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‘I can. I am!’ Trish said with a grin. ‘My toes were folded underneath my feet like a Japanese geisha’s. Another ten minutes and I’d have been launching into a chorus of Madame Butterfly’
‘Why?’ Louise was frowning, trying to make the connection. Her tone hardened to an icy slash. ‘You’re not being abandoned by your lover because you’re unsuitable, are you?’
Trish’s mouth dropped open at the bitchy little dig.
‘It was a joke,’ Adam said tightly, his eyes glinting. ‘Trish makes them all the time Don’t read any more into it.’
The two women studied his closed face thoughtfully Then Louise turned back to Trish.
‘Adam thinks a lot of you,’ she said, as if explaining Adam’s rebuke. ‘You.. got him through a bad time.’ She seemed unable to leave the subject and was plainly jealous of Trish’s involvement with Adam.
‘She was incredible,’ he replied, before Trish could speak. ‘She fussed over me when I came out of my study after a fourteen-hour day—that was when I was trying to build up the business—and had me laughing and relaxed before I even had a drink in my hand.’
‘I’m a clown,’ Trish said hastily, wondering how Adam could be so insensitive—and Louise so beautiful yet insecure.
‘Optimist,’ corrected Adam ‘And a wonderful cook. She even coaxed Christine to eat, by presenting food appealingly ’ He smiled. ‘Or in an amusing way. Do you remember those ridiculous hippo-shaped fish steaks?’
Trish laughed. ‘Ridiculous or not, you ate four!’ she teased, jabbing him in the chest. Then she felt the frosts of Alaska descending on her from Louise’s direction and eased off her sudden familiarity with Adam. ‘Sad times bring you together,’ she excused hastily. ‘Don’t imagine I’m Wonder Woman. Far from it! I had more disasters on my catering course than anyone. I’d trot into the ward, tell anyone who’d listen about my latest howler and they’d all laugh. My boyfriend,’ she said, deliberately lowering her voice to a loving husk and looking gooey, as though her knees went weak at the thought of him, ‘says that’s my second-best asset.’
‘The first being?’ clipped out Adam, with a distinct lack of amusement.
‘None of your business,’ she retorted spiritedly, without glancing at him. She gave Louise a conspiratorial grin. ‘That’s between him and me I’ve known Tim since we were knee-high to a pair of sea boots,’ she explained.
‘How quaint. Are you getting married soon?’ asked Louise, warming to Trish by the second.
‘We thought November, when the visitor season is over,’ lied Trish, crossing her bare legs since her fingers were otherwise occupied with Petra’s shoes. ‘And you?’ she managed, determined not to be dog in the manger.
There was a moment’s silence. ‘Oh, you know how it is. Pressure of work and so on. We’ll fix a date when we can,’ Louise said with an unconvincing attempt at being offhand. ‘We’re up over our heads in work. Fall-out from the millennium time bomb, you know. Lord knows when we’ll find a nanosecond to organise the wedding, let alone a honeymoon.’
Bombs? Trish didn’t know what Louise was talking about. ‘It sounds very stressful,’ she said sympathetically, thinking wistfully of her island, the slow pace of life, and the endless skies and dancing turquoise seas, so clear that the seabed could be seen through fathoms of water.
Her face had become dreamy, its lush sensuality knife-jacking Adam back to the past. He had kissed those smoke-dark lids, felt the flicker of her thick black lashes beneath his lips, held that strong and work-lean body in his arms and marvelled at the sexual energy trapped there poised, waiting eagerly for him to unleash it.
A surge of passion ripped through his body, startling him with its intensity. He all but shook from the effort of not grabbing her, throwing her over his shoulder, storming up to his room and making mad, reckless love to her till he’d got her out of his system.
Shocked by the unexpectedness of his arousal, he invented a polite excuse and latched onto the party organiser, close by. It took several minutes of boring chit-chat about canapés and staff problems before his desire receded. Finally he felt able to walk again.
With a practised ease, he ended the chat and strode purposefully away, not stopping until he had left the party and was safe in the cool darkness of the walled Victorian garden. Leaning back against the smooth bark of a plane tree, he lifted his head to the night sky, his eyes dark and brooding as guilt and fury possessed him in equal measures.
Louise had been rude. unnecessarily cutting and superior. It was a side of her he’d never seen before. And Trish had dealt with it in her usual generous, tolerant way. Just as well. He would have sprung to her defence otherwise
So it wasn’t finished, then. He frowned.
There were no stars in the vast, velvet canopy. The city lights cast too strong a glow. But he knew they were up there. Seeing Trish again—radiant and beautiful, with that appealing inner sweetness and the humour which made him glad to be alive—had wiped away the veils which had obscured his vision. She’d sparkled like a star in that room. Unique, dazzling, soul-liftmg.
But he had no business to be thinking of her. This occasion was his public commitment to Louise. He was acting like a barbarian with his brains in his trousers’ Hell, he despised himself!
He needed to take some action. Drag Louise off to bed, maybe? His wry grin eased his tension slightly. Louise would be appalled if she couldn’t take off her make-up beforehand. Whereas Trish...
His eyes narrowed. From the moment he’d woken that terrible morning four years ago, and found she’d gone without saying goodbye, he’d put her out of his mind. It was the way he dealt with strong emotions. In his youth he’d perfected that useful technique. Unknown to him, however, Trish had found a little space in his mind in which to nestle.
And now she was back, filling his every thought with a vengeance because he knew what an incredible woman she was. Adam felt the hunger for her, the admiration, filling every part of his heart.
The hardness of his mouth softened and his whole body stilled. Trish had played a large part in easing Christine’s last moments. Happy, and smiling at something Trish had said, his wife had whispered, ‘My love to Stephen... Goodbye, Petra, sweetheart.’ Then her voice had faded and he’d just caught her final words: ‘Darling!’ and ‘Love’ and ‘Trish’. Then she’d slipped quietly away and he’d known that Christine had found peace at last.
At the time he’d wanted to hold Trish in his arms, to thank her with a heartfelt hug. But he’d never dared. Because he’d known very well that there might be more in his regard for her. He had recognised what she could mean to him one day Besides, she was young, and deserved someone of her own age It wasn’t impossible to keep the lid on his need—or so he’d thought, till that moment when he’d almost made love to her.
Adam scowled, hating himself for his momentary lapse. Turning, he raised his hand to slam it into the tree hard enough to hurt. At the last minute he controlled his anger and placed his palm carefully on the patterned bark, as if testing his ability to override his feelings by sheer willpower.
He’d had no right to paw her. She was naturally kind and compassionate. He’d read more into her actions than he should have done. She had a good and loving heart which encompassed everyone in her path Petra, himself, Christine, all the inhabitants of the hospice—And what had he done? Overstepped the mark and scared her off. Clumsy, arrogant fool!
He leant his, forehead against the trunk, needing to think, to calm his emotions and to regain his equilibrium. But he didn’t have the time. Every second of his life was spoken for. He and Louise had built the company up and now their responsibilities were overwhelming them both. They’d spent so long in the office together that it had made sense to extend their partnership to their non-existent personal lives.
At least with Louise he wouldn’t ever be vulnerable. She would never be able to hurt him and he would never lose control of himself. Without warning, his long-buried teenage memories surfaced and pain tightened his mouth. Ruthlessly he overcame it by crushing his car keys in his hand till he all but cried out. He was damned if he’d let his emotions be tested to destruction again!
A footfall sounded, soft and barely discernible. Looking up, he saw the barefooted Trish making her way thoughtfully down the silvered path between shrubs gleaming in the moonlight. His heart leapt and sank in quick succession. Carefully he commanded his racing pulses to subside. And they did.
‘Escaping my party?’ he accused laconically.
Trish jumped in surprise, looked embarrassed, and then tossed her gloriously shaggy black hair in an appealing gesture of freedom which caught so brutally at his heart.
“Fraid so! They’re all talking a foreign language in there!’ she declared. She remained—to his relief—a safe yard or so from him ‘Cell merge, bullets, and hyper-link... I wanted to scream!’
Adam chuckled. There it was again. Laughter. He felt less hassled already. ‘It’s a narrow little world,’ he admitted, reining himself in ruthlessly.
‘Like mine,’ she conceded, inspecting her perfect honey-coloured toes. ‘We really are living on different planets, aren’t we?’
He thought at first that she didn’t sound too happy about that. But she was smiling brightly, dazzling the darkness with her lovely laughing mouth, so he knew he’d been deluding himself.
Determined, however reckless that might be, to prolong this brief interlude alone with her, he said wryly, ‘My planet’s hurtling into chaos.’
She nodded. ‘That bomb?’ she asked uncertainly, widening her beautiful sapphire eyes. ‘I know you’ll think I’m stupid, but I didn’t understand the reference. You haven’t joined the bomb-disposal squad in your spare time, have you?’
Adam wondered if he could—should—spin out the explanation, or cut it short and get back to the party. No contest. Here there was a peace of sorts. And Trish. What the hell?
‘I don’t have spare tune,’ he reminded her. ‘No, the millennium time bomb is to do with the way some older computers were programmed, especially the large mainframe ones used by councils and corporations.’
He hesitated, disconcerted by her intentness. It was as though she was mesmerised, her huge eyes, beneath that ludicrous fringe, framed by spiky black lashes. Incredibly lovely, he thought, a little lurch of his heart warning him that he must be staring. But he longed to touch each faint laughter line around her sparkling eyes and work out how many laughs it had taken to produce each one.
‘Go on,’ she said, into the soft night.
To keep his hands from reaching out, he folded his arms firmly across his chest. Her gaze slowly passed over its curve, her lashes fluttering, her mouth emitting a faint sigh. An electric current switched on every nerve in his body. He wanted to kiss those drowsy, parted lips. Run exploratory fingers up the inside curve of her fabulous bare legs. It would take for ever—but it would be a journey worth making.
He sucked in his breath sharply, aware from the straining of his body that he wanted more than that. Appalled, he frowned and tried to drive out all lustful thoughts.
‘The date system,’ he said briskly, ‘was set up on the assumption that it would always be nineteen-something—1959, 1990, and so on. Suddenly everyone realised the millennium was due and panicked.’
He stopped, running out of breath. Because all he could think about was her lithe, shapely body writhing beneath his hands—
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?’
