was any mention of snow—any mention of a passing flurry, for that matter—she would cancel that trip without giving it a second thought.
‘There was a time,’ he countered smoothly, ‘when you would have found that thought quite appealing.’
She met his eyes and looked away in sudden confusion.
‘And what is that supposed to mean?’ she heard herself asking.
‘Oh, you know what I mean, Tina. Remember that crush you had on me? You must have been all of what—fifteen? Sixteen? Sweet sixteen and never been kissed? I should have been flattered, but it was awkward, wasn’t it?’
Christina’s mouth went dry. She wanted the ground to open and swallow her up. Anything to spare her from this awful, nightmarish embarrassment washing over her.
‘You must have—’
‘Stop it!’ she interrupted in a high voice. She took a deep breath, counted to ten, and when she next spoke she was relieved to hear that some of her self-control had returned. ‘I was young. And stupid. Very stupid. Fortunately for me, I was cured of that little problem. So there’s no point in dragging it up, is there? The fact of the matter is I’m not going unless the weather reports are favourable, and that’s that.’
She couldn’t quite bring herself to meet his eyes, so she stared at her fingers instead. A thousand things were running through her head, but really they all amounted to the same awful, vicious circle of memories that she had tried to put to the back of her mind. She had been so naïve. She had literally thrown herself at him and he had laughed with that sickening mixture of surprise and genuine amusement. ‘You’re a child,’ he had told her but what he had meant was that she just didn’t possess the easy charm and bold beauty of the women to whom he was already drawn.
What a picture she must have made, with her mousy brown hair and brown eyes, next to those blondes and brunettes and redheads who had adorned his parents’ house with predictable regularity during the university holidays.
‘Of course,’ he said, ‘I have no intention of getting stuck in ten-foot snowdrifts either. Not that your honour isn’t safe with me, so you needn’t fear anything on that score. You’re Fiona’s friend and...’ He shrugged and the unspoken words hung in the air, their meaning crystal-clear. He found her physically unappealing, was what he was saying, so she could relax, but instead of reassuring her it brought tears of anger and humiliation to her eyes. It reminded her of how she had felt when her teenage crush had been ever so smilingly handed back to her.
‘I’ll call you.’
‘Fine,’ she said stiffly, looking at her watch. It was nearly five in the morning. He had been there much longer than she had thought. Hours. ‘Now do you mind? I want to catch up on some sleep. As you do too, no doubt.’ She hadn’t meant to, but her voice implied that he needed the rest since he had spent the night doing God only knew what, but it didn’t take a genius to imagine.
‘Oh, I think I’ll go to the office,’ he said casually, reaching down to turn the doorknob.
She removed her hand from it quickly, to avoid any contact between them, then immediately hoped that he had not noticed her reaction.
‘At this hour?’
‘I have a lot of paperwork to clear before I can go anywhere. You aren’t, believe it or not, the only one whose tidy little schedule has been interrupted.’
‘I never said that I was,’ she muttered.
‘You don’t have to. The implication was there in your voice. You always did have a way of saying much more with your silences than with your words.’
That piece of insight startled her. Had he noticed that? It was a trait which she herself was aware of. She thought of it as tact, because she knew that if she relentlessly said what was on her mind there would be quite a few people who would be unnecessarily offended by her remarks. So she often kept silent, allowing her thoughts to supply the missing bits in her conversations.
But no one had ever been aware of this ploy. He must, she now thought, be incredibly perceptive to have picked that up from their numerous but casual encounters over the years.
Perception along those lines made her uneasy. It made her think that he could read her mind, and she didn’t like that sensation.
‘Really?’ she said blankly. ‘I’ll expect to hear from you a little later, then. If I’m not in, you can always leave a message on my answer machine.’
‘Fine. But make sure you’re around from this afternoon. I’ll probably try and get us on the earliest flight after lunch.’
It wasn’t a suggestion, it was a command. Be home after twelve or else.
She shut the door on him after he had gone and retired to her bedroom, where she spent the next hour trying to court sleep.
But it was difficult. She felt as though she had been abruptly swept up in a whirlwind and, now that she had been let down from it, she still couldn’t quite manage to find her feet. One minute she was in control of things, her diary all planned out with her various jobs, her social life, if not buzzing, then ticking over. The next, everything had been turned upside-down and she was off on some foolish rescue mission with a man who, after all these years, could still succeed in making her feel acutely uncomfortable with herself.
And that made her cross. Why did he arouse that reaction in her? Was it because, in the enforced intimacy of her flat, the power of his personality had seeped into her and made her over-conscious of herself?
That had to be the explanation, she decided. In the past, she had seen Adam frequently enough, but always in the company of other people. When they had been alone, she had been usually waiting for Fiona to put in an appearance. She had been able to step back and view him with detachment, never putting herself in a situation where his presence could overwhelm her.
Tonight, though, it had been different. There had been no one else around to dilute the sheer force of his masculinity. She had been obliged to face him, one to one, and she had found her composure wanting.
All the more pathetic, she told herself with disgust, when he had made it clear that he found her quite unappealing as a member of the opposite sex. I don’t care, she told herself philosophically, I’m no longer addicted to him. But she would have to watch herself. She had no intention of being tripped up by that stupid charm of his. That wouldn’t do at all. She now had a plane trip and a car ride alone with him to contend with and, if she was going to sit through the whole thing in a state of nervous tension, then she would end up in need of medical treatment at the end of it all.
She finally drifted off to sleep and when she next opened her eyes it was after nine o’clock.
She had appointments. Two to cancel. She sprang out of bed, bustled into the lounge for her diary, and rang them both.
Mrs Rafferty, her first appointment, who wanted photographs of the interior of her house taken for inclusion in a book she was writing on stately homes, was easy enough to pacify. She had been working on her book for two years. A short delay in the photographs was not a matter of life or death.
Her second client, however, was somewhat harder to placate.
Mrs Molton was an irascible woman at the best of times. Now she listened while Christina made her excuses, then she bellowed down the line, ‘This isn’t good enough!’
‘I’m sorry, Mrs Molton,’ she said, ‘but I’m afraid it’s unavoidable.’
‘Unavoidable? The word doesn’t exist in my vocabulary!’
Christina could well believe that, thinking of her now. Thin, wiry, with a voice that could shatter glass.
‘And what about the dogs? My little poopsies? Don’t you think that it isn’t stressful for them, having to pose for photographs? They’re beautifully groomed. Today you would have got it right, I know it.’
Christina