By Request Collection 1. Jackie Braun

messages entirely. Obviously!

      On the other hand, she thought swiftly, that did not give this man the right to insult her.

      ‘If you’ll forgive me for saying so,’ she retorted, ‘I think your manners are atrocious.’

      ‘Oh. In what way?’

      ‘How or why I’m here has nothing whatsoever to do with you and if you mentally undress me once more who knows what I might be prompted to do? I am,’ she added, ‘quite able to take care of myself, and I’m not wet behind the ears.’

      ‘Fighting words,’ he murmured. ‘But there is this—’

      ‘I know what you’re going to say,’ she broke in. ‘It’s chemistry.’ She looked at him scornfully. ‘That is such an old, dead one! Even my Mexican bandit didn’t use that one although, come to think of it, the sheikh did. Well, I think that’s what he was saying.’ She tipped her hand as if to say, ‘you win some, you lose some’.

      He blinked. ‘Sounds as if you have an interesting life.’

      ‘I do.’

      ‘You’re not making it all up?’

      ‘No.’ Holly folded her arms and waited.

      ‘What?’ he queried after a moment, with utterly false trepidation.

      ‘I thought an apology might be appropriate.’

      He said nothing, just gazed at her, and after a pensive moment on her part they were exchanging a long, telling look which came as quite a surprise to Holly. The luncheon and its environs receded and it was if there was only the two of them…

      Whatever was happening for him, for Holly it became a drawing-in, not only visually but through her pores, of the essence of this man and the acknowledgement that his physical properties were extremely fine. He was not only tall, he was tanned, and he looked exceedingly fit, as if sitting at charity luncheons did not come naturally to him. His hands were long and well-shaped. His dark hair was crisp and short, and the lines and angles of his face were interesting but not easy to read.

      In fact, she summarized to herself, there was something inherently dangerous but dynamically attractive about him that made you think of him having his hands on your body, his exciting, expert, mind-blowing way with you.

      That’s ridiculous, she told herself as a strange little thrill ran through her. That’s such a girlish fantasy!

      Nevertheless, it continued to do strange things to her.

      It altered the rate of her breathing, for example. It caused a little pulse to beat rather wildly at the base of her throat so that her pearls jumped. To her amazement, it even caused her nipples to become sensitive and make the lace of her black bra feel almost intolerably scratchy.

      Her lips parted, then she made a concerted attempt to gather her composure as his dark gaze raked her again, but he broke the spell.

      He said very quietly, ‘I don’t know about the bandit or the sheikh, ma’am, but I can’t help thinking chemistry is actually alive and well—between us.’

      Holly came back to earth with a thud and rose to her feet. ‘I’m leaving,’ she said baldly.

      He sat back and shrugged. ‘Please don’t on my account. I’ll say no more. Anyway, what about your mother?’ he queried with just a shadow of disbelief.

      Holly looked around a little wildly. ‘I’ll take her with me. Yes!’ And she strode away from the table.

      ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,’ Holly said as she clutched the steering wheel and started to drive them home. Her mother still looked stunned. ‘But he was—impossible, the man sitting next to me! Talk about making a pass!’ she marvelled.

      ‘Brett Wyndham made a pass at you?’ Sylvia said in faint accents as she clutched the arm rest. ‘Holly, slow down, darling!’

      Holly did more, she stamped on the brakes then pulled off the road. ‘Brett Wyndham,’ she repeated incredulously. ‘That was Brett Wyndham?’

      ‘Yes. Sue Murray’s his sister. We can only assume that’s why he’s there. I told you, she’s having husband troubles, and perhaps he’s providing moral support or something like that. I’ve never seen him at such a function before, or any kind of function for that matter.’

      Holly released the wheel and clutched her head, then she started shedding hairpins haphazardly into her lap. ‘If only I’d known! But would I have done anything differently? He was exceedingly—he was—That’s why he was watching her.’

      ‘Who?’

      ‘His sister. In between watching me,’ Holly said bitterly. ‘On the other hand, I could maybe have seen the funny side of it. I could have deflected him humorously and—who knows?’

      ‘If I had the faintest idea what you were talking about I might be able to agree or disagree,’ her mother said plaintively.

      Holly turned to her then hugged her. ‘I am sorry. On all counts. And don’t mind me; it’s just that an interview with Brett Wyndham could have been the real boost my career needs.’

       Chapter Two

      A COUPLE of days later, Holly found she couldn’t get out of the masked fancy-dress ball she’d agreed to attend with her mother, much as she would have loved to.

      When she raised the matter, Sylvia pointed out that it would make the table numbers uneven, for one thing, and for another wasn’t her costume inspired—especially for a girl called Holly?

      ‘So, who are we going with?’ Holly queried.

      ‘Two married couples and a gentleman friend of mind, plus his son: a nice table of eight,’ Sylvia said contentedly.

      Holly had met the gentleman friend, a widower, but not the son. In answer to her query on that subject, she received the news that the son was only twenty-one but a very nice, mature boy. Holly digested this information with inward scepticism. ‘Mature and twenty-one’ in young men did not always go together, in her opinion, but then she consoled herself with the thought that her mother couldn’t have any expectations of a twenty-one-year-old as in husband material for Holly, surely?

      Still, she wasn’t brimming with keenness to go—but she remembered how she’d probably embarrassed the life out of her mother a few days ago, and she decided to bite the bullet.

      Unfortunately, the memory of the lunch brought Brett Wyndham back to mind and demonstrated to her that she didn’t have an unequivocal stance on the memory. Yes, she’d been outraged at his approach at the time—who wouldn’t have been? He’d accused her of being a serial socialite and a gold-digger.

      Of course, there’d been an intrinsic undercurrent to that in his own fairly obvious distaste for the lunch and all it stood for. Why else would he challenge her motives for being there? But—another but—how did that fit in with his sister being the patron of the shelter society?

      Ironic, however, was the fact that two things had chipped away at her absolute outrage, making it not quite so severe: the undoubted frisson he’d aroused in her being one. Put simply, it translated into the fact that he’d been the first man to excite her physically since, well, in quite a long time…

      She looked into the distance and shivered before bringing herself back to the present and forcing herself to face the second factor that had slightly lessened her outrage. Had she mucked up a golden opportunity to get the interview that would have boosted her career?

      Yes, she answered herself, well and truly mucked it up. But there was no way she would have done anything differently so she just had to live with it!

      All the same, militant as she felt on the subject of Brett Wyndham on one hand, on the other she had an