Getting Even

‘I agree!’ she returned, with a sweet smile. ‘And standing here talking to you is just about as boring as it can get!’

Lola watched as for one swift, disconcerting moment his eyes darkened with an intensity of emotion which puzzled her hugely. She had made him angry, yes. Had she managed to wound his pride too? And, if so, might he at least now have the grace to look a little apologetic?

No way, she quickly realised. The anger had vanished, and so had the dark, intense look. And surprisingly all that was left was laughter—a reluctant kind of laughter which lurked in the depths of his grey eyes.

‘I don’t believe I bore you, Lola,’ he told her softly. ‘I believe that boredom is the very last thing on your mind right now!’

Oh, the arrogance of the man! Lola might have laughed if she hadn’t been so outraged by his inflated opinion of himself! ‘You find that such an improbable concept, do you?’ she queried coolly. ‘That a woman should find you boring?’

‘I do when she is demonstrating all the obvious signs of sexual attraction,’ he mused.

‘That’s probably just wishful thinking on your part!’ retorted Lola instantly, then wished she hadn’t.

He smiled, but it was the kind of smile that all the bad guys in films possessed—it didn’t make the corners of his eyes go all crinkly, and it didn’t have any degree of warmth in it either. Again, Lola felt that uncomfortable chill creep across the surface of her skin.

‘Is it? Does wishful thinking manage to manufacture eyes which keep darkening with passion, or lips that automatically soften and part in anticipation of being kissed?’ he drawled silkily. ‘As yours are doing right now?’

To her horror, Lola suddenly felt absolutely weak with longing as the deep, sensual words seemed to orchestrate her response. The fairly sensible, middle-of-the-road woman she considered herself to be had suddenly been replaced by a pathetic, swooning wimp! ‘St-stop it,’ she implored, despising herself for sounding so feeble but unable to do anything about it.

He shook his dark head. ‘But you don’t want me to stop it, do you? That’s just the trouble. You like it, Lola. And you like me. Your body is telling me just how much, isn’t it?’

And his eyes lazily flicked over her, lingering with undisguised interest on her breasts in a way that Lola would have found intolerable if any other man had done it. But she did not find it intolerable when Geraint Howell-Williams did it.

Beneath the dress of lapis lazuli velvet which made her blue eyes even bluer, Lola could feel her body betraying her, flowering beneath the approbation and the hunger in his eyes. She felt her breasts grow heavy and full, the tips begin to prickle with a kind of delicious ache which was actually more uncomfortable than enjoyable.

Because Lola recognised that there was only one way of taking that terrible aching away and that, astonishingly and shockingly, she wanted Geraint to touch her...

‘Do you normally behave like this towards women you have only just met?’ she demanded, her knees now weak with wanting.

‘Never,’ he responded softly, clearly mesmerised by the jutting thrust of her breasts against the rich material of her dress. ‘Do you normally react in this way to men you have only just met?’

Lola dragged a deep, determined breath into her lungs. ‘I think I’d better get out of here,’ she told him breathlessly. ‘Before one of us says something really offensive—’

‘You’re in no state to go anywhere,’ he responded wryly as he looked down at her searchingly, the stormy eyes narrowing in surprise at her wide eyes and flushed face. ‘Here, give me that.’

‘That’ was the glass she was clutching as if it were a lifeline, and smoothly—masterfully—he managed to remove the forgotten tonic from her hand and deposit it on a nearby table, then slowly pull her into his arms before she had time to make a protest.

‘Geraint, please...’ she whispered, aware of a tiny pull of pleasure as she said his name for the first time, and she found herself wanting to say it over and over again, as though it were some life-sustaining mantra.

‘Please what?’ he responded softly, his mouth pressed against her hair.

‘Please let go of me.’

‘If I do you’ll fall.’ His voice deepened. ‘Won’t you?’

’N-no, I won’t,’ she answered uncertainly, realising that she was actually enjoying the rather scary feeling of being this much out of control.

‘Try it,’ he suggested, and loosened his hands from where they had been holding her by the waist, and Lola actually felt herself sway, like a flu victim just out of bed for the first time. She wondered if she might have slithered to the floor, had he not renewed his hold on her with a steely strength that made Lola feel weaker than she had ever felt in her life.

‘See?’ he challenged softly.

Oh, yes, Lola saw all right. She saw that she had been sending out entirely the wrong messages to Geraint Howell-Williams since she had first clapped eyes on him tonight.

Or maybe—just maybe—she had been sending out the right messages, and he was just clever enough to pick up on them, realise that she was hopelessly infatuated, and then capitalise on that by having her almost swooning in his arms.

‘Relax,’ he urged softly. ‘Just enjoy the music.’

For a moment she did as he suggested. She gave in to temptation and to feeling, loving the exciting warm circle of his arms, the way his head rested so easily against hers.

She forgot all about the band playing and listened to the infinitely more spellbinding music of his body.

The beat of his heart. The rhythm of his breathing. The almost unconscious little thrust of his pelvis as he allowed himself to respond to the saxophonist who was the band’s only saving grace.

She knew that she ought to move, that a dance with a stranger should not be this intimate, and yet, to all intents and purposes, the dance was not intimate. They were just a man and a woman swaying loosely in each other’s arms, as others were all around them.

So this sensation of almost drowning in sweet, drenching pleasure—was this unique to her? Did this dance feel like any other to Geraint Howell-Williams? Lola wondered. Because it sure as hell didn’t to her! At that moment, drifting in his arms, she felt as though she was starring in every love story ever written.

Love story?

Her adolescent little fantasies brought Lola back to her senses with a start, and as the number trailed off with one final, lingering throb of the saxophone she took a deep breath and looked up at him.

‘Th-thank you for the dance,’ she said falteringly.

The grey eyes were enigmatic as he dropped his hands from where they had been lightly holding her hips. ‘My pleasure.’

‘It’s time I was going.’

‘Sure?’

That was, thought Lola wryly, what they called a leading question. To be honest, she wasn’t sure—she would have liked to hang around and dance like that with him all night.

But a girl had her pride to think of. He was the kind of over-gorgeous man who had probably had things much, much too easy in the past. And Lola’s turning him down was almost certainly going to help his emotional development enormously! ‘Quite sure,’ she answered firmly.

He nodded his dark head. ‘Where do you live?’

Lola had only been a resident for the past six months, and she still had not worked out how to answer this particular question without giving in to the toe-curling embarrassment of having to explain how she’d actually come to own a house worth almost a million pounds.

People always jumped to such awful conclusions when they found out that a pensioner she hardly knew had left it to her!

‘I live here,’ she told him. ‘On the St Fiacre’s estate.’

‘I see,’ he murmured softly.

Lola searched his face for the tell-tale looks of surprise—but there were none.

She was still extremely sensitive about living in a house on the estate once termed ‘the Beverly Hills of England’ by some enterprising journalist—one where all the residents were not just rich, they were seriously rich.

Except for Lola, of course.

The rich had a look and a lifestyle all of their own, and Lola did not possess either! She looked exactly what she was—a working woman who needed a bit of clever juggling to pay her bills. Although, admittedly, a working woman who lived in an enormous house. A house which she was fast coming to the conclusion she was going to have to sell.

‘I’ll walk you back,’ he said.

‘No!’ It came out more vehemently than she had intended, but really! A walk home in the moonlight with a man like Geraint Howell-Williams? Agreeing to a dream scenario like that would simply be asking for trouble!

‘And why not?’ he asked coolly.

He was very persistent, she would say that for him, although she doubted that he had ever had to use persistence with a woman before! ‘Does there have to be a reason?’ she parried. ‘Or are you implying that no woman in her right mind would refuse an invitation to have you walk her home?’

He fixed her with a steady grey gaze. ‘Did you come here with another man tonight?’

‘Do you think that I would have been dancing like that with you if I had come with another man?’ Lola demanded, instantly growing flustered. Now why had she mentioned the way they had been dancing—especially when it made his eyes gleam with such a hot, exciting look?

‘I have no idea.’ He shrugged shoulders whose breadth was emphasised by the exquisite cut of his dinner jacket. ‘Who knows what hidden agenda a woman might have when she agrees to dance with a man?’

Or vice versa, thought Lola with amusement. ‘Such as?’

He plucked two glasses of champagne from the tray of a passing waitress and handed one to Lola who took it without thinking. ‘Such as wanting to show off her figure in a clinging gown. That could easily apply to you...’

Lola, who had not intended to drink alcohol at all that evening, now took a huge, emboldening slug of the fizzy wine and was grateful for the warmth and the bravado it gave her. ‘This dress is not clinging!’ she declared, glancing down at the deep blue velvet.

There was smoky amusement in the grey eyes. ‘Oh, come on, Lola,’ he chided softly. ‘It probably wasn’t meant to be—but when you combine a sensual material like velvet with a Botticelli body clinging is what you get.’

‘You mean I look fat?’

‘I mean you look sensational,’ he murmured, sounding as though he meant it. ‘If you really want to know.’

Lola felt a rush of pleasure kick-starting at the pit of her stomach. This man whom she was trying so hard to dislike was flirting like mad with her, and right now she didn’t care!

Flustered, she swept a great handful of hair unnecessarily over her shoulder. ‘And what other reasons do women have for dancing with men?’ she queried, in an effort to stop him giving her that hungry look which was making her long to be kissed by him.

‘To make a boyfriend jealous, perhaps?’

‘But I haven’t got a boyfriend,’ said Lola instantly, and then could have kicked herself. There was no need to make herself sound as though she was desperate! Or on the shelf. Or both! ‘Not at the moment, anyway,’ she finished defiantly.

‘No,’ he said thoughtfully.

Lola found herself wishing that she could check her appearance somewhere. Was her nose shiny? Had her mascara smudged beneath her eyes? Was that why he was subjecting her to that highly disturbing, narrow-eyed scrutiny?

‘And there is, of course,’ he drawled, ‘the rather obvious reason why a woman agrees to dance with a man.’

‘And what’s that?’

‘Oh, I think you know the answer to that one.’ He gave her a long, steady look.

Lola took the look as a challenge. ‘No, I don’t.’

The grey eyes glittered. ‘That she can’t resist him, of course. That she wants to be in bed with him... and dancing is a socially acceptable substitute for sex. Sublimation,’ he finished on a mocking note, and then, as if sensing her objection, added softly, ‘You did ask, Lola.’

He was right. Perhaps it had been naive of her. But then again, there were civilised ways of answering naive questions, weren’t there? The glass froze halfway to Lola’s lips. ‘Are you trying to shock me?’

‘Why?’ he mocked, and their gazes locked for a fraught and sexually charged moment. ‘Am I succeeding?’

Not in shocking her, no—he was exciting her by saying things he had no right to be saying. It was crazy, thought Lola, how a deep voice and a sexy body could turn a normally sensible girl’s brain to jelly! ‘No comment!’ she declared firmly. ‘And I’m definitely going now!’

‘Did you drive?’

‘No, I walked.’

‘Then I am going to walk you home,’ he said, and shook his dark head firmly as he saw her open her mouth to refuse. ‘Please, Lola,’ he urged, almost huskily. ‘It’s a dark night for a woman to be out on her own.’

It was years since a man had said something so delightfully chivalrous to her, although Lola usually associated chivalry with a certain kind of innocence—and innocence was not a word which suited Geraint Howell-Williams at all!

She tipped her chin up to look him in the eye, so that her hair spilled down in mahogany spirals all over her shoulders. ‘And which, out of interest, offers me more in the way of danger?’ she challenged. ‘The dark night? Or you?’

‘You’re talking different types of danger, honey,’ he asserted, giving her a brief, hard smile—but it was an oddly disconcerting smile. ‘Though I can assure you that I will deliver you home in one piece. Does that satisfy you?’

It occurred to Lola that ‘satisfy’ was a particularly poor word to have chosen in the circumstances, but she nodded as he put their glasses down on one of the tables and guided her towards the door like a man used to being in command.

She felt her heart racing out of control. Calm down, Lola, she told herself firmly—he’s only offering to walk you home, not to trap you into a life of decadence!

She watched his hard, lean body covertly from beneath the dark sweep of her lashes and thought, most uncharacteristically, that perhaps in this case decadence might have something to commend it!

‘Did you have a coat?’ he asked as he pushed open one of the glass doors to receive the cold night air.

’N-no.’ Her teeth had begun to chatter. When she had left the house earlier it had been a deceptively warm and starry evening, but now a breeze was fluttering its cool fingers through the air.

‘Here, then—you’re cold,’ he said, frowning, and immediately removed his jacket to hang it loosely over her shoulders.

He turned left out of the tennis club towards East Road, as though he instinctively knew the way, and Lola wrinkled her nose. ‘But this is the way to my house,’ she said.

‘Don’t sound so surprised. Wasn’t the general idea to head in the direction of your house—as that’s where I’m supposed to be taking you?’

‘But I don’t remember telling you where I lived.’

‘You must have done,’ he answered quickly. ‘Or how could I have known?’

How indeed? Lola hugged his jacket closer, obsessively observing her surroundings in an effort not to concentrate on the tantalisingly subtle scents of musk and lemon which clung to his coat, but it wasn’t easy.

Huge banks of dark, glossy laurels lined the road, looming high on either side, protecting the vast houses behind them from the curious eyes of onlookers. Occasionally, there were high, impenetrable gates, bearing a stark picture of a barking guard dog that was meant to deter burglars—or curious sightseers, desperate to catch a glimpse of some of the houses and their often famous occupants.

In fact, Lola had long since decided that the word ‘house’ was a bit of a misnomer where St Fiacre’s was concerned. The smallest residence on the estate had six bedrooms, and the largest was rumoured to have twenty-two!

It was the world of the hidden camera and the stony-faced guard which so often went hand in hand with money—although the lush green acres surrounding the houses did much to compensate for the downside of extreme wealth.

She and Geraint walked side by side. Twice, cars slowed down—large, opulent and expensive cars, whose drivers were interested to know why a couple were actually walking around St Fiacre’s instead of driving!

Lola often thought that most of her neighbours wouldn’t know what to do with their hands if they weren’t holding a steering wheel!

They had almost reached the dip in the road where a branch of East Road ran up to join North Road when Lola said, pointing into a curving driveway, ‘I live here.’

He glanced up the drive to where the elegant white three-storey building sat amidst carefully manicured lawns. But instead of commenting on the house Geraint paused to look at Lola instead, his hard-boned face a series of shifting shadows cast by the pale moon and the even paler light from the stars.

‘You do realise that we’ve met before?’ he said suddenly.

Lola found that she couldn’t stop herself from smiling, ridiculously pleased that he had remembered. Of course, bearing in mind his no doubt colossal ego, she really ought to feign ignorance of him, but she dismissed the idea immediately. She wasn’t a good liar at the best of times and for some reason she baulked at the thought of Geraint finding her out in a lie!

She nodded, her glossy hair full of moonlight. ‘Yes, I do. It was on a flight out of London to Paris, wasn’t it?’

‘Ah! So you do remember.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Lola calmly.

‘But you didn’t mention it.’

Lola fixed him with a direct look. ‘Neither did you’

‘Maybe I thought that you wouldn’t remember a mere passenger—you must see thousands of men every working week.’

‘Not remember you?’ Lola gave a pale imitation of a smile. ‘Oh, come on, Mr Howell-Williams—please don’t indulge in false modesty on my account! You happen to be a very memorable man, as I’m sure countless women have told you. I remember you very well, as it happens. You kept requesting tomato juice.’

‘Heavens!’ he mocked. ‘You really do have a good memory, don’t you?’ He lifted his dark brows questioningly. ‘So why did you keep glaring at me whenever I asked you for another drink?’

Lola shifted in embarrassment. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘Oh, but it does.’ In the darkness his grey eyes were as cold and as glittering as the finest marble and Lola recognised that he was the kind of man who would chip away until he’d obtained all the answers he wanted.

She decided to give in without a struggle. ‘If you must know, I suspected your motives.’

He stilled. ‘My motives?’ he asked, in an odd, quiet sort of voice. ‘Just what do you mean by that?’

Lola shook her head. ‘Really—it isn’t important.’

‘Oh, but it is,’ he contradicted her, in a voice suddenly soft with menace. ‘Tell me.’

Lola gave him a steady look, realising that the atmosphere between them had suddenly changed to a big freeze, and wondering why.

She shrugged. ‘OK. I’ll tell you if you insist. We keep the tomato juice on the bottom shelf of the trolley because it is one of our least popular drinks. Some of the male passengers seem to have cottoned on to this, and they keep asking for it so that...that...’ Her voice trailed off in embarrassment as she saw the contempt hardening his lips. Oh, why hadn’t she kept her big mouth shut?

‘So that you have to bend right down to get it?’ he finished for her acidly.

Lola blushed again. Hateful, perceptive man! ‘Well, yes,’ she admitted, the look on his face making her wish that a hole could open up in front of her and swallow her up.

‘Do you really think,’ he said witheringly, ‘that I would be reduced to resorting to such juvenile ploys? And if I did want to see your knickers I would hardly need to make myself sick through drinking excessive amounts of tomato juice. After all, those abbreviated outfits that you wear for work leave very little to the imagination!’

‘Why, you—’ Maddened beyond thinking, Lola swung her hand out to slap his face, but his reactions were much too speedy for her, and he caught her wrist easily, pulling her right up against his chest and looking down at her, his wolfish smile making his shadowed face look both intimidating and delectably kissable.

‘You what?’ he mocked. ‘Beast? Brute? Bastard? Some or all of those? Want to think badly of me, do you, Lola Hennessy? Well, why not have some thing to really focus your anger on?’

And he did what she had been wanting him to do all evening. He gathered her into his arms and crushed his mouth down on hers in a kiss which sent all her senses into overdrive.

She was aware of the sweetness, of the intimacy as their tongues locked, of the desperate need to hold onto him as tightly as possible and never let him go.

She heard the low moan he made in the back of his throat as he sought to pull her even closer against him and Lola clung onto those wide, strong shoulders, massaging them like a woman possessed, the rocky bulge of his muscles steel-hard against her fingertips.

She could feel the leanness of his abdomen against her rounded belly, and she could sense the tension in him as he shifted his weight, moving his hips in a distracted circle, which made her acutely aware of just how easily he could be turned on too.

The realisation that things were spiralling out of control was what cleared Lola’s mind from the constricting mists of desire, and the facts began to seep coldly into her brain as she forced herself to remember how he had insulted her.

And yet here she was allowing herself to be meekly compromised by necking in a bush with him!

Angrily, she pushed him away. I don’t know what you think you‘re—’

‘Oh, spare me the hysterics, do,’ he interrupted calmly, and then he actually yawned—although Lola was convinced that it was deliberate! ‘When will you women realise that it really doesn’t count if you declare your unwillingness after the event? Particularly,’ he drawled insultingly, ‘when your willingness to participate was overwhelming at the time.’

His grey eyes glinted with remembered pleasure. ‘That was some kiss,’ he murmured softly, his eyes narrowing as he looked down at her, seeming taken aback by the dazed look on her face. And some of the abrasiveness had left his voice when he said, ‘Come on—I’ll walk you to the door.’

For about ten seconds Lola was completely speechless and then she made up for it. ‘Do you really think that I would let you anywhere near my house after that?’ she spluttered indignantly.

‘Why ever not?’ He looked perplexed.

‘Because I’m not used to being man-handled by jumped-up Lotharios who think that caveman tactics will have a woman swooning in their arms every time!’

‘And you are claiming not to have enjoyed my so-called caveman tactics?’ he drawled, his eyes glittering as he recalled that Lola had done exactly that. ‘I rest my case,’ he added insultingly as her hot, guilty cheeks added fuel to his argument.

‘Perhaps you’d better go,’ she suggested from between gritted teeth. Before she said something she might regret, she added silently.

‘Go? Sure.’ He gave her an unsettling smile and turned away with a lazy assurance which filled Lola with an inexplicable kind of fear. He did not look like a man who was going too far.

‘Goodnight, Lola.’

‘Wh-where are you going?’

‘Home.’ He raised his dark brows at her in sultry question. ‘Unless that was an oblique invitation for me to stay?’

‘Wh-where do you live?’ she demanded nervously. ‘On the estate?’

He smiled. ‘I’m afraid so. Although only temporarily, you understand. I’m staying at Dominic Dashwood’s house.’

‘B-but that’s next door!’ Lola spluttered. ‘To me!’

‘Exactly. So we’ll be neighbours.’ His eyes glinted with a wickedness that excited her, and with something else, too—something which unsettled her, unnerved her. Something she couldn’t define.

A chill, nebulous dread settled on her skin like a fog as she tried to imagine Geraint Howell-Williams living next door.