London's Eligible Bachelors: The Unlikely Mistress. Sharon Kendrick

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      Sabrina’s mother was as pleased by the invitation as her daughter had anticipated, especially when Guy chose a restaurant on the very edge of the city, one which neither of the two women had ever visited before.

      ‘Oh, we couldn’t possibly—it’s much too expensive!’ protested Mrs Cooper.

      ‘No, it’s not,’ said Guy patiently.

      ‘And we’ll never get a table,’ put in Sabrina.

      The grey eyes glittered. ‘Want to bet?’

      And of course he got a table—how could she have ever doubted for a moment that he wouldn’t? Men like Guy Masters always got tables.

      Sabrina tried very hard to eat her shrimp salad and lobster with some element of appetite, but it was unbelievably difficult to concentrate on the food when there was such a distraction on the other side of the table.

      Her eyes kept straying to the dark gleam of Guy’s hair as he sat and chatted to her mother. The top two buttons of his shirt were undone and she could just see the faint shadowing where the dark hair began.

      She wiped a damp palm over the napkin which lay on her lap. What on earth would her mother say if she had any idea that the man who was chatting to her so companionably had ravished her daughter more than she’d believed it possible for a woman to be ravished.

      Guy studied her from over his wineglass, suddenly registering her tense silence. ‘You’re very quiet, Sabrina,’ he observed.

      ‘Oh, she’s quiet like that a lot of the time,’ said Mrs Cooper. ‘Can’t seem to snap out of it, can you, darling?’

      ‘I don’t think Guy particularly wants to hear, Mum,’ said Sabrina warningly.

      But Mrs Cooper was only just warming to her subject. ‘I’m dreadfully sorry that Michael is dead—of course I am—and it’s hit her very hard, as you would expect.’

      Sabrina didn’t dare meet Guy’s eyes for fear of the derision she might find there. Grief-stricken people didn’t tend to behave in the way she had behaved.

      ‘I know what it’s like myself,’ said Mrs Cooper, and she reached over and patted Sabrina’s head. ‘After my husband left me, people always saw me just as a divorcee—not as Maureen Cooper in her own right.’

      Guy nodded. So Sabrina had no father either.

      ‘No one will give the poor girl a chance to get over it. And the trouble is that this is where she grew up. Everyone knows her, and everyone knew Michael—and she can’t escape from their memories. I think she should get out and have a little fun. That’s why I persuaded her to go to Venice—she’d always wanted to go there—but when she came back she looked worse than ever.’

      ‘Have you quite finished, Mum?’

      ‘Can’t you get away somewhere?’ queried Guy thoughtfully.

      ‘Like where?’ She met the stormy challenge of his gaze. She had tried fleeing to Venice and look where that had got her.

      ‘How about London? That’s where most people want to go.’

      ‘London’s expensive,’ said Sabrina defensively. ‘And I don’t earn very much. And, besides, I don’t really feel like going into a city where I don’t know anyone.’

      ‘But you know me, Sabrina,’ came the surprising response.

      She violently began spearing at a piece of lobster.

      ‘You know you can always come and stay with me.’ He’d spoken the words aloud before he’d realised their implication.

      For a second Sabrina froze, and then slowly lifted her head to gaze at him in disbelief. ‘What did you say?’ she whispered.

      ‘I have a flat,’ he said. ‘A big flat—plenty big enough to accommodate another person. Come and use the spare room for a while.’

      She thought of sharing a flat with him, even temporarily, and her heart began to bang against her ribcage—until she forced herself to quash the hopeless dream and replace it with reality. ‘It’s a crazy idea,’ she said woodenly. ‘I don’t have a job to go to.’

      ‘So find one.’ He shrugged.

      ‘It isn’t as easy as that, Guy,’ said Mrs Cooper gently.

      Sabrina found herself thinking that Wells did have another branch, in the capital, but loyally she found herself confirming her mother’s words. ‘No, it isn’t.’

      Guy stirred his coffee, as if he didn’t really care, and Mrs Cooper got up from the table and beamed. ‘Will you excuse me for a minute?’

      Guy rose to his feet until Mrs Cooper had disappeared, and Sabrina thought what impeccable manners he had. She stared across the table at him as he sat back down. ‘It’s very…kind of you, Guy, but you know very well I can’t accept your offer.’

      He coolly returned her stare. ‘Do I?’

      She narrowed her eyes in frustration. ‘Don’t be so obtuse.’

      ‘Then don’t be so damned evasive—and come right out with what it is you want to say!’

      Surely he wasn’t really expecting her to say it out loud. But, from his unhelpful silence, he clearly was. Reminding herself that they had already been as intimate as any couple could be, Sabrina drew in a deep breath.

      ‘How could I come and stay with you, not knowing—’ she met his gaze without flinching ‘—whether we…we…’

      ‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ he snapped, as the meaning of her words became clear to him. ‘Do you really think that I’m about to start extracting rent in the form of sexual favours?’

      ‘That wasn’t what I said!’

      ‘That’s what you meant, though—isn’t it?’

      She shook her head, but without conviction.

      He leaned back in his chair and looked at her speculatively. ‘You told me you like to be in control, didn’t you? Is that why you’re afraid to come? Afraid that you’ll lose it again around me? Scared to risk it?’

      She met the challenge in his eyes. ‘Do you think you’re so irresistible?’

      ‘I don’t know. Maybe that’s something we should both find out. Maybe we both need this opportunity to redeem ourselves.’

      She stared at him in confusion. ‘Redeem ourselves?’

      ‘Sure. This is the perfect opportunity to demonstrate that we’re not completely ruled by our hormones—’

      ‘That’s a very nice way to put it!’

      ‘Sabrina, there isn’t,’ he told her bluntly, ‘a nice way to put it.’

      ‘So you’re saying that the СКАЧАТЬ