble pillars which gleamed so discreetly. On each pillar was mounted the distinctive navy blue St Fiacre’s crest, lavishly embossed with golden dragons and unicorns and vine leaves.

‘It looks less like a tennis club and more like a Greek temple—and an exceptionally sumptuous temple, to boot!’ Lola observed rather drily. ‘It must have cost an absolute fortune to build!’

‘I’m sure it did. But this is, after all, St Fiacre’s,’ he observed rather drily. ‘Where fortunes are ten-a-penny.’

‘You sound as if you don’t approve,’ she commented curiously.

‘Do I?’ He gave a brief shake of his dark head before fixing her with a steady look. ‘I was simply making an observation,’ he demurred softly. ‘Not a value judgement. If I disapproved of wealth and its occasional excesses, then I wouldn’t be here tonight, now would I?’

‘I suppose not,’ answered Lola, wondering what it was about him that made her skin alternately hot and cold as she veered between finding him distinctly dangerous and finding him almost irresistible—which was far more worrying!

‘So, Lola...’ he smiled ‘...now that we have the formalities out of the way, what would you like to do next? Eat?’

Before he had breezed over, Lola’s stomach had been rumbling loud enough to rival the London Philharmonic Orchestra, but now, astonishingly, it was silent. And her appetite had completely deserted her.

A first indeed! Perhaps if she stayed in this man’s company for long enough she might be able to zip up her black skirt before next Christmas!

‘I’m not hungry,’ she said.

‘Oh, Lo-la, you disappoint me,’ he drawled softly. ‘One of the things that makes you stand out from all the other women in this room is that you look as though you really take pleasure in eating.’

Lola glowered. ‘There’s no need to make me sound like a strapping great beast of the fields!’

He laughed. ‘That wasn’t my intention at all.’ His grey eyes flicked briefly over her body. ‘I’m sure that enough men have commented favourably on those lus-cious curves before me.’

There it was again. That lilting and unsettling way he had of addressing her—Lola couldn’t quite make out whether that last remark had been an insult or not. Or what the way he looked at her actually meant. It was as though he couldn’t quite make up his mind whether to dislike her or to...to...

Lola shook her head to rid herself of the horrifyingly erotic vision which had crept into her mind, which involved a lot of very old-fashioned macho behaviour, such as Geraint Howell-Williams throwing her over his shoulder, and then, then...

Besides, he should not make comments like that to someone he had never met before. Well, they had met, when she had served him with drinks en route to Paris a couple of weeks ago, but clearly he did not, as she had anticipated, remember her.

Being an air hostess was a bit like being a nurse—you all looked pretty much the same in uniform! And the passenger who had chatted away to you quite happily during a flight would usually stare at you blankly if you encountered him or her outside the confines of the craft or airport.

The surprising thing was that it usually worked the other way round, too, and Lola rarely recognised her passengers once they were off the aircraft.

But Geraint Howell-Williams was different. You would not need to be a genius to acknowledge that he was the type of man who, once seen, would never be forgotten...

Lola’s eyes glittered. ‘Actually, no,’ she contradicted him now icily. ‘Men do not usually comment on my figure, curves or otherwise. For a start, I don’t encourage personal remarks—’

‘Don’t you?’ he mocked softly. ‘Then what a shockingly boring life you must have led.’ His grey eyes locked with hers in an irresistible and yet somehow disquieting challenge.

‘I agree!’ she returned, with a sweet smile. ‘And standing here talking to you is just about as boring as it can get!’

Lola watched as for one swift, disconcerting moment his eyes darkened with an intensity of emotion which puzzled her hugely. She had made him angry, yes. Had she managed to wound his pride too? And, if so, might he at least now have the grace to look a little apologetic?

No way, she quickly realised. The anger had vanished, and so had the dark, intense look. And surprisingly all that was left was laughter—a reluctant kind of laughter which lurked in the depths of his grey eyes.

‘I don’t believe I bore you, Lola,’ he told her softly. ‘I believe that boredom is the very last thing on your mind right now!’

Oh, the arrogance of the man! Lola might have laughed if she hadn’t been so outraged by his inflated opinion of himself! ‘You find that such an improbable concept, do you?’ she queried coolly. ‘That a woman should find you boring?’

‘I do when she is demonstrating all the obvious signs of sexual attraction,’ he mused.

‘That’s probably just wishful thinking on your part!’ retorted Lola instantly, then wished she hadn’t.

He smiled, but it was the kind of smile that all the bad guys in films possessed—it didn’t make the corners of his eyes go all crinkly, and it didn’t have any degree of warmth in it either. Again, Lola felt that uncomfortable chill creep across the surface of her skin.

‘Is it? Does wishful thinking manage to manufacture eyes which keep darkening with passion, or lips that automatically soften and part in anticipation of being kissed?’ he drawled silkily. ‘As yours are doing right now?’

To her horror, Lola suddenly felt absolutely weak with longing as the deep, sensual words seemed to orchestrate her response. The fairly sensible, middle-of-the-road woman she considered herself to be had suddenly been replaced by a pathetic, swooning wimp! ‘St-stop it,’ she implored, despising herself for sounding so feeble but unable to do anything about it.

He shook his dark head. ‘But you don’t want me to stop it, do you? That’s just the trouble. You like it, Lola. And you like me. Your body is telling me just how much, isn’t it?’

And his eyes lazily flicked over her, lingering with undisguised interest on her breasts in a way that Lola would have found intolerable if any other man had done it. But she did not find it intolerable when Geraint Howell-Williams did it.

Beneath the dress of lapis lazuli velvet which made her blue eyes even bluer, Lola could feel her body betraying her, flowering beneath the approbation and the hunger in his eyes. She felt her breasts grow heavy and full, the tips begin to prickle with a kind of delicious ache which was actually more uncomfortable than enjoyable.

Because Lola recognised that there was only one way of taking that terrible aching away and that, astonishingly and shockingly, she wanted Geraint to touch her...

‘Do you normally behave like this towards women you have only just met?’ she demanded, her knees now weak with wanting.

‘Never,’ he responded softly, clearly mesmerised by the jutting thrust of her breasts against the rich material of her dress. ‘Do you normally react in this way to men you have only just met?’

Lola dragged a deep, determined breath into her lungs. ‘I think I’d better get out of here,’ she told him breathlessly. ‘Before one of us says something really offensive—’

‘You’re in no state to go anywhere,’ he responded wryly as he looked down at her searchingly, the stormy eyes narrowing in surprise at her wide eyes and flushed face. ‘Here, give me that.’

‘That’ was the glass she was clutching as if it were a lifeline, and smoothly—masterfully—he managed to remove the forgotten tonic from her hand and deposit it on a nearby table, then slowly pull her into his arms before she had time to make a protest.

‘Geraint, please...’ she whispered, aware of a tiny pull of pleasure as she said his name for the first time, and she found herself wanting to say it over and over again, as though it were some life-sustaining mantra.

‘Please what?’ he responded softly, his mouth pressed against her hair.

‘Please let go of me.’

‘If I do you’ll fall.’ His voice deepened. ‘Won’t you?’

’N-no, I won’t,’ she answered uncertainly, realising that she was actually enjoying the rather scary feeling of being this much out of control.

‘Try it,’ he suggested, and loosened his hands from where they had been holding her by the waist, and Lola actually felt herself sway, like a flu victim just out of bed for the first time. She wondered if she might have slithered to the floor, had he not renewed his hold on her with a steely strength that made Lola feel weaker than she had ever felt in her life.

‘See?’ he challenged softly.

Oh, yes, Lola saw all right. She saw that she had been sending out entirely the wrong messages to Geraint Howell-Williams since she had first clapped eyes on him tonight.

Or maybe—just maybe—she had been sending out the right messages, and he was just clever enough to pick up on them, realise that she was hopelessly infatuated, and then capitalise on that by having her almost swooning in his arms.

‘Relax,’ he urged softly. ‘Just enjoy the music.’

For a moment she did as he suggested. She gave in to temptation and to feeling, loving the exciting warm circle of his arms, the way his head rested so easily against hers.

She forgot all about the band playing and listened to the infinitely more spellbinding music of his body.

The beat of his heart. The rhythm of his breathing. The almost unconscious little thrust of his pelvis as he allowed himself to respond to the saxophonist who was the band’s only saving grace.

She knew that she ought to move, that a dance with a stranger should not be this intimate, and yet, to all intents and purposes, the dance was not intimate. They were just a man and a woman swaying loosely in each other’s arms, as others were all around them.

So this sensation of almost drowning in sweet, drenching pleasure—was this unique to her? Did this dance feel like any other to Geraint Howell-Williams? Lola wondered. Because it sure as hell didn’t to her! At that moment, drifting in his arms, she felt as though she was starring in every love story ever written.

Love story?

Her adolescent little fantasies brought Lola back to her senses with a start, and as the number trailed off with one final, lingering throb of the saxophone she took a deep breath and looked up at him.

‘Th-thank you for the dance,’ she said falteringly.

The grey eyes were enigmatic as he dropped his hands from where they had been lightly holding her hips. ‘My pleasure.’

‘It’s time I was going.’

‘Sure?’

That was, thought Lola wryly, what they called a leading question. To be honest, she wasn’t sure—she would have liked to hang around and dance like that with him all night.

But a girl had her pride to think of. He was the kind of over-gorgeous man who had probably had things much, much too easy in the past. And Lola’s turning him down was almost certainly going to help his emotional development enormously! ‘Quite sure,’ she answered firmly.

He nodded his dark head. ‘Where do you live?’

Lola had only been a resident for the past six months, and she still had not worked out how to answer this particular question without giving in to the toe-curling embarrassment of having to explain how she’d actually come to own a house worth almost a million pounds.

People always jumped to such awful conclusions when they found out that a pensioner she hardly knew had left it to her!

‘I live here,’ she told him. ‘On the St Fiacre’s estate.’

‘I see,’ he murmured softly.

Lola searched his face for the tell-tale looks of surprise—but there were none.

She was still extremely sensitive about living in a house on the estate once termed ‘the Beverly Hills of England’ by some enterprising journalist—one where all the residents were not just rich, they were seriously rich.

Except for Lola, of course.

The rich had a look and a lifestyle all of their own, and Lola did not possess either! She looked exactly what she was—a working woman who needed a bit of clever juggling to pay her bills. Although, admittedly, a working woman who lived in an enormous house. A house which she was fast coming to the conclusion she was going to have to sell.

‘I’ll walk you back,’ he said.

‘No!’ It came out more vehemently than she had intended, but really! A walk home in the moonlight with a man like Geraint Howell-Williams? Agreeing to a dream scenario like that would simply be asking for trouble!

‘And why not?’ he asked coolly.

He was very persistent, she would say that for him, although she doubted that he had ever had to use persistence with a woman before! ‘Does there have to be a reason?’ she parried. ‘Or are you implying that no woman in her right mind would refuse an invitation to have you walk her home?’

He fixed her with a steady grey gaze. ‘Did you come here with another man tonight?’

‘Do you think that I would have been dancing like that with you if I had come with another man?’ Lola demanded, instantly growing flustered. Now why had she mentioned the way they had been dancing—especially when it made his eyes gleam with such a hot, exciting look?

‘I have no idea.’ He shrugged shoulders whose breadth was emphasised by the exquisite cut of his dinner jacket. ‘Who knows what hidden agenda a woman might have when she agrees to dance with a man?’

Or vice versa, thought Lola with amusement. ‘Such as?’

He plucked two glasses of champagne from the tray of a passing waitress and handed one to Lola who took it without thinking. ‘Such as wanting to show off her figure in a clinging gown. That could easily apply to you...’

Lola, who had not intended to drink alcohol at all that evening, now took a huge, emboldening slug of the fizzy wine and was grateful for the warmth and the bravado it gave her. ‘This dress is not clinging!’ she declared, glancing down at the deep blue velvet.

There was smoky amusement in the grey eyes. ‘Oh, come on, Lola,’ he chided softly. ‘It probably wasn’t meant to be—but when you combine a sensual material like velvet with a Botticelli body clinging is what you get.’

‘You mean I look fat?’

‘I mean you look sensational,’ he murmured, sounding as though he meant it. ‘If you really want to know.’

Lola felt a rush of pleasure kick-starting at the pit of her stomach. This man whom she was trying so hard to dislike was flirting like mad with her, and right now she didn’t care!

Flustered, she swept a great handful of hair unnecessarily over her shoulder. ‘And what other reasons do women have for dancing with men?’ she queried, in an effort to stop him giving her that hungry look which was making her long to be kissed by him.

‘To make a boyfriend jealous, perhaps?’

‘But I haven’t got a boyfriend,’ said Lola instantly, and then could have kicked herself. There was no need to make herself sound as though she was desperate! Or on the shelf. Or both! ‘Not at the moment, anyway,’ she finished defiantly.

‘No,’ he said thoughtfully.

Lola found herself wishing that she could check her appearance somewhere. Was her nose shiny? Had her mascara smudged beneath her eyes? Was that why he was subjecting her to that highly disturbing, narrow-eyed scrutiny?

‘And there is, of course,’ he drawled, ‘the rather obvious reason why a woman agrees to dance with a man.’

‘And what’s that?’

‘Oh, I think you know the answer to that one.’ He gave her a long, steady look.

Lola took the look as a challenge. ‘No, I don’t.’

The grey eyes glittered. ‘That she can’t resist him, of course. That she wants to be in bed with him... and dancing is a socially acceptable substitute for sex. Sublimation,’ he finished on a mocking note, and then, as if sensing her objection, added softly, ‘You did ask, Lola.’

He was right. Perhaps it had been naive of her. But then again, there were civilised ways of answering naive questions, weren’t there? The glass froze halfway to Lola’s lips. ‘Are you trying to shock me?’

‘Why?’ he mocked, and their gazes locked for a fraught and sexually charged moment. ‘Am I succeeding?’

Not in shocking her, no—he was exciting her by saying things he had no right to be saying. It was crazy, thought Lola, how a deep voice and a sexy body could turn a normally sensible girl’s brain to jelly! ‘No comment!’ she declared firmly. ‘And I’m definitely going now!’

‘Did you drive?’

‘No, I walked.’

‘Then I am going to walk you home,’ he said, and shook his dark head firmly as he saw her open her mouth to refuse. ‘Please, Lola,’ he urged, almost huskily. ‘It’s a dark night for a woman to be out on her own.’

It was years since a man had said something so delightfully chivalrous to her, although Lola usually associated chivalry with a certain kind of innocence—and innocence was not a word which suited Geraint Howell-Williams at all!

She tipped her chin up to look him in the eye, so that her hair spilled down in mahogany spirals all over her shoulders. ‘And which, out of interest, offers me more in the way of danger?’ she challenged. ‘The dark night? Or you?’

‘You’re talking different types of danger, honey,’ he asserted, giving her a brief, hard smile—but it was an oddly disconcerting smile. ‘Though I can assure you that I will deliver you home in one piece. Does that satisfy you?’

It occurred to Lola that ‘satisfy’ was a particularly poor word to have chosen in the circumstances, but she nodded as he put their glasses down on one of the tables and guided her towards the door like a man used to being in command.

She felt her heart racing out of control. Calm down, Lola, she told herself firmly—he’s only offering to walk you home, not to trap you into a life of decadence!

She watched his hard, lean body covertly from beneath the dark sweep of her lashes and thought, most uncharacteristically, that perhaps in this case decadence might have something to commend it!

‘Did you have a coat?’ he asked as he pushed open one of the glass doors to receive the cold night air.

’N-no.’ Her teeth had begun to chatter. When she had left the house earlier it had been a deceptively warm and starry evening, but now a breeze was fluttering its cool fingers through the air.

‘Here, then—you’re cold,’ he said, frowning, and immediately removed his jacket to hang it loosely over her shoulders.

He turned left out of the tennis club towards East Road, as though he instinctively knew the way, and Lola wrinkled her nose. ‘But this is the way to my house,’ she said.

‘Don’t sound so surprised. Wasn’t the general idea to head in the direction of your house—as that’s where I’m supposed to be taking you?’

‘But I don’t remember telling you where I lived.’

‘You must have done,’ he answered quickly. ‘Or how could I have known?’

How indeed? Lola hugged his jacket closer, obsessively observing her surroundings in an effort not to concentrate on the tantalisingly subtle scents of musk and lemon which clung to his coat, but it wasn’t easy.

Huge banks of dark, glossy laurels lined the road, looming high on either side, protecting the vast houses behind them from the curious eyes of onlookers. Occasionally, there were high, impenetrable gates, bearing a stark picture of a barking guard dog that was meant to deter burglars—or curious sightseers, desperate to catch a glimpse of some of the houses and their often famous occupants.

In fact, Lola had long since decided that the word ‘house’ was a bit of a misnomer where St Fiacre’s was concerned. The smallest residence on the estate had six bedrooms, and the largest was rumoured to have twenty-two!

It was the world of the hidden camera and the stony-faced guard which so often went hand in hand with money—although the lush green acres surrounding the houses did much to compensate for the downside of extreme wealth.

She and Geraint walked side by side. Twice, cars slowed down—large, opulent and expensive cars, whose drivers were interested to know why a couple were actually walking around St Fiacre’s instead of driving!

Lola often thought that most of her neighbours wouldn’t know what to do with their hands if they weren’t holding a steering wheel!

They had almost reached the dip in the road where a branch of East Road ran up to join North Road when Lola said, pointing into a curving driveway, ‘I live here.’

He glanced up the drive to where the elegant white three-storey building sat amidst carefully manicured lawns. But instead of commenting on the house Geraint paused to look at Lola instead, his hard-boned face a series of shifting shadows cast by the pale moon and the even paler light from the stars.

‘You do realise that we’ve met before?’ he said suddenly.

Lola found that she couldn’t stop herself from smiling, ridiculously pleased that he had remembered. Of course, bearing in mind his no doubt colossal ego, she really ought to feign ignorance of him, but she dismissed the idea immediately. She wasn’t a good liar at the best of times and for some reason she baulked at the thought of Geraint finding her out in a lie!

She nodded, her glossy hair full of moonlight. ‘Yes, I do. It was on a flight out of London to Paris, wasn’t it?’

‘Ah! So you do remember.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Lola calmly.

‘But you didn’t mention it.’

Lola fixed him with a direct look. ‘Neither did you’

‘Maybe I thought that you wouldn’t remember a mere passenger—you must see thousands of men every working week.’

‘Not remember you?’ Lola gave a pale imitation of a smile. ‘Oh, come on, Mr Howell-Williams—please don’t indulge in false modesty on my account! You happen to be a very memorable man, as I’m sure countless women have told you. I remember you very well, as it happens. You kept requesting tomato juice.’

‘Heavens!’ he mocked. ‘You really do have a good memory, don’t you?’ He lifted his dark brows questioningly. ‘So why did you keep glaring at me whenever I asked you for another drink?’

Lola shifted in embarrassment. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘Oh, but it does.’ In the darkness his grey eyes were as cold and as glittering as the finest marble and Lola recognised that he was the kind of man who would chip away until he’d obtained all the answers he wanted.

She decided to give in without a struggle. ‘If you must know, I suspected your motives.’

He stilled. ‘My motives?’ he asked, in an odd, quiet sort of voice. ‘Just what do you mean by that?’

Lola shook her head. ‘Really—it isn’t important.’

‘Oh, but it is,’ he contradicted her, in a voice suddenly soft with menace. ‘Tell me.’

Lola gave him a steady look, realising that the atmosphere between them had suddenly changed to a big freeze, and wondering why.

She shrugged. ‘OK. I’ll tell you if you insist. We keep the tomato juice on the bottom shelf of the trolley because it is one of our least popular drinks. Some of the male passengers seem to have cottoned on to this, and they keep asking for it so that...that...’ Her voice trailed off in embarrassment as she saw the contempt hardening his lips. Oh, why hadn’t she kept her big mouth shut?

‘So that you have to bend right down to get it?’ he finished for her acidly.

Lola blushed again. Hateful, perceptive man! ‘Well, yes,’ she admitted, the look on his face making her wish that a hole could open up in front of her and swallow her up.

‘Do you really think,’ he said witheringly, ‘that I would be reduced to resorting to such juvenile ploys? And if I did want to see your knickers I would hardly need to make myself sick through drinking excessive amounts of tomato juice. After all, those abbreviated outfits that you wear for work leave very little to the imagination!’

‘Why, you—’ Maddened beyond thinking, Lola swung her hand out to slap his face, but his reactions were much too speedy for her, and he caught her wrist easily, pulling her right up against his chest and looking down at her, his wolfish smile making his shadowed face look both intimidating and delectably kissable.

‘You what?’ he mocked. ‘Beast? Brute? Bastard? Some or all of those? Want to think badly of me, do you, Lola Hennessy? Well, why not have some thing to really focus your anger on?’

And he did what she had been wanting him to do all evening. He gathered her into his arms and crushed his mouth down on hers in a kiss which sent all her senses into overdrive.

She was aware of the sweetness, of the intimacy as their tongues locked, of the desperate need to hold onto him as tightly as possible and never let him go.

She heard the low moan he made in the back of his throat as he sought to pull her even closer against him and Lola clung onto those wide, strong shoulders, massaging them like a woman possessed, the rocky bulge of his muscles steel-hard against her fingertips.

She could feel the leanness of his abdomen against her rounded belly, and she could sense the tension in him as he shifted his weight, moving his hips in a distracted circle, which made her acutely aware of just how easily he could be turned on too.

The realisation that things were spiralling out of control was what cleared Lola’s mind from the constricting mists of desire, and the facts began to seep coldly into her brain as she forced herself to remember how he had insulted her.

And yet here she was allowing herself to be meekly compromised by necking in a bush with him!

Angrily, she pushed him away. I don’t know what you think you‘re—’

‘Oh, spare me the hysterics, do,’ he interrupted calmly, and then he actually yawned—although Lola was convinced that it was deliberate! ‘When will you women realise that it really doesn’t count if you declare your unwillingness after the event? Particularly,’ he drawled insultingly, ‘when your willingness to participate was overwhelming at the time.’

His grey eyes glinted with remembered pleasure. ‘That was some kiss,’ he murmured softly, his eyes narrowing as he looked down at her, seeming taken aback by the dazed look on her face. And some of the abrasiveness had left his voice when he said, ‘Come on—I’ll walk you to the door.’

For about ten seconds Lola was completely speechless and then she made up for it. ‘Do you really think that I would let you anywhere near my house after that?’ she spluttered indignantly.

‘Why ever not?’ He looked perplexed.

‘Because I’m not used to being man-handled by jumped-up Lotharios who think that caveman tactics will have a woman swooning in their arms every time!’

‘And you are claiming not to have enjoyed my so-called caveman tactics?’ he drawled, his eyes glittering as he recalled that Lola had done exactly that. ‘I rest my case,’ he added insultingly as her hot, guilty cheeks added fuel to his argument.

‘Perhaps you’d better go,’ she suggested from between gritted teeth. Before she said something she might regret, she added silently.

‘Go? Sure.’ He gave her an unsettling smile and turned away with a lazy assurance which filled Lola with an inexplicable kind of fear. He did not look like a man who was going too far.

‘Goodnight, Lola.’

‘Wh-where are you going?’

‘Home.’ He raised his dark brows at her in sultry question. ‘Unless that was an oblique invitation for me to stay?’

‘Wh-where do you live?’ she demanded nervously. ‘On the estate?’

He smiled. ‘I’m afraid so. Although only temporarily, you understand. I’m staying at Dominic Dashwood’s house.’

‘B-but that’s next door!’ Lola spluttered. ‘To me!’

‘Exactly. So we’ll be neighbours.’ His eyes glinted with a wickedness that excited her, and with something else, too—something which unsettled her, unnerved her. Something she couldn’t define.

A chill, nebulous dread settled on her skin like a fog as she tried to imagine Geraint Howell-Williams living next door.

’N-neighbours?’ she stumbled.

‘Mmm. Now won’t that be fun, Lola?’

CHAPTER TWO

THE trolley rattled like a brass band as Lola struggled to push it up the last few yards of the aisle with something approaching dignity.

Perhaps Geraint Howell-Williams was right, she reflected as she tugged the tiny skirt down over her bottom. The yellow minis, edged with blue piping, left very little to the imagination. Or was it just something to do with her own rather curvy figure, which made the already inadequate skirt seem to ride even higher up her thighs?

And what the hell are you doing even thinking about Geraint Howell-Williams, anyway? she asked herself crossly. He is just a man you met for about an hour last night. A rude, arrogant, egotistical man who kissed you without asking permission first and let things rapidly get out of control. That’s how much you mean to him. That’s how much he respects you.

And you hate him! she told herself fiercely.

The only trouble was that saying the same thing over and over again did not necessarily make you believe it. She had already spent an almost sleepless night alternatively fretting and fuming, punching the pillow with a violence which alarmed her, and then feverishly burying her head in it as if it were Geraint’s face, like a woman possessed.

Consequently, she had drifted off just before the alarm clock rang, and she had staggered out of bed feeling like death—dreading the thought of having to face a flight to Rome, and then a stopover there.

By the time Lola pushed the trolley into the gallery, her best friend Mamie was waiting for her, pinching olives from the left-over hors d’oeuvres and shoving them into her mouth like a hamster.

Lola loved flying, but it was even better when you were working with someone you knew. And she and Mamie had started working at Atalanta Airlines together on the very same day, almost seven years ago.

‘You look terrible,’ observed Mamie, offering Lola an olive.

Lola waved her hand in refusal. ‘Thanks very much,’ she said waspishly.

‘Didn’t you sleep?’

Lola sighed. ‘You could say that.’

‘Any particular reason?’

Lola shook her head. It would not do her already pitiful reputation with men any good if she admitted to losing sleep over someone who was little more than a passing acquaintance!

‘Never mind.’ Marnie thoughtfully removed a piece of pimento from her fingernail. ‘I know just the thing to cheer you up. Or rather just the man! Have you noticed him yet?’

Lola began unloading the trays and wrinkled her nose. How she wished that people would not stub their cigarettes out in the sherry trifle! ‘Who?’ she asked absently. ‘Don’t tell me the captain has emerged from the cockpit and is strolling about smiling graciously and being pleasant to all the passengers?’

‘No, no, no!’ said Mamie. ‘Nothing as farfetched as that! No, I mean the guy two rows from the front in First Class.’

‘But I’m not working in First Class,’ Lola pointed out patiently. ‘Am I?’

‘That hasn’t stopped every other stewardess on the flight making it their business to go and look at him. Or should I say ogle him?’

‘I never look at passengers in that way,’ said Lola haughtily. ‘It’s unprofessional!’

Marnie had now started picking prawns off tiny triangles of brown bread and was curling them into her mouth with a long scarlet talon. ‘No, you don’t look at passengers—but you somehow get one of them to leave you a whacking great mansion worth almost a million pounds! Nice work, Lola!’

Lola opened her mouth to protest, as she seemed to have been protesting ever since the totally unexpected legacy had come her way, then shut it again. She had all but given up trying to explain away her unexpected stroke of fortune.

Even if she painted the facts as baldly as possible—that a passenger she had met through her job and her charity work with the airline had taken a shine to her and left her a whacking great housewell, people still put two and two together and came out with a rather grubby five.

Sex, sex, sex. That was all anybody seemed to think about these days! And even if the giver of the house had been over sixty and the recipient a mere twenty-five all but the very nicest people tended to think that Lola had had a red-hot affair with him.

When the truth was that she had never had a red-hot affair with anyone!

‘How’s your mother?’ asked Mamie. ‘Has she seen the mighty inheritance yet?’

Lola shook her head, so that the jaunty blue and yellow cap which all the cabin crew absolutely loathed looked in danger of toppling from her high-piled curls. ‘Nope,’ she answered gloomily. ‘Doesn’t want to know anything about it. I’ve tried telling her that everything associated with the wretched house is above board, but I don’t think she believes me.’

‘Oh, she’ll come around,’ said Mamie comfortingly. ‘And it isn’t as though she was always visiting you when you lived in the flat, is it?’

‘No,’ answered Lola reflectively. ‘She’s a very solitary sort of person, I guess. Doesn’t mix much.’

‘Unlike you,’ smiled Mamie.

Lola shrugged. ‘I don’t seem to have been mixing much recently—the house takes up every bit of my spare time, it’s so big!’

‘My heart bleeds for you!’ mocked Marnie.

‘Then come and live there too!’ offered Lola impulsively. “There’s plenty of room.’

Mamie shook her head. She was engaged to be married and she didn’t want to share Rob with anyone, not even Lola. ‘Just because you want a tame member of staff?’ she quizzed jokingly. ‘No way!’

Lola looked down to find that someone had smeared most of a vegetarian rissole all over the side of their tray. She tutted. Passengers could be absolutely infuriating sometimes.

‘Lola?’

Lola turned around at the gentle tap on her shoulder.

It was Stuart, the purser, the flight attendant in charge of all the cabin crew. ‘I’d like one of you two girls to come up and help out in First Class, please,’ he said. ‘We’re run off our feet up there:

Mamie winked meaningfully at Lola. ‘With pleasure,’ she purred. ‘I’ll be right along, Stuart.’

The purser shook his head. ‘I’ll take Lola, if you don’t mind, Mamie. She’s the only female on board who seems to have any common sense to speak of.’

‘Why, thank you, Stuart!’ Lola beamed. ‘Recognition at long last! Does that mean promotion is about to wing its way to me?’

‘It means,’ growled Stuart, ‘that you seem to be the only woman on board this flight who hasn’t fluttered up to that man in First Class on some pathetic pretext or other, that was so patently transparent he must have been laughing all over his face. I really don’t know what they all see in him!’

‘You just wait!’ mouthed Mamie to Lola.

‘He’s bound to have an ego the size of Wembley Stadium!’ commented Lola, pulling a face. ‘I had an awful night, Stuart, with hardly any sleep to speak of—must I really go and pander to some pretty little rich boy with an over-inflated sense of his own importance?’

Stuart laughed. ‘Go on with you! I want someone up there who won’t come over all silly when she sets eyes on him! Just go and tidy yourself up a bit first, would you, Lola?’

‘Cheek!’ Lola retorted, but she checked her hair and slicked on a bit of lipstick and scraped a particularly stubborn curl back into her tortoiseshell hair-clip, before making her way to First Class, her eyes automatically straying to two rows from the front on the right-hand side, where Mamie had said that...that...

Lola broke out into a cold sweat, shaking her head in a desperate kind of denial. She took a deep breath, shut her eyes very briefly, then looked again.

It was him.

Definitely him.

Geraint Howell-Williams was on her flight, and if she didn’t get out of the way very quickly he would see her, and she would have to serve him, and—

‘Excuse me, stewardess,’ came a deep, mocking voice, and Lola saw, to her absolute horror, that the dark head had turned around and that she was very firmly fixed in the gaze of a pair of stormy grey eyes.

For one mad moment she thought of pretending that she had not heard him, of turning tail and running back up to the other end of the aeroplane, but of course she couldn’t do that. She had a fantastic work record at Atalanta Airlines and she was damned if she was going to let Geraint Howell-Williams interfere with that!

Unconsciously smoothing down her skirt, she glided over to him in her most professional manner, and gave him a frosty smile which she hoped no one but him would recognise as being supercilious.

‘Yes, sir? What can I get you?’

‘You could try getting rid of that superior expression on your face,’ he answered softly.

She kept the saccharine smile fixed firmly to her lips. ‘If I look superior, sir, then perhaps it’s because I am superior.’

He stared up at her innocently. ‘Are you trying to offend me, Lola?’

‘Yes.’

‘I thought so.’

A suspicion leapt to the forefront of her mind.

Geraint Howell-Williams had now travelled with Atalanta Airlines twice in the past few weeks and before that she had never noticed him. And she would definitely have noticed him. ‘Are you following me?’ she quizzed.

There was an infinitesimal pause. A briefly guarded look hardened the devastating face before the grey eyes cleared and looked up at her with studied amusement. ‘Is that an occupational hazard, then, being followed? Perhaps it happens to you a lot, Lola?’ he suggested sardonically.

‘Oh, ha, ha, ha!’ she retorted crossly.

‘And I have to say that much as I admire your riotous curls and bright blue eyes and luscious curves—’ his eyes glinted—do you really think I’d go to all the trouble of taking flights around all the major capital cities in Europe just so that I could catch a glimpse of them?’

When he put it like that, her question sounded absolutely ludicrous. ‘I suppose not,’ she answered, and forced herself to wait for his order without squirming.

It was strange, really, that in all her years of flying she had never had a problem about being in a servile position with passengers. Until now.

For the first time ever she found herself resenting having to stand with a polite smile glued to her mouth, when, if the truth be known, she would have liked to stomp off down the aircraft and as far away from Geraint Howell-Williams as possible!

He stretched his legs out lazily in front of him, and Lola’s eyes were reluctantly drawn to the muscular shafts of his thighs.

Reclining, he seemed even taller, if that were possible. The seats in First Class were specifically designed to give the passengers more leg-room—but, even so, Geraint’s legs only just fitted comfortably.

An incomprehensible light lit the stormy grey eyes as he glanced up to find her gaze riveted to the lower half of his body. ‘Does looking at my legs give you pleasure, Lola?’

That was just the trouble—it did! She had been having all kinds of impure thoughts about them, and the most disturbing thing was that she was discovering that with Mr Geraint Howell-Williams she could very definitely respond to him on two levels.

On a social level she would have liked to march him down the aircraft and boot him into the hold with all the suitcases—as a kind of punishment for his outrageous cheek and determination to embarrass her. Whereas on a physical level...

She somehow managed to keep her blush at bay and gave him a calm, empty sort of look. ‘I haven’t really given them a lot of thought, to be honest, sir.’

‘No?’ he queried softly.

‘No,’ she answered repressively.

‘Liar!’ he taunted.

‘Mr Howell-Williams—’

‘Oh, Geraint, please; we’re a little too—um—familiar to stand on ceremony, wouldn’t you say?’

She carried on speaking as if he had not interrupted her with that timely little reminder of how she had swooned in his arms last night. ‘I am not paid to be insulted by passengers, no matter what section of the aircraft they are sitting in. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, miss,’ he answered meekly.

Lola glared, but it took an effort. A huge effort. How extraordinarily annoying it was that she wanted to just curl up at his feet and melt with pleasure at that little-boy-lost look he was subjecting her to at the moment.

‘What would you like?’ she asked, indicating the drinks list in front of him. ‘Champagne?’

‘Not particularly.’ He shrugged. ‘Champagne is essentially a drink of celebration and there isn’t really a lot to celebrate with me sitting down here and you standing there, dressed in that ridiculous uniform—’

‘It is not a ridiculous uniform! It’s just...’

As if controlled by an outside force, their eyes were simultaneously drawn to the saffron-coloured jacket and matching short, short skirt she wore, all piped in a rather hideous shade of cornflower-blue.

Never in her life had Lola been quite so aware of the amount of thigh on view—and rather chubby thigh, come to that, because she certainly wasn’t built on the same scale as some of the skeletal beauties who worked alongside her.

‘A little on the short side?’ he supplied helpfully, and his gaze roved with undisguised interest up the entire length of her legs. “Though I have to say that from where I’m sitting...’

‘You sexist pig!’

He shrugged. ‘What’s sexist about admiring your legs? You were admiring mine—’

‘I was not!’ declared Lola heatedly.

‘Is anything the matter, sir?’

Stuart had glided silently up to Geraint’s seat and he shot Lola a questioning look as her heart sank.

Wait for it, she thought. He’s going to say goodness only knows what about me, and I won’t have a leg to stand on! The passenger in front must have heard me calling Geraint a sexist pig, and we are taught never, never, never—no matter what the provocation—to insult the passenger!

She sighed resignedly as she saw Geraint open his mouth to speak and blanked from her mind the inevitable scene as she imagined him relating her rudeness to the purser.

Thank heavens for my inheritance, she thought, with a fleeting flash of humour. At least I’ll be able to sell the house and live off the interest until I decide what I want to do with the rest of my life...

‘How lovely!’ Stuart was beaming at her, his face wreathed with unfamiliar smiles.

‘L-lovely?’ stumbled Lola in confusion. ‘What’s lovely?’

‘That you’re having dinner with Mr Howell-Williams tonight.’

Lola narrowed her eyes and was challenged by a spectacular grey gaze. ‘I am having dinner with Mr Howell-Williams?’ she repeated incredulously. ‘Tonight?’

Stuart looked slightly bewildered. ‘Well, that’s what he said—’

‘Oh, Lola likes to play hard to get,’ came a voice of silky amusement with an underlying hint of steel. ‘Don’t you, sweetheart?’

Stuart nearly dropped his bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon at the easy familiarity conjured up by the word ‘sweetheart’. ‘So you two know each other?’ he quizzed eagerly.

‘We’re neighbours,’ Geraint revealed.

‘Oh.’ Stuart seemed fascinated by this. ‘You live at St Fiacre’s too, do you?’

Geraint smiled. ‘Only for the time being, until I find a place I like enough to want to buy. I’m renting my friend Dominic Dashwood’s house—he’s gone away for the winter.’

Barbados, probably, thought Lola, or somewhere equally exotic. Dominic Dashwood was the neighbour she hardly ever saw, and he made other rich men look like paupers. His wealth was legendary—but not nearly as legendary as his reputation and appetite for beautiful women.

Stuart beamed at Lola,. ‘You should have said that you knew each other! Mind you,’ he confided to Geraint, ‘our Lola always gets on exceptionally well with the passengers! Gets more invitations to dinner than anyone else on the craft—and the occasional surprise present from a passenger!’ He winked at Lola, and moved away down the aisle.

‘Oh, does she?’ asked Geraint tonelessly, scarcely seeming to notice that Stuart had left, and for a moment Lola was aware of an odd look in his narrowed grey eyes. A fierce, intent kind of look. Just for a moment there Geraint Howell-Williams had looked almost... almost... bitter...

‘There’s no rule against accepting gifts from passengers!’ Lola stated, extremely irritated by that critical look on his face, which made her sound much more flippant than she usually did. And which, she realised, had the unfortunate effect of making herself sound like some kind of second-rate gold-digger!

The flippancy made him wince, and Lola was aware of an unsettling feeling of disquiet stealing over her, as if his disapproval of her somehow diminished her in her own eyes.

‘And that’s your main criterion for living, is it?’ he questioned quietly. ‘That if there is no rule against it then it must be OK?’

‘Please don’t put words into my mouth,’ returned Lola softly.

He studied her face for a moment before speaking. ‘I don’t intend to. I intend to put food into your mouth instead. What time shall I pick you up tonight?’

But Lola shook her head, hoping that her reluctance to do what she knew to be the right thing did not show. ‘I don’t think that’s such a good idea, do you?’

His mouth thinned into something resembling a smile. ‘Why else would I suggest it?’

Lola looked up and down the cabin quickly, to check that none of the other staff were in earshot, and then she lowered her voice. ‘Look-perhaps I gave you the wrong idea last night—’

‘That would depend on your definition of “wrong”, surely, Lola?’ he demurred softly. ‘I certainly had no problem with your behaviour last night—’

‘I’ll bet you didn’t!’ Lola snapped, her cheeks growing hot as she remembered her virtual surrender in his arms. ‘And if I hadn’t stopped it who knows where we would have ended up?’

‘I hardly think you need the brains of Einstein to work that one out for yourself,’ he responded drily.

Lola felt her fingers itching frantically and in that moment longed to slap him.

It was extraordinary. She had tried to slap him last night, too—that had been how the kiss had started. She, normally the most peaceable of people, had started exhibiting the most uncharacteristic behaviour!

Just why did she react so violently and so uniquely to this one particular man? Would an analyst say that the violence was a substitute for sex—because subconsciously she desired him, even though there was something about him which made her wonder whether she could trust him?

She took a deep breath and hoped that she was managing to present a calm, neutral face. ‘The aircraft is full, and I’m very busy. So would you please excuse me now, Mr Howell-Williams—unless you’ve decided what you want me to get you?’

‘Tomato juice, please,’ he said, deadpan, and Lola pursed her lips.

‘Are you trying to be funny?’

‘Well, I was, yes,’ he admitted, and gave her a heart-stopping grin.

And it was that grin which proved her absolute undoing. She actually began to dimple back at him—her face soon lit up by a huge, helpless smile. ‘I’d better go and get your drink—’

He stayed her with nothing more than a look—cool and provocative and very, very assured. Lola would have defied anyone to resist a look like that.

‘I don’t want a drink,’ he said quietly. ‘I just want you to agree to have dinner with me tonight.’

Lola felt goose-bumps jump up all over her skin. She had a powerful premonition of just how vulnerable she might be to this man’s exceptional allure. That was, if she let herself... She opened her mouth to refuse, but Geraint pre-empted her.

‘And what if I tell the purser you were being outrageously rude to me just now?’ he mused. ‘And accused me of being a sexist pig. And that now you’re refusing to allow me the opportunity to clear my name?’

‘That’s called blackmail,’ protested Lola, but only half-heartedly.

‘That’s called getting your own way,’ he corrected her.

‘Which I suppose you always do?’

He gave an unrepentant smile. ‘What do you think?’

‘I think it’s about time someone turned you down,’ she told him fiercely.

‘For my own good?’ he mocked.

Lola shrugged. ‘Perhaps.’

‘And you think you could be that person?’

She gave him a level look, her sky-blue eyes dazzling him. ‘Why not?’

‘Because I’m not going to take no for an answer, that’s why. Not from you. So what have you got to say about that, Lola Hennessy?’

It was a pointless question when accompanied by a glittering look of approbation which would have made the most committed man-hater melt into submission! It was like asking a prisoner if they would like to taste freedom again!

Lola found Geraint Howell-Williams outrageously attractive, yes, but highly disturbing too. She sensed that sexually he was light years ahead of her, but the reason for her disquiet went deeper than that.

For there was an almost tangible air of danger about him, a danger which surrounded him like an aura and yet only added to his buccaneer-like appeal. She could almost imagine him in a billowing white shirt, a gleaming sword held aloft as he fought off invaders!

She swallowed the image down; it was inexplicably making her want to kiss him again.

‘Lola?’ he prompted, his voice a throaty caress. ‘Are you going to have dinner with me tonight?’

‘Yes, I am,’ she told him without hesitation, because at that precise moment—rightly or wrongly—it was what she wanted more than anything else in the world.

CHAPTER THREE

‘SO WHAT are you going to wear for this date of the century?’ Mamie yelled.

Lola made an ugly face at herself in the mirror. ‘That’s the trouble—I don’t know!’ She pulled the belt of her towelling robe even tighter and walked out of the bathroom into the rather luxurious room which Atalanta Airlines had assigned to her. Situated slap bang in the middle of the city centre, the New Rome Hotel commanded a magnificent view over the ancient capital.

Lola and Mamie had checked in just over an hour ago, and now Marnie was sitting on Lola’s bed, drinking a very large gin and tonic and ploughing through the bowl of courtesy nuts with the dedicated air of an animal preparing for hibernation.

She looked up as Lola strolled into the bedroom, and winced. ‘Haven’t you overdone the scent a bit?’

Lola, who had used enough bath oil to fill the hotel swimming pool, wrinkled her nose. ‘Oh, it’ll fade,’ she said confidently.

Mamie shook her head as Lola began to rub vigorously at her hair with a towel. ‘And I can’t believe you washed your hair. You know how thick it is—you’ll never get it dry in time!’

‘Gee, thanks! You’re supposed to be here to encourage me, not to add to my nerves!’ said Lola. She pulled on a pair of white cotton knickers, turning to look in another mirror and automatically sucking her stomach in as she did so. Still podgy, she thought in despair. ‘Should I wear my scarlet dress, do you think? Or the black? Which makes me look thinner?’

Mamie raised her eyes heavenwards. ‘Do you want to fall into bed with him in the first ten minutes?’

‘Of course I don’t!’

Mamie shrugged. ‘There’s no need to look so outraged.’

‘Oh, isn’t there?’ Lola glared at her friend indignantly. ‘Do you think I always hop into bed with men on the first date?’

Mamie smiled. ‘Of course I don’t! But then you don’t go out on dates with men who look like Geraint Howell-Williams very often.’

‘And what’s so special about Geraint Howell-Williams?’ demanded Lola hotly. ‘He just happens to be richer and better-looking than most men, that’s all.’

‘No!’ Marnie shook her head with all the wisdom of her two years’ seniority over Lola. ‘That’s not all. It’s much more than that—and you’ve got to be careful, Lola!’

‘Careful?’

Marnie nodded. ‘How can I put it? I know! If all men are tadpoles—’

‘I like the comparison!’ quipped Lola immediately.

Marnie silenced her with a look. ‘Then Geraint Howell-Williams is the killer shark!’ she finished dramatically. ‘Dangerous. Experienced. Downright gorgeous. Irresistible. Do you see what I mean, Lola?’

‘I wasn’t aware that sharks were gorgeous and irresistible,’ joked Lola. ‘Perhaps I should take up marine science!’

‘Stop it—I’m serious! I don’t trust him! He’s too hunky for his own good!’

‘I asked for advice on my choice of gown, not a character assassination of my escort,’ answered Lola airily.

‘All right—I’ll give you my advice! Don’t wear the black or the scarlet—’

‘But—’

‘Wear nothing but sackcloth—and if you don’t have sackcloth then reach for the dullest, most uninspiring outfit in your suitcase. Whatever you would choose to wear to tea with your most shockable maiden aunt, add an all-enveloping cardigan to it! Put on thick stockings and flat shoes for good measure. Oh, and don’t wear any make-up! That way Geraint Howell-Williams will not look at you with lust in his eyes, and you will not be tempted into gaining carnal knowledge of him!’

‘Thanks for nothing!’ groaned Lola as she flicked through the contents of her wardrobe. ‘I don’t want to look as though I’m trying too hard—but then again I do want to look my best. A woman has her pride to think about,’ she defended herself staunchly as she saw Marnie’s eyes narrow suspiciously.

In the end, she simply wore her hair loose to give it a chance to dry properly, and chose a trouser suit in butter-cream silk, with wide pyjama-style trousers which fastened tightly at her ankles, and a jacket fashioned like a frock-coat.

Like most of her silk clothes, she had had it made up for her on a trip to Hong Kong, but she had only worn it once before, for the simple reason that it attracted dirt like a seven-year-old schoolboy!

She did a twirl in the centre of the room. ‘What do you think?’

Marnie was uncharacteristically silent for a moment. Then she said, ‘You look stunning, Lola,’ and added in a worried voice, ‘You will be careful, won’t you?’

‘Of course I’ll be careful! Stop sounding as though we’re bit-players in a spy movie!’

‘Where’s he taking you?’

Lola tried and failed to keep the glee out of her voice. ‘The Mimosa.’

Marnie scowled. ‘I don’t want to be impressed—but I am! You lucky, lucky thing—I’ve always wanted to eat there but it costs more than a year’s salary! And Rob says that even if he was loaded he wouldn’t spend that kind of money on a meal, on principle. What time is he collecting you?’

Lola glanced down at the watch which gleamed discreetly on her wrist. ‘Oh, my goodness!’ she squeaked. ‘Right now!’

Marnie held her hand up authoritatively. ‘Then let him wait! It would do a man like that good to be kept waiting!’ she added darkly.

So Lola made herself wait for five minutes which seemed to tick away like five hours before she set off downstairs to find him. He was easily located in the hotel lobby and her eyes were drawn instantly to his dark, elegant body.

He was lounging in one of the squashy leather sofas with his long legs stretched out in front of him, his head resting back on his hands so that those narrowed slate-grey eyes missed nothing.

He saw her immediately and stood up with a kind of unconscious animal grace which had more than one female head swivelling eagerly in his direction.

He was wearing an unstructured suit in a won-derful shade of pale grey, and the loose-fitting cut of the jacket and trousers was somehow the sexiest thing that Lola had ever seen.

Geraint’s appeal was all subtlety and understatement, she realised, as opposed to the glaringly obvious. She could certainly never imagine him in skin-tight jeans. Well, on second thoughts perhaps she could! Only too well. . .

His expression was difficult to define as he followed her movements through the foyer, but he was frowning slightly, as though something about her puzzled him. But when Lola gave him a questioning look the watchfulness was replaced by a bland, social smile of greeting.

‘You look quite—exotic,’ he commented slowly.

‘D-do I?’ Even as she was speaking the words, Lola was shuddering inwardly at how absolutely wet she sounded. And hadn’t he sounded rather doubtful about her outfit? Had exotic been the effect she had been searching for?

He ran a finger slowly over one silken butter-cream cuff and just that one innocuous little touch made Lola shiver like a cat that had been left out in the rain all night.

‘I had it made in Hong Kong,’ she added rather breathlessly, more to fill in the rather awkward silence which had fallen than because she seriously thought he might be interested in her dressmaking tips!

He gave a lazy smile. ‘Really?’

Lola swallowed. Was he going to persist in making her feel uncomfortable all evening with his sardonic comments? More importantly, was she going to let him?

‘Why did you ask me to have dinner with you tonight, Geraint?’ she demanded.

‘Let’s discuss it in the taxi, shall we?’ he said, putting his hand firmly underneath her elbow and guiding her out of the door—with Lola acutely and embarrassingly aware of all the incredulous looks she was getting from the other women.

He must have felt her stiffen as the plate-glass doors closed behind them, for he looked down at her. ‘What is it?’ he demanded quietly. ‘What’s the matter?’

Lola tried to make a joke of it—for he must have noticed the reactions of the people in the foyer, too—but she knew that her voice only ended up sounding wistful. ‘All those beautiful women in there—they’re wondering what on earth you’re doing with someone who looks like me!’

He gave her a thoughtful glance as he opened the door of the taxi which had materialised as if by magic, and helped her inside.

‘Beautiful?’ he echoed wryly, then shook his dark head. ‘I don’t find stick-like bodies coupled with all-revealing clothes in the least bit beautiful. Whereas that silk suit you’re wearing. . .’

His eyes roved almost reluctantly over her, observing how the butter-cream silk clung faintly to every undulation of her body. ‘It hints rather than broadcasts, tantalises rather than emblazons,’ he murmured. ‘I find that infinitely more attractive than the kind of dress which threatens the wearer with being hauled up on an indecency charge.’

‘Oh,’ said Lola rather indistinctly, feeling ridiculously cheered by his obvious approval.

She was then rather nonplussed to see him lean forward and start speaking to the driver in rapid Italian. ‘You’re fluent!’ she observed in surprise.

He gave a half-smile. ‘You find that so remarkable?’

‘Yes, I do. Most Englishmen—’

‘Ah! But I’m not English, Lola—I’m Welsh.’

‘Oh, I see.’ So that explained the faint, almost musical lilt which made the deep voice so distinctive. And the tar-black tousled hair—its wildness only contained by the superb way he had had it cut.

She shot a covert glance at his impressive frame, at the broad shoulders and the rock-hard muscle of his thighs, visualising him on a ploughed-up field, blocking the other players’ every attempt to pass him. ‘And d-did you play rugby?’ she managed as she made a feeble attempt to squash the lustful vision of Geraint in a pair of mud-spattered shorts.

‘So you’re stereotyping me now, are you?’ he mocked her softly. “The man is Welsh, therefore he must play rugby and sing in an all-male choir! Right?’

‘No! I’m not stereotyping you!’ she protested, but she saw the hint of dark humour in his eyes and shrugged helplessly. ‘I’m only trying to be pleasant!’

‘Pleasant is fine,’ he teased. ‘But a little dull, surely, Lola?’

Lola sighed. If only he didn’t have the ability to make her tremble just by the seductive way he pronounced her name! ‘I don’t see how we can have a halfway decent evening if you block my every attempt at conversation with some smart remark like that!’ she objected.

‘You don’t have to make conversation with me, you know, sweetheart,’ he told her with an air of lazy containment.

‘Really?’ she enquired archly. ‘Then what else do you propose I do? And please don’t come out with something crass and obvious!’

He gave a low laugh. ‘I have no intention of being either of those.’

‘Good.’ She looked at him questioningly, her heart thumping very loudly in her ears.

He smiled. ‘Well, I rather like the way you look at me, when you’re trying your best not to. So why don’t you carry on gazing at me adoringly for now and we can save the life-stories for during dinner?’

Lola was outraged. What arrogance! Carry on gazing at him, indeed! And adoringly, too! Had she been? Oh, if only she had the strength of character to force him to turn the cab round and take her straight back to the hotel where she could spend the evening with Marnie.

Except that by now Marnie would have decamped with the rest of the crew to one of Rome’s noisiest discos and Lola would either have to eat a solitary meal in the hotel dining room or have something delivered up to her room.

And she didn’t want to. She wanted to be here. And with him. That was the trouble.

Surreptitiously sliding along the seat as far away from him as possible, Lola stared fixedly out of the window at the passing city with the sinking realisation that it didn’t seem to matter what kind of outrageous statements he came out with. Or how much he put her back up. Because she wanted him with all the fierce intensity of a woman who had just discovered desire for the first time in her life.

And because it hadn’t happened until she had reached the comparatively ripe old age of twenty-five it seemed to have hit her with the most overwhelming force.

She found herself at the mercy of new and rather frightening feelings, found that she wanted to do all those things she had previously thought were the province of the emotionally unstable—to tremble, and to weep, to reach out and touch him. . .

And didn’t all those things sound suspiciously like the symptoms of love?

She gave her head a tiny shake of denial—you simply did not fall in love with people you hardly knew!

‘Stop sulking,’ he urged softly.

‘I am not sulking. I’m enjoying the view.’

The Mimosa was easily recognisable with its hundreds of tiny white lights threaded into the still bare branches of the trees outside. Lola spotted people queuing around the block in an attempt to secure a table.

‘We’re here!’ she exclaimed, inadvertently tugging the sleeve of Geraint’s jacket in her excitement. ‘And just look at all the fairy lights—it’s absolutely beautiful!’

Her enthusiasm produced a look from Geraint which was half-indulgent and half-perplexed, as if he wasn’t used to such exuberant behaviour. But he said nothing before they were led through the restaurant and seated at what was, quite simply, the best table in the room.

‘So how did you manage to swing this?’ Lola asked as she broke a bread stick in half and crunched on it.

‘What? A date with you?’

‘The table,’ she told him.

‘Oh, that bit wasn’t difficult. Certainly not as difficult as securing the date.’

‘No?’ She studied him in disbelief. ‘That’s why all those people outside are virtually trying to break the door down to get in, is it?’

He shrugged. ‘I speak Italian. I do a lot of business here. I adore the country—the food, the wine and the culture. Given all those things, finding a table in a good restaurant doesn’t pose much of a problem.’

He made it sound as easy as ABC! Lola finished chomping on her bread stick and picked up another, to find him looking at her with reluctant approval. He obviously did like women who enjoyed their food, she thought in amazement, but that did not mean that she had to go over the top and completely pig out!

She put the bread stick carefully back down in front of her. ‘I don’t want to spoil my appetite,’ she explained.

‘Maybe we’d better order?’ he suggested with a smile, and he must have elevated an eyebrow or moved a broad shoulder or something, Lola decided, since the waiter appeared as if on cue.

The next couple of minutes were spent discussing the wine list and the recommended dishes and Lola tried to appear interested in her choices, but she might as well have ordered bread and sawdust—for the normal pleasure she took in anticipating her meal had been totally eclipsed by Geraint’s presence.

She felt as gauche as a teenager out on a first date, which was absolutely ridiculous! She had enjoyed lots of dates, and what she had thought was going to be a fairly heavy love-affair with a pilot, not long after she had started at Atalanta Airlines. But she had been far too young to cope with a smooth operator who seemed to be out of the country more often than he was in it.

The memory of that relationship still had the power to make her ask herself incredulously how she could have been such a fool.

The affair had ended before it had even begun—very painfully—with Lola’s shocked discovery that the pilot she had been planning to spend a romantic weekend with already had a fiancée tucked away.

Lola had had her fingers badly burned by the experience. She would never forget the misery she had experienced afterwards—because of his callous deceit more than anything else. And it had managed to put her off serious involvement, though that had been easy to avoid—there hadn’t been anyone else she had remotely fancied enough to contemplate plunging headlong into an affair with them.

Until now.

‘You promised me your life-story,’ she said hastily, and was slightly nonplussed by his reaction.

His shoulders had tensed as if he was suddenly under stress. ‘Did I?’ he queried coolly.

Lola sensed his reluctance, and wondered what had caused it. ‘You know you did!’

His expression was guarded. ‘And what if I told you that I don’t particularly care for talking about myself?’ he questioned.

‘I would say that either you’re repressed or you’ve something to hide!’

‘Touché!’ he laughed. ‘What would you like to know?’

Lola sat back in her seat. ‘Oh, I’m sure that an intelligent man like yourself doesn’t need any help from me,’ she told him sweetly.

His grey eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘Are you teasing me again, Lola Hennessy?’

‘Why?’ she laughed, enjoying herself hugely. ‘Can’t you take it?’

‘Oh, I can take anything you care to throw at me,’ he challenged in a sultry murmur. ‘Anything at all.’

The atmosphere began to crackle with an eroticism which was almost tangible, and Lola found herself unable to look him in the eye. She began fiddling unnecessarily with the thick linen napkin on her lap, and was indescribably pleased when she decided to let his mocking invitation go unanswered and started to speak.

‘I come from Wales,’ he told her, and his musical accent deepened as he went on to describe the country of his birth. ‘Beautiful West Wales—which is wild and dark and thoroughly magnificent!’

Yes, thought Lola at once. Wild and dark and magnificent—just like you. . .

He looked at her keenly. ‘I’m afraid that it’s the classic, corny tale of rags to riches—sure you’re ready for it?’

Beneath the flippant tone and the throw-away statement Lola was convinced that she detected a chink in his steely armour and she found herself intrigued by this apparent streak of vulnerability. For surely it added an extra dimension to the man’s character, rather than detracting from it?

‘Quite ready,’ she told him truthfully, and something in her quiet, almost respectful tone made him grow still for a moment.

‘My father was a coal-miner,’ he began, and his grey eyes darkened with pain. ‘But he suffered a lot of ill health when he was still quite young—along with many others, of course.’ He ran a hand distractedly through his thick, tar-black hair. ‘When I was eight he was finally laid off and given an invalidity pension.’ His voice grew harsh. ‘But it wasn’t enough to feed a family of sparrows—let alone me and Mam and my sister, Catrin.’

He gazed down at the small centrepiece on the table, a glass bowl filled with yellow mimosa, and his features hardened with the memories. ‘So my mother went out to work—doing the only things which an early marriage had qualified her for. She cleaned houses, took in sewing—did whatever she could do which fitted in around Catrin and me. Mostly she was what I suppose you’d call a drudge.’

He shot her a bleak, almost defiant look and Lola suddenly caught a glimpse of the boy behind the man. The boy who had longed to protect his mother from hard work and penury, but because of his tender years and inexperience had been unable to do either.

Which must have been a heavy cross for a proud man like Geraint Howell-Williams to carry, Lola recognised instinctively. ‘And?’ she prompted gently.

‘Oh, it wore her down eventually. And him. His pride baulked at having to let a woman support him. The two of them used to go without to give us children fresh, wholesome food, and ultimately they suffered for it. When the flu epidemic swept Wales, they both succumbed to it. I was ten,’ he added as an afterthought, as if that fact were somehow unimportant.

Lola was no stranger to childhood pain, and she winced in distress as she tried to imagine his anguish at being left an orphan at such a tender age. ‘Oh, Geraint,’ she said softly. ‘How on earth did you manage?’

She saw the sudden deep lines of pain that scored his face, but they were gone again almost immediately—as though over many years he had schooled his expression so as never to betray them.

‘My sister brought me up,’ he told her, smiling for the first time, but the smile was laced with something bitter which Lola could not, for the life of her, work out. ‘She sacrificed her place at university in order to give me mine, years later—and for that I shall forever be in her debt.’ He turned to catch the eye of a waiter, and in profile his proud, craggy features might have been hewn from stone.

But by the time a bottle of mineral water had been placed on the table he seemed to have recovered his usual self-assurance and a frosty light which glittered in the depths of his grey eyes warned Lola that he would not tolerate her sympathy—however well-intentioned.

‘So you’ve heard all my secrets, Lola,’ he told her silkily. ‘Now I think it’s your turn, don’t you?’

Lola felt squirmingly uncomfortable at the way he was looking at her. Because it was no longer desire that she read in his grey eyes, nor even a benign interest. Instead, there was an air of detachment about him, a sudden air of almost icy curiosity which made Lola’s throat clam up nervously, and it took several mouthfuls of the gin and tonic he had ordered for her before the courage of her convictions returned, and she was able to face him with a resolute air.

‘What do you want to hear?’ she asked quietly.

‘Oh, the usual stuff.’

His voice was so brittle, Lola thought. It was almost as if he had decided that, having confided in her, he now needed to step back, become a cold and untouchable stranger. Was he always so unpredictable? she wondered. ‘How jaded you sound!’ she told him honestly.

‘Do I?’

‘But then I suppose you have women pouring their hearts out to you all the time.’

He gave an odd smile. ‘I’m not giving any secrets away, sweetheart—if that’s what you’re getting at.’

Did that mean he was discreet?

Lola wondered sightly hysterically just how many other women had paraded their upbringing in front of him like this, on request. Had some of them perhaps embellished their early years, in order to impress him—moulded them to a degree, by means of oversight or exaggeration, so as to measure up to what they thought he wanted of them?

Well, not Lola! Hers had been an unremarkable, isolated and often lonely childhood, but she had always refused to sentimentalise it.

‘I spent my early life in a small village called Taverton, in Cornwall,’ she told him starkly. ‘My mother still lives there.’

‘And your father?’

‘He died when I was eleven.’ Lola took a quick gulp of her drink and then regretted it as the tonic fizzed its way uncomfortably down her throat.

‘That’s something we have in common, then,’ he said quietly. His voice sounded strained—as though the fact was a shock to him, and an unwelcome one at that.

‘Yes.’ Lola looked up as once again the understanding flowed between them like a warm current, as it had done last night at the tennis club, and she suddenly realised how easy it would be to fall for him. To really fall for him.

He narrowed his grey eyes consideringly. ‘So you haven’t lived at home for—how long?’

‘Seven years. I’m twenty-five.’ She tried to inject a little enthusiasm into her voice, to act as if this was a gentle getting-to-know-you chat, instead of an interrogation by a master inquisitor—which was how it felt!

He put his glass down on the table and smiled, as if he had resolved to lighten the mood by changing the subject. ‘And have you always wanted to fly?’ he asked, his eyes never leaving her face.

Lola nodded. Flying had been her whole life, really—and her enthusiasm for it had never waned. ‘Always!’ she told him. ‘I had never even been on an aeroplane before—and yet I knew that I wanted to be an air stewardess right from the word go. I got the job with Atalanta at eighteen, and I’ve been with them ever since.’

He leaned back in his chair and watched as the waiter placed a plate of tossed green salad in front of her.

‘So what is life like,’ he asked casually, ‘as an air stewardess?’

Lola plunged her fork into a buttery wedge of avocado and scowled. ‘You don’t have to go through the motions of asking me these questions, you know,’ she told him defensively. ‘I mean, you must have dated stewardesses before—I’d hate to think that I was forcing you to sit through yet another rendition of “what I love about my job”!’

‘Now who’s being the cynic?’ he responded coolly. Some indefinable emotion hardened the gorgeous mouth. ‘I can assure you, Lola, that I have never been forced to do anything in my life.’

No, she couldn’t really imagine anyone having the strength of character to be able to browbeat Geraint Howell-Williams into doing something he didn’t want to!

She started on the predictably delicious wine he had ordered for her and allowed herself the luxury of looking directly into the black-fringed, stormy eyes. ‘Life as a stewardess is terrific,’ she told him. ‘I would recommend it to anyone for all the obvious reasons—namely the opportunity to see the world and meet lots of people.’

‘And in the long term?’

Lola blinked. ‘The long term?’ forty?’

‘Is it a job you can see yourself doing at forty?’

Lola looked at him blankly, trying to imagine herself trundling the drinks trolley up the aisle fifteen years on, and shuddered. ‘Well, no. Not really.’

‘So what do you see yourself doing at forty?’

Lola clammed up. For some reason it would be acutely embarrassing to tell him that at forty she would have hoped to have settled down with some wonderful man she had yet to meet, and be rearing lots of children! ‘I—er—haven’t given it a lot of thought,’ she answered weakly.

He threw her a hard, disbelieving look. ‘Really? Not planning to be safely tucked up in the marital bed by then? Don’t you want to be married, Lola?’

The fact that he had so accurately echoed her thoughts threw Lola completely. ‘Perhaps,’ she admitted proudly, refusing to be cowed by his rather patronising attitude. He was managing to make a desire to settle down and get married sound as bizarre as a wish to fly to the moon in a hot-air balloon! ‘Why not?’

‘Why not indeed?’ he responded faintly. ‘But so far no one has been able to tempt you away from your single, exciting, globe-trotting life?’ he probed.

‘No so far, no.’

‘But I imagine that there must have been some candidates along the way,’ he drawled suggestively.

It was not quite an insult, but it was as near as dammit, and Lola glared at him, her narrowed eyes sparking hot blue fire as she dared him to continue.

‘Candidates for what?’ she questioned slowly.

‘Marriage. Relationships. You must have known a good few men over the years—isn’t that one of the perks of the job?’

Lola put her wineglass down with a thud. ‘Are you trying to offend me, Geraint?’

‘By asking about your men-friends?’ He regarded her levelly, the flame from the flickering candle casting fascinating shadows over the chiselled bones of his face. ‘Now what could be offensive about that?’

She placed her knife and fork neatly on the plate, much of her salad untasted. ‘The implication being that I sleep around?’

He gave her a long, steady look and Lola curled her nails hard into the palms of her hands in a deliberate attempt to distract herself from the power of that gaze.

‘Well, that is what you were implying, isn’t it?’ she demanded.

‘You’re being very defensive,’ he murmured, and poured her some mineral water.

‘So what if I am?’ she retorted, drinking some of the water thirstily. And who wouldn’t be defensive, she thought wryly, when they’d had to cope with as many snide innuendos as she had that evening? ‘Anyway, I’ve talked far too much. Tell me some more about you.’

‘What else could you possibly want to know?’ he drawled.

‘You haven’t even told me what you do for a living!’ she realised aloud. ‘Or how you know the mysterious Dominic Dashwood.’

‘I deal in money,’ he told her curtly, his grey eyes as cold as an arctic sea. ‘Dominic I met during my time at Oxford.’

She remembered the small but significant pause after he had introduced himself at the tennis club. ‘And should I have heard of you?’

‘Not necessarily.’ He shrugged. ‘Only if you happen to read the financial pages—and then I’ve been in New York for the past ten years so it’s unlikely you’d have heard of me anyway. I’ve only just come back.’

‘And what brought you back?’

Another pause. ‘Family business,’ he said finally, his face hardening forbiddingly.

Lola took no notice. ‘So what does someone who deals in money actually do?’ she persisted.

His face grew even colder. ‘I buy and sell,’ he told her tersely. ‘That’s all.’

Lola registered the superb quality of the suit he wore. Clearly buying and selling, as he put it, was very lucrative indeed! ‘You make it sound so simple,’ she said slowly.

There wasn’t a flicker of emotion on his face as he watched her unconscious assessment of him. ‘I prefer not to make it sound anything at all,’ he told her flatly. ‘But you asked the question, as women inevitably do—’

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ Lola glared at him. ‘You asked me exactly what you wanted; what did I do that was so different?’

‘You homed straight in on the money side of it, didn’t you, sweetheart? Sometimes I really think it would save time if I produced a bank statement for women to peruse at their leisure!’

‘Oh, sor-ry!’ said Lola furiously. ‘I didn’t realise you were so touchy about money!’

‘When you’ve met as many women with dollar signs flashing in their eyes as I have,’ he mused with distaste, ‘then being touchy about it is inevitable.’ He gave a self-deprecating shrug of his shoulders, before he said, ‘Were your parents very rich, Lola?’

The deep, velvet undertone of his voice sent new shivers skating down Lola’s spine, but she could not quite decide whether it was excitement or fear which had caused them. ‘Why do you ask that?’ she queried.

His eyes glittered. ‘Isn’t it rather obvious? Your house on St Fiacre’s for one thing. How did you happen to come by a house like that on your salary?’

‘How do you think I came by it?’ she retaliated as she encountered the oh, so familiar judgemental expression on his face.

‘A man, I suppose?’

Lola met his gaze and read the condemnation there and didn’t care. How dared he judge her without even knowing her? ‘That’s right,’ she said steadily.

‘A rich man?’

She saw the censorious look which soured his expression and decided that she would like to sour it even more! ‘You’ve got it in one!’ She smiled and noticed his knuckles whiten as the bread stick he had picked up was reduced to dust by the inadvertent clenching of that strong fist.

‘A ve-ry rich man,’ she purred deliberately, and saw a muscle begin to work violently in his cheek. ‘Much richer than you, probably. Why, I expect he could buy you out a hundred times over, Geraint!’

He let the bread dust trickle out of his hand into the large, cut-glass ashtray, so that it looked like sand running through an egg-timer. His eyes were full of mocking amusement as they caught her in their cool gaze. ‘I doubt it,’ he contradicted her with soft confidence.

And Lola doubted it too; that was the trouble. She found herself wondering why she hadn’t stormed out of the restaurant, but one look at the lean, autocratic face in front of her reminded her that it was not easy to walk out on someone this gorgeous. She drank more wine in an effort to calm herself.

‘So what was it between you and your generous benefactor?’ he asked eventually. ‘The love-affair to rival all love-affairs?’

‘No, it wasn’t,’ she answered flatly, then sighed, wondering just how much to tell him. The trouble was that there was nothing much to tell—but nobody ever believed her! Lola had grown used to people who didn’t really know her drawing their own tacky conclusions! But for some reason that cold look of disapproval on the face of Geraint Howell-Williams was more than she could bear.

She leaned her elbows on the table and rested her chin in her hands to look at him earnestly. ‘I don’t really like talking about it,’ she admitted.

‘Oh?’

Lola glared at him. ‘Because nobody believes me, and because people tend to pre-judge me—they all seem to think that I’m some kind of amateur hooker who played for very high stakes—and won! A horrible, critical look comes over their faces—a bit like the expression you’re wearing now!’

‘Am I? Sorry.’ He lifted his shoulders in a gesture of appeal which had something of the little boy about it, and it stabbed at Lola’s soft heart.

‘Of course the other reason I don’t talk about it,’ she explained, her blue eyes glinting with mischief, ‘is because now that I own a prime piece of real estate I’m very wary of would-be fortune hunters.’

‘And do you put me in that category?’ he asked her softly.

She looked at him with a wry expression. ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ she snorted. ‘Fortune hunters don’t usually come kitted out in handmade Italian suits!’

‘Thank you,’ he said gravely, though Lola thought she detected a reciprocal glitter of humour lurking in the depths of his stormy eyes. ‘I’ll take that as a compliment, shall I?’

Lola went pink. ‘If you want.’

‘So why don’t you tell me all about the house?’ he suggested. ‘And let me judge for myself.’

What harm would the truth bring? Lola thought. Anything would be better than him believing that she had been Peter Featherstone’s lover. She began to pleat her napkin with fidgety fingers. ‘About three years ago, I first met Peter Featherstone on a flight to. Brussels—’

‘Did he have a woman with him?’ he demanded quickly.

Lola frowned at the interruption. ‘No.’

He nodded. ‘And so you got chatting—naturally?’

Lola gave him a long-suffering look. ‘Yes,’ she agreed, with sardonic emphasis. ‘We aren’t discouraged from chatting to passengers, you know. Do you have a problem with that, Geraint?’

His face was expressionless. ‘I guess not.’

‘Peter used to travel all over Europe quite regularly, and often I was among the cabin crew. And then one day, while we were chatting, quite by coincidence I discovered that he was on the board of a charity I’m involved with—’

‘Charity?’ he repeated incredulously. ‘You’re involved with a charity?’

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ exploded Lola. ‘Now who’s talking stereotypes? What’s the matter, Geraint—don’t I fit into your idea of the kind of person who does things for charity?’ She looked at him, and her mouth twitched. ‘No, on second thoughts don’t answer that!’

‘Which charity?’ He frowned.

‘Dream-makers,’ Lola told him, still gratified by the rather dazed expression which had not left his face since the mention of the word ‘charity’! ‘It’s for very sick children. We find out where they’d most like to go, or who they would most like to meet, and we try and arrange it for them. Peter owned a number of toy shops and factories in the south of England and he was a very generous benefactor.’

‘So what happened?’ he asked carefully. ‘Between you and Peter.’

‘Well, nothing—that’s the odd thing.’

‘No romance?’ he barked.

‘He was years older than me, for heaven’s sake! Over sixty—’

‘But an attractive man, all the same?’

Lola afforded him an icy look. ‘I honestly never thought of him in those terms. I only had dinner with him once or twice, after which for some inexplicable reason, he must have changed his will—leaving me the house. And then he died. Perhaps he knew just how sick he had become. Anyway, he suffered a fatal heart attack about a year ago.’ ‘That’s terrible,’ he said automatically.

It was strange, and Lola couldn’t quite put her finger on why, but she definitely got the feeling that her first impression of him this evening had been the right one, and that Geraint was only going through the motions of responding to what she was saying. It was as though his answers were conditioned, rather than genuine. Almost as if he was asking questions to which he already knew the answers . . . But how could he? They had only met for the first time last night.

‘Yes, it was terrible,’ she agreed slowly, but more out of respect than out of sorrow—she had not known Peter Featherstone either long enough or well enough to feel any deep grief at his passing.

There was silence for a moment while he studied her face. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said eventually, but there was a strained, indefinable note to his voice. ‘That he died, I mean.’

‘You don’t sound particularly sorry.’

‘Don’t I? Maybe that’s because I’m jealous.’

Jealous?

Lola despised herself for the longing that his flippant little remark produced. Even after all the nasty slurs he had directed at her, too! Would nothing keep her from coming back for more? She put on her most bemused voice. ‘But you barely know me, Geraint. So why on earth would you be jealous?’

He lowered his voice to a sultry whisper. ‘Because I’d like to know what spells you could possibly weave and cast on a sixty-year-old man to make him leave you a house worth a million pounds. You must be pure dynamite in bed, Lola.’

For a moment, she thought that she had not heard him correctly, and then the full horror of his words hit her like a kick in the teeth. Lola slammed her glass down on the table and stared at him.

‘What right,’ she whispered incredulously, ‘what right do you think you have to say a thing like that to me? And after all I’ve said! And after convincing myself that you were the kind of person who could be trusted to hear the whole story! Well, more fool me!’ She leaned across the table, and her eyes spat sapphire fire at him. ‘Do you think that buying a woman dinner gives you carte blanche to make boorish remarks?’ She pushed her chair back and got to her feet. ‘Well? Do you?’ she repeated shrilly.

‘Where do you think you’re going?’ he asked her calmly.

Lola nearly exploded with rage. ‘I don’t think I’m going anywhere! I am going! Back to my hotel! Where else? Because if you imagine that I would spend another minute in your company after what you’ve just said to me, then you haven’t an ounce of perception in your body!’

‘And if I happen to apologise for my boorish remarks—as you so sweetly put it?’

‘Oh!’ Lola exclaimed exasperatedly, not caring that the diners around them were steadily growing silent as they observed a very un-English display of public passion. ‘Isn’t that just like a man?’

‘It is?’

‘Yes, it damn well is! You think you can come out with all kinds of inconsiderate, brutish comments, and then all you need to do is to bat your eyelashes and mumble “I’m sorry” and suddenly that makes everything better! Well, take it from me, Geraint Howell-Williams—it doesn’t!’

‘Obviously not.’ He gave her a small, tight smile. ‘I can see that I am going to get lots of insight into what motivates male behaviour, if I stick around!’

‘Oh!’

‘And now you have two choices,’ he said challengingly, without giving her a chance to say anything else. ‘You can either sit down and we can start all over again—especially since I have apologised . . .’ He looked up to meet her stony eyes.

‘Or?’

‘You can make a scene in the middle of the restaurant.’ He spoke with the lazy assurance of someone who was certain that, once challenged, Lola would back down.

‘And you think I wouldn’t?’ she queried, hardly noticing the waiter who had removed their salads to deposit two delicious plates of pasta in front of them.

‘I think you’re far too sensible.’

Lola stared at him as if he were completely mad. She leaned across the table again, her hair spilling in mahogany disarray over her pale, silk-covered shoulders. ‘There’s no need to make it sound as if this whole disastrous evening is my fault!’ she declared hotly. ‘You were the one who interrogated and then insulted me and you are the one who is going to have to learn a lesson, Mr Howell-Williams!’

‘From whom?’

‘You’re looking at her!’

‘Oh, really?’

‘Yes, really!’

He looked amused. ‘And what might that lesson be?’

It was the final straw for Lola. Oh, not the mocking tone of his question nor even the teasing smile which curved the corners of that delectably sensual mouth. It was her response to him that did it. He had been just about as rude as any man could be, and yet still she wanted him to kiss her!

‘It’s a lesson in taking responsibility for your actions,’ Lola told him coolly, and tipped her glass of mineral water into his lap.

He recoiled only momentarily, his reactions razor-sharp as he picked up her thick linen napkin and used it to blot up the liquid.

He gave her a long, thoughtful look as he dabbed at the mark on the unmistakable part of his anatomy and Lola glowered as he said, loudly enough for anyone who happened to speak English to hear, ‘I suppose that you want to do this for me, don’t you, darling? After all, it is your weak spot!’

Someone two tables back must have heard and understood because they gave a raucous laugh and a cheer and Lola blushed with embarrassment.

Geraint smiled at her reaction, and gave a gentle shake of his head as he said, ‘Darling, please don’t sublimate your sexual desires any longer. I give in.’ And he held his palms up in a gesture of surrender as he rose to his feet to tower rather intimidatingly over Lola. ‘I’ll miss the rest of my dinner and let you take me home to bed since that’s what you so obviously want.’

Lola’s fingers twitched. ‘Why, you no-good, conniving—’

‘Oh, dear,’ he interrupted with a dramatic sigh, playing to the crowd like mad. ‘You just can’t wait, can you, sweetheart?’ And in full view of the restaurant he pulled her unprotestingly into his arms.

The crowd went wild as Geraint began to kiss her, but Lola was deaf to the sounds of clapping and cheering and blind to the sight of diners peering unashamedly over at them, their forgotten meals growing cold.

And what had started out, presumably, as Geraint’s attempt to silence her and subdue her and to re-assert his mastery after having the contents of her glass tipped into his lap turned into something quite different.

She tried to hold back at first, keeping her lips pressed tightly together, but just the warmth of his breath was enough to coax them apart. He slowly let his tongue curl into the warm, moist cavern of her mouth and the intimacy of this small gesture made her grow positively weak with need.

She gave a tiny moan of submission, her hands winding themselves luxuriously around his neck as she allowed him to press her even closer, so that she could feel the thundering of his heart against the softness of her breasts.

She could feel the tips of her nipples tingling with the need to have him touch them, could feel the honeyed ache begin to tug deep at the heart of her, and she must have moved her hips restlessly against him in some silent, unconscious plea for she felt him stiffen with tension.

‘Oh, Lola,’ he breathed indistinctly against her mouth. ‘I want you. Dear God, how I want you.’

The bald words ripped into the falsely romantic little saga which Lola had been busy constructing for herself, and she forced herself to tear her lips away from his, pulling herself out of his arms and staring at him in accusation.

‘And you think that’s all it takes?’

He frowned. ‘What?’

‘You know what!’

‘I do?’

‘Yes, you do! Or rather you think you do!’ Lola glared at him. ‘You want to go to bed with me—but you start leaping on me before we’ve even eaten our main course or our pudding! Why, of all the cheap behaviour!’ she stormed, as angry with herself as she was with him. Talk about behaving like a complete walkover!

‘I think we should go and find somewhere quieter to discuss this,’ he murmured, with a swift sideways glance at the rapt diners who were still watching them. ‘Don’t you?’

‘I’ll bet you do! And let me guess where you’re about to suggest! Your bedroom? Or mine?’

He gave her a look of outraged mockery. ‘Do keep your voice down, Lola—I have my reputation to think of!’

The remark was enough to bring her crashing back to her senses. As if the whole room had suddenly shifted into sharp focus, Lola became aware of the silence in the restaurant, of the knowing smirks as people watched them.

She noted the direction of Geraint’s dark gaze as his eyes drifted to then lingered insolently on the swell of her breasts against the thin, butter-coloured silk, and she wondered whether the other diners could see the blatant thrust of her nipples as desire hardened them into painfully sensitive nubs.

She lifted her palms to her flaming cheeks for one agonised and distracted moment, then something of her normal spirit returned and she rounded on him briefly, her eyes spitting angry, cold, sapphire sparks at him.

‘Next time you ask a woman out to dinner,’ she drawled sarcastically, before lifting her hand to summon the maître d’ who had been hovering rather anxiously in the background, but who sprang forward at her command, ‘might I suggest that you consult an etiquette book first? I’m afraid that your manners are really much too brutish for modern tastes, Geraint!’

He looked mildly amused rather than seriously perturbed. ‘You think so?’ he queried softly, and the velvet whisper of his voice made Lola start having second thoughts about walking out on him.

She had to get out of here! And fast!

‘Please find me a taxi immediately!’ she said to the maitre d’ in flawless Italian as she marched with determination towards the door, her chin held high.

‘Sí, signorina,’ breathed the maitre d’, but it was Geraint’s murmured comment behind her which lingered temptingly in her ears.

‘You can run all you like, Lola, because we both know it won’t make any difference in the end. . .’

Lola didn’t answer, just ran out of the restaurant and leapt into the waiting taxi, asking the driver to go quickly to the hotel, which he did as best he could, considering that it was a Saturday evening in one of the busiest cities in the world.

She was still fuming when she reached her room, shaking from all the emotion of rowing with Geraint and then being kissed by him!

And all in public!

Lola groaned as she stripped off her silk suit and carefully hung it up, then cleaned off her make-up and dived into the shower, remembering how she had soaked him. And just where she had soaked him! What must he think of her now?

No worse than she thought of herself, quite honestly, she decided. Her body was racked by an unconscious little shudder as she lathered soap over one of her acutely aching breasts and remembered how understanding he had seemed, as though he was really interested in hearing what she had to say.

Well, more fool her! That so-called understanding had been shallow and superficial—there was only one thing that Geraint was interested in where she was concerned, and she was just going to have to make sure he didn’t get it!

But what if he came to find her? What if she let him into her room and he started exercising that irresistible sorcery of his and she ended up falling into his arms and letting him make love to her—just as Marnie had predicted earlier?

Lola drew herself up short. Was she really so weak and pathetic and untrusting of her own actions that she was afraid to risk being alone with Geraint Howell-Williams in case he kissed all her doubts away? What was she—a woman or a wimp?

Let him come, she thought with determination as she boiled the hotel kettle then added water to an ancient-looking teabag. Let him try his damndest and beat the door down.

And then let him see how strong she could be!

Feeling much more resolute, Lola felt her appetite return and she hunted around in the mini-bar. She had done nothing but pick at her green salad in the restaurant.

But a quick search revealed that Marnie had eaten just about everything there was to eat and Lola couldn’t face waiting for Room Service to arrive. So she was forced to go to bed with her stomach rumbling, having consumed nothing more than a cup of black tea of uncertain age.

Foolishly, and hating herself for doing it, Lola lay awake for ages, listening to the sounds of other hotel guests returning from their evenings out, but Geraint did not come.

Even when her eyelids began to drift down, she was aware that her senses remained half-alert to the possibility of his appearance.

But still he did not come.

Poised on the dreamy edge of sleep, Lola was immensely irritated to realise that her last waking thought was to be one of profound disappointment!

CHAPTER FOUR

BY FOUR O’CLOCK the following afternoon, as Lola drove her zippy little yellow car through the impressive navy and golden gates of St Fiacre’s, Geraint Howell-Williams had been consigned to his proper place in her memory.

Nowhere!

OK, she wasn’t denying that there was definitely some sort of powerful sexual chemistry between the two of them—because only a fool would deny that!—but clearly there was no future for them.

They didn’t seem to actually like one another very much—and just because their bodies went into overdrive whenever they were near each other that certainly was not a secure basis on which to begin a relationship!

The yellow car turned into the driveway of Marchwood House with an exuberant little spray of gravel as Lola put her foot defiantly down on the accelerator. She had been looking forward to these days off and she was not going to let her chance meeting with an insufferable Welshman spoil her hard-earned rest!

As the car stopped Lola experienced the by now familiar little sensation of awe as she stared up at the elegant, three-storeyed white house, with its impressive porticos and the two boxed bay trees which stood on either side of the shiny black front door. She still couldn’t quite believe that she owned this magnificent pile!

After managing to unlock the front door—which was a feat comparable to breaking into Fort Knox—Lola dumped her suitcases in the utility room and went off to see if there was any post, shrugging off her jacket as she went and impatiently unbuttoning her blue uniform shirt.

The house was much too hot, she decided, and turned the thermostat right down. She had been advised to leave the central heating on whenever she was away on a trip, especially in winter when there was a very real risk of the pipes freezing over. And although it was March the weather had been unsettled enough for her to continue doing just that.

However, the atmosphere was sultry enough for the house to be mistaken for a greenhouse at the moment! Lola wiped her damp brow with the back of her hand and bent down to pick up the post.

As well as the usual sundry bills and an invitation to the Dream-makers ball in May there was a letter from her mother, declining Lola’s invitation to come and spend Easter at Marchwood and telling her she had decided to spend the holiday weekend quietly on her own.

Lola sighed, disappointed but not surprised. As Marnie had pointed out, her mother’s visits had been infrequent enough when she had lived in her scruffy little flat, yet in all the six months that she had been living at Marchwood her mother had not visited once.

When she had first discovered that Peter had left her the house, Lola had worried that June Hennessy might be suspicious of her daughter’s relationship with Peter Featherstone. So Lola had told her mother outright that there had been nothing of a sexual nature between her and her benefactor, and Mrs Hennessy had, to her credit, sighed with slightly over-the-top relief and believed her.

So why was her mother still being so cagey about coming here?

Lola sighed.

Unless she was challenged directly, as she had been by Geraint in the restaurant last night, she tried her hardest to play down her inheritance. She disliked being envied and envy was usually the overriding emotion experienced by people when they discovered that she had been bequeathed a million-pound house for basically having a friendly smile and soft heart.

But what those people failed to realise was just how much it cost to actually run a house this size, particularly on an estate with the prestige of St Fiacre’s, which had such strict regulations governing the appearance of all its houses and gardens.

Lola did as much gardening as she could, but she did work full-time, and just keeping the extensive grounds in order was costing her an absolute fortune in help.

And sooner or later, she recognised as the sharp peal of the front doorbell penetrated her thoughts, she was going to have to think about selling up.

She had completely forgotten to put the safety chain on the door, and her mind was distracted as she absently pulled the door open, to find Geraint standing there, his legs slightly apart and his hands on his hips.

He looked like a cowboy, she thought, with that aggressively masculine stance which immediately made her feel all small and weak and feminine. And smitten.

Which was not the way she wanted to feel at all! She opened her mouth to lambast him, but he beat her to it.

‘Are you completely mad?’ he demanded, without any kind of preamble.

His clipped query took the wind right out of her sails, and Lola just stood there, too flabbergasted to respond—and, if she was perfectly honest, too overwhelmed by the sight of him to have the will to do anything other than gaze at him hungrily.

In daylight he looked even better than he had done in the restaurant last night. He wore a cream-coloured silk sweater which provided the perfect foil for the thick, dark hair which curled so invitingly around the tanned column of his neck, and an old pair of jeans.

Lola had once thought that she could not imagine him wearing jeans but now she recognised that that might just have been her mind protecting her from the prospect of actually seeing him in close-fitting, faded denim which clung indecently to every contour.

Because the pale blue material emphasised every centimetre of those thighs—and Geraint had the most magnificent thighs imaginable, she thought lustfully. In fact, he had the finest physique Lola had ever seen. Finer than that of the movie star she had spotted jogging around St Fiacre’s the other morning. And finer even than that of the international tennis star she had served cocktails to on a flight out of Florence last month.

His grey eyes narrowed. ‘Are you?’ he demanded curtly.

Lola blinked, still too shaken by the mesmerizing effect of the stormy grey fire which blazed from his eyes to be able to think straight. ‘Am I what?’ she queried stupidly.

He gave an impatient little snort. ‘Aren’t you at all concerned for your own safety?’ And then, when he saw her look of bemusement, his face darkened even more as he continued his tirade. ‘I could have been anyone!’ he declared. ‘Anyone! Imagine living in a place like this and being stupid enough to answer the door without even using the safety catch!’

Lola’s heart rate had slowed down enough for her to feel able to speak. ‘But it was you!’ she pointed out. ‘Wasn’t it?’

‘You didn’t know it was me!’ he shot back immediately. ‘You didn’t bother using the spyhole, did you?’

Lola raised a belligerent chin. ‘So?’

‘So I could have hit you over the head by now,’ he ground out. ‘And while you were lying unconscious I could have been in the process of ransacking your house—’

‘But the security at St Fiacre’s is reputed to be the best in the country!’ she informed him with a triumphant sweetness. ‘Besides which I haven’t anything of value to steal!’

‘You don’t think so?’ He stepped over the threshold uninvited, his cold grey eyes taking in a large Chinese vase which stood in the corner of the hall, and which Lola had been using to house her small collection of umbrellas.

‘That vase on its own would net you a small fortune,’ he informed her, with a curt nod in its direction. ‘The sketch above the fireplace is an early Waterman and those two candlesticks on the man-telpiece are made of solid silver—late Victorian, and rather rare.’

Lola blinked, far too interested in what he was saying to register the fact that he had entered her home uninvited. And he certainly seemed to know what he was talking about where antiques were concerned—which was more than she did.

Peter had left her the entire contents of the house, in addition to the building itself, but so far she just hadn’t got around to having anything valued.

Oh, her solicitor had suggested it, but Lola had automatically shied away from the idea. She had already been overwhelmed by Peter’s generosity, and to then arrange to have the house contents assessed. . . well, that had seemed like an almost greedy, grasping thing to do.

‘But far worse than theft is what else could befall you, if you continue to be so cavalier about your security arrangements!’ Geraint continued relentlessly.

He met her questioning gaze with a bleak, candid look and Lola sucked in a shocked breath as she realised just what he was getting at.

‘No!’ she breathed.

‘Oh, yes!’ he contradicted her cruelly. ‘Intruders have been known to show no conscience if they are disturbed by a spectacular-looking woman. If someone is stealing from your house, you can bet your life they don’t possess much in the way of morals. If I were a burglar, I could be raping you, Lola—right now,’ he ground out brutally.

There was a short, shocked silence as Lola absorbed what he had said, and it was a horrified and white face which she eventually turned in Geraint’s direction. ‘How c-could you?’ came her squeaky protest. ‘How could you say something so crude—?’

‘But couldn’t I?’ he intoned remorselessly, and the sombre expression in the slate-grey eyes made it impossible for Lola to look away. ‘Couldn’t I?’

‘Yes,’ she whispered.

‘Especially if you happened to be in the kind of provocative state of undress you seem to be in at the moment,’ he continued, a feral gleam lighting his eyes, and Lola stared at him in genuine confusion.

‘In my uniform?’ she clarified rather shakily. ‘Hardly provocative!’

‘We’ve already discussed the indecent length of your skirt,’ he retorted, and his mouth hardened. ‘And don’t you know that a lot of men are turned on by women in uniform?’

Lola wondered briefly if he was among them, but that was something she did not trust herself to ask him. ‘I’ve never seen any statistics to that effect,’ she responded drily. ‘And I really can’t do anything about men’s bizarre little fantasies—’

‘You think male fantasies are bizarre?’ he interrupted harshly.

‘Some of them—and particularly the ones about air stewardesses! I find them insulting to women in general!’ Lola snapped back. ‘Uniforms serve a useful purpose in making everyone look the same—and I fail to see how a blouse and skirt could in any way be described as provocative!’

His eyes began a slow, cool appraisal of what she was wearing. ‘You don’t think so?’ he murmured huskily.

‘No, I jolly well don’t!’ Deciding that she would not be intimidated by such a blatantly sexual look, Lola resisted the urge to pull the skirt down over her bottom.

‘Not even when the shirt is undone—only by two buttons, but nonetheless exposing most men’s fantasies come to life?’

Her gaze followed the direction of his eyes and she saw, to her horror, exactly what he meant. The two buttons she had released earlier in an effort to counteract the sweltering heat had made her whole blouse seem to gape open, revealing the lush and creamy swell of her cleavage.

Perhaps it was the excessive heat in the house, or just a reaction to being in such close proximity to Geraint, but her breasts seemed to have swollen to twice their normal size and were spilling out over the tiny lace bra which now felt uncomfortably tight.

Colour flooded hotly into Lola’s cheeks and she saw the grey glint of devilment in his eyes as he noted the blush.

‘See what I mean?’ he mocked.

‘Oh!’ she fumed furiously, and did the buttons back up with difficulty over her straining breasts. ‘You’re impossible!’

‘Put on weight recently, have you?’ he quizzed sardonically.

Lola met his mocking gaze and wondered just why she was being forced into feeling that she had to defend herself. She didn’t want him here! He was just too big and too vital and too sexy for his own good!

Logic told her to ask him to leave; curiosity prevented her from doing so. ‘Just what are you doing here?’ she demanded. ‘Come to apologise, have you?’

‘For what?’

‘For your rudeness in the restaurant last night!’ she told him tartly.

‘Or for my refreshing honesty? Depends how you look at it, surely? As for why I’m here—well, I wanted to see you, of course, Lola.’ His grey eyes glittered. ‘To talk to you.’

Lola shook her head. Her hair was still in its ‘flying’ style, with all the curls scraped back into a constricting bun, but by now most of them were threatening to escape. ‘I thought that we had said all there was to say last night!’

Now, why had she brought up last night? she asked herself crossly. For she had caused the enigmatic grey eyes to light up with that stormy potency which made her heart thunder. . .

‘Did you? I thought that talking had very little to do with what happened last night,’ he murmured.

‘As opposed to fighting, you mean?’ she retaliated unsteadily.

‘I was thinking more of the kiss which followed that fight,’ he said with a slow smile which, when combined with the memory of that kiss, had precisely the wrong effect on Lola.

The druggingly sweet, aching awareness of him returned, and with it her brain went to mush. And perhaps he was perceptive enough to realise it, for he moved closer. . .close enough for Lola to be able to see the faint, dark shadow around his chin which made him look so unashamedly masculine. . . and she found herself wondering whether or not he had shaved that morning.

‘Weren’t you?’ he prompted softly. ‘Remembering that kiss, too?’

’N-no, I wasn’t,’ she stumbled, furious with herself for feeling so powerless. ‘I’ve been doing my best to forget all about it, if you must know.’

He nodded. ‘Me too,’ he murmured. ‘But that’s the trouble with making something forbidden—it makes it so much more exciting, wouldn’t you agree, Lola?’

‘You mean that there is nothing quite so irresistible as temptation?’ she returned.

‘Not quite,’ he returned, with surprisingly gentle mockery. ‘I can think of something far more irresistible! But temptation comes a close second.’

Lola knew that she was in danger, a danger she was at a loss to define—even to herself. She heard herself clearing her throat like a nervous politician. ‘Geraint—’

‘I like the way you say my name,’ he told her softly. ‘With that quiet, almost sing-song little Cornish burr—’

‘I need to shower,’ she cut in rather desperately. ‘And to change. And I need to shop.’ She hoped that she sounded more authoritative than she felt.

‘Of course you do,’ he agreed, and Lola was horrified to discover her heart sinking with disappointment at his easy agreement. Did that mean he was going now?

What had she been hoping for? That he would haul her into his arms and tell her that she was perfect as she was and that the shower and the shopping could wait?

‘I need to shop too,’ he said. ‘So we’ll go together.’

Lola stared at him. ‘Geraint—’

‘Lola?’

‘I mean, there must be millions of girls—’

‘In the world?’ he queried with a wry smile, deliberately misunderstanding her.

‘Who would be falling over themselves to go out with you!’ she snapped back at him, and tossed her dark head like an excitable filly.

‘Yes,’ he answered quietly, and without conceit. ‘And?’

‘So why me?’

He gave her a cool smile. ‘You aren’t being very honest with yourself, are you, Lola? You are as fascinated by me as I am by you—and it’s no good opening those pretty lips to ask me for an explanation why, because I can’t give you one.’ He shrugged with an impatient little movement. ‘I dislike clichés, but for once, here, their use seems to be appropriate. Something happened when we saw one another across that crowded room, didn’t it? Something powerful—’

‘Something disturbing,’ Lola put in, almost absently giving voice to her confused thoughts.

He stilled, his whole stance suddenly alert and watchful. ‘So it disturbs you too, does it? This feeling? He gave a short laugh. ‘Because I don’t like it very much myself.’

‘You d-don’t?’ she echoed, aware of the heavy weight of disappointment which had settled like a heavy meal in her stomach.

‘Of course I don’t like it!’ he almost snarled. ‘Do you think it gave me pleasure to make an exhibition of myself in the centre of a restaurant in which I have dined happily and without incident for over ten years? Do you think I enjoyed kissing you in public like a seventeen-year-old who had just discovered sex for the first time?’

Lola’s eyes widened into sapphire saucers. ‘Then why don’t you just leave well alone?’

His mouth thinned into a self-deprecating line. ‘Do you know nothing of human nature?’ he demanded.

She gave him a steady look which told him in no uncertain terms that she would not be patronised! ‘A little,’ she answered wryly. ‘Working with the general public day in and day out gives you some inkling of what makes people tick!’

‘So who buys more champagne?’ he queried. ‘The passengers in First Class or the passengers in Economy?’

Lola gave him a bemused look. ‘The passengers in First Class don’t pay for champagne—’

‘And yet they don’t drink so much of it as you might expect?’

‘I guess not.’

‘Exactly!’ His grey eyes gleamed with a steely fire. ‘If something is free it’s acceptable—and therefore less exciting. Put something out of bounds by either making it prohibitively expensive or banning it altogether and your appetite for it increases —that’s human nature!’

Lola hadn’t really thought about it in those terms before. ‘I don’t quite see how champagne consumption on the airline relates to—’

‘Us?’ he supplied acidly.

Lola clamped her lips tightly shut, worried that he would see the vulnerable tremor which hovered around her mouth and threatened to blow her cover. ‘But there is no us, Geraint,’ she told him tartly, because in spite of everything she derived no pleasure from saying it.

‘But that’s just where you’re wrong,’ he breathed, his grey eyes narrowing to flinty chips. ‘There is something between us. You know there is. Have you no sense of adventure in your soul, Lola? Don’t t you think we ought to explore all the infinite possibilities?’

‘No,’ Lola answered repressively. ‘I don’t.

‘But if you make something forbidden, then it becomes an obsession,’ he told her. ‘Doesn’t it?’ he persisted, with a wry elevation of one dark eyebrow. ‘And obsession is not just hard to live with, it’s downright impossible. Instead of concentrating on the day-to-day pattern of life, your thoughts become one-track, so that you can spend hours reflecting on the pleasing curve of a jawline, or how sunlight can turn hair into satin ribbons.’

His gaze ran swiftly over her face before he concluded, ‘Obsession makes life take a back seat, and that’s no good to anyone.’

Lola surveyed him steadily, unwillingly caught off guard by his frankness, his lack of game-playing. ‘You sound as though you have a lot of experience of being obsessed,’ she commented in surprise.

‘Thankfully not.’ He shook his dark head. ‘Any knowledge I may have of the subject I have gained through observation, not experience.’ He glanced down at the pale gold watch which gleamed on his wrist. ‘Now, why don’t I wait here while you get changed, and then we’ll go shopping together?’

‘Shopping together?’ Lola found herself smiling at his audacity. ‘Because I—’

‘Because unless you go upstairs and take off that ridiculous uniform,’ he interrupted in an urgent, smoky whisper, ‘I might just do something as uncharacteristic as I did last night.’

Afterwards she would hate herself for asking the question, but for now she seemed to have no control over the words she heard herself using. ‘And what’s that?’

Had he imagined her to be coy? He must have done, for a cool, almost calculating look hardened the smoky grey eyes and something approaching regret darkened their pupils to an inky glitter. ‘Did I underestimate your honesty, Lola? You want to play games with me now, do you?’

‘N-no,’ she stumbled. She wanted something, yes, but not games. Something more exciting than games. And what she wanted she was just about to get. . .

He reached out and tilted her chin with his hands, his gaze locking thoughtfully with hers. ‘Yes,’ he said, as if he was answering a question, and bent his head to kiss her.

Lola tried to hold back the tide of emotion which was threatening to flood her with its sweet, relentless waves, but it was no good. One touch and she was hooked. Out of her mind and out of control—just like that. Unprotesting, she let him take her wordlessly into his embrace.

He cradled her in a manner which hinted at protectiveness and yet at the same time he made no effort whatsoever to disguise the fact that he wanted her very, very much.

Lola shivered when she felt the hardness of his hips as he pressed his body close to hers, and found her fingers stealing up to rub distractedly at the broad bank of his shoulders.

She heard the small laugh he gave—of triumph and desire and delight—and she lifted her face to his, not caring whether it was right or wrong, just eager to have his lips on hers once more. To have him rain sweet, reviving kisses onto her mouth. . .

There was an unsettling, questioning look in his eyes and then they narrowed with the determined glitter of passion. Their mouths were near enough for Lola to be able to feel the warmth of his quickened breath, when, with all the welcomeness of an early morning alarm call, the doorbell pealed loudly in their ears.

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