His Convenient Mistress (12 page)

He would have time though. She was sure of it. With a cynicism she had not thought herself capable of, she reflected that he still wanted the Rectory. The bait was dangling very close to him. She was sure he would grab it, but just in case…

‘I think it makes sense, though, don't you, James? We should be on speaking terms, considering we'll probably bump into one another whenever you happen to be in Scotland. It's a small place and if tongues wagged when we had that one silly kiss…' she laughed throatily ‘…well, they'll be wagging even more if you show up and insist on walking past me on the street without saying a word…'

The lifeline of cold rationality rescued him from his warring pride.

He relaxed fractionally and moved to sit back down in his swivel chair.

‘So we meet up and discuss…what? Politics? The weather? World poverty?'

‘We meet up and discuss what a fool I was…' Sara allowed herself to pause while her mind raced ahead to her own conclusions, that she had indeed been a fool—to have involved herself with him in the first place ‘…to think that I could say goodbye to you and walk away unscathed…' Truth was cleverly intermingled with lies. She
would never have imagined in a thousand years that she would be capable of a cold-blooded game of revenge, but there was a knife twisting in her gut that made it much easier than she might have thought possible.

He still wanted her house. He would come. And she would sleep with him because she enjoyed it. She would take what he had to offer her instead of squeezing shut her legs and talking about principles, and when she was finished she would dump him, but not until she had informed him in no uncertain terms that she had known from the word go what game he had been playing and thanks for the good time but the house was staying in her possession.

‘Also,' Sara murmured convincingly, ‘Simon is fond of your mother. If you decide that you want to have nothing to do with me, then it might be awkward for them both…'

‘Well, why not?' James drawled. He had a dinner engagement the following night with a client, but it wouldn't be a problem to either defer that or else let Ray Cooper cover for him. ‘If keeping up appearances means that much to you.' His voice was lazy, bored, indifferent, but he couldn't help himself from feeling a certain brooding excitement at the thought of seeing her again. An irresistible weakness.

‘Where would you like to go?'

‘I can't say that I really care one way or the other and I haven't got time now to debate such an irrelevance. As I said, I'm on my way out.'

‘In which case, I know an excellent Italian restaurant. La Taverna…' Overplaying her case at this point wouldn't be a good idea. He was a man of formidable pride and she had dented it. She didn't need him to walk away from her invitation.

‘Right.'

‘It's in Chelsea. Just off the King's Road as a matter of fact. Quite informal.'

‘Right. I'll be there at seven-thirty, even though this charade leaves me cold.'

‘Seven-thirty.' Sara filled her voice with bubbling pleasure. ‘Can't wait, James…'

She spent the following day in a state of barely suppressed excitement underlined with grim determination to see this plan through.

She had arranged to meet three of her friends for lunch, had envisaged a fun, gossipy and bonding couple of hours with them but was bitterly disappointed. Her mind was too full of what lay ahead in a few hours' time and she had moved away from ribald tales of office politics, promotions in the offing and prospective bonuses.

Had this been what it had been all about for her as well? The feverish plans to make even more money? The restricted lunch breaks and long working hours so that she could afford the nanny and the mortgage and the lifestyle that she had usually been too exhausted to appreciate?

It niggled at the back of her mind and she realised, with another familiar spurt of pain, that these were the very things she would have wanted to talk to James about. She would have enjoyed nothing more than to sound him out about what she was feeling.

And she would have done—a lifetime ago.

Now, though…

She got dressed very slowly for an evening seducing the enemy.

She was wearing a short cream silk skirt that floated sexily around her thighs and exposed her long legs to the absolute maximum. A figure-hugging cream top with sleeves to the elbows that just hit her waistline, leaving a tantalising glimpse of skin whenever she moved. High
shoes that emphasised her height. Hair loosely curling down her back.

Half of her hoped that he would already be at the restaurant, waiting for her, so that he could be afforded the full impact of her walking slowly towards him. The other half hoped that she would be the first to arrive so that she could have a little time to get her thoughts together before she laid eyes on him.

Plan or no plan, she wasn't a complete idiot.

She knew that just seeing him for the first time in two weeks was going to have an effect on her. She might be bitterly hurt at his treatment, and that alone would be enough to give her the courage she needed to do what she wanted to do. But she would also have his disturbing sexuality to contend with as well. She would have to withstand those amazing eyes on her face, hear that voice that could send electric currents racing along her spine, watch the sensuous curve of his mouth.

He was there by the time she arrived, waiting for her.

Sara saw him as soon as she walked into the restaurant. Indolently lounging on his chair right at the back, cradling a drink in his hand.

God, but he looked right at home here. Swarthy, black-haired, so ferociously good-looking that she gave a small gasp. She couldn't help it.

She wanted his eyes to travel the length of her, but as she walked towards him she still felt horribly and acutely self-conscious.

Fortunately it didn't show in her voice when she finally made it to the table and was standing looking down at him.

‘Haven't been waiting long, have you?' She smiled. Panic, misery and a certain amount of treacherous elation rushed through her. She took her time to sit down. ‘I would have got here a little sooner, but the traffic was absolutely
foul. It's so easy to forget how mad things are down here compared to Scotland, isn't it?'

‘What are you drinking?'

If he was trying to imply uninterest, then he was succeeding. Sara leaned forward, elbows on the table, and smiled at him. No response.

‘Wine, I think. What have you got there?'

‘Whisky.' He swallowed a mouthful and continued to look at her coldly.

‘Shall we share a bottle of white wine? I need something cold. It's so warm out there. I can't remember a summer like this in years.'

‘Ah, the weather.' His mouth curled into a humourless smile. ‘Favourite standby of people struggling for conversation.' He leaned forward and Sara felt the full force of his masculinity like a physical blow.

‘I'm not struggling for conversation, James, I'm attempting to make some.' The waiter came and there was temporary relief from the effect he was having on her as he scanned the wine list and ordered a bottle of Chablis.

‘And who am I to thwart your efforts? So, the weather. Is it still sunny in Scotland? Or have there been a few showers?'

‘Don't.'

‘Don't what?'

‘Be facetious.'

‘You forget, this was your splendid idea. To meet up so that we could chat like two sensible adults and smooth the path for a workable relationship should we ever happen to meet when I'm next up there.'

‘What have you been doing since we last…saw one another?'

‘Have we finished with the weather?'

The wine arrived, was poured, and Sara drank most of her glass in the space of a few seconds.

Where was all the charm? she thought acidly. Now that his plans had been scuppered, did he not see any further point in trying to expend any on her?

‘I've finally been meeting a few people.' She twirled the wine glass in one hand and propped her chin in the palm of the other. ‘Fiona has been wonderful. Asking us over for tea, introducing Simon to some of the other children, introducing me to some of her friends. I just wish I could have been able to get into it a little bit more…'

‘At which point,' he leaned forward as well so that the distance between them was narrowed to the point where giddiness took over, ‘I expect I am to ask you what you mean by that remark…'

‘What's the point making things difficult between us?'

‘You need to ask that question?'

This was how he had done it, of course. That way he had of focusing absolutely and entirely on her. Even now, when every pore of him breathed hostility, he could still make her feel sick with self-awareness. He had a male aggression that made Phillip seem like a boy in comparison.

‘We're adults. Adults make mistakes. I've already confessed to making one, to turning you away…'

‘Something no woman has ever done.' He knew how he sounded. Bloody petulant. He could have kicked himself but the words were out before he could retract them.

‘And I've never had a one-night stand in my life.' She watched, gratefully, as the waiter poured her another glass of wine and was aware of them ordering food, but only just. ‘Have you missed me?'

James felt himself flush darkly. ‘I think I prefer conversing about the weather,' he drawled, noticing the deli
cate flush that invaded her cheeks at his response. ‘As to what I have been doing…' He sat back, giving himself some breathing space. The directness of her question had rattled him. If he had tried to answer that one, he was certain that she would have been able to glean the truth from his expression. ‘Working.'

‘All work and no play…'

‘Makes James a dull boy?' They were making short work of this wine, he thought and he was nettled by the admission to himself that he felt as if he needed it. What the hell was he doing here?

‘Hardly dull, from what I remember…'

‘How is my mother?' he asked heavily. He had ordered some kind of fish, which appeared to have now been placed in front of him and looked delicious, although the consumption of food was the last thing on his mind.

‘Fine. Enjoying the weather and the gardens, you know…'

‘And Simon?' It was a struggle to keep the conversation low-key and normal but he had to. He had to stay in control because, against every sensible bone in his body, he was responding to her, to whatever dance she was leading him, and it enraged him.

‘Simon is fine. He…he really enjoys living up there. Of course, I've told him that the weather helps and that it's completely different in winter, with the cold and the snow, but that just seems to get him more excited. Would you believe he's never seen snow?' Sara began eating. Instead of being coolly in control, she felt flustered and vulnerable. She had to remind herself why she was here, why she was having dinner with this man…

‘No, London never gets snow, does it?' He gave a short, derisive laugh. ‘And now we are back to the weather.'

No, we're not, Sara thought fiercely. We are
not
going
to run around in circles, getting nowhere. I am
not
going to abort my plan and let you get away with using me. I won't be hurt by you and allow myself to run away.

It was so tempting to ask him
why
, to ask him whether he had felt anything for her at all, that she had to lower her eyes and take a few deep, steadying breaths.

‘So we are. Silly, isn't it? When there's so much else to talk about.'

‘For instance?'

‘For instance I could tell you that you look good, that I'd forgotten just how good you look.' She quietly closed her knife and fork, leaving her food unfinished, and met his eyes steadily.

‘What are you playing at?' He pushed his plate away, deposited his napkin on it and sat back, staring at her, willing himself to get a grip, knowing that nothing was showing on his face but that his bloody nervous system was in a state of chaos.

‘I'm talking.'

‘Talking.'

‘That's right. That's why I got in touch with you. So that we could have a conversation, although…'

‘Although what…?' he asked, his words dropping softly into the silence between them.

‘Although I can think of much more interesting things to do…'

‘O
H, REALLY
?'

‘Really. To be perfectly honest, I could have handled everything with my banker and the estate agents by phone or e-mail. There was no real need to travel down here to London, but…' Those intent blue eyes could make a girl think she was drowning, Sara thought.

‘But you just couldn't resist the desire to feast your eyes on my magnificent self.'

‘No, that isn't all there is to it. And it's rude to draw attention to yourself like that. Makes you sound egotistic. Which, of course, you are.'

James glanced away but she could see that he wanted to smile and that little glimpse of humour made her heart contract.

‘So I am rude, egotistic…I cannot imagine why you would make a trip to London to communicate with someone with those personality traits.'

‘I really did want to talk to you, James. I really did think that it would have been crazy to just cease communication completely when we're going to inevitably keep bumping into one another. And you may be rude and egotistic but you're also interesting and fairly amusing.'

‘Fairly amusing. Well, we're stepping up the ladder of compliments. Now that you've had your way telling me what you think of me, I feel it's only right that I tell you what I think of you…'

A little shiver of apprehension raced down her spine. She didn't want him to tell her anything of the sort. She
just didn't need any more of his lies, any more pretence that he was interested enough in her to have formed opinions of her at all.

‘You look alarmed,' he murmured, letting his eyes wander away from hers, to her mouth, to her breasts. ‘I think you're immensely complex and a complete mystery. One minute you're lecturing to me like a minister on a pulpit, the next minute you're flirting with me and inviting me back into your bed. Now, that makes no sense, does it?'

‘Does it have to?' Sara laughed and tossed her head. She had never tossed her head in her life before and was surprised that the gesture seemed to come so naturally. ‘Women are allowed to be unpredictable, aren't they?' She rested her head on her hand and gazed at him with a half-smile.

Unbelievably, she was enjoying this.

‘I thought men loved unpredictability in women. Besides, if I'm mysterious and complex, then I must also be unpredictable. They go hand in hand.'

‘Not all men love unpredictability.' He didn't. It appeared, though, that she was the exception because the way she was looking at him now was making his senses reel and it was all he could do to keep his hands in check.

‘You mean
you
don't?'

‘I mean I should get the bill and…'

‘And…?'

She could sense the wary restlessness in him and on the spur of the moment she reached out her hand and covered his, very, very lightly and very, very briefly, just long enough to stroke the side of his thumb with her finger. Then her hand was back in place and burning. His power over her could threaten everything, but she wouldn't let it.

‘You're skating on thin ice, Sara.' He raked his fingers
through his hair, but his eyes never left her face, not for one single second.

‘Care to explain?'

‘What if I decide to take you up on your very generous offer? Are you really going to feel any differently about me if we sleep together again? And again after that? Am I not still going to be the big, bad wolf who should keep away from your door?'

‘It's all a question of choices, isn't it?'

‘Choices?'

‘I can choose to foresee the difficulties and walk away before they arise, or I can choose to run headlong into whatever lies ahead and realise that experience, whatever the outcome, counts for a lot.' Too much talk and too much truth. She smiled seductively. Another little talent she didn't know she possessed. Whatever this man brought out in her, he was unique. ‘I choose the latter.'

Who the hell was he to talk about skating on thin ice when he could barely think straight with those feline eyes looking at him?

The circular table separating them was small bordering on tiny and he had to fight the temptation to slouch slightly further down into his chair, just far enough so that he could insert his thigh underneath that very short, very sexy skirt of hers. Feel the softness of her crotch against the hardness of his knee. God, he wanted her.

‘I don't think this is the place to have a prolonged conversation, though…' She was unaware that the lowering of her eyelids and the flick of her tongue over her lips was as erotic as a striptease.

‘Where,' he heard himself saying, ‘do you have in mind, in that case…?'

Sara shrugged and looked down as she casually traced the rim of her glass with one finger. ‘Any suggestions?'

Several,
he knew he should say,
and all involve two minutes on the end of a phone while you're heading back up to Scotland and I'm here, working, going out with women I can predict and getting on with life before you came along and managed to clutter it up.
He was as cynical as they came! Jaded from experience and permanently watchful of the dangers of losing his massive self-control.

He signalled to a waiter for the bill.

Sara could see the questions racing through that clever brain of his. But his questions didn't matter. He was going to pay the bill, no dessert, no coffees, no chatting over liqueurs, and that could only mean one thing. He was going to come with her. She felt a kick of satisfaction and, hard on the heels of that, a rush of undiluted, naked longing.

This was going to be a learning curve for her, she thought a little wildly. She couldn't go through life choosing men who thought nothing of pulling the rug out from under her feet. She would toughen up and if it was at his expense then that was just too bad. He deserved everything he got.

Knowing what she now knew, she should have been left cold by him, but the minute she had laid eyes on him she had felt her body begin to react, and as he paid the bill, ignoring her insistence on paying half, she felt the lick of excitement steadily getting stronger.

The silence between them was electric. As was the fact that he didn't touch her. Once outside the restaurant, he shoved his hands in his pockets, only withdrawing one to hail a black cab. He leaned down, gave the driver an address in Chelsea, and once they were both inside he sprawled against his side of the car so that he could look at her.

‘So, are you going to tell me what brought about this change of heart?'

‘I already told you,' Sara said, taking quick breaths, ‘I thought things over and, well…you were right. It's crazy to go through life being affected by what Phillip did. We're adults and we were…' She sighed with remembered pleasure and that sigh had nothing to do with revenge or bitterness.

‘Good together in bed? Fantastic, in fact?'

Sara raised her eyebrows in unexpected amusement. ‘I think I can hear your ego again.'

‘Tut, tut. Now, that's not very nice considering you're the seductress trying to woo me back between the sheets, is it?' His deep, velvety voice caught her amusement and shared it. It gave her an uneasy premonition of how simple it would be to fall right back into the trap of opening up to him, because on a very basic level she just seemed to click with him.

‘I've never been called a seductress before.' Uneasy premonitions didn't have a part to play.

‘Mm. I can understand why. Brutal honesty isn't usually the mark of the seductress.'

His voice was wickedly smooth and she dared to extend her hand so that it was resting lightly on his thigh.

‘Blame my job,' Sara murmured, her pulses leaping at the casual physical contact. ‘Being brutally honest becomes a habit after a while. Does it scare you?' She moved her hand fractionally higher and was almost disappointed when he covered it firmly with his own before she could take her explorations further.

‘Oh, I don't scare easily. Not,' he added in a drawl, ‘that you won't have to use other feminine wiles to tempt me…'

‘Other feminine wiles such as what…?' Was this really
her talking? Flirting outrageously and loving every minute of it? Good lord.

His response to that was to remove his hand from where it had been covering hers. Sara thought that if she listened hard enough she might just be able to hear the wild beat of her heart and the leap of her pulses as she edged her hand higher until it lay over the hard rod of his erection, which she could feel throbbing beneath the fabric of his trousers.

He shifted slightly. ‘Now, if I'd had my driver I might just have asked you to take your technique a little further.' He could almost smell the musky aroma of her excitement, filling his nostrils and making him want to unzip his trousers and push her hand harder against him.

‘But regrettably,' he said roughly, ‘no driver and we're just about here at my apartment.' On cue, the taxi slowed down and Sara's pulse rate returned to something approaching normality as she slipped out of the cab and watched with her arms folded across her as he paid the fare and then turned to look at her.

‘This time,' he murmured, walking up to her and positioning himself directly in front of her with his legs slightly parted, ‘no turning back. If you think you're going to suffer with agonies of conscience afterwards, or even before for that matter, then you can leave in the next cab. This isn't going to be a one-night stand.'

‘You mean you want an affair.'

‘If you want to call it that.'

‘What else can we call it?'

‘We can call it whatever we want to,' he informed her silkily, ‘after all, it's just a matter of vocabulary. But we both know what we're talking about.'

‘What about a relationship, then?' Sara threw at him. She knew that he wouldn't like the idea of that, for all his
talk about it just being
a matter of vocabulary
. An affair was something frothy and light that dissolved in a puff of wind, but a relationship was something more than that and, considering that he had his own hidden agenda for sleeping with her, then going beyond a bit of froth would not be something he would even contemplate for a minute. Oh, no, that would be just a little too much like hard work for him.

‘I don't have a problem with that,' he surprised her by saying. In the dim pool of light reflected from the nearest street lamp, he could see her startled expression. She wasn't interested in a relationship, he thought. Never mind what she said about moving away from her past, she was still as trapped in it as she ever was. He felt a sudden, searing determination to snap her out of it, focus her entirely on him, as a lover and as a man as well.

‘Feeling a little scared at the thought of getting to know me, Sara?' he murmured mockingly and she tilted her chin up defensively.

‘Not at all,' she lied.

‘Good, so shall we go up to my apartment? I don't know about you, but it's a little too chilly to stand out here debating points of detail.'

The building was severe and imposing from the outside. The white façade was broken by intricate black wrought-iron railings around the long windows, and apart from a few window-boxes there was a total absence of green. It was as different from his mansion in Scotland as it was possible to get. Somehow it summarised the life in London that had woven such a magical spell over her when she had left it behind, but which, now that she was in it once more even if only for a couple of days, was already beginning to impinge uncomfortably on her.

Two of the four-storeyed buildings had obviously been
cleverly knocked into one so that the reception area was not a small hallway, leading up to a single staircase, but a large central area, impeccably tiled, and at one end there was a small walnut desk manned by a uniformed middle-aged man who half stood when James walked in.

‘I thought you'd given up the night shift,' James said, grinning as he collected his mail.

‘I had, sir.' The weathered face returned the grin. ‘But then I discovered that it beats being at home with the wife, the mother-in-law, the daughter and the little nipper. Soon as the mother-in-law goes back to Oz and Gary finishes the house repairs so that Ellie and little Tommy can move in, then I'll take back up my day post. Be able to watch a little night-time telly in peace and quiet.'

‘And I guess you spend all day sleeping?' James raised his eyebrows and tapped the wad of post against the open palm of one hand.

‘Not
all
, sir. There's a limit to what the wife will tolerate.'

James was still grinning as the elevator door purred shut on them. ‘He's an institution here,' he explained with a devastating smile. ‘Been here as long as I have.'

‘Which is how long, exactly?' Sara asked curiously.

‘Almost six years. Before that I had a mews house in Richmond but this is a helluva lot more convenient for central London.'

‘And no troublesome garden to take care of.'

‘And no troublesome garden to take care of,' he agreed, standing back to allow her to exit first. ‘I presume that was your reason for an apartment as well?'

‘Yes,' she admitted, ‘although with a child, a garden would have been ideal. But I just would never have had the time to look after it and it would have been too small
in central London, anyway, to employ the use of a gardener.'

‘So you went from one extreme to the other.'

‘Simon adores it.' She shrugged, watching him as he smoothly unlocked his door and pushed it open, automatically turning to deactivate his alarm.

‘And you?'

Sara pretended to ignore the question. It wasn't difficult. He had switched on the light and she was quite literally speechless at what she saw. Acres of space. Acres of space for a London apartment at any rate. Shallow stairs led away from the door and down to a superb sunken sitting area which rose on one side to give an open view of yet another sitting area, less formal, with a television set at one end and alongside that a desk with a complex array of office equipment. On the other side, the sunken area led up to a spacious dining area and beyond that the kitchen, which was, unheard of in a London flat, large enough to house a kitchen table as well as all the usual culinary paraphernalia. A long counter, topped with black granite, separated the kitchen from the dining area, but aside from that one division the eye could travel the width of the room without being obstructed by any doors. And the gleaming wooden flooring emphasised the illusion of vast space.