a trip to the Caribbean in a week or two.’
‘How indiscreet of her!’ His voice slowed to a drawl. ‘So?’
She stared at him. ‘You do realise that if she goes with you, it will probably be the end of her marriage?’
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘But has it been definitely established that she is coming with me?’
‘The fact that it was ever suggested—that she’s considering it, is bad enough,’ Kate said fiercely, and he laughed.
‘How very moral of you! Has it ever occurred to you that Alison is quite old enough to decide for herself what she wants from life—and whom, for that matter.’
‘In normal circumstances, yes,’ she said. ‘But—but she doesn’t seem very happy just now. Frankly, this—intervention of yours couldn’t have come at a worse time.’
‘I’d noticed she wasn’t happy. Why should that be, do you suppose?’
Kate waved a dismissive hand. ‘I don’t know. But I’m sure that left to themselves, they can work it out. Only you’re involved now and Alison has been under your sphere of influence so long that I don’t believe she can think straight when you’re around.’
‘Not Bluebeard after all, but Svengali,’ he said almost idly, staring at the amber glow of the whisky as if it fascinated him. ‘Well, well. Does Alison know that you’ve come here, by any chance?’
‘No, she doesn’t.’
The blue eyes watched her coldly. ‘Then she didn’t fling herself on her knees begging you to save her from herself—and from me?’
‘Of course not,’ Kate said impatiently. ‘I’ve told you, she doesn’t realise …’
‘What’s she’s doing,’ he completed for her smoothly. ‘Odd. When she worked for me before she seemed to be in reasonable control of her faculties. But fortunately, she has you to act as arbiter of her morals. May I ask why?’
Kate was slightly taken aback. ‘Because Jon is my brother, and I don’t want him hurt.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Don’t you mean stepbrother?’
‘Does it really make a difference?’
‘A fundamental one, I’d have thought.’ He gave her a long dispassionate look. ‘Are you here at his request, perhaps?’
‘No,’ Kate said angrily. ‘And you can thank your stars that he knows nothing about it. If he knew that you were planning to take Alison away with you, even on a legitimate business trip, he’d be ready to kill you!’
‘Perhaps I should hire a bodyguard.’ Matt Lincoln drank some more whisky.
‘Perhaps you should just leave his wife alone.’ She looked at him fiercely. ‘It’s not fair to tempt her like this when she’s at a low ebb. And you don’t really need her. There’s probably a long queue of idiot women who’d give all they possessed to go to the Caribbean with you.’
‘You flatter me.’ The blue eyes glittered at her.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t imagine you get many refusals.’
‘You, of course, being one of the exceptions.’ The smile that twisted the firm, sensual mouth was not a pleasant one.
Kate shrugged. ‘Let’s just say I have a built-in immunity to men of your sort, Mr Lincoln, and leave it at that!’ She paused. ‘You have no real reason to ruin Alison’s marriage, after all. You were never really serious about her, or you’d have asked her to marry you.’
‘Perhaps I’m not the marrying kind.’
She shrugged, ‘But Jon is, and Alison is his wife, and he loves her. It would be terrible for him if it all went wrong. Have you even considered what the consequences might be, if she goes with you?’
‘Oh, I’m not that heedless, Miss Marston,’ he said. ‘I’d take adequate precautions against any—consequences.’
Kate almost ground her teeth. ‘I didn’t mean that, and you know it!’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I know it.’ He swallowed the remainder of his whisky and got to his feet in one fluid, angry movement. Alarmed, Kate took an involuntary step backwards, and he laughed.
‘Scared, Miss Marston? So you should be. You have a bloody nerve coming here to preach to me about my morals, using your—disinterested affection for someone else’s husband as an excuse. What a two-faced little bitch you are!’
‘Attack, of course, being the best form of defence.’ Kate spoke contemptuously, but her heart was thumping violently. ‘What’s the matter, Mr Lincoln? Have I actually got to you? Could you be suffering a belated bout of conscience?’
‘No,’ he said grimly. ‘Old-fashioned bad temper, coupled with another emotion you’re probably too perfect to recognise, by your own reckoning anyway.’
He tossed the empty tumbler on to the sofa behind him without even sparing a glance to see if it had landed safely, and came towards her.
Kate gasped, and turned to run for the door, but he’d caught her before she even took two paces, taking her by the shoulders and swinging her round to face him. His face was a mask of anger, the blue eyes blazing.
He said with soft clarity, ‘Not so fast, paragon. Let’s see how secure that pedestal of yours actually is.’
She realised what he meant to do, and aimed a blow at him with her clenched fist. He avoided it easily, jerking his head to one side, swearing under his breath, and the next moment both her arms were pinioned behind her back, his hand clamped like a vice round her wrists. His other hand fastened in her hair, not gently, forcing her to be still as his mouth came down on hers.
She shuddered weakly, closing her eyes, bracing herself against the first bruising onslaught. Only it did not come. Instead his lips closed on hers with bewildering gentleness, exploring their softness with warm sensuousness.
She stood passively enduring the featherlight kisses pressed to the corners of her mouth, the delicate grazing of his teeth against the soft fullness of her lower lip.
She was desperately and shamingly aware that her breathing was changing, quickening as the long deliberate caress went on, and she tried to pull away. Immediately his grasp tightened in her hair, and with a little choked gasp of pain, she was forced to submit.
The pressure of his mouth against hers was subtly more insistent now, his tongue stroking teasingly along the contours of her lips, silently coaxing her to part them, and allow him a deeper, more passionate intimacy, and she felt her whole body shiver as she fought its traitorous urging to let him have his way.
She couldn’t believe what was happening to her. She was being deliberately punished, and she knew it, yet deep within her, a soft, sweet trembling was beginning to take control, compelling her to move towards him so that their bodies touched as well as their mouths, prompting a first bewildered response to his kisses.
A little aching sigh escaped her,
