Well, not quite, but who would believe a denial of that coming from her? And she was sure that when this man looked at a person with disgust they would feel as if they had been burnt.
She tried to pull out of his arms. ‘I think you should go——’
‘I’d rather not,’ he groaned into her hair.
She stod completely still. ‘I’m asking you to go,’ she said shakily.
He drew back slightly to look down at her. ‘Aura, I realise we don’t know each other very well——’
‘We don’t know each other at all,’ she corrected— and as far as she was concerned it was going to remain that way!
James smiled at her stubborn expression. ‘That can easily be remedied——’
‘I don’t want to know about you,’ she told him vehemently.
‘—I’m thirty-four,’ he continued as if she hadn’t interrupted. ‘The only son of deceased parents. I like children, and animals—especially cats,’ he added as the sleek ginger tomcat entered the room. ‘Hello, boy,’ he greeted, going down on his haunches to tickle the ecstatic animal behind the ears.
‘Marmaduke,’ Aura supplied abruptly. ‘He belongs to my mother.’
‘He’s a beauty.’ Piercing green eyes suddenly looked up at her. ‘Couldn’t we have dinner together one evening?’
She drew in a sharp breath at the abrupt change of subject, sure he had deliberately tried to catch her off guard. ‘No,’ she answered firmly.
He straightened, ignoring the ginger cat as it twined in and out of his legs at the sudden, deprivation of his caressing fingers. ‘You have— someone, in your life?’ His eyes were narrowed.
If she said yes, would he go away and leave her alone? The determined set of his mouth said no, that he would merely set about eliminating the competition. ‘Is it unusual for a woman to say no to you, Mr Ballantine?’ She was deliberately scoffing.
‘One that kisses me the way you do, yes,’ he nodded slowly.
A flush burnt her cheeks, and she knew this man wasn’t flirting with her, that he didn’t know the meaning of the word; he seduced with candour and the certainty of his own feelings. ‘Mr Ballantine, I have no wish to have dinner with you,’ she told him abruptly. ‘I have a business to run, my mother to take care of——’
‘That can’t take up all your time,’ he chided.
‘It does!’
‘What do you do for relaxation?’
She sighed. ‘I read, occasionally go for long walks, play tennis——’
‘I’ll pick you up Sunday afternoon and we’ll hire a court for a game——’
‘—badly,’ she finished ruefully. ‘Martina Navratilova has nothing to fear from me.’
‘Sunday,’ he said again firmly. ‘Two o’clock. I’ll give you a coaching lesson; John McEnroe taught me everything I know about tennis.’
Her eyes widened. ‘You know——? But——’
‘I’ll see you Sunday afternoon, Aura.’ He gave her a quick kiss on her parted lips before leaving.
For seconds after he had gone Aura was unable to move, unable to believe she actually had a date with James Ballantine despite all her objections. He was attractive and sensitive, but he was also one of the most forceful men she had ever met!
She moved to the curtained window, drawing one of them back just in time to see the sweeping U-turn of a sleek grey Jaguar as James accelerated the car away.
She had a feeling that when James wanted something badly enough, as he had seemed to want her company on Sunday, he just refused to accept the word no. As Adrian had? No, she was sure that James would always deal fairly for what he wanted, that he always attained it without hurting anyone to do it. Hadn’t he just done so? She wasn’t hurt; she was bewildered and slightly off-balance, but she wasn’t hurt.
‘Has Mr Ballantine gone, dear?’ Her mother sounded disappointed as she entered the room from the stairway.
‘Yes.’ Aura was still a little dazed.
‘Such a nice young man,’ her mother smiled warmly, having an ageless quality about her that refused to recognise she was only a few years James Ballantine’s senior. ‘Will we be seeing him again, do you think?’ she asked innocently.
‘No. Yes. No! I don’t think so,’ Aura said with determination.
‘What a pity.’ Her mother sighed. ‘He had such kind eyes.’
Aura looked indulgently at her mother, a woman who saw no evil in anyone or anything. Although she had, Aura recalled with a frown, remarked upon the fact that Marmaduke didn’t seem to like Adrian, and that ‘animals knew, didn’t they?’ At that time she hadn’t paid too much attention to the vaguely made comment, but now she looked at her mother with sharp query.
‘You deliberately made sure I couldn’t talk to you until today, didn’t you?’ Aura glared accusingly at James as he drove the Jaguar with relaxed control.
It was Sunday, and promptly at two o’clock, as she had known he would, James had arrived at her home. He had then proceeded to charm her mother with gentle teasing, and enlist her help in persuading Aura to take a break when she had already told him she didn’t have the time to play tennis—no matter who his personal coach had been! He had even asked her mother if she would like to join them, genuinely disappointed when she had politely refused.
He glanced at Aura now with innocently wide eyes. ‘I don’t——’
‘And don’t deny it,’ she warned. ‘I’ve been calling your office for the last two days, and each time your secretary told me you were “unavailable”,’ she said with disgust.
‘And you don’t believe I was?’ he mused softly.
‘I’m sure you weren’t,’ she snapped impatiently.
‘I’m a very busy man, Aura,’ he mocked.
‘Not that busy!’ she glared.
He sighed. ‘You’re right. I told Moira not to put any of your calls through to me so that you couldn’t cancel our date for today.’
‘It was your date, I don’t remember at any time agreeing to it. And you might at least have lied about your duplicity,’ she added disgustedly.
He looked at her intensely. ‘I’ll never lie to you about anything, Aura.’ His hand covered hers as it rested against her thigh, the brief white shorts she wore leaving most of her long legs bare. ‘I want you to always remember that.’
The cool touch of his fingers against her skin, the knuckles brushing her thigh as he briefly clasped her hand, had completely disarmed her.
She
