London's Eligible Bachelors. Sharon Kendrick

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СКАЧАТЬ on—you can’t keep pining for Michael for ever, you know, Sabrina. He wouldn’t want that.’

      Sabrina quickly put down the coffee, terrified that she might drop it. For what would the decent and honourable Paul say if he knew how little she had been pining for Michael? She tried to imagine his reaction if she told him the truth about her holiday, and paled at the thought of how his opinion of her would be reversed if only he knew.

      ‘In fact,’ said Paul gently, ‘I thought you were going to come back from Venice a new woman—wasn’t that the plan?’

      She lifted her head. ‘And I haven’t?’ she teased him. ‘Is that what you mean?’

      He shrugged awkwardly. ‘Just as slim and even paler—what did you do out there?’

      ‘What does everyone do in Venice?’ she asked lightly, as she tried not to remember.

      Paul grinned. ‘You travelled in a gondola, right?’

      Sabrina forced a smile in response. ‘You bet I did!’ And that was how the whole damned thing had started—blinded by a man with night-dark hair and a body which had stirred a deep, primitive response in her. And she couldn’t blame Guy for that. She had set the wheels for that in motion herself. Unless she was planning to blame him for his physical beauty and impact. ‘Anyway, that’s enough about me, Paul. How has business been?’

      Paul shrugged. ‘So-so. March is slow, as you know, but it’ll be Easter soon. Interestingly enough, I had a phone call yesterday from a man trying to track down a rare first edition.’

      Sabrina sipped her coffee. ‘Oh?’

      ‘That’s right. You must have served him. He asked for you. I told him you weren’t due in until today.’

      ‘Really?’ she questioned absently.

      Once she had drunk her coffee, Sabrina forced herself to get back into the slow and rhythmical pattern of her working day and found it comforting. She would put the whole affair down to experience and not let it get out of hand in her imagination. After all, lots of people had holiday romances which ended badly.

      If only Guy Masters wasn’t such an unforgettable man. If only she hadn’t lost her head. But ‘if onlys’ wouldn’t change a thing—they never did.

      Fortunately, work soon took over. Maybe that was because she had become an expert in pushing away disturbing thoughts. She settled down to some long-overdue ordering and soon became immersed in that.

      She heard the sound of the shop door clanging open and flourished her signature in the order book before looking up and blinking, her polite smile freezing into disbelief on her lips.

      It couldn’t be him, she thought, even as her heart responded with an instinctive surge of excitement. But the delight ebbed away as quickly as it had come, to be replaced by a sudden wariness when she saw the dark, forbidding expression on his face.

      It couldn’t be him. But it was.

      She was aware of the fact that Paul was working in the storeroom, and composed her face accordingly.

      ‘Hello, Guy,’ she said, her voice sounding astonishingly calm considering that the thundering of her heart was threatening to deafen her. ‘This is a surprise.’

      ‘Is it?’ He leaned over the desk and the male scent of him reached out to her senses, sending them spinning out of control as she registered his closeness. ‘So you do remember me?’ he drawled silkily. ‘Wow—that’s a relief.’

      Sabrina blushed at the implication behind his insulting question. ‘Of course I remember you! I…We…’

      ‘Had a night of no-holds-barred sex before you did a runner in the morning?’ he remarked insolently.

      ‘You were the one who did a runner, and will you keep your voice down?’ she hissed furiously.

      ‘Or what?’

      ‘Or I’ll have you thrown out of the shop!’

      Guy’s gaze swivelled to where Paul was busy flicking through a card index, and he raised a laconic eyebrow. ‘Oh, really?’

      She knew just what he was implying. For a man of similar age to Guy, Paul was no weakling, but comparing him to the angry specimen of manhood who stood just inches away from her would be like comparing a child’s chugchug train to a high-speed express. But even so…

      Sabrina raised a stubborn chin to him. No matter what had happened between the two of them, he couldn’t just march in here like some autocratic dictator and start jeopardising her very livelihood. Not when he’d already taken out her heart and smashed it into smithereens…

      ‘Yes, really!’

      He cocked an arrogant eyebrow at her. ‘Going to start talking, then, are we, Sabrina?’

      ‘I can’t talk to you now,’ she stated levelly. ‘I’m working.’

      ‘Then when?’

      ‘I don’t know,’ she prevaricated.

      The grey eyes narrowed. ‘What time is your lunch-hour?’

      ‘I don’t usually take lunch.’

      ‘House rules?’ he drawled.

      ‘No, my rules,’ she answered stiffly.

      ‘Then change the rules, baby,’ he commanded, with a cool arrogance which infuriated her almost as much as it reminded her of his consummate mastery in bed. ‘And change them now.’

      Sabrina tried to imagine the worst-case scenario. What if she agreed to meet him for lunch—in a city where she had lived all her life and where she was known? She wasn’t the same woman here as he had met in Venice. Not by any stretch of the imagination. But what if he managed to reduce her to that same mindless being who just cried out for his touch?

      And it wasn’t difficult to work out how he might go about that. Surely he would only have to take her in his arms again. Just as he’d done before. She couldn’t guarantee that she wouldn’t succumb, and how could she possibly come back in here after that and spend the afternoon working, as if nothing had happened?

      ‘I eat my lunch here,’ she told him resolutely.

      He rubbed a thoughtful forefinger over his chin, and the movement was accompanied by the unconscious thrust of his hips. ‘Then I guess I’ll just wait here until you’ve finished,’ he told her softly, and then deliberately raised his voice. ‘Perhaps you could point me to the section on erotic literature?’

      ‘Don’t you dare—’

      ‘Is something wrong, Sabrina?’ Paul came through from the storeroom, pushing his spectacles to the back of his nose, looking with distrust at the tall, dark man who was towering over his assistant’s desk.

      Sabrina sent a look of appeal up at Guy but was met with nothing but an uncompromising glitter. She knew then that he wouldn’t be going anywhere until he got what he’d come for. And that there was no way she could get out of this meeting. She СКАЧАТЬ