The Parenti Marriage: The Reluctant Surrender. PENNY JORDAN

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      A dangerous emotion was filling her—a sharp, searing feeling of pain and regret because she would never be kissed like that, because for her there would never be a time when she was held in a man’s arms in an intimate moment of trust and love between them.

      That emotion was still worrying her over an hour later, as she sat in the private fitting room of Harvey Nichols’ personal shopping suite with a cup of coffee in her hand whilst she waited for the shopper and her assistants to return with a selection of clothes for her to try on.

      Why, after so many years of managing perfectly well not to think about all that she would be missing because of her vow to remain single, had her emotions and her body betrayed her now, by reacting in the way that they had done to Saul, of all men?

      Her hand shook, spilling coffee onto the skirt of her cheap suit.

      What was happening to her? She had always known that there was no escape for her from the burden she must carry. She had known that and accepted it, thankful for the fact that no one else other than her great-aunt knew of the terrible secret she had to conceal. Surely she had been tormented enough by her own guilt? She didn’t need the added cruelty of what she had felt yesterday, held against Saul’s body.

      There was no place in her life and never would be for the age-old instinctive female need for the support of a man strong enough to carry her troubles should she herself grow too weary to carry them. No place either for the white-hot spear of female desire so strong that the ache of it was still pulsing within her.

      The problem was that she had grown so accustomed to shutting herself off from what most women would consider ‘normal’ reactions to the male sex that she had grown complacent, she tried to reassure herself as she drank her coffee. Saul Parenti did not have any special magical powers that made her more vulnerable to him than she was to other men. She had simply allowed her protective guard to slip a little, that was all. Nothing more than that.

      The squeak of the wheels of a garment rail being moved alerted her to the fact that the personal shopper was returning. Quickly finishing her coffee, Giselle smoothed down the dark material of her skirt and tried to mask her embarrassment at even being there.

      ‘We often notice with customers who have lost weight that they find it hard to judge what will be the right fit for them,’ the personal shopper informed Giselle with an encouraging smile half an hour later, after she had coaxed her into a black suit, apparently from a designer popular with many working women.