Sharon Kendrick Collection. Sharon Kendrick

Geraint?

      For it appeared that he had no partner either, and when the chips were down wouldn’t he prefer to spend time chatting up a stunning ex-model as opposed to a rather buxom air hostess he could scarcely be civil to for more than a minute at a time?

      Triss’s mouth widened into the enormous, crooked grin which had graced magazine covers the world over. ‘Oh, thanks!’ she said. ‘Thanks! To both of you! And now I’d better get going. Simon will be waking up for his feed soon—and, believe me, I can cope with a tantrum-throwing art director far more easily than I can a small, hungry baby who seems to have me twisted around his little finger!’ She gave a happy shrug of contentment, and began to push the pram away. ‘Bye!’

      ‘Bye!’ called Lola, thinking that she would call on Triss tomorrow and offer to babysit. At least that might make amends for her nasty little remark about husbands.

      Triss, had gone only a few yards down the drive when she turned to look over her shoulder and said, rather absently, ‘You must come over some time—for a drink, or something. Both of you, I mean.’

      ‘Sure! We’d love to,’ Geraint replied easily, and Lola was still too stricken with guilt to remind him that she had a mouth of her own and she didn’t need him to answer for her!

      They stood side by side, watching Triss push the pram over the resisting gravel until she was out of sight.

      ‘I shouldn’t have asked about her husband,’ said Lola miserably.

      ‘No, you shouldn’t,’ he agreed evenly. ‘So why did you?’

      ‘Can’t you guess?’

      ‘Perhaps—but I’d prefer you to tell me.’

      She stared at a purple-blue clump of grape hyacinth, nestling beneath the budding branches of the cherry tree. ‘I guess I was being territorial,’ she admitted reluctantly, wondering if he would turn on his heel and run. ‘I had no right to be.’

      ‘You had no need to be,’ he corrected her quietly. ‘I’ve never juggled women in my life and I certainly don’t intend to start now! Anyway, Triss wasn’t interested in me,’ he concluded with a shrug.

      ‘Seriously?’

      ‘Uh-huh!’ He looked down and smiled into her eyes. ‘Seriously.’

      She found that she loved the proprietorial way he spoke and she tried not to read too much into it, but it wasn’t easy. She let her eyelids fall, to conceal herself from that searching gaze. ‘Geraint. . .’ she began, when he put the palm of his hand beneath her elbow so that she was forced to look up at him, to lose herself in the stormy depths of his eyes.

      ‘You’re having dinner with me tonight!’ he declared roughly. ‘I don’t care whether it’s at your place or mine, or who cooks it. I don’t mind whether we go and shop now for ingredients, or whether we decide to explore the local restaurants later. I don’t even care if we go and eat an overpriced bar snack in the tennis club here on the estate—none of that matters.’

      ‘Why?’ she whispered, fascinated. ‘What does matter?’

      His eyes gleamed. ‘Only that by the end of the evening it will be just you and me. Alone. I want to kiss you again, Lola. But properly this time. Without stopping. In private. Knowing that no one will disturb us.’

      Lola gave a distressed laugh while her heart beat in a distracted rhythm. ‘You can’t seriously expect me to agree to have dinner with you tonight when you have virtually declared your intention to try to make love to me afterwards?’

      ‘Surely I can’t be the first man in your life to have been honest and up front about his desires?’ he challenged mockingly.

      He was the first man whom she had found attractive enough to fear the challenge, but she wasn’t going to tell him that! And if she blurted out the truth—that she had never made love to a man, nor come even close to it—he would never believe her.

      Because men had preconceived ideas about virgins. About how they looked and how they behaved. You could be a virgin if you wore no make-up and worked in a library. You could not be a virgin if you flew around the world, had more curves than you cared for and a ready smile which sometimes got you into trouble!

      ‘I could try saying no,’ she told him with a quiet dignity.

      She saw him tense, saw a muscle begin to work quickly in his cheek. ‘You could try,’ he agreed softly.

      ‘But you’re so certain that you’d get rid of any opposition I might put up?’

      ‘Maybe,’ he admitted.

      ‘Because you’re the world’s most irresistible lover, I suppose?’

      This clearly amused him. He raised his dark, beautifully shaped eyebrows. ‘What’s the matter, Lola?’ he teased softly. ‘Don’t you like having your objections kissed away?’

      Lola swallowed down the acrid taste in her mouth.

      It hurt, that was all; the realisation that he was playing with her hurt like hell. Because these teasing words were all part of the big mating game he doubtless played with lots and lots of different women.

      Lola felt as though Geraint was the consummate fisherman, while she was like a big but unworldly fish who was being skilfully outmanoeuvred by him and was in grave danger of plopping plumply into his net!

      ‘Why?’ she retorted. ‘Do your women usually enjoy having their objections kissed away? If someone objects, then that implies they are resisting you. If you then change their mind—however enjoyable the methods you might use at the time to make them do so—then surely that also implies a certain degree of force, Geraint.’

      He had gone very still, as still as the marble statue of Venus which Peter Featherstone had installed at the bottom of the garden, beside a tinkling fountain surrounded by irises which were the deepest, darkest blue whenever they flowered.

      ‘Never force,’ he disagreed softly. ‘Ever. But some women like to offer a token objection, a show of reluctance, if you like, rather than resistance. It eases their conscience. If, for example, they have been brought up to think that sex is wrong, or dirty, or in some way shameful—’

      Lola’s breath caught painfully in her throat. Had he guessed, for heaven’s sake? She stole a glance at him but, to her relief, he did not appear to have noticed her reaction, he was so caught up in the fervour of what he was saying.

      ‘And that’s the very worst kind of rationale put around by men!’ Lola blazed, in a storm of temper. ‘Isn’t it still used as a pathetic kind of defence against rape?’

      Geraint’s mouth thinned into a forbidding line, and a glimpse of hostile steel gleamed coldly in his eyes. ‘There is a distinct difference between a semi-reluctant kiss which may or may not develop into something more,’ he ground out, ‘and the kind of brutal assault you seem to have lumped it together with.’

      ‘Is there?’ she queried coolly.

      ‘Well, why waste time discussing it? Why not judge for yourself?’ he retorted silkily, his eyes darkening, signalling his desire to kiss her.

      Lola waited, determined this time not to turn her mouth so eagerly towards him. Maybe if she looked at those delectable lips in a detached way for long enough she might have the strength to withstand him.

      He was a master of control, she would say that for him. And she supposed he needed to be, in view of what he had just said. Because if he now demonstrated a tempestuous display of passion towards her then it could not possibly be categorised as fair play, not in the circumstances.

      Which was why, Lola guessed, it seemed to take an eternity before his lips were within brushing distance of hers. Plenty of time for her to halt him in his tracks.

      But she did not halt him; she did not move at all.

      His eyes were narrowed, glittering with the bright,