HER heart hammering at the sight of him, Joss got out of the car, slammed the door shut, locked it, then turned hostile eyes up to his face. ‘You told Lord Morville to ask for my address,’ she accused.
He shrugged. ‘It was unlikely you’d give it to me.’
Joss glared at him, secretly cursing him for catching her with a shiny face and windblown hair. ‘So why are you here?’
‘I was just passing.’ The slanted navy blue eyes gleamed with a smile which set her teeth on edge.
‘Very amusing,’ snapped Joss, and put her key in the door, then turned to face him. ‘I’m tired, so I’ll say goodnight.’
‘Not so fast—I want to talk to you,’ he said imperiously. ‘It won’t take long. Ask me in. Or we can have the conversation out here in the street. Your choice.’
Since Daniel Armstrong so very obviously meant what he said, Joss gave in. ‘Oh, very well.’ She unlocked the door and led the way up the stairs that led directly into her new sitting room.
‘I like this better than the other place,’ said Dan, looking round him in approval. ‘Sound investment.’
‘Ah,’ said Joss tartly. ‘There speaks the property developer.’
Dan stood at the window, looking down at the street. ‘You make those sound like dirty words.’ He turned to look at her. ‘Francis was joking. If I do knock buildings down they’re derelict eyesores. And the others I put up in their place are always sympathetic to their environment.’
‘How interesting,’ said Joss politely, hoping he couldn’t tell how deeply she was affected simply by being alone with him again. And by the way his sheer presence dominated the room. She gestured at the boxes of books waiting for transfer to the shelves she’d put up. ‘I’m afraid I’m not very tidy yet. And I’ve bought only the basic requirements, like this sofa and—and so on, but at least it’s all my own. Won’t you sit down?’
But Dan wasn’t looking at the room. ‘You look just as good in trousers as the sexy black dress,’ he said, startling her.
‘Thank you,’ she said, swallowing. ‘Can I give you a drink, or some coffee?’
‘Aren’t you curious to know why I came chasing after you?’ he asked, moving closer.
Joss backed away. ‘To vent your anger about my disappearing act?’ she said curtly, annoyed because she felt flustered.
‘I did that in Home Farm while Francis was making coffee.’ He smiled slowly. ‘Have you any idea how I felt when I found you sitting at his dining table?’
She nodded. ‘Similar to my own reaction, I imagine—’
‘I doubt it.’ Dan moved nearer, and this time Joss stood her ground. ‘I couldn’t believe my eyes. For the first time in our long association I could have blacked Lord Morville’s eye.’
‘Why?’ she demanded, half knowing the answer, yet afraid to believe it.
‘Because it was a shock to find my elusive Eve in the last place I expected,’ he said, his voice deepening. ‘I was jealous. An emotion unknown to me before today.’
Joss cleared her throat, feeling breathless. ‘I’d never have known. You were so damn hostile you put me off my lunch.’
‘I noticed!’ His smile was so smug she wanted to hit him. ‘It gave me great satisfaction to watch you pushing food round your plate.’
‘Why?’
Dan took her hand and led her to the new sofa, which was larger and much better suited to his proportions than the old one. ‘Sit down while I explain.’
Wishing her funds had run to a matching chair, Joss sat, leaving as much space as possible for her unexpected guest. ‘Explain what?’ she asked coolly.
‘The night we met you were smarting over your treatment at your defecting lover’s hands.’ His eyes locked with hers. ‘Am I right?’
Joss nodded. ‘Yes. You know that. Otherwise—’
Dan nodded swiftly. ‘Otherwise you wouldn’t have let me drive you home, let alone asked me to make love to you. Not,’ he added, with a crooked smile, ‘that I needed persuasion. But up to that point I’d actually deluded myself I could leave you on that bed and steal virtuously into the night.’
‘I knew that all along. Which is why I was so shameless. But suddenly I needed my belief in myself as a woman restored.’ She held his eyes. ‘I’d never asked a man to make love to me before, and don’t foresee doing it again. Ever.’
Dan nodded soberly. ‘I realise that. But picture my feelings when I found you’d vanished. And the owner of your old flat flatly refused to give me your new address.’
‘Nick was acting on instructions,’ said Joss, biting her lip.
‘Another slap in the face.’ He took her hand. ‘I came back from my trip expecting to come courting, Joss—sounds naive now.’
‘Not to me,’ she said quietly.
‘Then why the hell did you hide from me?’
‘I was sure I’d be exchanging the frying pan for the fire. I gave you entirely the wrong impression about the real Joscelyn Hunter.’ She gave him a wry smile. ‘I may be a supposedly hard-nosed journalist, but underneath it all I’m still my father’s daughter.’
‘What was he like?’ asked Dan with interest.
‘Kind, humorous, supportive. Dad was the vicar of a large country parish in Warwickshire, and brought me up single-handed. My mother died when I was little.’
‘So you’re the product of lone parent upbringing, like Francis?’
Joss nodded. ‘Mrs Herrick—Anna’s mother—always treated me like a second daughter, but I used to envy girls who had mothers of their own. Which is part of the reason, in the end, why Peter Sadler left me.’
He frowned blankly. ‘Run that past me again?’
‘He wanted children right now. I didn’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘I wanted to wait until our joint finances let me work from home. Being motherless myself, I was determined to be on hand for my child and do my job at the same time. The best of both worlds.’ She eyed him challengingly. ‘But, confidentially, I’m not sure I’m the maternal type. I don’t drool over other people’s babies. And I love my job the way it is. I was perfectly happy to wait.’
Dan nodded. ‘I can appreciate that. Fatherhood doesn’t appeal to me in the slightest. It does to Francis, but in his case it’s only natural. He wants an heir for Eastlegh. But I applaud your honesty—Joss.’ He smiled wryly. ‘Your name doesn’t exactly trip from the tongue yet. I still think of you as Eve.’
‘You must have thought I was a total airhead, insisting on assumed names!’
He shook his head. ‘I never doubted your intelligence. And my name wasn’t assumed. I was christened Daniel Adam Francis Armstrong.’
‘Of course—Adam after your great-grandfather. But why Francis?’
‘All the first-born Morvilles are Francis. Old Lord Morville was my godfather, and insisted I took the name as well.’
‘So you even share a name with Francis—did you cut each other’s wrists and swear a blood oath, too?’
‘Of course we did.’ Dan nodded matter-of-factly, and held out a sinewy wrist where a slight scar was just visible. ‘Before Francis went away to school.’
‘Did you miss him when he went?’
‘Damn right I did,’ said Dan tersely. ‘But to return to the subject of motherhood, did your lover jilt you for your lack of enthusiasm?’
Joss winced. ‘It was part of it, I suppose. He’d been growing steadily more morose for weeks, which I took to be displeasure on the subject coupled with problems with his current project. But actually it was a lot more basic than that.’ She shrugged. ‘He just didn’t want me anymore.’
‘I do,’ said Dan casually.
Joss sat very still, her heart thumping so loudly it seemed certain he could hear it.
‘Did you hear what I said?’
‘Yes.’
‘You look stunned.’
‘I feel stunned.’
‘Why?’ He leaned back, looking so relaxed Joss felt resentful.
‘For one thing,’ she began, pulling herself together, ‘today, at lunch, you said you had no ambitions to fill the vacancy in my life.’
‘I lied. I was still seething over your treatment, Miss Hunter.’ He shrugged. ‘I was furious when I came back from my travels to find you’d vanished.’
‘I’ve explained about that.’
‘Yes. Convinced I’d demand a repeat performance the moment I laid eyes on you.’ He shook his head. ‘Not likely, anyway, Joss. That kind of experience rarely happens twice.’
‘True,’ she said lightly, and got up. ‘But I’m glad we did meet again.’
Dan rose slowly to his feet. ‘Why?’ he demanded.
‘Because it gave me the opportunity to explain.’ And because meeting him again made it plain her instincts had been faultless, after all.
‘When I said that night could never be repeated,’ Dan said deliberately, ‘I meant the assumed names and the emotional state you were in.’
‘I see.’
‘I don’t think you do.’ Dan took her hand and drew her closer. ‘I propose we backtrack a little. Get to know each other and go on from there.’
She looked at him steadily. ‘That sounds very businesslike.’
‘Then I’m putting on a good act.’ His eyes glittered suddenly. ‘To be blunt, I want to pick you up and take you to bed right now. But even if you were willing I wouldn’t try.’
Joss stared at him, her eyes asking the question she couldn’t bring herself to utter.
Dan smiled, and put out a hand to touch her cheek. ‘If I did you’d be convinced that was all I wanted. And it isn’t. Not by a long way.’ He raised a sardonic eyebrow. ‘Or is your opinion the same now we’ve seen each other in the light of day?’
‘What opinion?’
‘The one that sent you running for cover.’
‘No,’ she said honestly.
Dan frowned. ‘Does that mean I pass muster after all, even now you know who I am?’
‘Yes.’
‘Does journalism train you to be monosyllabic?’
She scowled at him. ‘It trains me in a lot of things, one of which is the ability to see both sides of an argument. Which means I can appreciate how you felt when I went missing. But try to put yourself in my shoes. My trust in men isn’t exactly rock-solid these days.’
Dan looked at her levelly. ‘You can trust me.’
Joss went over to her desk, took a snapshot from a drawer, and held it behind her back as she returned to him. ‘If,’ she began with care, ‘we did become friends, is there anyone who might object to the arrangement?’
Dan frowned. ‘A woman?’
For answer Joss held out the photograph of Dan at Ascot with his beautiful befeathered companion.
He took it, staring at it in surprise. ‘Where did you get this?’
‘I took it myself.’
‘Then you did see me that day. Why the hell didn’t you speak to me?’ he demanded.
Joss shrugged. ‘You were too involved with your companion.’
He tapped the photograph irritably. ‘The Honourable Mrs Denby Hayter, to be precise. Otherwise Serena, cousin of our mutual friend Lord Morville, and incorrigible flirt all her life. Which is how long I’ve known her.’ Dan advanced on her belligerently. ‘So. Was Serena the reason for your second disappearing act?’
‘Partly, yes.’
‘Only part.’ He seized her by the elbows, pulling her on tiptoe. ‘Tell me. Was the other part because I disappointed you in bed?’
‘No,’ snapped Joss, trying to break free. ‘You were wonderful, amazing, utterly unsurpassed in my experience—if you like I’ll write a piece lauding your sexual prowess and publish it on the front page of the Post.’
For a moment Dan looked ready to shake her until her teeth rattled, then to Joss’s relief he began to laugh and let her go.
‘So you thought I was involved with Serena,’ he said, grinning. ‘Were you jealous?’
‘Of course not,’ she said scornfully. ‘For all I knew the lady could have been your wife.’
‘I told you I was unattached.’
‘You wouldn’t be the first to lie on the subject!’
‘My father brought me up to tell the truth at all times,’ said Dan virtuously, then his smile faded. ‘It’s getting late. I should go.’
Desperate for him to stay, Joss said the first thing that came into her head. ‘Would you like a drink first?’
‘No.’ He moved closer. ‘All I want is this.’ He let out a deep, unsteady breath, then pulled her into his arms and kissed her mouth.
Joss didn’t even try to resist. Whatever components made up Daniel Armstrong’s chemical formula they reacted so instantly with her own that her response brought his arms round her like bands of steel.
‘I didn’t intend this,’ he muttered against her mouth.
‘You said that last time,’ she muttered back.
‘Then I won’t talk any more!’ Instead he kissed her with a demand her body welcomed with such ardour that Joss trembled in his arms, her tongue meeting his in an invitation he acknowledged by picking her up. ‘Where’s your bed?’ he demanded hoarsely.
Joss stiffened. ‘No!’
Dan set her on her feet so suddenly she staggered. They stood staring at each other, breath tearing through their chests.
‘I apologise,’ panted Dan raggedly.
Joss inclined her head in silent acknowledgement, unable to speak.
‘And now, of course,’ he said bitterly, ‘you’re convinced you were right.’
‘No,’ she said unsteadily. ‘I know you didn’t come here tonight just to—to—’
‘Prove your suspicions correct.’
Joss smiled faintly. ‘I was going to say to make love to me.’
‘If,’ he said tightly, ‘we could talk about something else I might possibly stop wanting to do that.’
‘Would you like a drink?’ she said quickly.
His smile was wry. ‘Black coffee?’
Joss went off to the kitchen alone, in desperate need of time to recover. What was it about this man? she thought despairingly. One touch of his hands and she melted like butter. And in a way she’d never been prone to before, with Peter or anyone else.
‘Joss,’ Dan said soberly, when she rejoined him. ‘Let’s start again.’
‘Where, exactly?’
‘From somewhere before I touched you.’ His eyes met hers. ‘As must be painfully obvious, I can’t allow myself to do that.’
She flushed, then busied herself with pouring coffee. ‘Which is deeply flattering from my point of view. And reassuring.’
‘Reassuring?’
‘It convinces me I didn’t go totally insane that night.’ She handed him his coffee. ‘But it does tend to make sensible conversation difficult.’
He grinned. ‘At least you didn’t throw me out.’
Joss looked him up and down. ‘Somehow I can’t see myself managing that single-handed. Besides…’ She bit her lip.
‘Besides what?’ he prompted.
‘I wasn’t exactly fighting you off.’
‘That honesty of yours again.’
She smiled wryly. ‘Like you, I had early training in such matters.’
Dan drank his coffee quickly, then got to his feet. ‘I’m off to Scotland in the morning, until Friday, unfortunately. But next Saturday I’ll return your hospitality—on neutral territory. Just tell me which restaurant you prefer.’
‘I haven’t said I’m free next Saturday.’
Dan bent down to take her hand and pulled her to her feet. ‘If you’re not, cancel,’ he ordered.
Her immediate instinct was to refuse. But some deep-hidden instinct responded quite shamelessly to such high-handedness. ‘All right,’ she said after a while.
‘Where?’ he demanded.
‘I’ll think about it—and fax my choice to you.’
Dan laughed, and raised her hand to his lips. ‘This morning I had no idea what lay in store for me at Eastlegh.’
‘Neither did I!’ she said with feeling.
‘If you had, would you have cancelled?’
‘Certainly not. I was working, remember.’ She looked up at him, very conscious of the hard hand still holding hers. ‘How about you?’
‘No way,’ he said promptly, then spoilt it by reminding her that a visit to his parent had been his motive. ‘Filial respect and all that,’ he added virtuously.
Joss laughed, and tried to remove her hand, but Dan held onto it.
‘I want to kiss you,’ he said abruptly.
Because every one of her hormones was urging her to let him, Joss was well aware of it. ‘Unwise,’ she said reluctantly.
‘And are you always wise?’ he asked, his voice deepening to a note which dried her mouth.
‘No,’ she said unevenly. ‘As you well know—’ The rest of her words were smothered as his mouth made nonsense of her defences.
Joss gave herself up to the strength and barely controlled passion of his embrace, the heat and desire in his taut body arousing hers in a way no other man had ever been able to. Then she stopped thinking about other men, or about anything at all, as Dan sat her on the edge of the sofa and knelt between her parted knees to undo her shirt. With unsteady hands he freed her breasts to his lips and grazing teeth, stroking her covered thighs with caressing fingers which brought her rapidly to an arousal equal to his own. This time there was no mention of bed. By unspoken consent they sank to the floor, upsetting the coffee tray with a crash neither of them even noticed in their frantic haste to shed each other’s clothes, their wild caresses rousing each other to such a state of frenzy their mating was short, but shatteringly sweet, the magic as powerful as before.
Afterwards, it was a long time before either of them stirred. Dan raised his head at last and looked down at Joss’s flushed face and kissed the beads of moisture away from her upper lip.
‘You’re a dangerous lady,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I’ve never lost it like that before.’
Joss opened a considering eye. ‘Tactless to mention “before” right now,’ she pointed out, and Dan grinned.
‘Point taken.’ His grin widened as he spotted various garments scattered among broken china and spilt sugar from the coffee tray. ‘Not that I’ve ever been in this particular situation with a woman before.’
Joss detached herself sufficiently to look and shuddered. ‘What a mess!’ She struggled to get up but Dan prevented her, looking down at her in a way which drove all thoughts of clearing up from her mind.
‘Are you going to make love to me again?’ she asked bluntly.
Dan’s silent laugh vibrated against her breasts. ‘Since you ask, yes. Why?’
‘This floor is hard.’
‘When I asked about bed last time it put an end to proceedings,’ he reminded her, his lazy, skilful hands making sure this was unlikely a second time.
‘My bedroom’s at the end of the hall,’ gasped Joss, and Dan pulled her to her feet, kissed her, then scooped her up in his arms and carried her to bed.
It was the early hours of morning before Dan forced himself to break away. ‘I must get home,’ he said without enthusiasm. ‘I haven’t even packed yet.’
‘Do you want a shower before you go?’ said Joss, yawning, then raised an eyebrow at the sudden gleam in his eyes. ‘What?’
‘Have one with me,’ he said, kissing a bare toe.
The shower took a long time, and ended in more lovemaking and then another shower, so that dawn had overtaken them before Dan was finally ready to go.
‘This time,’ he said sternly, from the foot of the bed, ‘don’t steal away in the morning without telling me.’
Joss shook her head, and pulled the covers up to her chin. ‘Nowhere to go.’
Dan took a wallet from his back pocket and fished out a card. ‘You can reach me at either number if you need me.’
Joss took the card and held it to the lamp to read it, her face suddenly blank with astonishment. ‘Is this your company?’
‘Yes. It’s relatively small as yet, but expanding fast. I promise you, Athena will soon be one of the biggest names in property development. Why do you ask?’
Joss gave him a very odd little smile. ‘Peter Sadler’s an architect. He worked for one of the firms who tendered for your riverside development. You turned his plans down.’
Dan eyed her challengingly. ‘Does it make a difference?’
‘To what, exactly?’
‘To a relationship between us.’ He strode round the bed to sit beside her.
Joss shook her head. ‘Why should it? You chose the best tender for the job; Peter’s effort didn’t come up to scratch. End of story.’
Dan took her in his arms and held her close. ‘No,’ he said against her hair. ‘Not the end. For us it’s just beginning.’ He put her away from him and looked down into her flushed face. ‘Though if I’d met you beforehand I’d have thrown Sadler’s plans out without looking at them. He had his chance with you and blew it. Do you still mind about that?’
Joss considered for a moment, then answered with her usual candour. ‘No. Not after meeting up with you again.’
Dan smoothed her hair back from her face. ‘In that case, Miss Hunter, am I going too fast if I demand exclusive rights on your free time from now on?’
Joss looked at him thoughtfully. ‘I enjoy socialising with other journalists—male and female—for a meal or a drink after work sometimes.’
‘Done,’ he said promptly. ‘But keep the male company in the plural.’
‘And I work very irregular hours,’ she reminded him. ‘With Peter that was always a bone of contention. I can never guarantee to be in the right place at the right time.’
‘Neither can I,’ he said, then took her breath away. ‘Move in with me, Joss. That way we can at least spend whatever free time we’ve got together.’
Joss shook her head firmly. ‘It’s too soon for that, Dan. I’m still recovering from my last relationship. Let’s get to know each other better first. For the moment I rather like living alone again.’
Dan looked down at her in silence, then a wry smile curved his mouth. ‘It can’t be soon enough for me, but I’ll wait—but only for a while, Joss. On the journey to Scotland I’ll think up ways to make you change your mind.’
‘Have you lived with a woman before?’ she asked bluntly.
‘No. Unless you count a flat shared with both sexes in my student days.’ Dan shrugged. ‘But that was just accommodation. You’re the first woman I’ve asked to share on a one-to-one basis.’
‘Really?’ She wreathed her hands behind his head, bringing his mouth to hers for a kiss that quickly threatened to get out of hand again.
‘If I don’t go now,’ said Dan thickly, ‘I’ll miss the plane.’ He straightened, his smile crooked as he looked down at her. ‘I’ll give you breathing space, Joscelyn Hunter. But not much. Why waste time apart when we could be together?’