Sharon Kendrick Collection. Sharon Kendrick

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