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Gripping the bannister with a grim kind of determination, she was glad when they reached the top and he pushed open the door of one of the rooms.
It was as different from his suite in Venice as it could have been—clean and middle-of-the-road, with a mass of chintz and swagged fabrics—and Sabrina heaved a small sigh of relief. She certainly didn’t need reminders in the way of vast, luxuriously appointed beds or priceless paintings.
She flopped down onto the flower-sprigged duvet and heaved a sigh of relief.
Guy stood beside the bed, looking down at her, his face impenetrable as a disturbing thought nagged at his conscience. ‘So why the hell did you faint?’
Reproach sparked from her eyes. ‘Why do you think I fainted, Guy? Don’t you imagine that the things you accused me of would make most women feel ill?’
But he shook his head. ‘Harsh words are not normally enough to make a healthy young woman pass out.’ His eyes threw her a cold, challenging glitter. ‘You’re not pregnant by any chance, are you?’
She supposed that he had every right to ask her, but that didn’t make answering any easier. Especially not when the look of abject horror on his face told her exactly what he would think of that particular development.
‘No, I’m not.’ She lifted her head. ‘And please don’t imply that that was something in my game plan. We took precautions, remember?’
He wished she hadn’t reminded him, though maybe he only had himself to blame—he had been the one who had brought the subject up. But her defiant words only painted the most gloriously explicit picture of the way she had made the putting on of those damned condoms into some of the single most erotic moments of his life.
He forced himself to express the harsh truth. ‘And precautions fail. Everyone knows that.’
Sabrina stared at him as life and energy began to warm their way around her veins once more. And anger. ‘Then you should have given more thought to that before we made love, shouldn’t you?’
‘Yes,’ he said bitterly. ‘Maybe I should—only I wasn’t thinking too straight at the time.’
‘And just how would you be coping now if I told you that, yes, I was pregnant?’
He glittered her a chilly look. ‘I’m in the fortunate position of being able to support a child—’
‘Financially, you mean?’ she challenged. ‘Certainly not emotionally, by the sound of it.’
‘Anyway, you’re not pregnant, are you, Sabrina?’ he snapped. ‘So it’s academic!’
But the nagging and worrying thought was that she could have allowed herself to get pregnant, and then never seen him again. Because Guy was right. Precautions did fail. Yet falling pregnant had been the very last thing on her mind. ‘Maybe we both acted like the world’s two biggest fools!’
He didn’t agree with her blurted declaration, just continued to subject her to a cool, steady scrutiny. ‘So, if pregnancy is not the reason for you fainting, what else could it be? Have you been eating properly?’
‘I…yes…no,’ she admitted eventually. ‘Not really.’
‘For how long?’ he clipped out.
‘It’s obvious, isn’t it? Since Michael died, I guess.’
Guy felt the flicker of a muscle at his cheek, unprepared for the sharp kick of unreasonable jealousy. So the fiancé had had a name, had he? ‘And how long ago was that?’
There was no way to answer other than truthfully, but mentally Sabrina prepared herself for his disapproval. ‘Four months,’ she told him baldly.
There was silence. ‘Four months?’ he said heavily, as though he must have misheard her.
She didn’t look away. ‘That’s right. I expect I’ve shocked you,’ she said. ‘Haven’t I?’
He gave a bitter laugh. ‘One way and another, I’ve done a pretty good job of shocking myself lately.’ Four months? His mouth hardened. It threw what had happened into a completely different perspective. He had wondered about her spectacular and uninhibited response in his arms.
So had he just been a substitute for the man who had died? A warm, living body filling her and reminding her of what life should be?
‘You didn’t waste much time, did you?’ he said flatly.
‘And here comes the condemnation,’ she said in a low voice.
‘It was an observation.’ He walked over to study an unimaginative little hunting print and resisted the temptation to punch his fist against the flowered wallpaper. When he turned around to face her, Sabrina could see the fire and the fury that sparked from his eyes. ‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me about it before?’
She bit her lip, willing her eyes not to fill with tears. ‘Why do you think?’ she said tremulously, before she had had time to think it through.
Guy stilled, his eyes narrowing perceptively. ‘Because I wouldn’t have made love to you,’ he said slowly. ‘Because even if it had killed me—’ and he suspected that it might have gone some way towards doing that ‘—there is no way that I would have taken a vulnerable woman to bed and seduced her over and over again! But you wanted me badly, didn’t you, Sabrina?’ he concluded arrogantly. ‘So much that you weren’t prepared to risk not getting what you wanted! That’s why you didn’t tell me!’
Sabrina shook her head, and it felt as though it were filled with lead. ‘You wanted it, too.’ She bit her lip guiltily. ‘You make me sound passive—and I wasn’t. We both know that. We both wanted it…’
‘Badly,’ he put in softly, seeing the answering colour which flooded her cheeks. ‘Very, very badly. Yes, we did.’ He shook his head in a gesture which was the closest he had ever come to confusion. ‘The question is why we both wanted it—so much that it drove reason and sane behaviour clean away.’
‘We were sexually attracted,’ she said shakily. But it had been much more than that. She forced herself to forget the warm glow of recognition she had experienced the very first time she had set eyes on him. As if she had known him all her life. Or longer. She stared at his handsome face and tried to sound coolly logical. ‘I’m sure that kind of thing happens to you all the time, Guy.’
He shook his head in anger. ‘But that’s just the point, dammit—it doesn’t! Oh…’ He shrugged as he saw her disbelieving face. ‘Women come on to me all the time, sure…’
Sabrina’s smile turned into a grimace, wondering if he had any idea how much he had just insulted her.
‘But usually it leaves me cold,’ he reflected thoughtfully. ‘I haven’t had casual sex since I was a teenager.’ And never like that, he thought achingly. Never like that.
Sabrina flinched. ‘I don’t remember coming on to you,’ she objected, but more out of a sense of pride than conviction. ‘I thought it was you coming on to me!’
He threw her a look of mocking query. ‘It was pretty mutual, Sabrina. You’re not going to deny that, are you?’
No, she wasn’t going to deny it. She looked down at her lap, as if the knotted fingers lying there would provide some kind of inspiration.
‘I’m still waiting for an answer, princess.’
The resolve which had deepened his voice made Sabrina frown at him in alarm. ‘That sounded like a threat!’
He shook his head. ‘Of course it isn’t a threat,’ he said patiently. ‘But surely you aren’t deluding yourself that we don’t need to talk about what happened.’
She bit her trembling lip. ‘C-can’t we just call it history, and forget it ever happened?’ she croaked.
‘No,’ he said flatly. ‘Of course we can’t. I think you owe me some sort of explanation, Sabrina.’
‘I owe you nothing!’
He wanted to know. He needed to. ‘Why did you run away the next morning?’
‘Why do you think?’ She shuddered as she remembered waking up all warm and replete in his bed. ‘Because I realised what I had done! And it was never going to be any more than a one-night stand, was it, Guy? Besides, you lied to me—so how could I trust you?’
‘And wouldn’t it have been more sensible to have thought all this through before it actually happened?’ he demanded. ‘I didn’t drag you back there with me! You weren’t drunk!’
His condemnation was like a slap in the face and Sabrina flinched beneath his accusing stare.
‘So what was I?’ he demanded. ‘A substitute? Did you close your eyes and pretend it was Michael?’ He ignored her look of pain, remorselessly grinding the words out. ‘Any man would have done for you, wouldn’t he, Sabrina? I just happened to come along and press the right buttons.’
She met the dark, accusing fire in his eyes. ‘You honestly think that?’
‘I don’t know what to think. It’s not a situation I’ve ever found myself in before. Thank God.’ His gaze narrowed into a piercing grey laser, and then he saw her white, bewildered face and felt a sudden slap of conscience. ‘You look terrible,’ he said bluntly.
‘Thanks.’ She sat up a bit and sucked in a breath. ‘I’m feeling a bit better, actually.’
‘Well, you don’t look it. ‘I’m going to ring down for some soup for you. You can’t go home in that state.’
‘Guy, no—’
‘Guy, yes,’ he countered, reaching out to pick up the phone, completely overriding her objections.
Soup and sandwiches arrived with the kind of speed which suggested to Sabrina that he might have already ordered them. Had that been the muffled conversation with the landlord she had overheard?
She told herself that she felt too weak to face food, but the stern look on his dark face warned her that if she refused to eat, he didn’t look averse to picking up the spoon and actually feeding her!
Guy sat and watched her. The thick broth sent steam over her pale features, but gradually, as the bowl emptied, some of the roses began to creep back into her cheeks. He saw her half-heartedly bite into a sandwich and then look at it with something approaching awakening—as if she had only just learnt how good food could taste when you were hungry.
Sabrina wiped at her lips with a napkin and sighed, aware of the glittering grey eyes which were following her movements with a steely kind of fascination. He hadn’t, she realised, eaten a single thing—he’d just sat there and watched her like a hawk.
She flicked him a questioning look. ‘You’re not hungry?’
‘No, I’m not hungry,’ he said flatly. ‘And I think it’s time I got you home.’
She shook her head. He was too potent a presence, who had demonstrated the depth of his contempt for her. She didn’t want him invading any more of her space. She didn’t need any more aching reminders of just how devastating he really was.
She had blown it with Guy Masters by being too greedy. She should have given him her telephone number and gone back to her own hotel that night.
But nothing could change the fact that she had been desperate for him, driven on by an unrecognisable hunger she’d been unable to control.
Well, it was too late now. What man wouldn’t be filled with contempt at what she had allowed to happen, and so soon?
‘Why don’t you just call me a cab?’ she said tiredly. ‘I don’t need you to come with me.’
‘I’m taking you home,’ he said firmly. He saw her open her mouth and shook his head with the kind of dominance that brooked no argument. ‘Oh, no, Sabrina,’ he said softly. ‘This has nothing to do with independence, or pride. You’re in no state to go home on your own—’
‘Yes, I am!’ she protested.
‘You are not,’ he contradicted impatiently. ‘And you can sit there arguing with me all night long, but it won’t change a thing. I’m not budging on this—I’m taking you home.’
But her ice-blue eyes looked so helpless as she stared up at him that he found himself unable to resist the temptation to brush a stray strand of hair away from her cheek, feeling its warm tremble beneath his fingertip.
His grey gaze burned into her and for one heart-stopping moment she thought that he had relented. She saw the sudden, impulsive softening of his mouth and the way that his eyes had now brightened to glittering jet and thought that he was about to kiss her.
But all he did was open the door. ‘Come on,’ he said abruptly. ‘Time we were out of here.’
He made her sit down while he went to settle up with the landlord, gently placing her against some cushions as if she really were pregnant. And Sabrina bit her lip as an inexplicable yearning to carry his black-haired baby washed over her.
Outside the pub was no ordinary taxi—somehow he had managed to magic up a long, low limousine from somewhere. Sabrina registered the gleaming bodywork with a disbelieving blink as Guy opened the door of the car. She supposed that Salisbury did have vehicles like this for hire—it was just that she had never encountered them before. Not in her world.
‘Here, put this on,’ he said, as he slid into the back seat beside her and buckled up her seat belt, still playing the guardian angel.
‘Where are we going?’ asked the driver.
‘Wilton Street,’ she responded quietly.
The driver half turned in his seat and shot a quick look in Guy’s direction. ‘Wilton Street?’ he asked in surprise. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course she’s sure!’ snapped Guy, and flicked shut the glass partition, immediately distracted by the sweet perfume of her hair.
Sabrina felt the bitter ache of emptiness as the huge car negotiated its way into a tiny road, where the houses were small and boxy, each one looking exactly the same. She stole a glance at the stony perfection of his profile, knowing that she would never see him again after tonight.
And maybe it was best that she didn’t. They weren’t just from different worlds—more like different universes.
The driver flipped the glass partition open. ‘What number Wilton Street?’
‘Number th-three,’ she stumbled.
Guy heard the tremble in her voice as the car pulled to a halt in front of a tiny house and frowned.
‘You’re crying!’ he exclaimed softly.
‘N-no, I’m not.’ She gulped, but took the crisp, white handkerchief which he offered her and buried her nose in it.
‘Why are you crying? Because I spoke so harshly?’
She heard the self-recrimination which had hardened his voice and shook her head wordlessly as she tried to bring the gulping sobs under control. How could she tell him that she didn’t really know why she was crying? That maybe her tears were for Michael—maybe just for herself. Or maybe she was mourning a golden relationship with Guy Masters which had been doomed from the very outset.
He waited until the shuddering of her breathing had slowed down in something approaching calm and then he got out of the car and went round to open the door for her.
‘Wait here for me,’ he said to the driver.
He led Sabrina up the narrow front path and rang the doorbell. Moments later the door was opened by a woman who was unmistakably Sabrina’s mother. She had an amazing pair of identical ice-blue eyes and her hair was still bright—apart from the occasional touch of grey. And Guy had a sudden powerful vision of what Sabrina would look like in her fifties.
Mrs Cooper’s eyes flew open in alarm as she saw her daughter’s pale and tear-stained face. ‘Sabrina, darling!’ she exclaimed. ‘Whatever is it?’ She looked up at the tall, dark man who was supporting her. ‘Who are you? What’s happened to her?’
‘Nothing at all has happened to harm her.’ Guy injected calm into his voice as Sabrina shook off his restraining hand and sat down abruptly at the foot of the staircase. ‘She’s a little upset,’ he said. ‘Although I suppose that’s understandable, under the circumstances.’
Mrs Cooper nodded. ‘So she’s told you about Michael?’
Again Guy felt the sharp spear of unreasonable jealousy. ‘Yes, she has.’
Sabrina wondered why they were talking about her as if she wasn’t there. Or why her mother was staring up at Guy with trust rather than suspicion.
‘My name is Guy Masters,’ he said. ‘Sabrina and I met in Venice.’ He took a business card from his coat pocket and gave it to her. ‘Will you give this to your daughter in the morning?’ he said, moving to the staircase and bending his head down so that it was almost touching Sabrina’s.
