Читать книгу: «The Mills & Boon Stars Collection», страница 42

‘No, of course I don’t.’ Jessie shrugged and sighed. ‘When you put it like that, I suppose the very idea is crazy. But isn’t that what everyone else is going to think?’

‘Why would they think that?’ he growled. ‘She’s only twenty!’

‘And you’re only just thirty!’ Jessie retorted. ‘It’s not exactly the age-gap from hell!’

‘And I’ve known her since she was a child,’ he said stubbornly.

‘Well, she’s certainly no child now!’ retorted Jessie.

After she’d gone, he walked back into the sitting room to stand over the sleeping woman on the sofa once more, mesmerised by the soft movement of her breathing. No, Jessie was right. Isabella was certainly no child.

She’d relaxed into her sleep even more. Her arms were stretched above her head and a smile played around her lips—the first really decent smile he’d seen all day. Though maybe that wasn’t so surprising, in the circumstances. Maybe sleep offered her the only true refuge at the moment. And he realised with a pang just how much he had missed that easy, soft smile.

Overwhelmed by a sense of deep compassion, he leaned over her and put his hand on her shoulder and gave it a gentle shake.

‘Isabella?’ he said quietly.

She didn’t respond—not verbally, anyway. She murmured something incomprehensible underneath her breath, and wriggled deeper into the sofa, and the movement made the fabric of her maternity dress cling to her thighs.

Paulo swallowed.

Pushing against the sheen of the material, the bump of the baby could be seen in its true magnitude. She should have looked ungainly, but she looked nothing of the sort—she looked quite lovely, and he felt his body battling with his conscience as he gently shook her shoulder again, but she continued to writhe softly.

He felt desire shoot through him like an arrow—all the more piercing for its unexpectedness and its inappropriateness. And he must have made a small sound, because her eyelids fluttered half-open to stare at him.

And in the unreal world between waking and sleeping, it seemed perfectly natural for Paulo’s darkly implacable face to be bent so close to her that for a moment it seemed as though he might kiss her. It was a lifetime’s fantasy come true and she stretched her arms above her head in unconscious invitation.

‘Paulo?’ she whispered dreamily. ‘What is it?’

He shook his head, telling himself that she had aroused in him feelings of protectiveness, nothing more. Nature was cunning like that—it made a woman who was ripe with child look oddly beautiful so that men would want to protect her. ‘It’s bedtime,’ he responded sternly, but the trusting tremble of her lashes stabbed him in the heart, and made him ache in the most unexpected of places. ‘You look like you need it. If you want, I can carry you.’

‘Heavens, no—I’ll walk,’ she protested, wide awake now. ‘I’m much too heavy to carry.’

‘No, you’re not—I bet you’re as light as a little bird. Want to test me it out?’

‘No,’ she lied, and struggled up into a sitting position.

He helped her to her feet and put his hand in the small of her back to support her, just the way he had once done with Elizabeth.

Except that Elizabeth had been almost as tall as him—while Isabella seemed such a tiny little thing beside him. Why, she barely came up to his shoulder. And yet looks could be deceptive—he knew how tough she could be. You only had to see her astride an excitable horse, expertly subduing it into submission, to realise how strong she could be. He had never imagined that she could look almost frail.

‘Come on,’ he said softly. ‘Lean against me.’

Too sleepy to refuse, she allowed him to guide her upstairs and into a bedroom, where there was a large bed with a duvet lying invitingly folded back.

‘Get undressed now,’ he whispered, as she flopped down on the mattress and sighed.

‘Nnnng!’ She pillowed her head on her hands, and closed her eyes.

‘Isabella!’ he said sternly. ‘Get yourself ready for bed, unless you want me to do it for you!’

Her eyes snapped open. This was no dream. Paulo was here. Right here. And he was threatening to undress her! ‘I can manage. Really.’

He gave her a narrow-eyed look of assessment, only really believing her when she unclipped her gold wristwatch and slid it down over the narrow wrist.

‘Goodnight,’ he said abruptly.

‘Goodnight, Paulo.’

He left the door slightly ajar, so that the light from the corridor would penetrate the room if she woke. She would not flounder around frightened in the middle of the night in unfamiliar darkness.

But he was restless. Too restless for newspapers or the stack of paperwork he kept in the study, and which always needed attention. He drank some coffee and showered, and then slipped naked into bed, the cool sheets lying like silk against his bare skin while he lay and thought about the woman in the next room and who had made her pregnant. And how she could be persuaded to return to her own country—because surely that was the only rational option open to her.

He scowled up into the blackness, wondering why the idea of that should disturb him so.

In the end he gave up on sleep and decided that maybe he would tackle that paperwork after all. He pulled on a pair of jeans and shrugged a black T-shirt over his head, and on his way downstairs he paused briefly to look in on Isabella.

She was curled up on her side, facing the door, and from this angle the curve of her belly hardly showed at all. With the light from the corridor falling across the sculpted contours of her face and her lips slightly parted in sleep, it was easy to forget why she was here. Easy to imagine her being in a bed in his house for another reason entirely…

Paulo swiftly turned away and went downstairs.

He went through his papers on autopilot, gradually reducing the pile to a few sheets which his secretary could deal with tomorrow. He glanced down at his watch and yawned. Today, he should say. Better get to bed.

But he switched his computer on and began playing Solitaire.

He must have been dozing because he didn’t hear the front door opening or clicking to a close. Nor did he hear soft footsteps approaching his study. In fact, the first indication that he had a visitor came from the sound of laboured breathing from just outside the door.

His eyes snapped open, his senses immediately on full alert, as he acknowledged that something had aroused him. He willed the aching fullness to subside.

‘Bella?’ he called softly. ‘Is that you?’

‘Sorry to disappoint you,’ came an acid female reply. ‘It’s only me.’

He sat up straight as a tall, slim figure walked into the room and frowned at her in disbelief. ‘Judy?’

‘Yes, Judy!’ came the sarcastic reply. ‘Why, did you think it was your little Brazilian firecracker?’

He reached out to click a further light on, his eyes briefly protesting against the bright glare as he stared at the woman standing uninvited before him.

The artificial light emphasised her pale-haired beauty—her long, willowy limbs and the pellucid blue eyes set in an alabaster skin. She wore jeans and an expensive-looking sheepskin jacket. And an expression he recognised instantly as a potent cocktail of lust and jealousy. He kept his face completely neutral.

‘Hello, Judy,’ he said softly, carefully. ‘I wasn’t expecting you.’

She raised her eyebrows and laughed. ‘You made that obvious enough.’

He kept his voice steady. ‘I didn’t realise you still had a key.’

‘That’s what keeps life so interesting, isn’t it, Paulo? These little surprises.’

He sighed. ‘Judy, I don’t want a scene.’

‘No. It’s pretty obvious from your greeting just what you do want!’

‘Meaning?’

‘Is that woman is staying here? She is, isn’t she?’

‘You mean Isabella?’ he asked coldly.

Judy scowled, ignoring the warning note in his voice. ‘You know damned well I do! You thought I was her when I came in, didn’t you? “Bella”! Well, I’m so sorry to disappoint you, Paulo! How long is she planning on staying for?’

Paulo didn’t react. The only movement in his face was the dark warning which glittered from his eyes. ‘I don’t think that this is a good time to have this conversation,’ he said carefully. ‘Apart from which, it’s really none of your business.’

For a moment her face looked almost ugly as different emotions worked their way across it.

‘She’s the reason you dumped me, isn’t she?’ she demanded. ‘You were never the same after she came here to see you. I could see it in your eyes that day. You were really hot for her, weren’t you, Paulo? In a way you never were for me. Not once.’

His mouth hardened as he realised that she had no idea that Isabella was pregnant. And he had no intention of telling her. He carried on as though she hadn’t spoken. ‘I’m actually very tired, so if you don’t mind…’

Judy stiffened as she read the rejection in his features. ‘What’s she got that I haven’t, Paulo?’ she pleaded. ‘Just tell me that.’

He shook his head. ‘Go home,’ he whispered. ‘Go home now, before it’s too late.’

Her eyes lit up as she completely misinterpreted his words. ‘For what? Too late to resist me, you mean? Well, maybe I don’t want you to resist me. Maybe I want what you’re trying to resist, just as badly as you do. What does it matter? I won’t tell.’ She moved towards the desk and the overpowering scent of her perfume invaded his senses and deadened them. ‘Come on, Paulo—what do you say? For old times’ sake.’

He shook his head, felt distaste whipping up his spine like a ragged fingernail. ‘No.’

‘No?’ She flicked her pale hair back. ‘Sure?’

This really was astonishing, thought Paulo. A beautiful blonde begging him for sex. It was most red-blooded men’s ideal fantasy and yet all he could think of was that she was going to wake the pregnant woman who lay sleeping upstairs.

‘Quite sure. Keep your voice down.’ He flattened his voice as the needs of his body fought with the demands of his mind. ‘And I think it’s better if you go right now.’

‘And what if I stay and do…this…?’ Her hand swooped towards him and he knew immediately just where she intended to touch him.

‘I don’t want you to.’ With razor-sharp reflexes, he snapped his fingers around her wrist to stop her. ‘I don’t want you to,’ he repeated deliberately. ‘Ever again. Got that?’

She stared into his eyes, like a woman who had never encountered rejection before and snatched her hand back. ‘Why not?’ she sneered. ‘You want to do it with Bella, I suppose?’

He didn’t have to tell her to get out; the look in his eyes must have done that effectively enough. He just heard her running down the hallway and slamming the front door so loudly that it echoed through the house like gunfire.

He waited until the automatic response of his body had died away completely, and he felt an ugly kind of taste in his mouth. Quietly, he turned the computer off and went to find himself a drink.

Barefooted, he went silently along to the kitchen where he poured himself a glass of water and stood drinking it, looking out of the window into the night sky. Outside, silver-white stars pin-pricked the darkened night and he found himself picturing Isabella’s father’s ranch in Vitória da Conquista. Where the stars were as big as lollipops—so bright and so close that you felt you could lean out and pluck them from the sky.

He pressed the empty water glass to his hot cheek as he anticipated the fireworks to come. What the hell was Isabella’s father going to say when he discovered that his beloved daughter was going to have a baby? By a man she was refusing to name! He was going to be absolutely furious.

He was just thinking about going back to bed when he turned to see Isabella standing in the doorway, silently watching him.

She had changed into a big, white nightshirt and a pair of bedsocks and had plaited her hair, so that two thick, dark ropes hung down either side of her face. She looked impossibly sweet and innocent, making the swollen belly seem indecent in comparison.

‘Did I wake you?’ he asked. He saw the way she grimaced, then tried to turn it into a smile and he pulled a face himself. ‘Obviously, I did.’

‘I heard…er…noises. Then the door slammed.’

‘And did it startle you?’

‘Only for as long as it took me to realise where I was. But I probably would have woken at some point, in any case. Indigestion,’ she said, in answer to the query in his eyes. ‘It’s the bane of late pregnancy.’

‘I suppose it is,’ he said slowly. He stared again at her bulging stomach. ‘Would a glass of milk help?’

‘Yes, please.’

‘Sit down, then, and I’ll fetch it for you.’

She pulled a chair out from under the kitchen table and negotiated herself into it, wriggling her toes around inside the roomy bedsocks.

Paulo reached into the fridge and poured her a big, creamy tumblerful, then leaned against the draining board and watched while she drank it. He found himself fascinated by the white moustache she left behind, and by the tiny pink tongue-tip which snaked out to lick it away. Who would ever have thought that a heavily pregnant woman could look so damned sexy? he wondered.

His wife had been sick for a lot of her pregnancy. The doctors had told him she was ‘delicate’. Like a piece of Dresden china that he dared not touch for fear of breaking her. And yet Isabella looked real and very, very touchable.

Isabella could feel him watching her, and she tried to drink her milk unselfconsciously, but it was difficult. And she could feel the baby moving around at the same time as her breasts began to sting uncomfortably in a way she was certain had nothing to do with the pregnancy. What conflicting and confusing messages her body was sending out!

She put the half-empty glass down on the table with a clunk. ‘Did…did Elizabeth have an easy pregnancy?’

Paulo frowned. ‘No, not really. It didn’t agree with her. She was very sick for the first five months or more.’

Her expectant look didn’t waver. Here in the quietness of the night, it was easier to ask questions which had always seemed inappropriate before. ‘You must miss her.’

He didn’t answer for a moment. ‘I did. Terribly, at first. But it was such a long time ago,’ he said slowly. ‘That sometimes it seems to have happened to another person. We were together for two years, and Lizzie’s been dead for ten.’

‘Doesn’t Eduardo ever ask?’

‘Sometimes.’

Isabella studied him. ‘And does he have any contact with his mother’s family?’

‘A little,’ he began, then suddenly his temper flared. ‘What is this, Isabella?’ he demanded, suddenly impatient. ‘Truth or dare?’ Women did not ask him about his wife—in fact, they did the very opposite. Ignored the few photographs which existed of Elizabeth with her infant son. Never asked the child any questions about his mother, as though they could not bear to acknowledge that he had loved a woman and had a child by her.

‘You want to squeeze every painful fact out of me?’ he grated. ‘Yet obstinately refuse to disclose the identity of your baby’s father?’

‘That’s different.’

‘Why?’ he snapped.

‘Because there’s no point in your knowing,’ she said stiffly. ‘I told you. It’s over.’

‘So why this sudden interrogation? Is this one rule for you and another for me? Is that it?’

She shook her head. ‘If I thought that telling you would do any good, then I would.’

‘But you don’t trust me not to use the information?’ he probed softly.

‘No, I don’t,’ she admitted.

For some inexplicable reason, he smiled. ‘Then you are wise, querida,’ he murmured. ‘Very wise indeed.’

He saw the way that one plait moved like a silken rope over her breast when she lifted her head to meet his gaze head-on like that. ‘Now go to bed, Bella,’ he said roughly. ‘You need your sleep.’ And I need my sanity.

She paused by the door. He had warned her off prying, but there were some things she really did need to know. And if Paulo was in the habit of having late-night visits…‘Did I hear you talking to someone earlier?’

‘I had an…unexpected visitor.’ He gave a grim kind of smile. And anyway, what was the big secret supposed to be? ‘It was Judy.’

‘But I thought you said that it was over?’ She’d blurted the indignant words out before she could consider their impact. Or the fact that she had no right to say them.

He knew it was a loaded question. Knew it and was surprised by it. No, maybe not completely surprised. ‘It is.’ He gave her a brief, hard look. ‘She won’t be coming back again.’

‘Oh.’ She kept her voice as expressionless as possible and hoped that her face did the same. ‘Was it serious between the two of you? I suppose it must have been if she had a key.’

He gave a faint frown, tempted to dodge the question, knowing instinctively that the truth would hurt her. ‘I don’t do “serious” any more, Bella,’ he told her quietly.

She felt her heart plummet. ‘No. Right. Well, I guess it’s time I went back to bed.’

Paulo’s eyes narrowed with interest as he watched the interplay of emotions on her face. Maybe Judy had been more astute than he had given her credit for.

‘I guess it is,’ he agreed blandly. ‘Goodnight, Isabella.’

CHAPTER FIVE

ISABELLA was woken by a timid knocking on her bedroom door, and she yawned as she picked up her wristwatch from the bedside locker.

Sweet heaven—it was nearly ten o’clock! She stretched beneath the bedclothes after the best night’s sleep she had had since arriving in England. How wonderful to have the luxury of lying in. By now in the Stafford house she would have been up and running for three hours. She would have cooked breakfast and loaded the washing-machine and be just about to pick up the vacuum cleaner.

The knocking on the door grew louder.

She sat up in bed and smoothed her hands over her dishevelled plaits. ‘Come in!’ she called.

A small, dark head poked itself round the door. It was Eduardo. And she could see wariness and excitement on his face.

‘Hello, Eduardo.’ She smiled. ‘Come on in!’

‘Hello,’ he said cautiously.

‘Or should I call you Eddie? That’s what Jessie calls you, isn’t it? Would you prefer that?’

‘Only in England.’ He nodded. ‘When we’re in Brazil, you can call me my real name.’ He stood there rather awkwardly. ‘Shall I draw the curtains back?’

She sensed his diffidence and widened her smile. ‘Would you mind? That would be wonderful—then I can see what kind of view I have!’

The pale, sharp light of winter came flooding into the room as the curtains swished back to reveal the green blur of the distant park. Eddie turned round and Isabella patted the edge of the bed. ‘Come and sit down over here. Or do you have to go to school?’ She frowned down at her gold wristwatch. ‘Aren’t you a little late?’

‘Papa said I can have the day off—to welcome you,’ he added shyly.

‘I’m honoured,’ she replied softly and patted the mattress again. ‘Come and sit down.’

He hesitated for one shy moment, then came over and did as she asked, glancing at the huge bump rather cautiously. ‘Papa said you were going to have a baby.’

‘That’s right.’ She supposed he must have told Eddie the evening before, when he’d gone in to read a bedtime story and she had been lying dozing on the sofa. She wondered what he’d said to the child. How he’d explained away the lack of a father. Maybe he’d turned it into a lecture on morality. ‘I am.’

‘Does it hurt?’ he asked.

Isabella smiled. ‘No. Why should it?’

‘You must have to grow more skin?’

She laughed, and the movement made the baby start to protest. ‘I’ve never thought about that, to be honest. The most painful thing is when it kicks. Sometimes it gets you right—’ she clutched at her ribs and screwed up her face in an expression of mock-anguish ‘—here!’

‘Maybe that means he’ll be a football player,’ suggested Eddie hopefully.

‘But what if it’s a girl?’

He shrugged. ‘Then she can watch!’

‘Or be the star of an all-girls team?’

‘Nah!’ Eddie shook his head decisively. ‘Girls don’t play football! Not properly, anyway!’

Isabella laughed, enjoying the comfort of the bed and the room, and the winter sunshine which streamed into the room and made bright puddles of light on the crisp blue and white bedlinen. It was very obviously a spare room—well-decorated and luxuriously appointed, but with little in the way of personality stamped on it. A vase of flowers might help, she thought. Or would that just look as though she was taking up permanent residence?

‘Papa sent me in to ask whether you like tea or coffee in the morning?’

She made a face. ‘Your father asked that? Tell him that I drink only coffee in the mornings—and then it must only be Brazilian coffee!’

‘Ah! Then I must be a mind-reader,’ came a murmured boast and Paulo appeared, carrying a tray of the most wonderful-smelling coffee.

He glanced over to the bed, to where she sat with strands of dark-bronze hair escaping from her plaits; Eddie was perched on the bed next to her and Paulo’s breath caught like grit in his throat.

They looked such a unit sitting there together, that for a moment he found himself imagining what life might have been like if Elizabeth had not died, an indulgence he rarely surrendered to. There might have been brothers and sisters for Eddie, and Eddie might have sat on the bed with his pregnant mother, just like that. He felt a great wave of sadness for the hole in his son’s life. ‘OK if I come in?’

‘Of course it is.’ But Isabella had noticed the swift look of pain and wondered what had put it there.

‘Papa—Bella says the baby’s kicking!’

‘Well, that’s what babies tend to do.’

‘Did I?’

‘Sure you did.’ Paulo nodded, and put the tray down. He had not foreseen that having a pregnant woman around the place would open up a new channel of thought for his inquisitive son. ‘Your mother used to say that you were sure to be a star footballer when you finally made an appearance!’

‘But that’s what Isabella just said about her baby!’

Glittering black eyes connected with hers. ‘Oh, did you?’ he asked softly, as he lifted up the coffee pot and began to pour.

Isabella found herself wishing that she had leapt straight out of bed and replaited her hair. Or something. Not, she reminded herself, that she was in any kind of condition to go leaping anywhere. And not that Paulo would even notice if she had done. She took the coffee he offered her. ‘Thanks.’

He searched her face for shadows, real and imagined, but he could see none. ‘Sleep all right?’

‘Mmm.’ Eventually. She’d heard him moving restlessly in the next room for a while after they had gone their separate ways, and then the milk had made her sleepy.

Eddie looked up at his father. ‘Where are we going today, Daddy?’

‘Well, Isabella needs to see a doctor—’

‘No, I don’t—’

‘Oh, yes, you do,’ he argued.

‘But I saw one last week!’ she protested.

‘Not in London, you didn’t,’ he pointed out. ‘And you need to meet the doctor who will be delivering you. A Brazilian friend of mine.’ He stirred sugar into his coffee. ‘Who happens to be one of the country’s finest obstetricians! I’ve already spoken to him.’ He saw her mutinous expression and turned to his son with a smile. ‘Go and fetch Isabella some crackers, would you, Eddie? Pregnant women need to eat when they wake up.’

Isabella put her cup down as the child jumped off the bed and ran from the room and fixed Paulo with a determined look. ‘I am not so provincial that I need to have a fellow countryman deliver me, you know!’

‘No. But why not make life a little easy for yourself?’ His mocking expression seemed to indicate that it wasn’t too late to start. ‘You can speak to him in Portuguese and he will understand you.’

‘But I’m bilingual!’ she replied.

His stare was very direct; the mischief in his eyes unmistakable. ‘Yes, I know you are. But I won’t feel happy until I’ve had you checked over properly.’

‘You make me sound like a car! Whichever doctor I decide to see is my business, Paulo—not yours.’

‘Ah.’ He glittered her a look. ‘But you’ve made it my business.’

‘No, you did that all by yourself! My father just asked you to look me up,’ she argued. ‘That was all. You were the one who insisted on bringing me back to your home.’

‘And by agreeing to come, I’m afraid that you put yourself under my domain. Don’t fight it, Bella,’ he murmured softly, his eyes gleaming as he deliberately made his statement as ambiguous as possible. ‘I feel responsible for your mental and physical welfare—and that automatically gives me certain rights.’

‘Rights?’ She stared at him, and an odd kind of excitement began to unfurl in the pit of her stomach. ‘What sort of rights?’

He gave a slow smile because her reaction hadn’t gone unnoticed. ‘Such as making sure you look after yourself—which you haven’t been doing up until now. Simple things like eating properly, and getting enough rest and fresh air.’ He looked up as his son came back into the room, and his eyes were still glittering. ‘Oh, and a little gentle exercise wouldn’t hurt.’

Isabella wondered if she was going insane. She must be. His words seemed to be laden with sexual overtones this morning—and the look in his eyes only seemed to confirm it. She put her empty cup down, reminding herself that she knew nothing of men—and even less about a man like Paulo Dantas—the man they called gato.

He sipped his coffee and watched her over the rim of his cup. ‘Now, querida,’ he said softly. ‘On the subject of baby equipment.’

Isabella looked at him blankly. ‘Baby equipment? What about it?’

‘Exactly! You don’t have any, do you? No crib. No pram. No nappies, even. And even little babies need toys and stimulation.’

She shook her head. ‘No, babies need roots and they need wings,’ she contradicted dreamily. ‘Anything else is just extra.’

‘Very idealistic, Bella,’ he said drily. ‘And it makes for a good opt-out clause if you don’t happen to like shopping. But where are they supposed to sleep?’

‘Babies can sleep in drawers, if they need to!’

‘Can they?’ asked Eddie, who came back in, carrying a plate of dry crackers.

‘Sure they can!’ Isabella took a biscuit. ‘When people lived in caves, they didn’t have bassinets, did they?’

‘When people lived in caves, the man’s word was law—sounds like good sense to me,’ said Paulo coolly. ‘And as the man of the house I suggest we go out today and buy everything you need.’

‘And can we go to the toyshop, Papa?’ Eddie demanded eagerly.

‘Provided Isabella isn’t too tired.’ He frowned as he handed her a cup of coffee. ‘And, just out of interest, how were you planning to manage at the other place? Were you really planning to put the baby in a drawer?’

‘Of course I wasn’t.’ She waited while the baby completed its three hundred and sixty-degree turn in her belly before replying. ‘Mrs Stafford said I could use the twins’ old baby stuff.’ Tired-looking pieces of equipment which had been stacked in a disused garage and covered with dust and cobwebs. ‘She said they would clean up perfectly!’

‘I’ll bet she did,’ said Paulo grimly. ‘Well, why don’t you get showered and dressed.’ He glanced down at his watch. ‘Your doctor’s appointment is at midday.’

He was certainly showing a very bossy side to his nature, thought Isabella as she stood beneath the power-shower in her luxurious en-suite, which gushed as efficiently as a small waterfall. She savoured every moment of it, washing her hair without difficulty.

She lumbered back into the bedroom afterwards and slipped her other maternity dress on. She’d only bought a couple—unwilling and unable to invest money in clothes she would never wear again. But at least Paulo hadn’t seen her in this one before, and its cheerful yellow colour warmed the pale olive of her skin and brought out the red highlights in her dark hair.

Everything took such a long time when you were this pregnant. She sat down heavily at the dressing-table and picked up her hairbrush, wondering if she had the energy to dry her wet hair, strand by laborious strand.

A movement at the open door attracted her attention and she glanced up to see Paulo reflected back at her—and it was with a sense of guilt that she noticed how the dark trousers moulded themselves so beautifully to the jut of his hips and the powerful line of his thighs. Surely she shouldn’t be thinking about his legs at a time like this?

‘Want me to do that for you?’ he asked.

‘Dry my hair?’

The eyes gleamed with the faintest hint of laughter. He had seen just where her gaze had focussed itself. ‘That’s what I meant.’ He walked over to the mirror and plucked the silver-backed hairbrush from her hand. ‘Relax,’ he soothed, as he stroked the bristles down through the resisting locks. ‘Come on. Relax.’

Relax? How could she possibly do that when his pelvis was on a level with her back, and the reflection of his black eyes was mocking her in the mirror?

But the soothing movement of the brush lulled her into a glorious state of peace and calm. Ironic, really, considering just how precarious her position was. She guessed that this was what they called false security, and let her gaze drift upwards to clash with the hard glitter of ebony once more.

‘You know, I’m going to have to ring your father today, Bella. He’ll be expecting me to get back to him and wondering why I haven’t. And you’ll need to speak to him yourself.’

She kept the tremor of nerves away. ‘Not today.’

‘When, then?’

‘Tomorrow. When I feel…calmer.’

‘You think twenty-four hours will make such a difference?’ he demanded.

‘I don’t know. I just haven’t made up my mind what to tell him.’

‘How about the truth?’ he suggested sardonically. ‘Or is that something which is beyond you?’