‘What consequences?’
‘That one day, I will have had my fill of you and you will go the way of all the others,’ he said so coldly it was scary.
‘Are you trying to frighten me off?’
His laugh was hard, and lacking in humour. ‘Good God, no. I want nothing more than to have that gorgeous body of yours at my daily disposal till at least the end of the summer holidays. But I have a policy of brutal honesty with all my girlfriends. Chloe knew the score. Now you do too.’
‘Can I tell Flora that I’m your new girlfriend?’
His face darkened at this suggestion. ‘Absolutely not!’
‘I thought that might be the case. You want to keep me your dirty little secret, don’t you?’
‘I do have my pride. Don’t you?’ he threw at her challengingly.
Her chin lifted. ‘Yes.’
‘Then it will be our dirty little secret. If you’re not happy with that, then we can still call it quits. Right now. After all, one swallow doesn’t make a summer.’
Sarah sucked in sharply at this most outrageous double entendre. ‘You really are a wicked devil, aren’t you?’
‘I did warn you about my character. So what’s your final decision? I can leave you and this house asap. Or…’ he walked over to the bed, where Derek’s present was lying spread out on the pink quilt. It was a black satin and lace teddy, which left little to the imagination, bought with the idea of making Nick jealous.
He picked it up, his eyebrows arching as he turned it this way and that. ‘Or you can agree to come to my bedroom tonight, wearing nothing but this and my diamond earrings.’
Sarah tried to feel disgusted with him, and herself. But it was no use. There was no room in her quivering body at that moment for anything but a wild rush of dizzying excitement. She could not wait to do what he asked, could not wait to present herself to him the way he asked.
What did that make her?
A masochist, or just a girl in love, a girl who’d lived for far too long with her romantic fantasies.
Yet he wasn’t offering her romance, just a few weeks of the kind of lovemaking she hadn’t experienced before. He was right about that. All her lovers so far had been youngish men of little savoir-faire.
But the way Nick was talking made her wonder if there were ways nice girls didn’t know about.
The thought only excited her further.
‘What time tonight?’ she asked, and looked him straight in the eye.
No way was she going to let him think he’d seduced her into this. She would come to him willingly, with courage, not fear.
His smile was wry. ‘I’ve always known you had spirit, Sarah. That’s another of your many attractions. Shall we say nine? Flora and Jim will have retired to their quarters by then.’
‘Nine,’ she repeated in pained tones. That was over four hours away!
‘Yes, I know. But it will be all the better for the waiting. Now I must go and dress,’ he said, bending to snatch up his swimming costume and towel from where they lay on the cream carpet. ‘Meanwhile I suggest you go downstairs. People might begin to wonder where we are, and jump to the conclusion that there’s some truth in Chloe’s accusations. Just don’t forget to replenish your lipstick before you go.’
Sarah stared after him as he left. Then she whirled and hurried into the bathroom.
‘I KNEW Chloe had just about reached her use-by date,’ Flora remarked as she packed the dishwasher for the last time that evening. ‘But I still can’t believe Nick broke up with her on Christmas Day.’
Sarah glanced up from where she was sitting, having a cup of coffee. The clock on the wall showed twenty-two minutes past eight.
‘He’s a right devil with women,’ Flora rattled on, ‘but I’ve never thought of him as cruel.’
Strangely enough, Sarah agreed with Flora.
‘He really had no option after Chloe accused him of carrying on with me in front of everyone,’ she defended.
Flora pulled a face. ‘I suppose not. I just wish I’d been there. Trust something exciting to happen the first year Jim and I decide to eat Christmas dinner back in our rooms. So tell me, what led up to it?’
Sarah shrugged. ‘I have no idea. One minute everything seemed fine, the next she just came out with it. We were both shocked, I can tell you.’
‘I’ll bet it was because of the way you look today. She was probably blind with jealousy.’
‘That’s what Nick said.’
‘He’d have been furious with her for saying something like that in front of his work colleagues. But I heard you set her to rights.’
‘Really? Who told you that?’ she’d done her best not to provide Flora with too many details, in case she slipped up with her story.
‘One of the waiters. He said it was the most interesting Christmas lunch they’d ever catered for.’
‘It was darned embarrassing. I’m glad it’s over. Next year, things are going to be very different.’
Sarah wished she hadn’t said that. Because she didn’t want to think about next year. She didn’t want to think about anything but tonight.
But once the thought was put in her head, it was impossible to banish it. If Nick had been telling the truth earlier, then by next Christmas she would be long gone from his life, and from his bed.
‘You won’t change your mind?’ Flora asked.
‘About what?’
‘About letting me cook a hot meal next year. Call me old-fashioned, but Christmas just doesn’t feel like Christmas without a turkey and a plum pudding. I know Nick won’t mind. He really likes turkey.’
‘Nick probably won’t be here,’ Sarah said a bit stiffly.
‘What? Why not?’
‘He’s moving out in February.’
‘So what? You’ll invite him here for Christmas, surely. You and he are like family.’
‘He might not want to come.’
‘Rubbish! He loves having Christmas here. Even when he was building that resort on Happy Island, he always came back for Christmas. And it’s not as though he’ll go off and get married and make a home of his own.’
‘True,’ Sarah agreed ruefully, her eyes dropping to her coffee. ‘That’s never going to happen.’
So don’t start secretly hoping that it will. He’s not going to fall in love with you, no matter how much you love him. You’re just another sexual partner, a temporary object of desire, a source of physical pleasure.
And when that pleasure begins to wane, when boredom sets in, you’ll be replaced. That’s the way it’s always been with Nick and that’s the way it will continue.
It might have been a seriously depressing train of thought if she’d been in a sensible, looking-after-her-future-happiness mood. But Sarah was anything but sensible at that moment. Excitement was fizzing through her veins, her insides wound so tight she was having trouble swallowing her coffee. How she managed to appear so composed in front of Flora, she had no idea. Obviously, she had the makings of an Oscar-winning actress!
‘Where is Nick, by the way?’ Flora