Getting Even

‘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.

’N-neighbours?’ she stumbled.

‘Mmm. Now won’t that be fun, Lola?’

CHAPTER TWO (#uf6e7f7bd-40fc-5e0d-ad2d-727ee8c21f3d)

THE trolley rattled like a brass band as Lola struggled to push it up the last few yards of the aisle with something approaching dignity.

Perhaps Geraint Howell-Williams was right, she reflected as she tugged the tiny skirt down over her bottom. The yellow minis, edged with blue piping, left very little to the imagination. Or was it just something to do with her own rather curvy figure, which made the already inadequate skirt seem to ride even higher up her thighs?

And what the hell are you doing even thinking about Geraint Howell-Williams, anyway? she asked herself crossly. He is just a man you met for about an hour last night. A rude, arrogant, egotistical man who kissed you without asking permission first and let things rapidly get out of control. That’s how much you mean to him. That’s how much he respects you.

And you hate him! she told herself fiercely.

The only trouble was that saying the same thing over and over again did not necessarily make you believe it. She had already spent an almost sleepless night alternatively fretting and fuming, punching the pillow with a violence which alarmed her, and then feverishly burying her head in it as if it were Geraint’s face, like a woman possessed.

Consequently, she had drifted off just before the alarm clock rang, and she had staggered out of bed feeling like death—dreading the thought of having to face a flight to Rome, and then a stopover there.

By the time Lola pushed the trolley into the gallery, her best friend Mamie was waiting for her, pinching olives from the left-over hors d’oeuvres and shoving them into her mouth like a hamster.

Lola loved flying, but it was even better when you were working with someone you knew. And she and Mamie had started working at Atalanta Airlines together on the very same day, almost seven years ago.