Prince's Love-Child. Кэрол Мортимер

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СКАЧАТЬ to see him again, never wanted to even hear of him again, just wanted to block his existence even from her memory.

      And yet now that she had seen him and spoken to him, she could see just how dearly familiar were his dark good looks and piercing blue eyes. Too familiar…!

      Rik gave a humourless smile. ‘That’s honest, at least,’ he drawled drily.

      ‘It’s a trait too few people possess nowadays. And, continuing to be honest,’ she added, ‘what I was going to say just now was that I feel, before Dee and Jerome return, which won’t be too long now, I should make it perfectly clear to you that under no circumstances—and I do mean that,’ she emphasised firmly, ‘do I wish for either of them to discover we ever knew each other before today.’ She looked at him challengingly.

      He frowned for several long seconds, and then his brow cleared as he looked at her with mocking blue eyes. ‘By saying that the two of us knew each other, I take it you mean—’

      ‘I mean,’ she put in forcefully, ‘that I would rather Dee and Jerome believed we met for the first time today,’ she explained clearly and succinctly.

      Rik Prince gave an acknowledging inclination of his head, whatever disadvantage he had felt earlier seeming to have evaporated as he relaxed back in his chair, his eyes clearly showing his amusement now.

      Well, she was glad he could find something funny about this situation—because she certainly couldn’t!

      ‘How does that sit with the honesty you mentioned only seconds ago?’ he ventured sardonically.

      ‘Oh, don’t be so obtuse!’ Sapphie replied impatiently. ‘There’s a time for honesty, and—’

      ‘A time for dishonesty?’ Rik finished derisively.

      ‘Please don’t tell me you’re any more anxious than I am to admit to Dee and Jerome that the two of us stupidly spent the night together after their wedding!’ She was breathing deeply in her agitation as she glared at him.

      But her impatient anger couldn’t keep the memories at bay of that night, of no words having been spoken between them as they’d seemed drawn to each other like magnets, of the passion they’d shared—a fierce and wondrous passion, as they’d sought oblivion in each other’s arms.

      Even now Sapphie could remember each caress, each kiss, their need wild and uninhibited, both of them seeming to recognise and accept that, in the clear light of the following day, they would each go their separate ways, never to see one another again.

      And that was how it should have remained. How, if she had had her way, it would have remained!

      ‘That day, you had just seen the woman you love marry someone else!’ she prompted angrily.

      Colour darkened his cheeks, his eyes the blue-grey of a stormy sea now. ‘And if I had?’ he bit out icily. ‘What was your excuse?’

      She could be selective, make excuses, could even evade the issue. But the truth, she knew—or at least the part she was willing to admit to Rik!—was much more likely to put an end to this conversation. ‘Me?’ she echoed self-disgustedly. ‘I had just watched the man I loved marry someone else!’ She now met Rik’s gaze unflinchingly.

      Because it was only part of the truth of what had happened to her that day. Sapphie had gone to Dee and Jerome’s wedding believing she was still in love with Jerome, and had felt nothing but misery as she’d watched him marrying Dee.

      But then something—she wasn’t sure what—had made her glance around the church, and her eyes had come to rest abruptly on Rik Prince as he’d stared broodingly down the aisle at the couple being married, obviously as unhappy about it as she was.

      Until that moment, love at first sight had just been a phrase to Sapphie, not something that ever happened to real people like her. Well, except perhaps those people who realised the following morning, as they looked at the person beside them in bed, that it had probably been lust at first sight, rather than love!

      She wasn’t one of those people; she’d woken at dawn the morning after Dee and Jerome’s wedding to gaze hungrily at the man sleeping beside her, knowing that not only did she love every hard plane and hollow that made up his physical being, but that she also loved his gentleness, his intelligence, and sense of honour too.

      She had gone to the wedding the day before believing herself in love with one man, but after the celebration had realised that she was irrevocably in love with another.

      A man who’d made no secret of the fact that he was in love with Dee…

      * * *

      Jerome?

      Was Sapphie Benedict referring to Jerome Powers?

      Sapphie, with her mesmerising, amber-coloured eyes, and her grim determination to discuss and dismiss their first and—until now—only other meeting, had been hurting as much as Rik had five years ago because she’d been in love with Jerome Powers? She’d spent the wedding reception with him, and the night with him, because she had just watched the man she loved marry someone else?

      But hadn’t he just admitted to having done the same thing? Wasn’t that night—and Sapphie herself—something he had kept buried deep at the back of his consciousness, the door to it tightly locked and bolted?

      Yes, of course it was. But that was because he had always felt guilty about that night, about the fact that he had used Sapphie as a way of blocking out his pain. Knowing she had used him in the same way added a dimension now that filled him with anger. His fury wasn’t logical, and it certainly wasn’t fair, but it was how he felt, none the less.

      ‘Are you still in love with Powers?’ Rik rasped contemptuously. ‘Is that the reason you’re still hanging around the two of them? Hoping to step into Dee’s shoes if the marriage should falter?’

      ‘How dare you?’ Sapphie gasped incredulously, having paled dramatically, those amber eyes the only colour in her face now. ‘For your information, Mr Prince, I’m not hanging around the two of them at all. I happen to have been in Paris for four days now, doing some research. Dee and Jerome decided to stop off here yesterday in order to see me on their way to Dee’s film première in London next week.’

      ‘How convenient for you,’ Rik scorned.

      He hadn’t even attempted to see Dee since her wedding day five years ago, whereas this woman appeared to have remained friends with both Dee and Jerome. Masochistic or what?

      ‘It isn’t convenient at all,’ Sapphie came back forcefully. ‘And as for my wanting to step into Dee’s shoes if the marriage should falter—if you listened to what I said just now, then you’ll have realised I used the past tense concerning my feelings towards Jerome. I was in love with him then, but I’m not now.’ She was breathing hard in her agitation, her eyes sparkling with anger.

      Considering how defensive she was, Rik wasn’t sure that he believed her.

      But somehow, looking into those amber-coloured eyes and seeing the contempt gleaming there, he doubted Sapphie Benedict cared whether he believed her or not!

      What was hard to believe, as he looked at her now, seeing how her eyes gleamed challengingly, twin spots of fiery colour burned her cheeks, СКАЧАТЬ