She was smiling a little as she opened the door, because it was more than probably Simon who had shown signs of becoming besotted with her just before she had flown off on this last assignment, and she liked Simon even if she was a long way from falling in love herself.
She began, ‘You’ve caught me at a bad moment. I’m …’
And then she stopped, the words dying on her lips as she saw exactly who it was, standing on her doorstep, waiting for admittance.
‘Hello, Lisa,’ said Dane Riderwood.
FOR a moment she could neither speak nor move, and her breathing felt oddly constricted. It was like a nightmare—as if Dane was some demon that her thoughts had conjured up. All these months she had never allowed herself to think about him at all, she had closed him out, incised him from her brain.
Now Julie’s letter had reluctantly forced open the floodgates of her memory, and she had walked through the past like some forbidden city. ‘Talk of the devil,’ people used to say, ‘and he’s sure to appear.’ And it was true because the devil was here with her now.
She made a grab for the door intending to slam it in his face, but her momentary hesitation had been her undoing, because he had already forecast her intention and walked into the room.
He said, ‘Allow me.’ And he closed the door himself, shutting them in together.
Lisa said between her teeth, ‘Get out of here!’
‘When I’m ready.’ His voice was as cool as ever. He had hardly changed at all physically from the first time she had set eyes on him. The lines on his face had deepened with maturity, but his body still had the spare lithe grace of some predatory animal. He moved forward and she recoiled instinctively. He threw back his head and stared at her for a moment, his eyes hooded, their expression enigmatic.
‘Relax,’ he advised caustically. ‘The sooner you hear what I have to say, the sooner I can be gone, which is what we both want.’
‘What the hell are you doing here?’ she almost whispered.
‘I’m not preparing to carry out the fell purposes you seem to have in mind,’ he snapped back at her. ‘For God’s sake, Lisa, sit down and behave like a civilised human being.’
‘What would you know about civilised behaviour?’ She was beginning to tremble inwardly and she folded her arms defensively across her body. ‘Just say whatever you came to say and get out.’
‘Ever the gracious hostess.’ Dane walked past her, looked with a lift of his eyebrow at the littered sofa, then sat down in the chair opposite. ‘You’re very nervous,’ he commented. ‘What’s the matter? You said I’d called at a bad moment when you opened the door. Are you—entertaining?’ His eyes went over her derisively, establishing beyond doubt that he knew quite well she was naked under the old towelling robe, and she flushed angrily.
‘No, I’m not,’ she grated, and could have kicked herself. Perhaps if she’d lied and said, ‘Yes—someone’s waiting for me in the bedroom right now,’ he might have left.
‘Then I’m fortunate to find you alone,’ he said smoothly. ‘I’d like some coffee.’
For a moment Lisa stood glaring at him impotently, then she turned and went into the small kitchen. The towel round her hair was slipping and she tore it off impatiently, thrusting it into the small linen basket next to the washing machine. Her hands were shaking so much she could hardly spoon the coffee into the percolator. She began to set a tray with brown pottery mugs, pouring creamy milk into a matching jug. She heard a slight sound behind her, and glancing over her shoulder, realised that Dane was standing in the doorway watching her.
‘Do you have sugar?’ She made her voice cool and social.
‘You’ve a bad memory, Lisa,’ he said sardonically. ‘How many years did we live under the same roof, and how many cups of coffee did you pour for me? No, I don’t have sugar, and never have done.’
‘Too many,’ she muttered.
‘Well, that’s one thing at least we can agree on,’ he said. He strolled forward, trapping her between his body and the worktop behind her. He put out a hand and tilted her chin, studying her face critically.
His touch sent every nerve-ending in her body screaming. She wanted to strike his hand away. She wanted to use her nails and teeth to free herself like a cornered animal, but it would be no good, she knew. He was the stronger, and he would not hesitate to use his strength.
He said silkily, ‘You don’t change, do you, Lisa? I remember you all those years ago—a little hostile creature, all hair and eyes.’
She smiled, a little meaningless stretching of her lips. ‘How odd you should say that. I was thinking much the same about you. Oh, not the hair, of course, but the hostility—and the eyes. They haven’t altered at all. They’re still cold.’
As cold and as cruel as January, she silently added, meeting their greyness, noticing how their bleak light remained unsoftened by the heavy fringing of dark lashes.
Dane said, ‘Cold?’ and smiled. ‘Is that what you really think? Surely not.’
Her breathing quickened a little. ‘You wouldn’t like to hear what I really think. Now if you want this coffee, you’d better let me make it.’
He flung up his hands in mock capitulation and moved away, and Lisa felt limp with relief.
When she carried the tray through to the living room, he had resumed his seat by the fire and was smoking a cigar. She felt a sudden surge of nostalgia as the scent of the smoke reached her. Chas had always smoked cigars and their faint aroma had hung round the house at Stoniscliffe whenever he was there, as if it was Christmas every day, Jennifer had said, laughing.
She put the tray down. ‘What happened to the cigarettes?’
‘I gave them up about eighteen months ago.’ He gestured to the cigar. ‘Do you object to this?’
‘No, of course not.’ She subdued an impulse to add it was the least objectionable thing about him, and poured the coffee instead. ‘Why do you ask?’
He gave a slight shrug. ‘It doesn’t fit in with the image here. A masculine intrusion into a purely feminine environment.’ He paused. ‘Or at least that’s the assumption I’m making. Perhaps I’m wrong.’
‘Perhaps you are,’ she agreed.
He glanced around, brows lifted. ‘You don’t live alone?’
‘I don’t live alone.’
Dane was very still for a moment, then he moved abruptly, tapping a sliver of ash from the tip of the cigar. ‘Of course not. May one ask where he is?’
‘No, I don’t think so,’ she said calmly. ‘Perhaps now you’d like to tell me what you want from me.’
‘Not a thing, sweetheart—now
