His Pretend Wife. Lucy Gordon

nineteen, but her air of bravado had given her away. She’d flirted like a kid, crossing her beautiful legs on the table near him, and saying she liked older men in a ‘come hither’ voice that would have finished him but for his stern resolutions. His advice to ‘go back to your party, pretty little girl’ had been an act of desperation.

      He’d promised himself to avoid her, but when he’d seen boys getting her drunk for a laugh he’d had to step in and rescue her.

      He’d taken the house key from her purse and carried her up the stairs to what he’d guessed had been her room. He’d removed her clothes because if her mother had found her fully dressed and asleep she might have guessed the truth. He was a doctor, and impersonal, so he’d thought.

      But he’d found himself holding a girl wearing a bra and panties so wispy as to have been almost nonexistent. Laying her gently on the bed, he’d been shocked to find how his hands had longed to linger over her silky skin and perfect shape. He’d hung up her dress, using the controlled movements to impose discipline on his mind and, through his mind, his sensations. Discipline, control, order. That was how it had always been with him.

      But not this time. Fear had seized him, and he’d got out as fast as he’d been able to.

      He’d fled to the imagined safety of Lilian, a girlfriend as sedate and studious as himself. But there had been no safety there, or anywhere. After that it was too late. It had always been too late.