Sharon Kendrick Collection. Sharon Kendrick

want to impress someone, don’t you? Maybe a woman?’

      He met her interested stare with a mocking gaze. ‘There’s no need to sound so outraged, Romy,’ he responded with dry evasion, then smiled and leaned back while the waiter deposited a steaming plate full of clam-studded spaghetti in front of each of them. ‘Thanks,’ he said.

      Suddenly Romy wondered if she needed her head examined. Fancy ordering spaghetti when you were feeling nervous! She could barely hold her fork without her fingers shaking—let alone expertly twist strands of the pasta round it, in the way that Dominic was doing.

      She watched a clam disappear down his throat. Lucky old clam, she found herself thinking, and put her fork down.

      ‘Tell me why you’re having this party,’ she persisted, her fingertips unconsciously roving over her bare neck.

      ‘It’s part business, part pleasure,’ he told her, laying his fork down on his plate. ‘Basically, I want to buy some land in the north-east of England to develop into a massive entertainment complex. I love the area—and people up there certainly know how to enjoy themselves! The land in question belongs to Dolly and Archie Bailey, who are trying to decide whether or not to sell it to me. And they’re bringing their son and his wife, too—just to help them decide.’

      ‘And have you offered them a fair price?’

      ‘More than fair,’ he answered drily. ‘What did you expect?’ He shot her a narrow-eyed look. ‘On second thoughts, don’t answer that.’

      ‘So what’s the problem?’

      ‘The problem is that I live in the south of England, and therefore they classify me as a southerner—’

      ‘Which you’re not, you mean?’

      ‘I’m nothing but a nomad, sweetheart,’ he said flippantly, and delivered the most heartbreaking smile.

      The trouble was that the word ‘nomad’ had all kinds of romantic associations. ‘Go on,’ said Romy hastily.

      ‘Archie and Dolly have an old-fashioned distrust of southerners, and they don’t know me well enough to trust me. Yet. The purpose of this weekend is to show them they can. They’re afraid that I just want to make colossal amounts of money without giving much thought to the local people, or to the environment.’

      ‘Which, naturally, you wouldn’t dream of doing?’ she queried caustically.

      ‘Actually, no, I wouldn’t,’ he answered quietly. ‘I find exploitation deeply old-fashioned and deeply offensive. And I feel quite passionate about preserving the environment, if you must know. As for the local people—well, I discovered a long time ago that if you treat the people who work for you fairly, and kindly, then it pays dividends in the end.’

      ‘And does that include me?’ Romy challenged, though her heart couldn’t help warming to his fervent little speech about preserving the environment. ‘Do you promise to treat me fairly and kindly?’

      Their eyes met in a long look which left Romy feeling faintly unsettled. ‘You’re the exception to my rule,’ he answered obscurely. He finished his pasta, and as he drank a mouthful of the Bardolino he noticed her untouched plate. ‘Not hungry?’ he queried.

      ‘Starving!’ she responded sarcastically. ‘Can’t you tell?’

      ‘Makes you edgy if you don’t eat, you know,’ came his unperturbed response.

      ‘No, you make me edgy, Dominic!’

      ‘Do I?’

      ‘Yes! So let’s just stick to the point, shall we, and start discussing the party?’ She leaned across the table towards him and said briskly, ‘You need to tell me what meals you require, and when.’

      ‘But I thought that was your job?’

      Romy thought about it for a moment. ‘OK. If you’re out to convince a northerner that you’re a decent sort then I suggest providing elegant comfort food. Familiar flavours with a different twist. Food that doesn’t pretend to be something it isn’t—that should be our objective.’

      He pushed his plate away and leaned back in the chair again, surveying her unblinkingly. ‘You sound so frighteningly efficient,’ he observed coolly. ‘You’re always talking about motivations and objectives, aren’t you, Romy?’

      ‘Well, that’s my job.’ She shrugged.

      ‘And yet efficiency suggests a certain coldness, doesn’t it?’ he mused. ‘Which makes your oh, so sweet response in the lift that day rather perplexing. Since it doesn’t seem to go hand in hand with the very ruthless side of your nature.’

      Romy was too shocked to be offended; it was as though he was talking about someone else. ‘Ruthless?’ she queried incredulously. ‘Me?’

      He gave a cynical laugh. ‘God,’ he breathed admiringly. ‘You do it so well, don’t you? The injured tone which sounds so genuinely outraged. And with just the right amount of pouting, wide-eyed innocence, too. As if you were anything other than ruthless, Romy!’

      ‘Then how am I ruthless?’ she demanded. ‘You can’t possibly make claims like that without backing them up. So go on—tell me, Dominic! I may have my faults—who hasn’t?—but I’ve never considered myself ruthless.’

      He smiled, but it was the coldest smile that Romy had ever seen. A predator heartlessly regarding its prey might have eyes like that, she thought, with a shiver.

      ‘No?’ His laugh was bitter. ‘It isn’t ruthless, then, to go through with a marriage to a man you don’t love? Like you did—to Mark?’

      ‘But I did love Mark,’ she defended herself staunchly, and bit down on her lip. ‘I did!’

      ‘You couldn’t have loved him,’ he gritted back, not seeming to care about her obvious distress. ‘Because if you had, then you could never have let me touch you the way I did!’

      She ran a distracted hand through her short blonde hair, as if the movement could come to her rescue and obliterate the past. And make her forget the unbearable pleasure of Dominic’s hands moving over her body. His lips on her skin. His breath warm and soft against her mouth. ‘Oh, what’s the point of discussing it?’

      ‘There’s every point!’ he snapped back. ‘The main one being that although every logical pore in my body recoils from you and everything you stand for there is still a stubborn part of me which drowns in the beauty of those dark, velvety eyes...’

      He stared deep into her eyes as he said it, and a shiver of awareness whispered its way down Romy’s spine. Oh, why him? she thought despairingly. Why did it have to be him?

      ‘Dominic...don’t...’ she breathed weakly. Don’t look at me that way, she said silently.

      ‘Don’t what?’ he demanded roughly. ‘Don’t deny that I want you as badly as you still want me?’

      ‘No!’ She was about to bury her face in her hands when the waiter appeared, a look of concern on his face as he plonked the next course down on the table in front of them.

      ‘Everything is to your satisfaction, signorina?’ he asked anxiously.

      Of all the words he could have used! Romy nodded and even managed a watery smile. ‘I’m fine,’ she lied.

      ‘Just tell me,’ Dominic whispered harshly, once the waiter had gone, ‘why you went through with the wedding.’

      She shook her head, fighting down the sudden and inexplicable urge to confide in him. ‘I—can’t.’

      ‘Didn’t it worry you that I might go to Mark and tell him what had happened?’

      Her eyes were clear and bright. ‘Why didn’t you?’

      A look of disgust distorted the hard, handsome features. ‘Because I felt