Page 32 of One Bridegroom Required!

The word began to batter relentlessly at his conscience like rain lashing against a window, and Luke felt his body freeze with rejection, his lips stilling against hers.

For this

was the act of a fool. This woman was like a glass of champagne: the sudden high, the slaking of a sensual thirst and then—what? The dry mouth, the headache and the regret of a hangover—that was what.

He was not in the market for any woman—but particularly not one who was everything he most feared and despised in a woman. With her fey, enchanting beauty, and all the restless inner energy of the creative personality, she was the kind of woman who was bad news. Very bad news indeed.

He plucked his mouth away from hers, and something in his attitude must have unnerved her, for he saw the sudden whitening of her face and the way that her eyes had grown leaf-dark and startled.

And, even then, that treacherous protective instinct which she alone seemed to inspire in him reared its interfering head once more, and he reached out automatically to steady her, afraid that she might simply crumple to a heap in front of him.

‘Luke—what on earth is the matter?’ she demanded, as she unseeingly let him gently propel her back towards the sofa, where she slumped down like a puppet whose strings had just been cut. ‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m doing what I should have done about ten minutes ago,’ he told her grimly. ‘I’m leaving!’

‘But why? I don’t understand!’

‘And you don’t need to understand,’ he gritted, his mouth hardening into an ugly line as he thought of how close he had come to... to... ‘Forget it ever happened, Holly, because it meant nothing! It was an aberration, that’s all.’

‘An “aberration”?’ she challenged, then wished she hadn’t because the look he threw her in response was insulting. ‘What a horrible word!’

‘Like me to explain it to you?’ he queried, with silky condescension.

‘I think I can just about work it out for myself, thank you!’

With the grace of a natural predator, he rose to his feet and came to stand over her, and Holly found that the trembling simply would not leave her. From her position on the sofa, Holly thought that his towering height made him look impossibly intimidating.

And distant.

Their eyes met, and in hers remained a query he could not ignore.

‘That wasn’t in my general scheme of things,’ he told her brutally, in answer to the unasked question.

‘You mean that kiss?’ she demanded, her voice incredulous. Why was he making her feel like some nightclub stripper over a simple kiss? ‘Is that all?’

‘All? Kisses like that generally lead on to something else, but I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that.’ His eyes were wintry. ‘But maybe that’s why you invited me up here? To “christen” the new flat in the way you like best?’

‘You flatter yourself,’ she observed furiously.

He shook his head. ‘I don’t think so.’ A muscle began to work in his cheek as she frantically pulled at the hemline of her dress. ‘Or are you denying that we’ve had the hots for each other since the moment we first met?’

So she hadn’t been imagining it! ‘No, I’m not denying it!’ she told him, as she sat up straight and looked at him, her voice softening as she said, ‘It isn’t a crime’

‘No, it’s just sex,’ he told her. ‘And that’s all it is, Holly’

‘Sex?’ she demanded. ‘Sex? What an insulting thing to say!’

He made an impatient movement with his hands. ‘Call it chemistry, then—or mutual attraction. Whatever words you want to use if the truth offends you.’ His voice dropped to a throaty whisper. ‘And it’s powerful, this feeling—I don’t deny that. Potent as hell itself—but nebulous. Insubstantial. It peaks and then it wanes and leaves all kinds of havoc and destruction in its wake.’

Anger laced her voice with sarcasm ‘Aren’t you overstating your case a little?’

He shook his tawny head. ‘Am I? I don’t think so, Holly. All I know is that I’ve had a fortnight of torture, of watching you move with that unconscious grace you have. Of imagining you undressing in the room down the hall from me. I’ve had to contend with the sight of you drifting around in one of my robes, knowing that you’re buck-naked underneath, and I’ve had to stay sane and control my baser impulses. And it’s been hard.’

Or, rather, I’ve been hard, he thought ruefully. Bad choice of word, Luke. ‘But now that you’re safely settled in your new home, our paths need hardly cross. And I think that’s for the best.’

Best for whom? she almost yelled, but suspected she already knew the answer to that one. There was just one question she needed to ask him. ‘Why, Luke?’ And then she plucked up courage to add, ‘When we both want to.’

But he shook his head, steeling himself against that plaintive little appeal. ‘Why spend time going over it—when the outcome will remain the same? My reasons are both simple and complex and you don’t need to know them.’

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