Expectant Mistress

Trish took a few steps closer, her brow furrowed. ‘Why?’

‘Why?’ Yes. Why was he carrying a torch for his stepdaughter’s friend? he asked himself savagely. He had Louise. Stunning, clever, computer literate... His heart could remain untouched. What more could he want?

‘Why did they panic?’ she asked, some illusion making her voice sound throaty and infinitely appealing.

‘Because,’ said Adam curtly, finding it almost impossible to concentrate, ‘the systems only pay attention to the last two digits of a date. So to the computer the year 2000 means zero-zero. In other words, back to 1900 again.’

She gurgled with delighted laughter, her eyes twinkling with fun. ‘We’ll all have to leap into hansom cabs and celebrate the relief of Mafeking! How lovely! Technical experts thrown into a muddle! Oh. Sorry, Adam. That includes you, doesn’t it?’

‘Certainly does! And I’ve been trying to sort out the mess. It would be funny,’ he agreed with a crooked smile, ‘if it hadn’t meant that some people’s pensions weren’t going to be paid out—because according to the computer they wouldn’t have been born!’

‘Oh, dear! What a muddle!’ she said with a frown, as if she really cared about people she’d never met. But that was Trish all over.

An urge to kiss her open mouth and plunder its depths forced him to stare vaguely over her head. ‘Megabyte size,’ he agreed. ‘My company’s been flat out re-programming for the past few years. Our priority has been ensuring the smooth running of airlines and railways and other essential services. Without re-programming, they would have ground to a halt.’ Shaking from sexual tension, he passed a hand through his hair, dislodging the cow-lick, which was normally severely repressed. ‘It’s been a race against time itself. We’ve been working sixteen-hour days for as long as I can remember and we’re still picking up the pieces’

She sighed. ‘You look like you need a holiday.’ ‘Is that an offer?’ he asked quietly, before he could stop himself.

There was a pause, as if he’d confused her and she couldn’t think of a polite answer. Her cheeks looked pinker beneath the tan and he realised that she was thinking of a polite way to discourage him. She’d already fled once from his unwelcome advances.

‘On my island? In my guesthouse? Louise was right. You’d hate it,’ she said, her expression distinctly ice-packed. ‘It’s very small. Two doubles, one single. No, I see you in some vast, swanky hotel in the Seychelles—’

‘Lounging on a beach?’ he asked incredulously, his eyes hard and cynical as he dealt with her rejection.

‘No. Not you’ Her neat teeth briefly pulled at her plush lower lip ‘Louise will be sunbathing in a fabulous bikini and you’ll be making everyone furiously envious of your water-skring technique. Or paragliding. Or snorkeling.’

He frowned, taken aback by her perception. She had described the brief working holiday they’d had in Florida a few months ago. It had been something of a disaster.

What would he and Louise do in their leisure hours together? They’d never had any real free time, so it hadn’t occurred to him before how they’d fill it. She occasionally dashed out shopping for clothes; they ate hastily in the best restaurants and fell into bed—separately. They both fitted in their personal training sessions before breakfast and he couldn’t remember when they’d last indulged in a spontaneous passionate clinch.

Honour made him fight to hold onto the promises he’d made to his fiancée

‘I thought honeymoons were for non-stop sex,’ he said shortly, giving himself a point from which there was no return.

Trish winced, as if his directness was in bad taste. Which it was. But he needed to convince himself that he was doing the right thing this time. Her arms came protectively around her body as though she needed to defend herself from his coarseness.

Whereas she was more in danger of being kissed till neither of them could breathe. The moonlight gleamed on the proud Spanish bone structure of her face and shimmered alluringly along her shapely arms. Her defensive gesture had lifted her breasts and they were thrusting against the smooth emerald material. She must be cold, he thought dazedly, because her nipples had hardened into tempting peaks. There was something soft and vulnerable about her expression and he had never wanted anyone more.

God help him! He was sick in his mind. Perverted in his body. Louise was the woman he wanted, had pursued... No. She had pursued him. Made herself indispensable. Become part of his life, apart from his bed.

Maybe that was it. He was sex-starved. Relieved, he gave Trish a slightly sardonic smile and she wilted before him, then rallied.

‘Not non-stop,’ she said earnestly. ‘I agree that honeymoons are traditionally supposed to be the month after your marriage when you drink nothing but mead and—’

‘Do what?’ he asked, startled.

‘Mead. Honey. Where do you think “honeymoon” came from? Mead’s an aphrodisiac—’

‘I wouldn’t need it,’ he said with deliberate cruelty.

Her mouth thinned. ‘I’m sure.’ There was a moment’s awkward silence. Then she sucked in a breath and launched into speech as if she felt driven by compulsion. ‘There’s more to it than that, though! Honeymoons are for getting to know the person beneath the skin!’ she added vehemently. ‘Enjoying being in the same room. Finding pleasure in doing little things for each other—’

‘Trish!’

In his attempt to control his voice, he’d sounded harsh and angry. Amazed by her almost incoherent outburst, he stared at her. Longing to drink mead with her for the rest of his life. Adoring her passion and envying her uninhibited surrender to her emotions. Duty and responsibility holding him fast.

‘Sorry. I got carried away. I’ve no idea why. Champagne in my veins instead of blood, I suppose! I—I’m sure you love Louise in all those ways,’ she said huskily.

All he could think of was a sudden linking in his mind of Christine’s words ‘Love...Trish.’ But he kept his inner thoughts masked by a cold and unfriendly expression.

‘Louise and I are perfectly suited,’ he said with conviction.

‘That’s lovely.’

With her slender jaw set in hard lines, she gave a little grimace of a smile, turned and walked out of his life.

CHAPTER TWO

TRISH ran into the kitchen and flung down the flowers she’d been picking in the cottage garden Then she reached out to open the oven door a crack to check the Dundee cake, her other hand grabbing the ringing phone

‘Hi, Trish! It’s me! Petra! What happened to you?’

Adam had happened!

She closed the oven up. ‘Sorry I bolted. I was worried about Gran, all alone next door. But mostly I hated London,’ she said, shamefaced. ‘I didn’t have anything to say to anyone at the party so I stopped boring everyone with my yokel act, packed my polyester dress and took the sleeper back to Penzance. Caught the morning helicopter. Got back home a few hours ago. Sorry, Pets. I was going to call you when I got a moment.’

‘You rushed off without warning once before, duckie. Adam seems to be the common factor.’

Her friend was too sharp by half! ‘Nonsense! I get homesick.’

‘Yeah.’ There was a sceptical pause. ‘You haven’t got another runaway there, have you?’

Trish gently slid a tray of waiting flapjacks onto the shelf below the Dundee. ‘No, only me, Gran and the chickens. Gran’s watching my exhausted video of Dirty Dancing and the chickens are puzzling their greens.’ She reached into the fridge for the tea bread. ‘Why?’

‘Adam’s gone missing,’ Petra said casually.

The plate in Trish’s hand clattered to the floor. ‘What... what...?’ Confused, she thanked her lucky stars the plate had landed right side up and the bread was intact. ‘You’re joking!’ she cried, fascinated.

‘Nope. Vanished some time in the early hours. Left a note saying a job had come up. Forgot to leave a contact number and his mobile’s switched off. Louise is hopping mad. I wondered if he’d got sick of the rat race and booked in to your isolated pig-house.’

‘It’s a lovely stone cottage in an idyllic setting and you know it. You’ve been four tunes—it can’t be that bad,’ Trish retorted with a grin. ‘As a matter of fact, I do have a last-minute booking which came ten minutes after I’d set foot in the door this morning, but—’

‘Who?’ squeaked Petra excitedly.

‘Oh, put your hat back on. Nobody exciting. It’s a Mr Rowe. Mack Rowe.’

There was a choking sound on the end of the line. ‘Macro!’ Petra said eventually, her voice distorted by a mass of giggles.

‘What’s up with you?’ demanded Trish suspiciously. ‘Is someone tickling you?’