The Mistress Scandal. KIM LAWRENCE

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СКАЧАТЬ ‘I wouldn’t know. We do have very old English plumbing, though,’ he supplied helpfully. ‘It precedes the building by several centuries. I suspect it came over with William the Conqueror. Charming, if you like cold showers.’

      It wasn’t a question of like, more need she concluded, tearing her eyes from his hawkishly perfect profile. The sweat not absorbed by her light cotton bra had pooled uncomfortably in the rounded hollow between her breasts. The tingling in her nipples made her acutely conscious of the area.

      Alice gave a condescending sniff. When the going got tough, some people headed straight back to their air-conditioning and indoor pools—well, she could hope, couldn’t she?

      ‘Why did you lease the place, then, if it’s s … sub-standard?’

      ‘I didn’t … well, only on Greg’s behalf. There’s a dearth of rentable property around here, and I persuaded him purchasing might be a bit premature. He thinks becoming a householder will give him gravitas and convince your sister of his good intentions.’

      ‘She probably won’t be so impressed if she knows you’re paying the bill.’ Alice was gently panting as she reached a near trot. His long legs were making very few concessions to her less impressive limbs.

      ‘Oh, I don’t know. She struck me as a very sensible sort of girl.’ He came to such an abrupt stop she almost bumped into him.

      Hands outstretched, anticipating a collision, Alice found her palms slapping up against his chest.

      ‘S … sorry,’ she stammered, after a telltale gap of total immobility.

      A gap during which panic and something far more sinister had uncoiled hotly in the pit of her belly. His short-sleeved polo shirt was fine knitted cotton and she could almost feel the texture of the dark curling hair that lightly covered his broad chest.

      Her tingling fingertips felt remarkably reluctant to relinquish the contact as she drew jerkily back.

      ‘Here’ll do, I think.’

      ‘Do for what?’

      He got straight to the point. ‘Why didn’t you tell me on Friday that you were a widow?’

      ‘Why …?’ It wasn’t hard under the circumstances to assume a dumb expression. She felt slow and stupid.

      ‘Like it didn’t come up in the conversation.’ He drawled. His languid tone was not reflected in his face; he looked remarkably angry in a dark, dangerous broody had sort of way. ‘I was slagging the guy off, if you recall.’

      She did. ‘I don’t go around explaining details of my personal life to perfect strangers,’ she replied with studied defiance.

      This angry statement struck Gabriel as being bizarre—under the circumstances. His eyes darkened as some of the personal details he did know about her came to mind—like the tiny oval mole on her left shoulder and the silver appendix scar just below the shapely crest of her right hip.

      ‘Even when you’ve shared your body with that perfect stranger?’ His mobile lips formed a cruel parody of a smile.

      There were perfect strangers and perfect, as in flawless strangers, Alice thought, her eyes reluctantly studying the angular perfection of his lean face. Did he think she was likely to forget?

      ‘That was a long time ago,’ she said in a hushed voice.

      ‘About as long as your husband’s death?’ And was the tragic expression in her wide eyes reserved for that event or sleeping with him?

      Alice’s shoulders hunched forward defensively, but she just shook her head mutely.

      ‘Do I look like him?’ Glancing quickly up, she saw his expression suggested he didn’t much care for this idea. His sharp cheekbones jutted through the tightly stretched smooth olive skin of his face. He had the sort of bone structure that would make a sculptor automatically reach for his chisel.

      ‘Not really.’

      ‘Your sister seemed to think …’

      ‘Superficially, perhaps!’ she snapped. ‘You’re the same height, build, and similar colouring.’

      ‘Is that why you were looking at me that night? Because you thought I was him?’ He took hold of her shoulders and Alice looked helplessly up at him.

      ‘For a second,’ she admitted, hoping he’d let the damned subject drop, but not getting her hopes up. He was the sort of person who could extract the last drop of blood from the most uncooperative stone. ‘I suppose I wanted you to be him,’ she reflected, with a frown.

      Didn’t everyone want to go back and say the things they wanted to say—unsay the things they wished they hadn’t? Would she ever forget or forgive herself for those savage sentiments? The last things she’d ever said to Oliver.

      Gabriel’s chest lifted as he inhaled deeply. His expression had grown curiously still.

      ‘How long had you been widowed?’ His eyes were now focused on a point over her head.

      ‘It was the day of the funeral.’

      Gabriel gave a harsh, incredulous gasp before he let go of her shoulders. Alice watched him walk up to a large yew tree. He rubbed one finger slowly down the coarse-textured bark before turning abruptly back to face her.

      ‘You used me.’ It was an incredulous statement, not a question.

      She gave a low, disbelieving grunt. ‘You can dish it up, but you can’t take it. Is that the problem here?’ She found this classic display of male double standards staggering. He glared at her in brooding irritation. ‘What were you doing to me if it wasn’t using?’

      ‘Don’t you remember?’ Wouldn’t that be the final irony, he reflected grimly, when he could recall every touch, every erotic little catch of breath.

      Gabriel wasn’t entirely sure why he felt this angry—this betrayed. It had only been a one-night stand, but then that was only half the truth too. One night it might have been, but it was the one night by which his every potential sexual encounter would be measured in the future, and found wanting. He knew this for a fact.

      No woman had ever responded to him as she had, with such uninhibited pleasure. Every man probably had a fantasy lover, but few ever met them in the flesh—perhaps, he reflected grimly, they were the lucky ones!

      After three years he could still hear her husky sobs of pleasure as he’d touched her and she’d touched him. He could recall the precise erotic journey her skilful fingers and lips had made over his skin. She’d displayed an insatiable curiosity for his body and what pleased him … what made him wild. His eyes darkened and his body responded helplessly to the memory. Gabriel didn’t like being a helpless victim of his own lusts.

      Now he didn’t even have the illusion that it had been him she’d been moaning or begging for. She’d been closing her eyes and thinking of another man. Only her eyes hadn’t been closed; they’d been wide open and deep drowning cornflower-blue.

      The glazed, almost other-worldly quality in her expression seemed suddenly all too explicable. He’d СКАЧАТЬ