London's Eligible Bachelors. Sharon Kendrick

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СКАЧАТЬ of complete fury on her face. ‘I beg your pardon?’

      That frosty little question should have been enough to stop her in her tracks, and normally it would have done, but, then, this didn’t feel normal. None of it did. Surely ‘normal’ would have meant a complete numbing of her senses until she was properly over Michael?

      ‘You told me you were going out for a quick drink!’ she stormed, her breathing coming through in great ragged bursts.

      Guy felt torn between incredulty and irritation. ‘And?’

      ‘And it wasn’t, was it? Not quick at all. It’s way past midnight—what time do you call this?’

      ‘It’s none of your damned business what time it is!’ he roared. ‘I’ll live my own life, the way I always have done! I’ll go out when I want and where I want and with whom I want—and I’ll do it without your permission, thank you, princess!’

      Through her shuddering breaths Sabrina stared at him, realising just how preposterous she must have sounded. And realising that if she didn’t get away from him pretty quickly, she risked making even more of a fool of herself.

      ‘I’m sorry,’ she said tightly. ‘I spoke out of turn.’ She half ran along the corridor and into her room and then pressed her forehead to the door, her eyes closed, her breath still shuddering.

      He’d seen the awful whitening of her face and the brief glimspe of terror which had iced the blue of her eyes, and in an instant he’d begun to comprehend just what had motivated her reaction.

      ‘Damn!’ he swore softly. Swiftly following in her footsteps, he went and banged his fist on the door. ‘Oh, damn!’

      Behind the door, Sabrina froze. Just keep quiet, some instinct of preservation told her. Keep very quiet and just don’t answer and he might go away.

      ‘Sabrina! Open the damned door. We both know you can’t possibly be asleep.’

      She shook her head. ‘Go away.’

      ‘I’m not moving from this spot until you open the door and come out and talk to me. That way neither of us will get to sleep and that means we’ll both be bad-tempered at work tomorrow.’

      You and your precious work, thought Sabrina, trying to concentrate on something—anything—other than how she wanted to open the door and fall into his arms, and…and…

      ‘Alternatively, I could kick it down,’ he promised in a voice of silky intent.

      It was such an outrageous proposal that Sabrina very nearly smiled. ‘You wouldn’t do that,’ she sniffed.

      ‘Not unless you make me,’ he agreed mockingly. ‘So, are you going to open the door now? Or not?’

      Slowly, she complied, her fingers clutching onto the handle as if they were petrified, gearing herself up to withstand Guy’s fury at her presumptuous behaviour. But when she dared to look up into his face it was to see a look of bitter regret written there, and Sabrina felt the trembling approach of tears. If she weren’t careful, she was in terrible danger of exposing all her desperate insecurities to him.

      ‘I’m s-sorry,’ she said shakily. ‘I had no right—’

      ‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry. It was the most stupid and insensitive thing to do and, oh, God, Sabrina…’ His voice deepened to a caress as he saw her face crumple. ‘Princess, don’t cry. Please, don’t cry.’

      ‘I’m n-not c-crying,’ she sobbed quietly, trying simultaneously to push him out of the room and close the door after him, and failing miserably to do either.

      Saying something that she couldn’t quite make out, Guy just grabbed her by the hand and steered her into the sitting room.

      ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she spluttered.

      ‘What does it look like? I’m taking you somewhere where we can talk.’ Somewhere that didn’t involve a bed. ‘I’m damned if I’m going to have you fainting on me for a second time!’

      ‘I’m not going to faint. I want to go to bed,’ she said plaintively.

      ‘Well, we need to talk,’ he said grimly. ‘Or, rather, you need to talk, princess.’

      He pushed her down very gently on the sofa and covered her with a cashmere throw, which was as light as a feather and as warm as toast.

      ‘That’s nice,’ she said automatically.

      It was also vital, in his opinion, that she cover up. If he wanted to talk to her—or, rather, have her talk to him—then he needed to concentrate. And it would be damned nigh impossible trying to concentrate on anything—other than an urgent need to possess her—when that silky robe was clinging like honey to the sweet swell of her limbs and moulding the perfect outline of her tiny breasts.

      He sat down next to her and stared into the pale heart of her face. ‘It was thoughtless of me. I should have telephoned—told you I was going to be late.’

      ‘It doesn’t matter.’ She shook her head. ‘I had no right to expect—’

      ‘You had every right to expect consideration,’ he refuted heatedly. ‘And at least a modicum of understanding.’ There was a grim kind of pause and his grey eyes glittered with self-recrimination. ‘And I showed you neither.’ He had deliberately stayed out tonight—and he still wasn’t sure why—without thinking through the consequences of his actions. ‘Neither,’ he finished bitterly.

      ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she repeated, and even managed to raise her shoulders in a shrug, as if it really didn’t matter, but he shook his head like a man who was onto something and wouldn’t give up.

      ‘Why don’t you tell me,’ he said slowly, ‘about the night Michael died? Is that what happened? Were you waiting for him and he never came?’

      Something in the burning intensity of his eyes pierced right through the barriers she’d built around herself. She’d pushed the memories of that night to the far recesses of her mind. Deliberately. It had been a defence mechanism to shield her from the bitter pain, and the guilt. She’d refused counsellors and her mother’s faltering requests that she open up and talk to someone.

      But something in Guy’s face completely disarmed her, and her words of defiance and denial died on her lips.

      ‘OK, I’ll tell.’ She nodded her head slowly. ‘I’ll tell you everything.’ There was a pause while she struggled to find the right words. ‘Like I said, Michael wanted to go out that night and I didn’t, and it was more than about the fact we couldn’t afford it. It was a filthy night. The weather was awful…snow and ice.’

      She took a slow, shuddering breath and stared at him as she forced herself to face up to the truth for the first time. ‘Just awful. I said that it wasn’t a good night to be out driving…but he wouldn’t listen…He just wouldn’t listen!’

      Guy nodded as the strands of her story began to be woven together, beginning to make some sense of her guilt.

      ‘I told him to be sure and ring me when he got to the pub, only the phone call didn’t СКАЧАТЬ