Substitute Lover. PENNY JORDAN

normally did, he released her almost abruptly.

      ‘After ten years?’ There was something almost sardonic about the way he said it. ‘That’s one hell of a long time to grieve, Steph.’

      Before she could comment, the office door opened and a stunning blonde came out. Dressed in tight white jeans and a brief silky top, she swayed provocatively towards them.

      ‘I’ve still got a few things to do down here.’ Gray glanced towards the blonde. ‘I’ll take you up to the cottage and join you there later.’

      Stephanie always stayed at the cottage when she visited Gray. The village had no hotel, and besides, where else should she stay? But now some contrariness made her glance across at the blonde walking towards them, her mouth curling slightly as she asked, ‘Are you sure you want me to stay with you, Gray? I don’t want to be in the way.’

      She saw his mouth tighten. ‘Well now, that’s quite a question. What made you ask it, I wonder?’

      For some reason she had annoyed him. Conscious of the blonde watching them, Stephanie took a deep breath.

      ‘Nothing at all. I just wondered if your girlfriend might object?’

      ‘Girlfriend?’ His dark head swivelled to look at the blonde. She smiled back, teasingly. She was older than Stephanie had first imagined, and she was wearing a wedding ring, but that meant nothing these days.

      ‘Carla won’t mind. She knows that we’re old friends.’

      As though to prove the point he called over casually to the blonde, ‘I’m just taking Stephanie back to the cottage. I won’t be long.’

      Stephanie had to run to keep up with his long-legged stride as he walked towards her VW. Watching him fold himself inside reminded her of how tall and broad he was, the play of hard muscles beneath his skin alienly male.

      She just wasn’t used to being this close to a man … any man, she told herself as she drove the car towards the cottage; that was why she was so conscious of Gray’s masculinity.

      ‘I’ve put you in the far bedroom,’ he told her laconically as he opened the cottage door. ‘I’ll leave you to get yourself settled in. I’ll be back in half an hour. I’ve just got one or two things to finish off.’

      ‘Half an hour. I’m sure Carla would be very flattered if she heard that.’

      Suddenly conscious of how waspish and acid she sounded, Stephanie turned away from him. What was the matter with her? Gray had had girlfriends before. He was one of the most eligible men on the estuary. Physically, he was everything a woman could want in a man; he was also kind and gentle. Strange that at thirty-four-odd he should still be unmarried, and stranger still that she had never questioned his lack of a wife before.

      ‘Oh, I’m sure I could think of a way to make amends.’ He said it so softly that the words shivered across her skin, the look in his eyes as she turned to stare at him making her own widen with shocked pain.

      Gray was her friend. He knew how much she loathed anything that had the slightest sexual connotation, and yet here he was deliberately making her aware of his sexuality, of the very masculine side of him that he had previously held in check.

      Before she could protest he said bleakly, ‘Don’t provoke me, Steph, I’m not in the mood for it.’

      As he turned away from her she recognised that she was not the only one who had lost weight; he too was slightly thinner, his profile carved in slightly harder lines. Was something wrong? Was that why he wanted to see her? Was that why he was acting so oddly? From the time of Paul’s death he had been her friend, he had supported and protected her, and she had come to lean on him, to trust him, as she knew she could never trust anyone else, but now …

      He paused at the door and turned towards her.

      ‘Not everyone’s like you, Steph,’ he told her harshly. ‘We haven’t all abdicated from the human race, and the needs and emotions that go with being human.’

      Stephanie recoiled as though he had hit her. In all the years they had been friends, Gray had never once spoken to her like that. Never once looked at her the way he was looking at her right now, with his mouth twisted and his eyes hard and accusing.

      ‘Gray …’ Panic filled her voice and her eyes. What was happening to them? She was losing him … losing his friendship … she could sense it, feel it almost …

      ‘I’ll see you later.’

      He was gone before she could object. Numbly she stared at the closed door. What was happening? A tiny frisson of fear trembled through her. She wandered uneasily round the small sitting-room. The cottage was very old, the rooms low-ceilinged and beamed. She sat down in one of the chintz-covered chairs and stared unseeingly into the empty fireplace. The horse brasses, collected by Gray’s mother, shone against the buttermilk-coloured walls, the soft salt-laden breeze flowing in through one of the open lattice windows. The room was as familiar to Stephanie as her London flat, although she could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times she had been here since Paul’s death. The house had been let while Gray lived with Paul’s parents, but as soon as he was eighteen he had announced that he was moving into his parents’ old home. There had never been the rapport between Gray and Paul’s parents that had existed between them and their own child. Many, many times he must have felt shut out, but to his credit he had never let it show … never resented Paul in the way that the younger man had resented him. They had never discussed Paul’s animosity towards him; the past was a closed book and one which she had assumed neither of them wished to open.

      She had never thought of Gray in any male or sexual sense, but today, shockingly, she had looked at him and seen not her friend, but a man with sexual desires and drives like any other.

      A curious, aching pain built up inside her and spread tormentingly through her body. What was wrong with her? Was she really so insecure that she feared the thought of sharing Gray with someone else? She had always known that he didn’t live the life of a monk … but until today she had never come face to face with the reality of his sexuality, and she was shocked by her own reaction to it. Instead of feeling nothing, she had felt a surprising degree of jealousy. But why?

      And why had Gray been so offhand, almost angry with her? Normally he greeted her with a warm hug and a welcoming smile, but not this time—not today. Had it been because Carla had been there? It shocked her how much she had missed that brief, warm contact with his body. Confused by the chaos of her thoughts and feelings, she tried to dismiss them as a natural result of her return to the place where she had known such pain and misery, but something deep inside her refused to be convinced.

      Angry with herself, Stephanie went outside to her car and brought in her suitcase. She didn’t intend staying for more than a couple of days, and it didn’t take her long to unpack her things and put them away. The room she was sleeping in had sloping eaves and a tiny window that overlooked the wild tangle of the cottage garden, and the hills beyond. The cottage had four bedrooms, and this one had once been Gray’s.

      Now he slept in the large double bedroom which had once been his parents’, and as she stepped out on to the landing something made her hesitate and then slowly push open the door to Gray’s room.

      He had an experienced sailor’s neatness. Nothing was out of place. An old-fashioned four-poster bed dominated the room, and against her will Stephanie’s eyes were drawn to it. How many women had shared it with Gray over the years? None of them would have been like her, frigid and undesirable. A lump gathered painfully in her chest, a familiar sense of anguish enveloping her. She didn’t want to be the way she was. She …

      ‘Looking for something?’

      The unexpectedly harsh sound of Gray’s voice behind her made her jump. She turned round sharply, stumbling in shock. She hadn’t heard him come in.

      Instantly his arms came out to steady her. Although it had been months since he last held her, she was immediately aware of a sense of homecoming and security. Without being