‘WOULD YOU LIKE sparkling or still water?’
Glancing up from the bread roll she had spent far too long buttering, Margot smiled politely at the waiter. ‘Still, please.’
She glanced across the table to where Max was discussing the wine with the hotel’s sommelier. They were having lunch in his hotel suite. He had texted her an hour earlier, telling her what time to arrive, and although she was irritated by the no doubt deliberate short notice she was grateful not to have to prolong the agony, and relieved that he’d suggested lunch and not dinner.
Although now she was here she couldn’t help feeling on edge, for being summoned to his rooms had made her feel like some kind of concubine.
Carefully, she laid her knife across her side plate. He had also—and this time she had no doubt that he’d done it deliberately—omitted to tell her where he was staying.
Of course he hadn’t been hard to find. Judging by the amount of column inches given over to his presence in Paris, Max Montigny’s whereabouts were not just a key piece of information to her, but a matter of fascination to most of the French public.
Her heartbeat twitched.
His casual, arrogant assumption that she’d have no choice but to track him down made her want to reach over and slap his beautiful face. But what did it matter, really? In the wider scheme of things it was just another hoop for her to jump through—a nudge to remind her that he was in charge. Not that she really needed the balance of power in their relationship to be pointed out. Every humbling second of yesterday’s meeting was seared onto her brain.
But, although it been painful and humiliating to have to accept his proposal, of the many emotions she was feeling the one that was overriding all others was not anger, nor even misery, but oddly relief. Since Max had offered to marry her and turn her business around, for the first time in the longest time some of the crushing burden of responsibility she’d been carrying around seemed to have lifted from her shoulders.
Finally there would be somebody by her side. Somebody who would have her back. She shivered. If still felt strange, though, putting her life and her family’s future into the hands of Max Montigny.
Her mouth felt suddenly dry.
If only the secrecy and lies surrounding their arrangement had felt equally unfamiliar. But they hadn’t. Instead everything—the half-truths she had told her grandfather about where she was going, her decision to drive herself and thus not include her chauffeur in the deception—had all conspired to make time contort.
And the unsettling sensation of past and present blurring hadn’t gone away when, having kept her waiting for ten minutes, Max had finally strolled into the room, dressed casually in jeans and a grey T-shirt.
His lateness had been as deliberate as his failure to tell her where they were meeting, and she had found it just as provoking, but that wasn’t the reason her heart had begun beating faster.
Watching him move towards her, with a languid purpose that had made her stomach tighten painfully, she had been forced to face the truth. That her body’s response to him in the boardroom had been no one-off. And that, even while she loathed him, his beauty could still reduce the world around her to mere scenery.
‘Good.’
Max’s voice cut into her confused thoughts and, looking up, she felt her eyes bump into his. Instantly, she felt a rush of nerves, as though she was about to tackle the Cresta Run instead of merely eat lunch.
‘Thanks, Jean-Luc.’ His gaze never leaving her face, he dismissed the sommelier with a nod of his dark head. ‘I hope you don’t mind but I thought it would be easier if I selected the wine.’ The corners of his mouth twitched. ‘Save any arguments.’
‘Of course,’ she said tightly, her heart banging against her chest. ‘What did you choose?’
‘A Clement-Dury Montrachet to start, and then a Domaine-Corton Pinot Noir to follow.’
‘I like them both,’ she said truthfully. ‘Especially the Montrachet. It has such a good finish.’
Max grinned suddenly, and the unguarded excitement in his eyes caught her off-balance.
‘It does, doesn’t it? I like the balance of flavours—and that citrus really resonates.’ He picked up the wine menu and flicked through it idly. ‘They’ve got a great list here…really strong on small producers.’ His face grew mocking. ‘Although, rather embarrassingly for them, the management turned me down when I was starting out.’
Margot looked at him blankly, caught off guard by his remark, for—just like the rest of his life—Max’s dizzyingly rapid rise to success was a mystery to her.
‘It must have been hard for you,’ she said cautiously. ‘It’s amazing…what you’ve done.’
He shrugged. ‘I worked hard, and it helped that we got some outstanding reviews in the wine press.’
She nodded, but she hardly took in his words. She was too distracted by the speed with which their relationship was moving. Yesterday they had been hurling the verbal equivalent of thunderbolts at one another, and yet here there were today, talking almost normally, just like any other couple having lunch.
Tearing off a piece of her roll, she slid it into her mouth and forced herself to chew. And that was what she’d wanted, wasn’t it? A civilised arrangement, free from unsettling feelings and even more unsettling actions.
Her skin grew warm as once again she remembered that kiss in the boardroom, remembered pleasures buried but not forgotten, the glowing imprint of his lips and fingers on her skin…
The sommelier returned at that moment and, heart pounding, she waited for him to pour the wine into their glasses. When finally they were alone again she said crisply, ‘Is that why you chose this place?’ She made herself look across at him. ‘Or was it the allure of the black door?’
She was referring to the famous hidden entrance to the building, which allowed the hotel’s A-list clientele and their overnight guests to come and go without having to face the intruding lenses of the paparazzi.
His mouth curled upwards. ‘The former, I’m afraid. Sadly, I don’t have anything or anyone to hide from the press.’ He made a show of hesitating, his eyes glittering with amusement. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. Was that the Duvernay way of telling me that you’re planning on staying over?’
She glared at him, torn between fury at his arrogance and despair at the lurch of heat his words produced.
Picking up another piece of bread, she mashed butter into it savagely. ‘If you seriously believe that, then you must have an awfully vivid imagination.’
He stared at her across the table. His expression was still pleasant and interested, but there was a definite tension in the air.
‘I don’t need an imagination to remember what it’s like between us, Margot.’
Her body felt suddenly soft and boneless. She knew he was talking about what had happened in the boardroom, but she deliberately chose to misinterpret him.
‘I’ll have to take your word on that,’ she said stiffly. ‘What happened between us was such a long time ago and so brief I can barely remember it.’
‘Really?’
The word slid over her skin like a caress, and he gave her a smile that made the edges of her vision start to blur. Breathing in unsteadily, she curled her fingers into her palms, feeling her skin tighten with shame at how easily she had succumbed to the pull of the past. At how even here, now, her body was responding to his with a hunger and a lack of judgement that was both undeniable and humiliating.
As though reading her thoughts, he leaned forward, his eyes resting on her face, watching the colour spread slowly over her cheeks.
‘Then your memory must be awfully poor, indeed. Or just in need of refreshing, perhaps.’
For a second they both stared at one another, and then he picked up his wine glass. ‘À ta santé.’
The meal was perfect. The hotel’s chef was renowned, and clearly he was determined to impress. Ratte potatoes topped with a mousseline of smoked haddock and Sologne caviar was followed by turbot with wild pink garlic in a brown butter zabaglione. There was an array of seasonal regional French cheeses, and to finish an iced coffee parfait with a lemongrass-infused chocolate sorbet.
Laying down her cutlery, Margot felt sudden panic squeeze her chest. Throughout lunch the constant presence of the staff had prevented any long, awkward silences, and she had been able to smile and chat quite naturally. But now the meal was coming to an end, and as the waiters quietly left the room, she felt her pulse start to accelerate.
Being alone with Max had been difficult enough when she’d been shocked and angry. Now, though, the shock had faded, and her anger was at best intermittent—like Morse Code.
Unfortunately, what hadn’t faded was her susceptibility to his beauty and sexuality. Her shoulders stiffened. But even if she couldn’t control her body’s response to him, she certainly didn’t have to act on it.
Yes, she might have agreed to become his wife, but there was a huge difference between what was legal and what was real. Their wedding might be legal, but it would be purely for show. No ceremony, lawful or otherwise, could stop Max being the man who was blackmailing her into marriage—in other words, her enemy.
Remembering again that near-miss kiss in the boardroom, she shivered. Except what kind of enemies kissed?
Picking up her glass, she took a sip of wine. She wasn’t going to think about that now. All she wanted to do at this moment was get through this meal, discuss the terms of their agreement and then leave.
Her mouth twisted. That, at least, was different from the past.
Back then she and Max had been desperate to be alone. To have privacy to talk, to touch, to laugh, to listen. But there had always been people around them—estate workers, guests staying at the chateau, and of course her family. Back then it had been like a kind of torture to have to remember that they were ‘just friends’, and that she couldn’t touch him as she did in private.
Quashing the memory of just how much she had liked to touch him in private, she looked up and found Max watching her appraisingly, the blue and green of his gaze so level and steady that her heart began banging inside her throat.
Hoping that her face revealed nothing of her thoughts, and eager to be away from his scrutiny, she said stiffly, ‘Shall we take coffee in the lounge?’
To her relief, he nodded, but as she walked into the large, opulent sitting room she swore silently. It was bad enough there were no armchairs, but the curtains had been drawn against the piercing afternoon sun, and there was something about the shadowy room and the sleek black velvet sofas that made her stomach flip over—some hint of a private salon, of soft breathing and damp skin…
Summoning up what she hoped was a casual smile, she sat down. Seconds later she felt him drop down beside her, as she’d known he would, and then his weight tipped her slightly sideways, and she felt her pulse stumble as his leg brushed against hers.
Instantly the hairs on her arms stood up, and it took every ounce of willpower she had not to lean into the heat and hardness of his thigh and press her body against his.
Shaken by the close contact, shocked by the explicitness of her thoughts, she turned and stared quickly across the room to the gap between the curtains.
Outside the window Paris was all pink blossom and golden sunlight. It was the most perfectly romantic of backdrops and her heart began to beat faster, for it seemed so glaringly at odds with what she and Max were agreeing to do.
‘Coffee?’
She blinked, then nodded, but in truth her mind was already slipping away—back to the memory of another sunlit afternoon and another cup of coffee.
It had been a moment of rare impulsiveness. Knowing it was Max’s day off, she had gone to his cottage alone. She had felt bold and reckless—in short, nothing like her normal self. But when Max had finally opened the door, shirtless, his eyes neither green nor blue but somewhere in between, her bravado had fled, her body stilling, her mind blank with panic. Because that was as far as she’d got inside her head.
Everything else had been just a fantasy.
And maybe it would have stayed a fantasy—only, incredibly, Max had asked her in and made her a cup of coffee. A cup of coffee that had sat and gone cold while her fantasy became real. Or so she’d thought at the time.
She cleared her throat. ‘Just black. Thank you.’
‘When did you drop the sugar?’
Drop the sugar? She stared at him blankly. Was that some kind of code or slang?
He raised an eyebrow. ‘You used to take sugar.’
It was not quite a question, and his voice sounded softer, almost teasing, as though the nod to their shared past had softened his mood.
But it wasn’t fair of Max to change the tone from sotto to scherzando without warning. Nor was it fair of him to smile like that, she thought helplessly, her eyes drawn inexorably to the slight fullness of his lower lip. It wasn’t fair of him to remind her of the past she’d worked so hard to forget. A past that hadn’t even been real.
She cleared her throat.
‘Yes, I did.’ She nodded. ‘But I stopped putting it in my coffee a few years ago. In fact, we barely eat any sugar at home any more—extra sugar, I mean.’
Max stared at her in silence, his face showing none of the emotion that was tearing through his chest.
Watching her talk, he had forgotten just for the briefest of moments why she was there. Forgotten why ‘it’—the two of them—had ended all those years ago. Instead, he could only think of the reasons it had started.
Her smile. Her laughter. Her brain. He’d loved that she was smart—not just book-smart, although she had always been that but perceptive in a way that had suggested she was far older than nineteen.
And her body.
Useless to lie. He was a man, and what normal heterosexual man wouldn’t respond to that arrangement of contours and curves and clefts. His heart thumped against the roof of his mouth and an answering pulse of desire started to beat in his groin.
Ignoring the heat breaking out on his skin, he forced himself to speak. ‘Any particular reason?’
Margot shrugged. She hadn’t expected him to pursue the topic, and suddenly she was grappling with how much to give away. Her grandfather’s poor health was not common knowledge, but to give no answer would be just as revealing.
‘My grandfather had a stroke about six months ago,’ she said flatly. ‘Modifying his diet was something the doctors suggested we do afterwards.’ She took a deep breath. ‘But I’m sure you didn’t invite me here to talk about my grandfather’s diet.’
Glancing down at her diamond-set wristwatch, she lifted her chin.
‘And I know you must be as busy as I am. So perhaps we should start discussing the terms of our arrangement?’
Max felt himself tense. If he’d needed a reminder as to why their relationship had always been a non-starter it was there in those sentences, he thought on a rush of fury and resentment. For even now, when she was here only at his bidding, she still couldn’t stop herself drawing a line in the sand, pointedly shutting him out of anything that trespassed on Duvernay matters and bringing the conversation back to business.
Briefly he considered telling her that the deal was off. That if she wanted money that badly there was a bank two doors down from the hotel and another one on the next street. But then he felt his pulse slow.
Looked at differently, Margot had done him a favour, reminding him of what mattered to her: her business and her bloodline. Both of which had been off-limits to a nobody like Max—until now.
He let his gaze drift slowly over her face. ‘From memory, it was less of an invitation and more or an instruction,’ he said softly. ‘Or do you still think you have some say in what’s happening here?’
Her eyes flared and he felt a beat of satisfaction, watching her struggle to stay calm.
‘Fine! You told me to come,’ she retorted, a note of frustration sharpening her voice, ‘and I’m here. So, are we going to discuss our marriage or not?’
He lounged back, the shadow of stubble on his jawline co-ordinating perfectly with the velvet nap of the sofa. ‘We are,’ he said finally, his eyes never leaving her face, ‘but first I want to give you this.’
Reaching into his jacket, he pulled out a small, square box.
His mouth curled into a mocking smile. ‘Don’t get too excited. It’s from necessity, not any sort of romantic impulse on my part. You’ll need to wear it. In public, at least.’
Flipping open the lid, he dropped the box carelessly into her open hand.
There was a short, spiralling silence.
Gazing down, Margot felt her stomach clamp tight, like a vacuum sealing inside her. The ring was beautiful. A huge yellow diamond flanked by two smaller white diamonds. And yet for some reason she couldn’t seem to take it in. Instead she could feel herself being dragged back in time, to the moment when Max had stood in front of her, a pear-cut sapphire set in a band of gold in his outstretched hand.
It had been the most exciting moment in her life.
And the most terrible.
The picture was frozen inside her head. Max, his face expressionless, herself, silent and rigid with shock. And then Yves strolling in, his easy smile twisting, his mood turning from sweet to sour in the blink of an eye, shouting accusations and threats, teeth bared like a cornered dog.
Her brother’s anger had been shocking, awful, brutal. But not as brutal as Max’s admission that none of it had been real. That he’d only ever wanted her for her money.
‘It’s beautiful.’ She knew her voice sounded stilted, fake, but it was all she could manage.
Max studied her face. It was his own fault. For years he’d wanted to believe that he’d been wrong. That she had really wanted to be his wife, and that given the opportunity—
He gritted his teeth. But of course he’d been right the first time. Yves’s intervention had merely brought things to a head. Showing not a flicker of emotion, he said quietly, ‘I’m glad you like it.’
Margot looked up. Something in his voice elbowed aside the promise she’d made not to ask about his personal life. She couldn’t help the sudden swirling riptide of curiosity from rising up inside her, for of course she was curious.
And so, in spite of her intention to stay silent, she found herself saying, ‘It’s lucky neither of us had other commitments.’
She held her breath, waiting for an answer, a sharp needle of jealousy stabbing beneath her heart.
Max felt something heavy dragging down inside of him. If only he could reach across and shake that fixed, polite smile from her mouth. Or maybe it was himself he wanted to shake—anything to shift the dark, leaden ache in his chest.
Watching her, he felt his breath tangle into knots. Luck had nothing to do with it. After Margot he’d had relationships—no-strings, sexually satisfying affairs that had helped ease the sting of her rejection. But work had been his real commitment, for there he had been able to harness his anger and resentment, and that had driven the ambition that had taken him back to France and to that meeting with Emile.
Clearing his throat, he bit down on the anger rising inside him. ‘Don’t you mean lucrative?’ he said coolly.
Her head jerked up, and the stunned, helpless expression on her face made something claw at him inside. But he told himself he didn’t care, and pretending he’d noticed nothing, he smiled casually.
‘I’ve picked out wedding rings for both of us, so all you need to do is speak to your family,’ he continued relentlessly. ‘Tell them that you’ll be away for a couple of days. Oh, and you’ll need a dress.’
‘Away where? And why do I need a dress?’ She frowned suspiciously.
He raised an eyebrow. ‘To get married in, of course. We leave for the Seychelles tomorrow.’
She gazed at him in wordless disbelief, a flutter of fear skittering down her spine. ‘Tomorrow?’
His eyes were cool and mocking. ‘What?’ he asked softly, and she could hear the taunting note in his voice. ‘Did you think I was going to wait another ten years?’
Her head was suddenly aching and her vison was going watery at the edges. She opened her mouth, then closed it again. Her brain seemed to have stopped functioning. ‘This is a joke, right? I mean, you can’t expect me to marry you tomorrow.’
‘I don’t. The paperwork won’t be ready in time.’ The upward curve of his mouth was like a fish hook through her heart. ‘I do, however, expect you to marry me in three days.’
For a moment she could only stare at him in stunned silence. And then finally she shook her head, her blonde hair flicking from side to side like a lioness’s tail. ‘I don’t care about what you expect,’ she snapped, her eyes clashing with his. ‘That isn’t going to happen.’
Over the last twenty-four hours she had, if not fully adjusted to her fate, at least accepted the benefits of marrying Max. But as far as she was concerned telling her family was a long way off. She’d anticipated an engagement period of several months, during which time she would have got her grandfather and Louis used to the idea of Max as her boyfriend, then her fiancé. Now, though, the option of gently breaking her future plans to them was not just under threat, it was in pieces.
She shivered. Her stomach felt as though it was filling with ice.
For most people a wedding in an exotic location with few legalities and a minimal waiting time would probably sound spontaneous and romantic. To her, though, it sounded like an exact duplicate of her parents’ hasty elopement.
But she couldn’t explain that to Max. Not without revealing more about herself than she was willing to share with a man who was not only blackmailing her into marriage, but was incapable of even the most basic human empathy.
She gazed at him stonily. ‘Surely you can understand that? I mean, what exactly am I supposed to tell my family? I can’t just roll up and announce that I’m getting married.’
He shrugged. ‘Come, come, Margot. You’re a Duvernay. You can do what you like. Besides, you’ve had a lot of practice in lying. I imagine you’ll think of something.’
The rush of fury was intoxicating. Suddenly she was on her toes like a boxer, fingers twitching, clenching and unclenching. ‘You unspeakable pig—’
He cut across her, his voice razor-edged and cold as steel. ‘Spare me the outrage. You lied to your family for months about our relationship last time. Now you only have to do it for three days.’
‘Wasn’t it lucky that I did?’ she snarled. ‘At least they were spared your lies and deceit.’
There was a charged silence. He didn’t reply, just continued to sit there, his face taut, his eyes impassive. And then, just as she was about to demand a response, he abruptly stood up and with careless, unhurried ease, walked to the door and yanked it open. Stepping aside, he stared coolly back across the room, his jawline and cheekbones suddenly in shadow.
‘Let me make this simple for you, Margot. Either you agree to marry me in three days or you walk through this door now and take your chances with the bank.’
His tone was pleasant, but there was no mistaking the ultimatum in his voice.
Margot gazed at him in silence, her heart skidding sideways like car on black ice. Surely he was calling her bluff. He had to be. And yet she couldn’t bring herself to find out, for if she got up and walked towards the door it was just possible that she would lose everything.
She had no weapons to bring to the fight, and escalating things would only make that fact obvious to Max. All she could do was back down with as much dignity as she could manage.
‘Since you put it so charmingly,’ she said stiffly, ignoring the heartbeat that was telegraphing frantically inside her chest, ‘I’ll do it.’ She lifted her chin, her brown eyes locking on to his face, staring him down. ‘But on one condition.’
‘Condition?’
She heard the hint of surprise in his voice, and felt a fleeting quiver of satisfaction. ‘Yes, damn you.’ Matching his level, assessing gaze with what she hoped was one of her own, she gave a humourless laugh. ‘What did you think? That I’d just bow down to your threats and intimidation?’
Max let his eyes drift over her face, seeing both the pulse quivering at the base of her throat—that beautiful, graceful throat—and the discs of colour spreading over her cheeks. No, he hadn’t thought that, and in a way he hadn’t wanted it either. He would never want that from this woman who had been like a living flame in his arms.
Casually he pushed the door shut and walked across the room, stopping in front of her. ‘Name it,’ he demanded.
‘As soon as we’re married I want to tell my grandfather and brother in person—before details are released to the press.’
The marriage would be a shock to both of them, but she knew that they would accept and understand it better if she told them herself.
Max stared down at her, trying to ignore the heady scent of her perfume. It was a shock. Not her demand—which was almost laughably inconsequential—but the intensity of his relief that she hadn’t got up and stormed through the door. Irrational though it sounded, it didn’t matter that the marriage hadn’t happened. She already felt like his wife. And, having got so far, he wasn’t about to lose her now.
Letting her win this particular battle was unimportant in the scheme of things. It certainly didn’t mean that he was about to give her power over anything else—like his feelings, for example. Besides, he had other, more effective ways to remind her that he was in charge.
He raised his shoulders dismissively. ‘Okay. I’m happy for you to do that.’ His eyes locked on to hers. ‘Just as I’m sure you’re happy to sign the prenuptial agreement I sent over.’
Turning, he picked a laminated folder up from the table behind the sofa and held it out to her.
‘I take it you’ve read it?’
Margot nodded. Her heart began to thump against her chest.
He had emailed it over last night, and she’d gone over it twice. It contained no surprises. But it still jarred, though—stung, actually—the fact that ten years ago she had taken him at his word, whereas now he was demanding that she make no claim on his estate.
Her lips tightened. ‘Yes, I’ve read it. There don’t seem to be any problems.’
Aside from the small, incontrovertible fact that she was bartering herself to a man she had once loved without restraint, and with a hope she now found inconceivable.
Suddenly she just wanted to sign the damned thing and be gone. To be anywhere that Max wasn’t.
She reached into her bag, but he was too fast for her.
‘Here—use mine.’
He was holding out a black and gold fountain pen. It was identical to the one her grandfather used, and just for a moment she thought she might be sick. But, swallowing the metallic taste in her mouth, she took the pen from his fingers with what she hoped was an expression of pure indifference and, flipping through the document to the last page, carelessly scrawled her signature next to his, doing the same again seconds later on the other copy.
Misery snaked over her skin, but she wasn’t about to let Max know how much she was hurting. He might hold all the cards, but there was some small satisfaction to be had from not acknowledging that fact—particularly to him.
Only suddenly that wasn’t enough. Suddenly she didn’t just want to hide her pain, she wanted to hurt him as he had hurt her. Laying the pen carefully on top of the paper, she looked up and deliberately fixed her gaze on his maddeningly handsome face.
‘One last thing. Just so we’re clear, this marriage is a business arrangement. Sex—’ she punched the word towards him ‘—is not and is never going to be part of the deal. Whatever physical relationship we had, it happened a long time ago.’
A mocking smile tugged at his mouth. ‘I wouldn’t call twenty-four hours a long time.’
Mortified, she felt the air thump out of her lungs. How she regretted that kiss—or if not the kiss then the treacherous weakness of the body that had allowed it to happen.
‘That was just curiosity,’ she said quickly, trying to sound as if she meant it, as though only a fraction of her mind was on him.
‘I just wanted a taste—you know, an amuse bouche. See if the menu was still worth sampling.’ She was aware that her cheeks were flushed, that her voice was shaking ever so slightly, but she forced herself to hold his gaze. ‘Only I guess I’ve grown up a lot. Had a bit more experience…tried different flavours. I know some couples go for that “sex with the ex” thing, but I’m going to pass on it.’
She could hardly believe the words that were coming out of her mouth. It felt unreal, talking that way, and to Max in particular, but she knew that she had his attention. For a moment she held her breath, waiting for his reaction, already anticipating his fury. But his face didn’t change, and when finally he spoke his voice was as expressionless as his unblinking eyes.
‘Of course you are—and now, unfortunately, I have another meeting scheduled. I hope you enjoyed your lunch…’
Gazing up at him, it took a moment for his words to sink in, and then, as they did, she realised with a rush of embarrassment that he was waiting politely and patiently for her to leave.
* * *
Back in her car, it took several minutes of deep breathing before her hands stopped shaking and she could start the engine. Pulling out into the late-afternoon traffic, she could feel questions pawing at her brain like a pack of dogs with a bone. Why had he acted like that? Why hadn’t he thrown her remark back in her face?
Leaning back against the smooth leather seat, she rested her arm against the doorframe, and gnawed distractedly at her thumbnail.
Even at the most basic level her words would have been insulting to any man. But to Max it had been personal. So why had he deliberately chosen not to respond?
She pressed her thumb against the corner of her mouth. It was probably just another attempt to belittle her. Or maybe he was trying to mess with her head so that she’d end up with all these unanswerable questions swamping her brain. Or—
An icy shiver slipped down her spine, and she groaned softly.
Or maybe he just hadn’t believed her.
And, really, why would he? When she didn’t even believe herself?
Remembering the moment when he’d pressed his mouth to hers—the all-encompassing heat of that kiss and the way her body had surrendered to his—she felt heat flare low in her pelvis…
The blast of a horn burst into her thoughts, and she watched dully as a taxi surged past her, the driver gesticulating and shouting abuse into the warm, sticky air.
Her arms felt like jelly, and with an effort she indicated left, out of the city.
She was such a fool! Instead of puncturing his pride, her stupid denial had merely drawn attention to the terrible, humiliating truth. That she still wanted him with an intensity that was beyond her conscious control. But, terrible though it was to have betrayed herself like that, what was far worse was the private but equally devastating realisation that she couldn’t imagine a time when that humiliating fact would ever change.