Finn's Pregnant Bride. Sharon Kendrick

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      He smiled. ‘One way or another, yes, I have. How about you?’

      ‘First time,’ said Catherine, and sipped her wine again, in case her voice wobbled. No need to tell him that it was supposed to have been a romantic holiday to make up for all the time that she and Peter had spent apart. Or that now they would be apart on a permanent basis.

      ‘And you’ll come again?’

      ‘I doubt it.’

      Her heard the finality in her voice. ‘You don’t like it enough to repeat the experience?’

      She shook her head, knowing that Pondiki would always represent a time in her life she would prefer to forget. ‘I just never like to repeat an experience. Why should I, when the world is full of endless possibilities?’

      She sounded, he thought, as though she were trying to convince herself of that. But by then Nico had appeared. ‘Do you know what you’re going to have?’ Finn asked.

      ‘Fish and salad,’ she answered automatically. ‘It’s the best thing on the menu.’

      ‘You are a creature of habit, aren’t you?’ he teased. ‘The same table and the same meal every night. Are you a glutton for stability?’

      How unwittingly perceptive he was! ‘People always create routines when they’re on holiday.’

      ‘Because there’s something comforting in routines?’ he hazarded.

      His dark blue eyes seemed to look deep within her, and she didn’t want him probing any more. That was her forte. ‘Something like that,’ she answered slowly.

      She ordered in Greek, and Nico smiled as he wrote it down. And then Finn began to speak to him with what sounded to Catherine like complete fluency.

      ‘You speak Greek!’ she observed, once the waiter had gone.

      ‘Well, so do you!’

      ‘Only the basics. Restaurants and shops, that kind of thing.’

      ‘Mine isn’t much beyond that.’

      ‘How very modest of you!’

      ‘Not modest at all. Just truthful. I certainly don’t speak it well enough to be able to discuss philosophy—but since what I know about philosophy could be written on the back of a postage stamp I’m probably wise not to try.’ He gazed at her spectacular green eyes and the way the wine sheened on her lips. ‘So tell me about yourself, Catherine Walker.’

      ‘Oh, I’m twenty-six. I live in London. If I didn’t then I’d own a dog, but I think it’s cruel to keep animals in cities. I like going to films, walking in the park, drinking cocktails on hot summer evenings—the usual thing.’

      As a brief and almost brittle biography it told him very little, and Finn was more than intrigued. Ask a woman to tell you about herself and you usually had to call time on them! And less, in some cases, was definitely more. His interest captured, he raised his eyebrows. ‘And what do you do in London?’

      She’d had years of fudging this one. People always tended to ask the same predictable question when they found out what she did: ‘Have you ever met anyone famous?’ And, although Finn Delaney didn’t look a predictable kind of man, work was the last thing she wanted to think about right now. ‘Public relations,’ she said, which was kind of true. ‘And how about you?’

      ‘I live and work in Dublin.’

      ‘As?’

      Finn was deliberately vague. Self-made property millionaire sounded like a boast, even if it was true, and he had seen the corrupting power of wealth enough to keep it hidden away. Especially from beautiful women. ‘Oh, I dabble in a bit of this and a bit of that.’

      ‘Strictly legal?’ she shot out instinctively, and he laughed.

      ‘Oh, strictly,’ he murmured, fixing her with a mock-grave look so that she laughed too. The laugh drew attention to the fact that she had the most kissable lips he had ever seen. He found himself wondering why she was here on her own.

      His eyes skimmed to the bare third finger of her left hand. No sign of a ring, present or recent. He could see Nico bearing down on them, carrying their food, and he leant forward so that the scent of roses and honey invaded his nostrils.

      ‘How long are you staying?’ he questioned.

      Still reeling from the pleasure of realising that she hadn’t lost the ability to laugh, Catherine let her defences down—and then instantly regretted it. Because his proximity made her heart miss a beat she blinked, startled by her reaction to the warm bronzed flesh and dazzling blue eyes. Her emotions were supposed to be suspended, weren’t they? She wasn’t supposed to be feeling anything other than the loss of Peter. So how come desire had briefly bewitched her with its tempting promise? ‘Tomorrow’s my last day.’

      Oddly enough, he felt disappointed. Had he hoped that she would be staying long enough for them to forge a brief holiday romance? He must be more stressed-out than he’d thought, if that were the case. ‘And how are you planning to spend it? A trip round the island?’

      She shook her head. ‘Been there, done that. No, I’ll probably just laze around on the beach.’

      ‘I think I might join you,’ said Finn slowly. ‘That’s if you don’t have any objections?’

       CHAPTER TWO

      ‘I THINK I might join you,’ he had said.

      Catherine rubbed a final bit of sun-block onto her nose and knotted a sarong around the waist of her jade-green swimsuit, aware that her heart was beating as fast as a hamster’s. She was meeting Finn Delaney on the beach and was now beginning to wonder whether she should have agreed so readily.

      She let a rueful smile curve her lips. She was thinking and acting like an adolescent girl! She had broken up with her long-term boyfriend, yes—but that didn’t mean she had to start acting like a nun! There was no crime in spending some time with an attractive, charismatic man, was there? Especially as she had barely any time left. And if Finn Delaney decided to muscle in on her she would politely give him the brush-off.

      She scrunched her dark hair back into a ponytail and grabbed her sun-hat before setting off to find some coffee. The sun was already high in the sky, but the terrace was shaded with a canopy of dark, fleshy leaves and she took her seat, trying to imprint the scene on her mind, because tomorrow she would be back in the city.

      ‘I see you with Kirios Finn last night,’ observed Nico rather plaintively as he brought her a plate of figs and some strong black coffee. Every morning he tried something new to tempt her, even though she had told him that she never ate breakfast.

      ‘That’s right,’ agreed Catherine. ‘I was.’

      ‘He like you, I think—he like beautiful women.’

      Catherine shook her head firmly. ‘We’re just passing acquaintances who speak the same language, that’s all,’ she said. СКАЧАТЬ