She didn’t want to be popular. She wanted to be a slender, elegant siren with long blonde hair and come-to-bed eyes, the sort of woman who might capture his heart, given half a chance.

‘I was just saying we must keep in touch, and perhaps meet up for lunch now and again when you visit your parents,’ he continued easily. ‘I count you as a friend, Gina. I hope you know that.’

Great. ‘As I do you.’ She smiled brightly. Once she was in London, he’d forget she’d ever existed within days. Probably by the time he got up tomorrow morning, in fact. Harry wasn’t the sort of man who had women friends. Just women.

The cool spring twilight had almost completely given way to the shadows of night by the time Harry turned the car off the country lane they had been following for some time, and through open wrought-iron gates on to a scrunchy pebble drive. Gina was surprised how far they’d travelled; she hadn’t realised his home was so far away from Breedon & Son. She had supposed he’d settled somewhere near his parents’ home.

The drive wound briefly between mature evergreens and bushes, which effectively hid all sight of the building from the road, and then suddenly became bordered by a wide expanse of green lawn with the house in front of them. Gina hadn’t known what to expect. Probably a no-nonsense modern place or elegant turn-of-the-century manor-type house. In the event the picturesque thatched cottage in front of her was neither of these.

‘This is your home?’

She had asked the obvious, but he didn’t appear to notice. ‘Like it?’ he asked casually as the car drew up on the horseshoe-shaped area in front of the cottage.

Did she like it? How could anyone fail to? The two-storey cottage’s white walls and traditional mullioned windows were topped by a high thatched roof out of which peeped gothick dormers. The roof overhung to form an encircling veranda, supported on ancient, gnarled tree-trunks on which a table and chairs sat ready for summer evenings. There was even evidence of roses round the door on the trellis bordering the quaint arched door, and red and green ivy covered the walls of the veranda. It was so quintessentially the perfect English country-cottage that Gina was speechless. It was the last place, the very last place, she would have expected Harry to buy, and definitely no bachelor pad.

Whether he guessed what she was thinking or her face had given her away Gina wasn’t sure, but the next moment he drawled, ‘I had a modern stainless-steel and space-age place in the States, overlooking the ocean; I fancied a change.’

‘It’s wonderful.’ He opened the car door as he spoke, and now as he appeared at her side and helped her out of the passenger seat she repeated, ‘It’s wonderful. A real fairy-tale cottage. I half expect Goldilocks and the three bears to appear any moment.’ She liked that. It was light, teasing. She’d got the fleeting impression he hadn’t appreciated her amazement at his choice of home, despite his lazy air.

He shrugged. ‘It’s somewhere to lay my hat for the moment. I’m not into putting down roots.’

She’d been right. He hadn’t wanted her to assume there was any danger of him becoming a family man in the future. Not that she would. ‘Hence your travelling in the past?’ she said carefully as they walked to the front door.

‘I guess.’

She stared at him. ‘Your father’s hoping you’ll take over the family business at some point, isn’t he?’

‘That was never on the cards.’ He opened the door, standing aside so she preceded him into the wide square hall. The old floorboards had been lovingly restored and varnished, their mellow tones reflected in the honey-coloured walls adorned with the odd print or two. ‘I agreed to come and help my father over the next couple of years, partly to ease him into letting go of the strings and making it easier to sell when the time comes, but that’s all.’

‘I see.’ She didn’t, but it was none of her business. ‘So, you’ll go back to the States at some point?’

Again he shrugged. ‘The States, Germany, perhaps even Australia. I’m not sure. I invested a good deal of the money I’ve earned over the last years, played the stock exchange and so on. I don’t actually need to work, but I will. I like a challenge.’

It was the most he had ever said about himself, and Gina longed to ask more, but a closed look had come over his face. Changing the subject, she said, ‘Everything looks extremely clean and dust free. Do you have a cleaner come in?’

‘Are you saying men can’t clean for themselves? That’s a trifle sexist, isn’t it?’ He grinned at her, leading the way to what proved to be the sitting room, and he opened the door into a large room dominated by a magnificent open fireplace, the wooden floors scattered with fine rugs, and the sofas and chairs soft and plumpy. ‘You’re right, though,’ he admitted unrepentantly. ‘Mrs Rothman comes in three days a week, and does everything from changing the lightbulbs to washing and ironing. She’s a treasure.’

‘And preparing your meals?’ she asked as he waved her to a seat.

‘Not at all. I’m a great cook, if I do say so myself, and I prefer to eat what I want when I want to eat it. Glass of wine while you wait?’ he added. ‘Red or white?’

‘Red, please.’ She glanced at the fireplace as he disappeared, presumably to the kitchen. There were the remains of a fire in the fireplace, and plenty of logs were stacked in the ample confines of the hearth. She pictured him sitting here in the evenings, sipping a glass of wine maybe, while he stared into the flickering flames. The wrench her heart gave warned her to keep her thoughts in check. And she wasn’t going to dwell on the likelihood of the blonde of the moment stretched out on a rug in front of the fire, either, with Harry pampering and pleasing her.

‘One glass of wine.’

Gina was brought out of her mental agony as Harry reappeared, an enormous half-full glass of deep-red wine in one hand. She took it with a doubtful smile. There must have been half a bottle in there, and she’d been too het up to eat any of the extensive nibbles earlier, or much lunch, for that matter.

‘I won’t be long. There’s some magazines there—’ he gestured towards one of the occasional tables dotted about the room ‘—and some nuts and olives alongside them. Help yourself.’

‘Thank you.’ As soon as he’d left again, she scuttled across and made short work of half the bowl of nuts, deciding she’d worry about the calories tomorrow. Tonight she needed to be sober and in full charge of her senses. One slip, one look, and he might guess how she felt about him, and then she’d die. She would, she’d die. Or have to go on living with the knowledge she’d betrayed herself, and that would be worse.

She retrieved her glass of wine and sipped at it as she wandered about the room. Rich, dark and fruity, it was gorgeous. Like Harry. Although he had never been fruity with her, more was the pity.

She glanced at herself in the huge antique mirror over the fireplace. The mellow lighting in the room made her hair appear more golden than anything else, and blended the pale ginger freckles that covered her creamy skin from head to foot into an overall honey glow. It couldn’t do anything for her small snub nose and nondescript features, however. She frowned at her reflection, her blue eyes dark with irritation. This was the reason Harry had never come on to her. She was the epitome of the girl next door, when she longed to be a femme fatale: tall, slim, elegant—not busty and hippy. Even her mother had to admit she was ‘nicely rounded’, which meant—in the terms the rest of the world would use—she was on the plump side.

After staring at herself for a full minute, she walked over to the window and looked out over the grounds at the back of the cottage while she finished her glass of wine. She needed something to give her dutch courage for the evening, considering Harry was accompanying a creature not far removed from the Hunchback of Nôtre Dame.

‘You can’t see much tonight.’

He must have crept into the room, because she hadn’t heard him coming. Gina was glad there was no wine in the glass, because with the jump she gave as he came up behind her it would have been all down her dress. He continued to stand behind her, his hands loosely on her waist, as he said, ‘To the left beyond that big chestnut tree there’s a swimming pool, but it’s too dark to see it, and a tennis court. Are you sporty?’

Sporty? She didn’t know what she was with him holding her like this. Dredging up what was left of her thought process, she managed to mumble, ‘I swim a bit.’ She didn’t add that she hadn’t played tennis for years, because whatever sports bra she bought it still didn’t seem to stop her breasts bobbing about like crazy. Too much information, for sure.

‘You’ll have to come and have a swim in the summer, if you’re up this neck of the woods.’

That so wasn’t an option. ‘That’d be great.’

‘If you’re ready, we’ll make a move.’

When he let go of her, she felt wildly relieved and hopelessly bereft. When she turned to face him it didn’t help her shaky equilibrium one bit. He’d obviously had a quick shower along with changing, and his ebony hair was still damp and slightly tousled. Suddenly he appeared vastly different from the immaculately finished product during working hours, and the open-necked black shirt and casual black trousers he was wearing added to the transformation. In the designer suits, shirts and ties he favoured in the office, he was breathtakingly gorgeous. Now he was a walking sex-machine, with enough magnetism to cause a disturbance in the earth’s orbit.

Controlling a rush of love so powerful she was amazed it didn’t show, Gina handed him her empty glass and walked over to the sofa, where her handbag and jacket were, saying over her shoulder, ‘This is very good of you, Harry. There was nothing more exciting than beans on toast waiting for me at the flat.’

‘My pleasure.’

No, hers, given the merest encouragement, Gina thought wryly. She had never been tempted to go all the way with any of her boyfriends in the past, and had even begun to wonder if there was something wrong with her. Harry’s entrance into her life had put paid to that. She only had to think about him to get embarrassingly aroused. If he ever actually made love to her …

He took her jacket from her, helping her into it with a warm smile. She was everlastingly thankful he couldn’t read her mind. Taking a deep breath, she walked briskly out of the room.

CHAPTER TWO

WHY had he done this? Why had he invited her out to dinner tonight? He hadn’t intended to. He’d meant their goodbye to be friendly, swift and final, and definitely with a third party present.

As Harry slid into the car, he glanced at Gina for a second. He was, by virtue of his genetic background and upbringing, a very rational man. ‘Cold’ had even been the word used by former girlfriends on occasion, but that had been after he had firmly disabused them of the idea that their relationship had any chance of becoming permanent.

He knew exactly what he wanted out of life. Since Anna. And, because the knowledge had been forged in the furnace, it was not negotiable—Independence. Following his own star, with no tentacles of responsibility to prevent him doing so. Companionship and sex along the way, of course, good times with women who knew the score. But nothing that came with strings and ties and required sacrifices he wasn’t willing to make.

He’d left university with a first in business studies, gaining experience in a couple of jobs, before landing the big one in the States where he’d moved to the top of the ladder after acquiring a postgraduate degree, Master of Business Administration. He had enjoyed working for that, although with his job it had meant regular twenty-hour days. But that had been fine. It had happened after Anna, and anything which had enabled him to go to bed too dog-tired to think had been OK by him.

‘Is it far?’

The soft voice at the side of him brought his head turning. ‘Just a couple of miles,’ he said evenly, swinging the car out of the drive onto the quiet tree-lined lane beyond. ‘It’s only a very small place, by the way, nothing grand, but the food is excellent. Roberto has the knack of turning the most simple dish into something special. The first time I saw a warm-bread salad with roasted red peppers on the menu, I thought it a fairly basic starter. Big mistake. It came with capers and anchovies and fresh basil, and a whole host of other ingredients, that made it out of this world.’

‘You’re making my mouth water.’

Harry smiled. ‘Do I take it you’re someone who lives to eat, rather than eats to live?’

His swift glance saw her wrinkle her little nose. ‘Can’t you tell?’ she said a trifle flatly.

His smile vanished. He didn’t know what it was about this gentle, ginger-haired woman that had attracted him from day one, but her softly rounded, somewhat voluptuous curves were part of it. ‘Your figure’s fine,’ he said firmly.

‘Thank you.’

‘I mean it. There are far too many women these days who don’t actually look like women. Lettuce leaves are great for rabbits, but there’s where they should stop. I hate to see a woman nibbling on a stick of celery all evening, and drinking mineral water, while insisting she’s full to bursting.’

He’d just pulled up before turning on to the main road, and in the shadowed confines of the car he caught her glance of disbelief. ‘What?’ he said, turning to face her.

‘You might say that, but I bet the women you date are all stick insects.’

He opened his mouth to deny it before the uncomfortable truth hit. To anyone on the outside looking in, it would appear Gina was spot on-target. He did tend to date trim, svelte types. Why? He pulled on to the main road, his very able and intelligent mind dissecting the matter.

Because he’d found by experience that women who were obsessed with their figures, and appearance, and street cred, tended to be on the insular side—especially when they were also career minded, as he made sure all his girlfriends were. Less inclined towards cosy twosomes at home, and more likely to favour a date involving dinner and dancing, or the theatre, where they could see and be seen. Women with their own, forged-in-steel goals who weren’t looking for happy-ever-after but good conversation, good company and entertainment, and good sex. He’d made the odd mistake, of course, but mostly he tended to get it right.

In fact, if he thought about it, one criterion for dating a woman more than a couple of times was her level of self-interest. He grimaced mentally. Which made him … what? He decided not to follow that train of thought, but it confirmed he’d been crazy to take Gina out tonight, even on the basis of friendship.

Realising he hadn’t given her any reply, he ducked the issue by saying self-righteously, ‘Anorexia is becoming an ever-increasing problem these days, and no one in their right mind can say those women, young girls some of them, look attractive.’

‘I suppose not.’

They drove in silence for the rest of the short journey. When he finally pulled into Roberto’s tiny car-park, he saw Gina looking about her. The restaurant was situated on the edge of a typical Yorkshire market-town, but in the darkness it appeared more secluded than it was. In the muted lighting from the couple of lamps in the car park, her hair gleamed like strands of copper. He wondered what she would say if he asked her to loosen it from the upswept bun she usually favoured for work. He’d seen it down a couple of times, and it was beautiful.

Stupid. He brushed the notion away ruthlessly. This was dinner. Nothing else.

He slid out of the car, walking round the bonnet and then opening Gina’s door and helping her out. The air smelt of the burgeoning vegetation, and somewhere close by a blackbird sang two or three flute-like notes—probably disturbed by the car and lights—before falling silent again. He watched as she drew in a lungful of air, her eyes closed. Opening them, she said softly. ‘I shall miss this in London.’

‘Don’t go, then.’ He hadn’t meant to say it.

‘I have to.’ Her lashes flickered.

‘Why?’

‘I start my new job on Monday—I’ve got a flat, everything. I couldn’t let people down.’

He suddenly knew why he had asked her out to dinner. He hadn’t believed she would actually leave Breedon & Son when it came to the crunch. He hadn’t prepared himself for her disappearing out of his life. There had been so much talk among Natalie and the other employees of Gina changing her mind at the last minute, and he’d found it expedient to believe it. He should have known that once she had committed to something she wouldn’t turn back.

‘No, I guess you couldn’t.’ At six feet, he topped her by five or six inches, and as he gazed down at her he caught the scent of her perfume, something warm and silky that reminded him of magnolia flowers. The jump his senses gave provided a warning shot across the bows. ‘Let’s go in,’ he said coolly. ‘I’m starving.’

Once Roberto had finished fussing over them, and they were seated at a table for two with menus in front of them and a bottle of wine on order, Harry took himself in hand. This was her last day at Breedon & Son, and it was true that she had been a lifesaver when he’d returned so suddenly to the UK—that was why he’d offered to take her out tonight. Nothing else. And of course he’d miss her. You couldn’t work closely with someone umpteen hours a day, share the odd coffee break and lunch and learn about her life and so on, without missing her when she was gone. It was as simple as that.

‘I think I’m going to try that warm-bread salad you mentioned for starters.’ She stared at him, her blue eyes dark in the paleness of her skin. ‘And maybe the tagliatelle to follow?’

‘Good choice.’ He nodded. ‘I’ll join you.’

Once Roberto had returned with the wine and taken their order, he settled back in his seat and raised his glass in a toast. ‘To you and your new life in the great, big city,’ he said, purposely injecting a teasing note into his voice. ‘May you be protected from all the prowling wolves who might try to gobble you up.’

She laughed. ‘I don’t somehow think they’ll be queueing for the privilege.’

He’d noticed this before, her tendency towards self-deprecation. ‘From where I’m sitting, it’s a very real possibility,’ he said quietly.

Her voice a little uncertain, she said, ‘Thank you. You’re very gallant.’

‘I like to think so, but in this case I am speaking the truth.’ He leant forward slightly, not hiding his curiosity as he said, ‘You don’t rate yourself much, do you, Gina? Why is that—or is that too personal a question?’

He liked it that she could blush. He’d thought it a lost art before he had met her.

She shrugged. ‘Legacy of being the ugly duckling of the family, I suppose,’ she said quietly. ‘My two older sisters inherited the red hair, but theirs is true chestnut, and they don’t have freckles. Added to which it was me who had to have the brace on my teeth and see a doctor about acne.’

His eyes wandered over the flawlessly creamy skin, flawless except for the freckles, but he liked those. And her teeth were small, white and even. ‘Your dentist and doctor are to be congratulated on their part in assisting the swan to emerge. You’re a very lovely woman, even if you don’t realise it.’

The blush grew deeper. He watched it with fascination. When she looked ready to explode, he said, ‘I seem to remember both your sisters are married, aren’t they?’ It was more to change the subject and alleviate her distress than because he cared two hoots about them.

She nodded, and her hair reflected a hundred different shades of gold and copper as she moved. ‘Bryony has a little boy of three, and Margaret two girls of five and eight, so I’m an aunt three times over. They’re all great kids.’

Something in her voice prompted him to say, ‘You obviously are very fond of them.’

‘Of course.’

There was no ‘of course’ about it. He knew several women who couldn’t seem to stand their own children, let alone anyone else’s. ‘Do you see yourself settling down and having a family one day?’

A shadow passed over her face. ‘Maybe.’

‘Maybe?’

She smiled, but he could see it was a little shaky. Her mouth was soft, vulnerable. Muscles knotted in his stomach.

‘Settling down and having a family does carry the prerequisite of meeting the right man,’ she said, taking a sip of her wine.

‘You’re bound to meet someone in London.’

‘Why “bound to”?’

Her voice was sharper than he’d heard it before, and his eyes widened momentarily. He’d clearly said the wrong thing, although he couldn’t think how.

And then she said quickly, ‘Not everyone meets the right one, as I’m sure you’d agree, and personally I’d rather remain single than marry just to be with someone. I’m going to London with a view to furthering my career, and perhaps travelling a little, things like that.’

He stared at her. That wasn’t all of it. Had she had a love affair go wrong? Was she moving away because someone had hurt her, broken her heart? But she hadn’t said anything to him about a man in her life.

He caught at the feeling of anger, the sense that she had let him down in some way. Drawing on his considerable self-control, he said coolly, ‘I hadn’t got you down as a career woman, Gina?’

‘No?’ She glanced up from her wine glass and looked him full in the face, but he could read nothing from her expression when she said, ‘But then you don’t really know me, do you?’

He felt as though she had just slapped him round the face, even though her voice had been pleasant and calm. He thought he knew her. She had always been quite free in talking about herself, her family, her friends, although. His eyes narrowed. Come to think of it, she had never discussed her love life at all. He’d just assumed she didn’t have one, he supposed.

He felt a dart of self-disgust, and realised how much he had assumed. Trying to justify himself, he argued silently, no, it wasn’t altogether that. Because he didn’t like to talk about that side of his life, he hadn’t pressed her in that direction, that was all.

And the long hours she had put in ever since he had arrived? The devotion to the job, and to him and his father? Her readiness to be prepared to work overtime at the drop of a hat? The way—even when her workload had been huge and she’d been working flat out—she’d spare time to talk him through a procedure he wasn’t familiar with? He had taken it all for granted, looking back, in his arrogance having imagined Breedon & Son was all of her life. But why would it be? Looking like Gina did, why wouldn’t there have been a man in the background somewhere?

Collecting his racing thoughts, he said, ‘So, what’s your ultimate goal? Do you intend to stay in the capital for good, now you’ve made the break?’

She paused to think. He saw her tongue stroke her bottom lip for a moment, and his body responded, stirring to life. ‘I’m not sure.’ She raised her eyes. ‘Possibly. Like I said, I’d like to travel, and perhaps that could be incorporated into a job. That would be perfect.’

This was a new side to her. Disturbing. He’d been more than a little taken aback when she had announced her intention to leave shortly after the New Year; it hadn’t fitted into his overall picture of her. She was level-headed, reliable, a calm, balanced woman with both feet firmly on the ground. The very last person to suddenly announce they were leaving their home, job and friends to hightail it to the big city, in fact.

‘I see.’ He tried for nonchalance when he said, ‘You’re full of surprises, Gina Leighton. I had you down as more of a homebody, I guess. Someone who wouldn’t be happy if they were far away from where they were born.’

‘London isn’t exactly the ends of the earth.’

She lifted her chin as she spoke, and he said quickly, ‘Oh, don’t get me wrong. That wasn’t a criticism.’

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