‘I’ll do it!’
‘After all, you can’t very well slap my face over the—What did you say?’
Regan firmed up her quavering voice. ‘I said, I’ll do it. E-mail him back and tell Adam that he’s got a deal!’
The marble foyer on the fourteenth floor was as coldly stark as Regan remembered it, and the deep-set door just as intimidating, but this time when she rang the bell Regan didn’t hesitate.
She might be crazy to take this chance, but she would be insane not to! Joshua had approached her through a neutral intermediary in a way that gave her the option of accepting or refusing to meet him. In the circumstances, she supposed that using Derek might be considered an implicit threat, but Regan didn’t see it that way. She viewed the offer through the optimistic eyes of love. Trying to duplicate the exact conditions of their first meeting might be Joshua’s oblique way of saying that he wanted them to start afresh, to rewrite their history together. It would be typical of that sophisticated, ironic sense of humour, tinged with unexpected mischief, with which she had fallen in love!
He had said Adam needed to see Eve, and that she could name her own terms—that didn’t sound like someone aggressively seeking revenge. It sounded alluringly close to begging. Perhaps, for once in his life, Joshua was willing to entrust someone with a second chance…
She might be walking into a trap, but if there was any prospect, however small, of any kind of future relationship with the man she loved, Regan owed it to herself to find out.
As she waited for the doorbell to be answered she didn’t allow herself any romantic fantasies. Now that he was an unencumbered bachelor again, it was highly likely that Joshua might just be on the prowl for some no-holdsbarred, guilt-free sex from an occasional mistress…
Well, she hadn’t found much security as a wife, thought Regan defiantly, maybe she’d be better off as a rich man’s mistress!
She had her smile all ready for the man who opened the door.
‘Hello, Pierre.’
‘Mam’selle Regan!’ His turtle-mouth gaped open and shut.
‘Actually, it’s Eve,’ she teased. ‘Do I have to produce a card this time—or are you just going to invite me in?’
‘Mam’selle!’ His voice crackled with reproach and she laughed, a soft, clear, lilting sound, tinged with excitement, that stole into the apartment ahead of her. Instead of responding, Pierre looked back over his shoulder, and Regan, impatient with the delay, took the opportunity to slip under his arm and stroll inside.
‘Uh, mam’selle, you must wait to be announced—’ Pierre let go of the door and darted across her path.
She laughed again. ‘Oh, you mean you’re not going to tell me he’s delayed in some business meeting somewhere and ply me your fantastic canapés while I wait?’
He frowned. ‘Really, Mam’selle R—Eve—I think you should let me—’
He was interrupted by a deep voice floating up around the glass-brick stairwell.
‘Who is it, Pierre?
Joshua came springing casually up the steps in shirtsleeves and the grey trousers of a suit, glancing over what looked like an architectural plan in his hand. When he looked up from what he was reading and caught sight of Regan he froze in mid-step. His face was unguarded for a split second during which Regan saw a shock of incredulity tauten the skin across the bones of his skull.
‘Regan?’
She looked from his wary face to Pierre’s uncharacteristically deadpan expression and it hit her, then, with humiliating force: both men were so stunned to see her that it was evident her arrival was totally unexpected.
That e-mail hadn’t been an invitation, or a trap—because Joshua had obviously never sent it! And Regan had been so eager to believe that he wanted to see her again that she had never entertained the idea that it might have a cruel joke perpetrated by someone else entirely!
Oh, God!
Her confidence smashed into a million tiny pieces as Joshua’s gaze dipped, his eyes suddenly narrowing with predatory sharpness as he recognised the combination of classic black sheath, black stockings and gold-heeled evening sandals. Even the bag she was carrying was the same one she had been carrying That Night.
‘Regan?’ This time his voice was redolent with heated speculation, and a hint of amusement.
A hot flood of embarrassment welled up in her soul as she sought to extricate herself from her gross folly. She couldn’t bear to be the object of his derision. ‘I—I’m sorry, I—this is a mistake.’
Joshua was up the rest of steps in a flash, the sheet of paper he had been holding wafting unnoticed to the floor. ‘What makes you say that?’
She tried to back away and stepped on Pierre’s foot, ignoring his yelp. ‘I—I must have come to the wrong door…’ she invented absurdly.
Joshua looked at her provocative garb. ‘Did you want the elderly grandmother to the left of me, or the gay art director on the right?’ he asked gravely.
‘Floor. I said the wrong floor,’ she quickly corrected herself, putting her hand to her throat to cover the fluttering pulse on which he seemed to be fixated.
Another mistake. He saw the watch—his watch—still strapped to her wrist and smiled, as if he knew that she hadn’t taken it off for even a second since the day he had given it—lent it—to her…as if he knew that she lay in bed each night with her hand tucked under her cheek, the almost inaudible ticking a lullaby that sang her into her dreams of the man to whom it—and she—belonged.
‘Well, why don’t we make the most of your Freudian slip?’ he purred. ‘Won’t you come in and have a drink for old times’ sake?’
She frantically shook her head, and he lowered his voice to a coaxing murmur.
‘Please…’ He held out a hand, palm up. ‘Eve…one drink with me?’
Unable to trust herself to speak, Regan continued to shake her head, resisting the explicit invitation in his eyes and voice.
‘To keep me company…’ he appealed, and thrust his outstretched hand into his trouser pocket and produced a set of keys. ‘Because Pierre was just going out—weren’t you, Pierre?’
He tossed the keys through the air and Pierre fielded them in one hand. ‘To be sure, m’sieur.’
‘Have a good time, and don’t forget to set the deadlock when you leave—I don’t want anyone breaking in on me while you’re gone…’
Pierre had already slipped out of the door before Regan realised the implications of the message that had been passed over her head. She grabbed at the heavy brass handle but it was too late; the door refused to even rattle on its hinge.
She closed her anguished eyes, raising her fist to rest it
