The Mills & Boon Ultimate Christmas Collection. Kate Hardy

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СКАЧАТЬ And she would never see him again.

      ‘Well, there’s a pipe leaking in the red bathroom. Better get it seen to before it brings the roof down,’ added Stella, with her customary love of domestic drama.

      The plumbing problems distracted her for a while, and then Livvy burned off a load of frustration by picking up the leaves that had gathered in a sodden heap by the front door.

      It was after lunch, when Peppa had finally decided to forgive Livvy for going away and had started winding her furry body around her legs at every opportunity, that the telephone rang. Stella bustled along the corridor to answer it, her eyes nearly popping out of her head as she listened to the voice at the other end.

      ‘It’s him,’ she mouthed.

      ‘Who?’ Livvy mimed back.

      ‘The sheikh.’

      With a tight smile Livvy took the phone and carried it through to her little study, trying to control her suddenly unsteady breathing as she gazed out at the garden where water was dripping from the bare branches of the trees and the grass resembled a sea of mud. As a reflection of the way she felt, it was perfect. You need to stay calm, she told herself. You need to be strong. For all she knew, Saladin might just be phoning for a chat to check she’d got home safely. This was probably normal for people who’d briefly been lovers. He might even be wanting to ask her advice about Burkaan. Yes, that was probably it. But she could do nothing about the wild thunder of her heart.

      ‘Hello?’ she said.

      ‘Livvy?’

      ‘Yes, it’s me.’ But as the silken caress of his voice washed over her, some of her forced calm began to trickle away and Livvy realised that she wasn’t any good at playing games, or pretending to be friends. Not when she wanted to blurt out how much she missed him. Not when she wanted to feel his arms around her, holding her very tight. She heard the ping of an email entering her inbox. ‘What can I do for you, Saladin?’

      ‘Which isn’t the friendliest greeting I’ve ever heard,’ he observed drily.

      ‘But I thought that’s the way you wanted it. Formal and polite. I thought we’d concluded our business together. I thought we’d said everything that needed to be said. That was certainly the impression I got when I left.’ She paused. ‘Which makes me wonder why you’re ringing?’

      At the other end of the line, Saladin stared out at the sky. Why was he ringing? It was a question he hadn’t wanted to confront and one that instinctively he shied away from answering. He wondered if he could persuade her to return to Jazratan by telling her that his horse was pining for her, which was true.

      He suspected not. He sensed that financial inducements would no longer sway her, no matter how much more generous he made his offer. Just as he sensed that pride wouldn’t allow her to accept something that could only ever be second best. He sighed. He realised that, for all her newly awoken sexual liberation, Livvy Miller remained a fiercely traditional woman who would not look kindly on the sort of relationship he usually offered his lovers. And the pain in his heart was very real, wasn’t it? The question was how far he was prepared to go to be with her.

      ‘I need to talk to you.’

      ‘Talk away. I’m not stopping you.’

      ‘I’m not having this conversation over the phone.’

      ‘And I’m not offering you an alternative,’ she answered coolly. ‘What do you want, Saladin?’

      ‘To see you.’

      ‘Sorry. No can do.’

      ‘Livvy,’ he growled. ‘I’m serious.’

      ‘And so am I,’ she said. ‘You said some pretty tough things to me that last night. You were suspicious and hostile and accused me of all kinds of devious motivations—’

      ‘For which I apologised.’

      Only because you had to, thought Livvy. Only because you had to. ‘Yes, you did. So surely we’ve said everything that needs to be said. It was a fantastic affair and I’m sorry it had to end that way—but the point is that it had to end some time.’ She cleared her throat. ‘How’s Burkaan?’

      ‘He’s fine. Livvy—’

      ‘Look, I’ve got to go,’ she said desperately as she heard another email ping into her inbox. ‘Someone’s trying to contact me. Goodbye, Saladin, and...take care of yourself.’

      She cut the call before she had the chance to change her mind, or to be lulled by a seductive voice into doing something that would only bring her pain.

      After Livvy had put the phone down, she sat down at her desk. She wasn’t going to make a fuss about it, she thought, even though her heart was crashing painfully against her ribcage, because the pain would go. It might take time, but it would definitely go. She would answer her emails and carry on as normal and rejoice that she’d had the strength to resist him. Her hand hovered over the mouse and her whole body stiffened as she clicked on the first email and began to read...

      An hour must have passed before she realised that she hadn’t moved and was sitting in total darkness and that Peppa was mewing plaintively by her feet and Stella had long gone. She ought to do something. She ought to feed the cat and...

      And what?

      Sit there for the rest of the evening thinking about what a devious bastard Saladin really was?

      Her eyes skated down the rest of the emails. There were two tentative booking enquiries, plus one of those round-robin jokes that one of her school friends always insisted on sending and that she didn’t find remotely funny. And a ‘Singles Nite’ being offered by the local pub. She screwed her eyes up as she looked at the date. Tonight’s date.

      Print out this voucher for free entry to the Five Bells ‘Singles Nite’. Music, karaoke and so much more!

      A sudden new resolution flooded through her as, impetuously, she pressed the print button, fed Peppa and then went upstairs to get ready.

      She told herself that she was going to stop acting like a startled hermit and get out there and put everything Saladin had taught her into practice. No longer was she going to live like a nun. There was no reason why she couldn’t have other relationships—in the same way that there was no reason she couldn’t have another career. Defiantly, she applied more make-up than usual, fished out a sparkly top to wear with her jeans and piled her hair into an elaborate topknot so that it wouldn’t get wrecked by the wind on the way out to the car.

      When she drew up outside the pub, she almost turned around to go home because music was blaring out at a deafening pitch. Inside it was crowded, but at least the noise became less loud when a woman started swaying around on a small stage, tunelessly singing about her intention to survive. There were a few people Livvy recognised from the village, but not well enough to sit with—so she bought herself a tomato juice, told herself that she would drink it up and then go. Baby steps, she thought. Baby steps. You’ve come out on your own and it hasn’t killed you. And although it’s pretty dire—next time might be better.

      She found a corner seat and sat there smiling as if her life depended СКАЧАТЬ