Her Secret Pregnancy. Sharon Kendrick

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СКАЧАТЬ leaned back in the chair and took the opportunity to study her, which gave him far more pleasure than he felt comfortable with. Donna King had turned into a real little head-turner, he recognised wryly—despite her unconventional looks and her even more unconventional background.

      He’d worked long enough in the high-octane world of upmarket restaurants to recognise that the deceptive simplicity of her cream silk dress would cost what most people earned in a month. As would those sexy high-heeled shoes he’d glimpsed as she’d slid her ankles be-neath the table. Shoes like that cost money. He’d bet she had a handbag to match. He glanced at the floor to where, like most women, she had placed it, close to her feet. Yes, she did!

      She was looking at him expectantly, and he remembered her question.

      How had she changed?

      ‘You used to look cheap,’ he said honestly, not seeming to notice her frozen expression. ‘Now you look expensive. A high-maintenance woman. With expensive tastes,’ he added. ‘So who pays for it, Donna? Who’s the lucky man?’

      Donna bristled. ‘Heavens—but you’re behind the times!’ she scoffed. ‘Women don’t need to rely on men to pay for their finery, not these days. Everything I’m wearing I paid for myself!’

      Marcus swallowed. Then it was money well spent.

      Someone had threaded a cream satin ribbon though the fiery strands of her hair, sending out a seductive and confusing signal of schoolgirl sophistication. And her breasts were partially concealed behind a cleverly cut jacket. So that one moment he could see their erotic swell, only to have the jacket shield them when she moved her body slightly forward. It was maddening! He felt the intrusive jerk of desire, and willed it to go away.

      ‘And you’re wearing make-up,’ he observed, almost accusingly. ‘Yet you never used to wear a scrap!’

      Donna laughed. ‘Of course I didn’t! When you get up at six in the morning to start stripping the beds, slapping on make-up is the very last thing on your mind. Believe me—a chambermaid’s life doesn’t lend itself very well to glamour.’

      ‘Not unless you get lucky with the boss.’

      She stared at him. ‘But I didn’t get lucky, did I, Marcus? In fact the best bit of luck I had was having the courage to walk away from this place without a backward glance.’

      ‘Yet you’re here today?’ he said bluntly. ‘Why?’

      ‘I’m celebrating.’

      ‘How very intriguing,’ he murmured. ‘Shall I guess why, or are you going to tell me?’

      Well, he would find out soon enough, whatever she said—and then he might sit up and wipe that smug smile off his face and take notice of something other than her body—which she noticed he hadn’t stopped looking at.

      Donna had opened her mouth to reply, when a very beautiful woman wearing a sleek black dress carried a tray of coffee over to their table.

      Donna watched the woman’s gleaming black head, with its perfectly symmetrical centre parting, as she set down the tiny cups and the cafetière in front of them, and the plate of thin almond biscuits. Then she heard her ask, ‘Anything else for you, Marcus?’ in a soft French accent, and noticed that she looked at him with politely concealed lust shining from her dark eyes.

      ‘No, thanks!’ He shook his head, his attention momentarily distracted as he watched the girl glide away.

      ‘She seems very efficient,’ observed Donna.

      ‘Yes, she is.’

      ‘And very good-looking.’ Now why had she said that?

      He raised his eyebrows. ‘Very.’

      ‘But not one of the waitresses—judging by her dress,’ she probed.

      He gave her a perplexed smile. ‘Do you want to talk about my staff, Donna?’

      ‘Of course not.’

      He poured out the coffee, automatically offering Donna the sugar bowl, and she felt a little tug of nos-talgia as she wondered whether he’d actually remembered her excessively sweet tooth.

      ‘No, thanks. I’ve given up sugar in tea and coffee.’

      ‘What, even when you’re mysteriously celebrating?’

      ‘It’s no mystery.’ She sipped her coffee and smiled. ‘That’s the reason I was having lunch with Tony Paxman, if you really want to know. I’ve just tied up a deal.’

      ‘What kind of deal is that?’

      She heard the condescension in his voice and her determination not to be smug or triumphant threatened to fly out of the window. But she hauled it back. ‘A business deal,’ she told him coolly. ‘Which I happen to have set up.’ She sat back in her chair and waited to hear what he would say.

      He frowned at her, looking as puzzled as if she’d just announced she was running for mayor. ‘You mean you’re going to be working for someone else?’

      ‘What a predictable and irritating conclusion to jump to! Actually, I’m going to be working for myself.’ Donna even allowed herself a smile. ‘I’m the boss.’

      His hand stilled only briefly on its path to the sugar bowl, and he picked a cube up between his fingers, dipped it into his coffee and bit into it. ‘Doing what?’

      She savoured the moment like a hot bath at the end of a long, hard day. ‘Running a restaurant, actually,’ she answered serenely.

      ‘Where?’

      ‘Right here in Winchester.’

      His interest was stirred, along with his imagination. It was far too close to home to be mere coincidence, surely? The same business, in the same town.

      So why?

      Was she seeking revenge for what had happened all those years ago? Or was her extraordinary decision to come back based on a far more basic urge? Had that last night left a dark, demon blot on her memory, as it had on his?

      Did she want…? Marcus felt the sweet, slow throbbing of sexual excitement begin…Did she want to play out that scene once more—only this time with a far more mutually satisfactory ending?

      ‘Well, you really must have come along by leaps and bounds, Donna,’ he mused, ‘if you’re planning a capital venture on a chambermaid’s salary.’

      If the remark had been made in order to inflame, then it served its purpose. ‘Do I look like a chambermaid?’ she demanded.

      His groin ached. No. Right now she looked as he had never imagined she could look. Beautiful and proud and refined and, well…classy.

      ‘Do I?’ she persisted.

      ‘No,’ he growled. ‘But that’s what you were the last time I saw you.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘It makes me wonder what you’ve been doing in the intervening years to put you in the position of being able to buy a restaurant.’

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