Substitute Lover. PENNY JORDAN

most curious sensation in the pit of her stomach. He walked over to his dresser and pulled out a set of cuff-links.

      ‘Damn, I can’t seem to manage these. Come and give me a hand will you, Steph?’

      Numbly she walked over to him, trying to focus her eyes on the sinewed strength of his wrist as he bared it for her inspection. The contrast between his dark, tanned skin and the crisp whiteness of his shirt cuff was curiously disturbing. She wanted to put her fingertips over the strong pulse she could see beating under his skin, and feel its heat. She wanted the comfort and security of his arms, in the same way she had wanted them when Paul was killed.

      It seemed to take a lifetime to secure both cuff-links, but at last it was done. When she stepped back from him she was surprised to see how shaky she felt.

      ‘I’d better go down and check on dinner.’

      As she stepped away from him, Stephanie thought she heard him laugh softly.

      What was happening to her? she wondered numbly as she went downstairs. She already knew she was sexless, incapable of arousing a man, so why was she so suddenly and inexplicably experiencing this odd desire to reach out and touch Gray? She had been shocked and embarrassed by his nudity but she had felt something else as well: a purely feminine recognition of the powerful masculinity of him, an intensely female responsiveness to his maleness. But surely that was impossible? She couldn’t experience those sort of feelings. Could she?

      Thoroughly confused, she tried to concentrate on preparing their meal, and to direct her thoughts to whatever it was that Gray wanted to discuss with her, but irrationally they kept straying to Gray’s earlier assertion that he wasn’t qualified to judge whether she was frigid or not.

      Could Paul have been wrong? She frowned. But surely if he had been she would have known about it before now? In the ten years since his death she had never once experienced the slightest desire for any man. The phone rang, and she went to answer it.

      It was Carla, asking for Gray. As she called him to the phone Stephanie was gripped by the most painfully acute sensation of jealousy. Jealousy? But she had no right to be jealous of Carla’s place in Gray’s life. No right at all.

      Thoroughly confused, she went back to the kitchen, trying to dismiss her painfully intrusive thoughts.

      When he came into the kitchen Gray was frowning heavily. Whatever Carla had had to say to him it couldn’t have been to his liking. Had the blonde perhaps objected to her presence at the cottage, after all? If Gray was her lover … Gray her lover? Shock ripped through her unprepared body—the body she was so convinced could never respond sexually to any man. What on earth was happening to her?

      ‘Stephanie … what is it? Are you ill?’

      She looked up, her eyes still dark with shock. She opened her mouth to speak, but no words emerged. She was looking at Gray and yet it was almost as though she was looking at a stranger.

      He reached out for her, warm hands gripping her rigid arms, his face creased in lines of concern.

      ‘You’re trembling. What is it? What’s wrong?’

      Another minute and she would be cradled against the hard warmth of his body … the body that, like the man, belonged to someone else. Immediately she tensed, and Gray let her go.

      She felt sick with shock as she realised what she was feeling. She was jealous. Jealous of Carla. No, not of Carla, she amended hastily … she was jealous of their relationship, because it threatened her own friendship with Gray. Yes, that was it …

      Shakily she let her mind absorb her thoughts, like a swimmer frightened by the depths, now reaching out for the safety of the shallows where they could touch the ocean floor.

      ‘I’m all right now, Gray …’

      It was obvious that he wasn’t totally convinced. ‘What happened?’

      She shrugged carelessly. ‘Oh, nothing. I just felt cold, that’s all.’

      It was plain that he didn’t believe her, but fortunately he didn’t press the subject.

      ‘I’ll fix the trays. Will you check on the casserole?’

      Everything was as it had always been, she thought thankfully, obeying his instructions. Or was it? She risked a covert glance at him. She was terrified of losing his friendship … especially to another woman.

       CHAPTER TWO

      THEY had eaten both the casserole and the apple pie before Gray broached the subject of Stephanie’s visit.

      ‘I’ll wash up if you make the coffee,’ he suggested, bending to take the tray from her lap. ‘No one else makes it quite the way you do.’

      ‘Oh, no? I’ll bet you say that to all the girls.’

      Instead of making him smile, her flip answer drew a sharp frown. Now what had she done to offend him? she wondered unhappily as she followed him to the kitchen. Something was different; something had changed between them. She felt different than she had ever felt before, buoyed up and excited one moment, and miserable and on edge the next.

      Amazingly, Gray managed to unfasten his cuff-links much more easily than she had put them in. Watching him as he rolled up his shirt-sleeves and started washing up their dishes, Stephanie felt a burning tide of awareness sweep over her body. His forearms were tanned and strongly muscled. She wanted to reach out and touch him, to stroke her fingertips through those thick, dark hairs.

      ‘I asked you to come down here because I need a favour.’ The abrupt words cut through the hazy sensuality of her private thoughts, jerking her back to reality. What on earth had come over her?

      ‘I’m having some problems with the boat-yard. Business has fallen off quite sharply lately. I’m working on the design for a new boat which I’m hoping will be successful. If all goes well I plan to show it at next year’s Boat Show, but launching a new boat is a pretty risky business, especially for a yard like ours.’

      For no reason at all, a cold spiral of fear had invaded the pit of her stomach. Gray had stopped washing the dishes and had turned round to face her. The atmosphere in the kitchen was tense, almost stiflingly so.

      ‘I’m entering this year’s Fastnet, Steph,’ Gray told her quietly. ‘If I can win, and I think I can, the publicity would give the new boat a boost that nothing else could match. Winning the Fastnet will give us more publicity, more credibility than we could get from any amount of advertising.’

      Stephanie knew that every word he said was true. A boat designed and made by an acknowledged winner of a race as prestigious as the Fastnet would sell better than a tennis racquet endorsed by a Davis Cup champion, but nothing could silence the words of protest from tumbling from her lips. Since Paul’s death she had been left with a morbid fear of the sea. She knew that he was himself to blame for the accident by his rash disregard of the safety rules, that did not quell her fear, there was more to it than that.

      She could hardly bear to look at the sea, even on a calm day and, as Gray well knew, coming down here to the estuary was purgatory for her.

      She had once loved sailing. It was her father’s hobby and, like him, she had been thrilled about his transfer to this part of the coast which had a reputation of being an idyllic spot for small boat enthusiasts.

      She had been more grateful than she could say when her father had been transferred to an inland posting shortly after Paul’s death, and never once since that time had she set foot in a boat herself, even though she had once crewed enthusiastically and knowledgeably both for her father, and for Paul.

      Now Gray was telling her that he intended to enter one of the most dangerous races of all, and she shook with fear for him.

      ‘Gray … please don’t,’ she pleaded huskily.

      ‘Stephanie, I have