The Innocent's Sinful Craving

‘A full one—before they made their offer,’ Dana said crisply. ‘Hello, Adam. It’s good to see you.’

‘So, you’re a career girl.’ Adam shook his head. ‘I often wondered what had become of you.’

Then why didn’t you try to find me...?

But she didn’t ask the question aloud. Instead she smiled back at him, keeping her tone casual. ‘Oh, I’ve never been that far away. And I can’t tell you how it feels to be here again—with all these memories.’

‘More champagne?’ said Zac Belisandro blandly, appearing beside them as silently as a dark ghost and refilling the glass she’d put down on a table. ‘To celebrate this joyous reunion.’

Hoping I’ll drink too much and make a fool of myself, no doubt, she thought as she gently removed her hands from Adam’s clasp. But it’s not going to happen, because this top-up is going to be poured away as soon as Zac’s back is turned.

Except, that never seemed to happen. He wasn’t actually following her. He was just—never very far away.

But then, when had he ever been?

But this weekend she would deal with it. She might not be able to distance herself physically, or not until she was the mistress of the house and could control the guest list, but she could and should excise him mentally once and for all.

Put the events of seven years ago in a box, close it securely, then let it drop from thirty thousand feet into the Mariana Trench or some other abyss. Wasn’t that what the therapists recommended?

It might not have worked for my mother, she thought bitterly, but I’ll damned well make it work for me.

She took judicious sips of champagne during the chilled cucumber soup and the poached fillets of sole, accepting half a glass of claret to accompany the beautifully roasted ribs of beef.

She’d been seated between Greg and Chris, the bridesmaids’ fiancés, well away from Adam who occupied the head of the table, but perfectly placed to hear the chunterings of Miss Latimer, stationed at its foot.

‘Such a shame dear Robina can’t be with us,’ she declared fretfully during a lull in the general conversation, adding, to Adam’s obvious displeasure, ‘I know lateness can be trying, but I understand even the dear Queen Mother was habitually unpunctual in her younger days.’

Dana felt a bubble of laughter welling up inside her. At the same moment, she realised that Zac was looking at her from the other side of the table, his dark eyes brilliant, alight with shared and quite unholy amusement and found her gaze locked with his.

Like being mesmerised, she thought, and a shiver ran through her.

Shocked, she bit her lip hard to break the spell, forcing herself to look down at her plate, knowing as she did so that her remaining appetite had deserted her.

Knowing too that she couldn’t permit any kind of connection between them however trivial, however fleeting. Could not afford the slightest threat to her plans.

Chris was speaking to her and she turned to him in relief. ‘This is the most amazing house. It’s actually got a billiard room. When I went in, I expected to find Professor Plum with the candlestick.’ He paused. ‘I understand you and Nic grew up here together?’

‘Hardly,’ Miss Latimer put in tartly. ‘Dana’s aunt was the housekeeper here.’

‘She certainly was.’ Dana made herself speak lightly. ‘And I believe this is her version of lemon syllabub that we’re eating now. She must have left the recipe for her successor.’

‘There’ve been several of those.’ Mimi Latimer again. ‘It’s almost impossible to get reliable help these days. People simply don’t know their place any more.’

‘I think they do,’ Dana returned quietly. ‘Only these days they tend to choose their own.’

‘Adam was saying there used to be an Orangery,’ Greg put in quickly as Mimi bridled. ‘Only he’s turned it into a swimming pool.’

The Orangery gone, Dana thought, startled. But it had been Serafina’s pride and joy. Did she know what Adam intended when she handed over the house? If so, how could she have let it happen?

If I hadn’t been sent away—if I’d stayed here with Adam, I wouldn’t have let him do it, she thought. I’d have talked him out of it somehow.

‘Some Orangery,’ Adam said, taking another helping of syllabub. ‘I never remember a single orange, so I decided a pool would be more useful—and more fun.’

Practical, thought Dana. But depressing. And if something had to go, I wish you’d chosen the summer house.

She shivered again and Chris noticed.

‘Feeling cold?’ he asked, surprised.

‘No, just a slight headache,’ she improvised hastily. ‘Maybe there’s a summer storm on the way.’

And saw in a flash, like the lightning she’d just invented, the sardonic twist of Zac’s lips. Telling her the storm was already here—and waiting for her.

CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_43457536-50c3-5ed8-a40e-44d78b8cee6e)

AFTER DINNER, THE PARTY split up, the men going off to the billiard room for a knock-out snooker tournament, and the women congregating in the drawing room for coffee and wedding chat.

Dana had already resigned herself to the knowledge that there’d be no opportunity for a private conversation with Adam. Certainly not while Zac was hovering at his shoulder.

But she was annoyed to discover that her fib about a headache was coming true. That will teach me a lesson, she thought, as she made her excuses and took herself off to bed.

Even with the window open, the small room was stifling, and even lying naked under a single sheet, she felt as if she was suffocating. And her headache was getting worse.

Stress, she thought, searching vainly for a cool spot on the pillow. Tension. That’s all it is. And I know exactly who to blame for it.

She swallowed a couple of the ibuprofen she’d found in the bathroom cupboard, and eventually fell into a restless doze only to be woken again by a fierce rumble of thunder directly overhead, accompanied by a waft of cold, damp air and the splash of rain.

I don’t believe this, she groaned as she stumbled out of bed, closed the window and put on her cotton nightshirt. What else can I wish upon myself?

And now she’d be awake while the storm lasted, or even for the rest of the night. Just when she needed all her wits about her for the day ahead.

She hadn’t brought a book with her, but downstairs in the room which had once been Serafina’s study, there’d be the daily paper and a selection of magazines, to provide her with temporary distraction until the night became quiet again.

She put on her robe, tying the sash tightly round her waist and trod quietly along the passage to the stairs.

The house was still, as if she was the only one to be disturbed by the weather. She opened the study door, went across to the desk and switched on the lamp.

‘Buongiorno,’ Zac said courteously.

Dana spun round with a startled cry, her heart thumping.

He was sitting in the high-backed armchair beside the empty fireplace, fully dressed apart from his coat and tie, which were on the floor beside him.

‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded unevenly.

He got to his feet, raking back his hair with a lazy hand. ‘I needed some private time to think, after which I seem to have slept. Until, of course, you whistled up this storm, my little witch, when I stayed to watch nature’s light show. It has been quite spectacular. And you? Have you come down to dance between the raindrops?’

‘Very amusing.’ She picked up the nearest magazine—a county glossy—from the desk. ‘Please resume your viewing. I won’t disturb you any longer.’