Sharon Kendrick Collection. Sharon Kendrick

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СКАЧАТЬ rose stiffly to her feet, longing to go upstairs and get changed. The white shirt she wore was full of his scent and unbearably evocative, reminding her with heart-rending clarity of just how beautifully he had made love to her.

      ‘I’d better go,’ she said, and he frowned.

      ‘Go where?’

      ‘Home. Anywhere. Away from here, in any case.’

      He had taken on the watchful pose of someone deciding how best to break in a young horse.

      She strode towards the door, aware that she must look ridiculous in a thigh-length shirt and a pair of high-heeled shoes.

      ‘Walk out of here now, Romy Salisbury, and you walk out of my life for good,’ came his grated comment from behind her.

      Romy whirled round, searching his face for clues. ‘But what alternative do I have?’

      ‘The alternative is that you stay.’

      But what was he offering her? A wonderful love affair? Would that be enough for her? Romy wondered. Would she be prepared to settle for that when she wanted so much more?

      ‘But there is, of course, a condition to your staying,’ he continued, still in that same, rather emotionless voice.

      And this was the pay-off. Romy wondered just how he would word it. Would he insist on laying down ground rules right from the beginning? Insist that she must make no demands on him? That she must always be there for him?

      Romy bristled. Well, he could keep all those conditions, and she would tell him exactly where he could put them!

      She fixed a saccharine smile to her face. ‘Oh? And what’s that?’

      ‘That you’ll try one day to find it in your heart to love me almost as much as I love you,’ he told her gently.

      There was a long, stunned silence.

      ‘Oh, Dominic!’ she wailed, and burst into tears. ‘I do love you—I always have! I’ve thought about no one else but you, since the day I met you! And you didn’t even realise—you stupid, stupid man!’ she sobbed.

      He pulled her into his arms and let her cry. She soaked his bare chest, and then he found a handkerchief in the top pocket of his discarded jacket and very tenderly wiped her face with it.

      And only when she had stopped snuffling did he allow himself to smile, and to kiss the end of her nose with all the sloppiness he normally despised in other people but which now—most extraordinarily—he found he wanted to indulge in for the rest of his life!

      ‘Am I really stupid?’ he queried softly.

      ‘Yes!’

      ‘So I suppose marriage is out of the question, then?’

      She eyed him suspiciously. ‘If you think that, Dominic Dashwood,’ she declared, ‘then you really are stupid!’

      He smiled again at her baffling lack of logic. ‘Soon?’

      ‘I don’t mind. Just so long as we can live together first.’

      ‘It had better be soon,’ he told her sternly. ‘Since we have just made love without using any form of contraception.’

      ‘Gosh!’ Romy felt quite dizzy with pride. ‘So we did.’ Then she frowned. ‘Are you normally quite so careless?’

      Dominic hid a smile. He was not used to being told off by a woman. He rather liked it. ‘Never,’ he told her honestly. ‘But I just assumed that you were on the Pill—and please don’t look like that, Romy; you have to agree that it was a perfectly reasonable assumption to make, under the circumstances.’

      ‘I suppose so,’ she sighed, and kissed the gravelly shadow of his chin. ‘But what if I had had millions of partners before you?’

      He stared deep into her eyes. ‘Do you know—the thought of using contraception as a protective device with you simply never occurred to me? And I’ve never, ever taken that risk before.’

      ‘So why do something so out of character with me? Someone who you would have been justified in protecting yourself against, given all the evidence?’

      ‘Because I wasn’t acting on evidence; I was acting on instinct,’ he told her lovingly. ‘Maybe I knew, deep in my heart, that the only risk I was taking was having my heart broken into the bargain!’

      No chance of that! thought Romy.

      ‘In fact,’ he mused, ‘if we’re talking about carelessness, I could wonder why you didn’t bother telling me that you were a virgin...?’ He raised his dark brows at her questioningly.

      Romy sighed. ‘I guess I wanted to get my own back. You thought that I was a raving nymphomaniac, and I wanted to prove to you that I wasn’t.’

      ‘Revenge in its sweetest form?’ he questioned.

      ‘You could say that.’

      ‘But rather a dramatic way of going about it.’

      ‘You bring out the worst in me, Dominic,’ she murmured, but he shook his head.

      ‘The very best,’ he demurred.

      Well, she wasn’t going to argue with that! ‘And also,’ she admitted, ‘I was terribly afraid that if you knew I was a virgin you would insist on doing the honourable thing.’

      ‘The “honourable thing” being?’

      Romy shrugged. ‘You know. Insisting on me staying pure and unsullied, and not making love to me.’

      He grinned. ‘I may have honourable traits, sweetheart, but I’m not completely stupid!’ He narrowed his eyes, as if a thought had suddenly occurred to him. “That—um—divine experience in the garden... How in heaven’s name did a virgin learn how to do that?’

      ‘She used her imagination,’ Romy told him smugly. ‘I happen to have a very vivid imagination, you know, Dominic!’

      His eyes darkened. ‘Shall we go to bed now?’ he growled.

      ‘Oh, yes, please,’ she sighed happily. ‘And can we do it again?’

      Dominic laughed aloud, feeling more light-hearted than he could ever remember feeling. ‘As often as you like, sweetheart—as often as you like.’

      He suddenly noticed the telephone receiver lying on the floor by the sofa. ‘Oh, dear—one of us must have kicked it off,’ he observed drily, loving the way she blushed so sweetly.

      He replaced it onto the handset and it trilled out almost immediately. Romy listened while he said, ‘Mmm. Mmm. When? Good. That’s good! Yes. Yes, she is.’ And finally, ‘I’m getting married. Yes! Of course it’s to Romy. We’ll tell you all about it. Tomorrow?’ He grinned at Romy. ‘Well. maybe not tomorrow—I have the strongest suspicion we’re going to be very tied up for the next few days! I’ll phone СКАЧАТЬ