Molly’s breath caught sharply in her throat. ‘I don’t give a damn what you think—’
‘In that case…’ Without any warning, any indication of what was coming, Gideon’s mouth came crashing down on hers.
Molly was too stunned by the assault to respond at first, her breath lodged somewhere in her chest as Gideon crushed her against the hardness of his body, his arms like steel bands, his mouth ruthlessly plundering her own.
But that blinding numbness only lasted for a matter of seconds, and then Molly started fighting against him in earnest, her hands pushing at his chest as she wrenched her mouth away from the punishing determination of his.
‘Stop it!’ she gasped, glaring up at him with pained brown eyes. ‘Gideon, stop this!’ she cried again as his eyes glittered fiercely down at her.
He became very still, his face pale, set in grim lines as he stared down at her with narrowed eyes, his hands still tightly gripping her arms.
Probably as well; she wasn’t sure she wouldn’t collapse completely if Gideon weren’t holding her upright.
‘Please—stop,’ she groaned emotionally.
She simply couldn’t take any more today. The last twenty-four hours seemed more like a hundred. And it wasn’t over yet.
‘It’s Christmas,’ she added huskily.
Gideon blinked, still frowning darkly, although the glitter seemed to be fading from his eyes.
He shook his head. ‘What the hell am I doing?’ he finally muttered self-disgustedly, releasing her abruptly to step away.
Molly swallowed hard. ‘I have no idea. But I have a feeling you’re going to regret having done it once you have time to think about it,’ she added shakily.
One thing she was absolutely sure of was that the last thing Gideon really wanted to do was kiss her—at the time it had probably just seemed preferable to any other method of silencing her.
Gideon continued to stare at her for several long, breath-stopping moments, and Molly wasn’t sure quite what he was going to do next. In the circumstances, he probably wasn’t too sure himself.
He gave another shake of his head, frowning darkly now. ‘I apologise for…for whatever that was,’ he bit out abruptly, turning sharply away, seeming dazed by his own actions.
Molly felt her heart sink as she watched him walk heavily across the room. ‘Gideon…!’ she cried out as he opened the bedroom door.
‘Yes?’ He turned back to her, his expression bleak.
She bit her bottom lip, not quite sure what to say to him now that she had his attention, only aware that she couldn’t let him leave like this, with so many things left unsaid between them. ‘About James. I—we all still miss him,’ she breathed huskily.
If anything he looked even bleaker. ‘Some of us more than others, it would seem,’ he rasped, not waiting for her answer, but letting himself quietly out of the room.
Molly sat down heavily on the bed to bury her face in her hands as tears fell hotly down her cheeks.
‘YOU look gorgeous!’ David told her admiringly as she entered the sitting-room a short time later to join the others for a pre-dinner drink. ‘Like Mrs Christmas, in fact,’ he added teasingly, obviously having got over his upset of earlier.
Or else he was just hiding it well…
Molly understood what he meant about the knee-length, figure-hugging Chinese-style red dress she was wearing this evening; it was a bright poppy-red that someone was sure to say didn’t go with her copper-red hair.
Although Gideon seemed unusually quiet this evening, standing broodingly beside the fireplace, looking elegantly attractive in his black dinner suit and snowy white shirt. And as remote and cold as a statue as his gaze briefly met hers.
Molly quickly averted her own gaze, turning to smile at Sam as he handed her a glass of champagne. ‘What are we celebrating?’ she teased.
‘The slightly late start of Christmas,’ he returned ruefully. ‘Diana is upstairs with Crys right now, checking on Peter, but she assured us that Peter really doesn’t have chickenpox, and that he is much better already,’ he added with satisfaction.
‘That’s wonderful,’ Molly said with relief. ‘Definitely worth drinking to.’ She took a sip of the bubbly wine, without looking at Gideon this time to see if he was watching her. She had a feeling that looking at Gideon was going to be quite hard to do after that earlier scene in her bedroom.
‘Where’s Merlin?’ she prompted, with nothing better to say.
Sam arched a mocking brow. ‘Where do you think?’
She smiled. ‘Upstairs, keeping watch over Peter.’
‘Right first time!’ Sam grinned. ‘I—’ He broke off as they heard the telephone ring in the kitchen. ‘Now, who could that be—telephoning on Christmas Eve?’ He frowned.
‘I’ll go; it could be the parents,’ Molly told him quickly, putting down her wineglass to hurry across the room, not wanting anything to spoil this time for Sam and Crys now that the worry over Peter was apparently at an end. Something she couldn’t guarantee if it should be another one of those hang-up calls.
‘I’ll answer it,’ Gideon told her gruffly, and the two of them reached the sitting-room door at the same time.
Molly felt the colour warm her cheeks, not quite able to meet that piercing blue gaze as she looked up at him. ‘Fine,’ she accepted huskily, turning quickly away so that he shouldn’t see how even being near him like this affected her after what had happened between them earlier.
Because, despite Gideon’s anger, his forcefulness, Molly knew that part of her had wanted to respond to his kisses, that she had wanted to kiss away his anger, to know the deeply sensual man she sensed below that surface of fury.
Ridiculous when everything Gideon said, everything he did, told her of his contempt for her. He—
‘Penny for them…?’ David prompted as he moved to stand beside her, putting her glass of champagne back in her hand.
She gave a sad shake of her head. ‘I can’t make any sense of them, so why should you?’
David gave a rueful shrug. ‘We’re a strange collection of people, aren’t we?’ he murmured ruefully as Diana Chisholm and Crys entered the sitting-room. Both women smiled at Sam as he turned to them enquiringly. ‘There’s Crys and Sam, obviously the centre of this motley crew—’
‘Speak for yourself,’ Molly cut in teasingly.
He gave a nod of acknowledgement. ‘And there’s baby Peter, too, of course. Then there’s Dr Chisholm: beautiful, probably only
