looked expensive and his car certainly did. He must have earned a good deal if he could afford a Porsche! Was he famous? Should she have heard of him? She knew very little about anything outside her own chosen sphere of interest. Antiques were the only things she knew much about.
In her eagerness to get away from him, to get home, she was driving too fast. As she turned the next corner she almost hit another car coming out of a side road.
Tyres screeched, a horn blared, and Kit got a glimpse of a furious, alarmed face before the other car was lost from sight behind her. She slowed down after that and behind her the black Porsche slowed too.
She shot a look into her mirror and saw his reflection in it; the gleam of amused blue eyes, the cynical mouth. There was something about him—something disturbing; she had sensed it from the minute she’d set eyes on him but hadn’t been sure what it was she saw or felt.
She had thought she recognised him, and perhaps she had seen him before going in or out of the block of flats, or maybe it was just that faint resemblance to Clark Gable she had picked up on, but she suspected that she had also been reacting instinctively to the man himself. He had charm and he was attractive and he was certainly persistent—but there was a sense of threat from him too. He worried her, and she had enough emotional problems in her life already. She didn’t need another one.
The chief thing on her mind at the moment, though, was getting back home before he could beat her to it. She wasn’t going to relax until she was safely in her flat with the door locked.
The block of flats had an underground car park. Kit had always hated parking there at night, walking through the dimly lit vault of the basement to the lift to go up to her flat, and tonight was no exception. She was desperate to get there before the man driving behind her.
She shot down the steep slope, parked in her numbered space without worrying about doing it perfectly, jumped out, hearing the Porsche smoothly reversing into another space nearby, locked her car and ran for the lift as if she were training for the Olympics.
She was lucky. The lift doors opened as soon as she touched the button; she leapt inside and jabbed the button for her floor, silently praying that they would close before Joe Ingram could catch up with her.
The doors closed. Kit breathed a sigh of relief. The lift went up and stopped, the doors opened and she walked out, her keyring swinging from her finger, then she stopped dead in shock.
Joe Ingram was leaning on the wall, waiting for her. ‘What took you so long?’ his voice drawled, and he laughed at her stunned expression.
He must have run up the stairs but he wasn’t out of breath. It was Kit who was having to drag air into her lungs, her heart beating twice as fast as normal.
‘Look, can’t you get the message—?’ she began, but he interrupted.
‘I only wanted to say that if you ever changed your mind and wanted to see me again I’d give you my phone number,’ he drawled, looking amused, his blue eyes teasing, and she felt stupid. She had overreacted, so now she tried to sound calm and reasonable.
‘No, sorry; I won’t change my mind. Goodnight.’ ‘
At least take my card,’ he said, pushing a printed card into her hand.
She was tempted to drop it on the floor, but if she did he would probably only give her another one. Irritably she pushed the card into her coat pocket.
‘Is this a recent affair?’ he asked, his body casually at ease as he leaned on the wall. ‘I mean, how long have you known this guy?’
Very flushed and angry, she bit out, ‘Honestly, you take the biscuit! I’m not telling you all about my private life!’
‘I’m just trying to work it out. You aren’t living with him yet you say it’s serious, and tonight you were on your own—why wasn’t he with you? Does that mean it’s serious for you but not for him?’
She felt a stab of pain because he had hit on the truth and it hurt. ‘Mind your own business!’ She wasn’t answering his questions, however close he came to guessing the truth. She had no intention of telling him anything more about herself; he already knew too much and she didn’t like the way he had chased her up here.
‘Don’t get cross, Kit,’ he said reproachfully.
‘I’m tired. Goodnight,’ she said, sidestepping him, not sure what she would do if he wouldn’t let her walk away. Her nerves jangled as she took her first step.
But he didn’t stop her; he just turned and watched her go, then said softly, ‘Do I need references?’
She ignored him. As she reached her door and put her key into the lock he said, ‘Goodnight, then, Kit. See you again soon!’ And then she heard the door to the stairs banging behind him, the sound of his feet running up the stairs.
Although Kit was tired and went straight to her bedroom, washed and was in bed in about ten minutes, she didn’t get to sleep for another half an hour.
She kept thinking about him, going over everything he had said to her, remembering every look on his face, every glance from those vivid blue eyes.
She had never met a man who had made such a deep impression at first sight and she hoped she would be able to put him out of her mind; she certainly meant to forget him as fast as she could. He wasn’t even her type.
She didn’t like men who played games in the way she sensed he did. How many other women had he chased the way he’d just chased her? What was his success rate?
It worried her that she had immediately been attracted to him without knowing a thing about him. It wasn’t like her; it was completely out of character. She had told him that she was the cautious type and it was true. Kit had always preferred to look before she leapt, even when she’d been young.
She and Hugh had known each other for years before they’d got married. She couldn’t blame the failure of their marriage on too much haste in the beginning. They had been teenagers when they’d met, and had taken six years to get to the altar. They had both been so very sensible. No doubt that was why, at the age of forty-five, Hugh had suddenly lost his head over a girl half his age and run off with her one night without warning.
For the first time in his entire life Hugh had acted on impulse, had let emotion rule him, and once Kit had got over the shock she had come to feel a certain sympathy for him. Their divorce had been entirely amicable and they had stayed friends—at a distance.
Hugh and his bride, Tina, had gone off to live in Germany, near Tina’s family. He now worked for a museum in Bonn, heading its ceramics department. He was brilliant at his job; he had a strong international reputation and could identify an object almost at a glance.
Hugh liked living in Germany, and he got on well with his colleagues. Cool-headed, logical, sensible in everything except the way he felt about his new wife, Tina, and their little blonde twin girls, aged two now, he was happier now than he had ever been in his life before.
Kit had met them all last summer when they’d visited England to see her son, Paul, and his family. She had been struck by how happy Hugh had looked and had been glad—she felt no bitterness towards him.
If she had really loved him she would have done, presumably—but had she? she wondered, yawning, and couldn’t
