Freedom To Love. Carole Mortimer

on your own,’ that silky voice taunted as he bent to retrieve something off the floor. ‘Here,’ he held out her purse to her. ‘It is yours, I presume?’

      Katy paled, almost snatching it out of his hand. All her money was in here, all her travellers cheques. The only things she had kept separate were her passport and her return air ticket. ‘Thank you,’ she said breathlessly. ‘I—It must have fallen out when I got my book out.’

      ‘Obviously,’ he said dryly. ‘Is someone meeting you at the other end?’ he added thoughtfully.

      Her eyes widened. ‘I beg your pardon?’

      Her reaction seemed to amuse him. ‘I wasn’t propositioning you. But you don’t appear to be safe to let cross the road, let alone the Atlantic,’ he said insultingly.

      ‘No one is meeting me,’ she answered stiltedly. ‘I happen to be going to Canada on holiday—with my sister and her boy-friend. They’re sitting the other side of me,’ she added at his sceptical look.

      He glanced around her, sitting back with a shrug. ‘She’s nothing like you to look at.’

      Katy knew that, had always known that Gemma was the beautiful one of the family. Gemma was honey-blonde where she was caramel, had deep green eyes where Katy’s were grey, and her sister had never been troubled by spots or puppy fat, seeming to the younger Katy to have always been slim and petite.

      ‘I know that,’ she snapped at this man. ‘But that doesn’t make it any less a fact that she is my sister.’

      ‘Prickly little thing, aren’t you?’ he taunted. ‘Rather like the wild rose the Canadians are so fond of.’

      ‘Are they?’ Katy frowned.

      ‘Mm,’ he nodded. ‘Especially where we’re going. Alberta is its home. It’s very common up there on the mountains just below the timberline.’

      ‘Timberline?’ she echoed dazedly.

      ‘Tut, tut, tut,’ he mocked, seemingly fully awake now, and even more taunting than he had been before. ‘You haven’t done your homework on Alberta. I take it you intend touring the National Parks there?’

      ‘Yes,’ she nodded.

      ‘Then you should know that the timberline is where it becomes too cold up in the mountains for the trees to survive, they just suddenly stop growing, hence the term timberline. Make sense?’ he quirked an eyebrow questioningly.

      ‘Oh yes,’ her eyes glowed. ‘Thank you.’

      ‘Don’t mention it,’ he dismissed. ‘Your name wouldn’t happen to be Rose?’

      She shook her head. ‘Katy—Katy Harris.’

      ‘Shame. Rose suits you so much better.’

      ‘I don’t think so,’ she said crossly. ‘I don’t consider it prickly just because I don’t like your taunting behaviour.’

      ‘Was I taunting you?’ He sounded amused again.

      ‘You know you were.’

      ‘Maybe.’ He frowned. ‘Where’s your boy-friend?’

      She flushed. ‘I don’t have one,’ she told him resentfully.

      ‘No? So it’s just a cosy little threesome, is it?’

      ‘I don’t like your implication,’ Katy snapped. ‘Gemma and Gerald are engaged to be married. It was very kind of them to invite me on this holiday with them.’ She knew that kindness hadn’t entered into it, but she wasn’t about to tell this man that.

      ‘Gemma and Gerald!’ he taunted mockingly. ‘How nice.’

      ‘God, you’re sarcastic!’ She turned her back on him, hearing his throaty chuckle behind her.

      What an unpleasant creature he was! But how dangerously attractive, with that wicked gleam of amusement in his blue eyes, albeit cruel amusement.

      ‘You lucky devil,’ Gemma told her in a fierce whisper. ‘Gerald and I have just realised who you’re sitting next to,’ she explained at Katy’s puzzled look. ‘Well, Gerald realised it first,’ she grudgingly admitted.

      ‘Well?’ Katy asked patiently.

      ‘He’s Adam Wild!’ Gemma announced triumphantly.

      ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Katy instantly dismissed the idea. ‘He would be in the first class, not back here with the rabble.’ Adam Wild was the top photographer in England, usually specialising in photographs of beautiful women, both clothed and unclothed. He was also rich enough not to have to travel in economy class.

      Gemma scowled. ‘Maybe there weren’t any first class seats left. Anyway, you were talking to him for some time just now, didn’t he tell you his name?’

      ‘It wasn’t that sort of conversation.’

      Her sister sighed. ‘Trust you to miss an opportunity like that! Well, if he talks to you again find out if we’re right.’

      ‘I don’t intend talking to him again. I don’t like him.’

      Gemma gave her a pitying look before turning away, and Katy knew she had gone down even further in her sister’s estimation. But surely this man couldn’t be Adam Wild? He was dressed so casually, for one thing, and as she had pointed out to Gemma, he was hardly likely to be sitting here.

      Minutes later the air hostess came round with their afternoon tea, and Katy gratefully accepted the refreshing cup of tea that went with the light fare. She almost dropped her cup as she heard the girl call the man at her side ‘Mr Wild’, and as it was she spilt some of the hot liquid over her denims. It was him—Adam Wild!

      She looked at him with new eyes, seeing the lines of dissipation and cynicism beside his nose and mouth, the worldly air that encircled him despite his casual clothing. God, no wonder he had coldly dismissed her; she was passably attractive, but the women he photographed were beautiful and sophisticated.

      ‘It’s soaking into your denims,’ he turned to her to remark patiently.

      ‘I—I beg your pardon?’ Katy jumped nervously as he spoke.

      ‘Your tea—you’re spilling it all over you.’ He took her cup out of her unresisting fingers and began mopping her up with his paper napkin. ‘Couldn’t you feel it dripping down on you?’ he asked, as if she were a particularly stupid child.

      ‘I—er——’ She licked her lips nervously, completely overwhelmed as he touched the inside of her thigh, purely to mop up the liquid, of course. ‘Yes,’ she nodded vigorously.

      He shook his head. ‘Then why the hell didn’t you stop doing it?’

      ‘I—I—You see, Mr Wild, I——’

      ‘Ah,’ he nodded understanding, ‘you know who I am.’

      ‘I heard the air hostess,’ she confirmed, wishing he would stop touching her like that.

      ‘And you would like to take your clothes off for me.’ He finally sat back, discarding the tissue paper with a certain amount of disgust.

      ‘Certainly not!’ Katy gasped.

      He studied her critically for several minutes. ‘You’ll never make it on the face alone. The bone structure is good, but it isn’t enough on its own. The clothes would have to come off. I’m sure that under that loose shirt and denims there’s a beautiful body just waiting to show itself.’

      ‘And I’m sure there’s no such thing!’ she told him indignantly, the totally assessing look in his eyes making her feel like wrapping her arms protectively about herself. ‘I’m not taking my clothes off for you or any other man!’

      ‘Why not?’

      ‘Why not? Because—well, because