be finished within half an hour.’
‘Oh, did she?’ Swinging back to her task, Taylor opened a drawer, dropped a few items into it and slammed it closed again. ‘Well, I’ve got news for you, Jared. I still can’t come with you.’ There was a defiant air to her fine features as she delivered with just a shade of smugness, ‘I’ve got a dental appointment first thing this afternoon.’
‘Which is also why I booked a restaurant no more than ten minutes from the dental practice.’
‘You…’ Leaning back against the shelf again, Taylor wrapped her arms around herself in a subconsciously protective gesture, the bright lights behind her making her hair gleam like liquid silk as she shook her head. ‘I don’t believe you’re for real,’ she whispered, flabbergasted, feeling her privacy being sorely invaded. ‘What rights have you got to go checking up on me? Are you hoping to find some besotted lover so you can sue me for adultery rather than admit to it yourself?’
A nerve seemed to jerk in his jaw, but he made no comment in response to her little outburst.
‘It was more a case of serendipity than purposely checking up on you,’ he said phlegmatically instead. ‘When I phoned here they said that if I wanted to catch you I’d have to do so quickly as you had a dental appointment at two. I then deduced that you were probably using the same practice as when we were living together, so I simply rang and asked if my wife had arrived yet and when they told me when you were expected, I knew I’d guessed correctly.’
He had also assumed—and correctly—that for convenience she would still be using her married name at the dental practice. Silently she had to compliment him on his ingenuity, but his calculated determination unsettled her.
‘And if I needed to find someone besotted…’ Coolly he reached over her shoulder, causing her to catch her breath from his unsettling nearness as he flicked the switch that turned off the lights around the mirror. ‘I don’t think I’d need look much further than these studios, Taylor, do you?’
The meal was a tense, uneasy affair. At least where she was concerned, Taylor decided, which was why she had ordered only a piece of crisp bread with a light topping which she would still have had difficulty swallowing if it hadn’t been for the mineral water she had ordered with it.
Jared, however, seemed perfectly relaxed as he tucked into his steak sandwich with a second cup of coffee. She supposed under normal circumstances she would have complimented him upon his choice of restaurant. Totally informal, it was small but airy, the tables well spaced, the efficient service apparent as soon as they stepped inside, when a waiter had swiftly and discreetly borne their coats away.
‘No wonder you’re so thin.’ His dark glittering irises surveyed her with unmasked disapproval across the table. ‘Charity’s cats eat more than you do and they’re like waifs. How long have you lived with Charity?’ he was demanding before she could respond to his comments about her weight.
‘I’m not living with them,’ she stated pointedly.
‘Don’t split hairs,’ he said, sounding impatient. ‘You know exactly what I mean.’
Taylor inhaled deeply. He was right. It was pointless deliberately antagonising him. It was just that he hadn’t even skirted the subject he had brought her out here to discuss and her anticipation had become a tight knot in her stomach.
‘Just over a year,’ she told him then. ‘Within a week or two of my being engaged by the studios. With Josh on the way, Craig and Charity decided it would be practical financially to let the top floor. I was looking for a flat. And that was it. I couldn’t have found anywhere better if I’d tried. Charity’s such a lovely person it wasn’t difficult striking up an instant friendship with her, and Craig’s so easygoing, it’s never been a problem working with him all day and seeing him socially as well. He’s been a marvellous friend to me too.’
‘Well, bully for Craig,’ he drawled.
His meal finished, he was sitting with one elbow resting on the back of his chair, so that a good deal of white shirt was exposed beneath his open jacket.
Disconcertedly, Taylor dragged her gaze from the dark shadow of his body hair, clearly visible through the fine cotton, aware of a different kind of tension invading her now.
‘You’re determined not to like him, aren’t you?’ she accused, wondering for a few fleeting moments if his motive sprang from jealousy. But, no, she decided, dismissing the thought before it had scarcely taken shape. Jared Steele was the type of man who evoked that emotion in others, not experienced himself. And, anyway, he was in love with someone else. He had always loved someone else… ‘I thought Charity was a friend of yours,’ she challenged when he ignored her last question.
‘She is. Or rather, her parents are.’
‘Well, then,’ Taylor uttered, with an unconscious lifting of her chin. ‘Don’t you think they—and she—might take exception to your insinuations that I’m having an affair with her husband? Because she’s my friend too—and I do!’
A faint smile played around the hard masculine mouth. He didn’t look at all perturbed.
‘You’ve grown more confident,’ he remarked.
His soft observation was unexpected and disarming and quickly she lifted her glass, took a last draught of the cool water.
‘What did you expect?’ she challenged, setting her glass down on the pale cloth. ‘Even the most naïve of us grow up—if we’re forced to. And boy! Was I naïve!’
He acknowledged this only with a subtle lifting of a dark eyebrow.
‘As I recall, you also didn’t always make friends so easily. Or perhaps it was just that you didn’t try.’
No, she thought. She always had been a bit of a loner, too shy and self-conscious for her own good. Even at school she had preferred to read or sketch rather than join in with the more communal pursuits of her peers. Perhaps that was just how she was. Or perhaps it sprang from a reluctance to get too close to anyone…
‘We all change—for better or worse,’ she said without thinking, and felt a sudden sharp emotion stab her.
She saw a furrow crease the high, intellectual forehead, met those far too perceptive eyes and looked quickly away.
‘So what were you doing for the first six months after you ran away? I did contact your mother but she couldn’t give me any information, and with no friends to pump—or relatives in this country—it proved to be an impossible task trying to find you.’
Had he looked for her? The knowledge brought a treacherous colour to her cheeks.
‘It doesn’t matter now, does it?’ she murmured. After all, whatever his reason for trying to find her then, it didn’t alter the fact that now he had found her, it was with only one purpose in mind. Which suited her fine! she convinced herself, in spite of the dull ache under her ribs.
He sat forward then, resting his elbows on the table, his chin on his clasped fingers.
‘Humour me,’ he breathed.
So she did, telling him how she had moved north for a while, taking a short, intensive art course to further the basic grounding she had received at college. It was difficult though, keeping her voice steady, trying not to notice how strongly chiselled his face was, how his long lashes seemed to emphasise the darkness of his eyes and how his cruel mouth—a mouth that had once worked magic on her sensitive flesh—firmed now first with something like disapproval then with what…? Admiration? she wondered. Surely not!
‘I saw an opening for a make-up artist down here in London, grabbed it and moved back. So there you have it. My wild and exciting life in its most uncensored form.’
A contemplative smile touched his lips. ‘Can there be anything more wild and exciting than what we had, Taylor?’
The smoky quality of