matter, her lovely white dress was stained, her knees were grazed, her scrunchie was hanging by a thread of hair and her face was dirty.
He half smiled and gently removed the scrunchie. ‘Why? I have rather a lot of money, Tattie.’
She swallowed. ‘Thank heavens you came home and saw the invitation. Thank heavens you bumped into Amy! I didn’t know what to do. Part of me was thinking, surely he wouldn’t shoot me in broad daylight in the middle of Parap, but the other half couldn’t be sure. It…I…’
‘Tattie.’ He took her in his arms. ‘I can imagine. And if it’s any consolation I doubt whether he would have shot you in the middle of Parap, but he’s safely under lock and key now.’
‘Maybe there are more of them!’ She shivered in his arms.
‘I doubt that too.’ He stroked her hair. ‘I suspect he was a loner and it wasn’t a very well-thought-out plot.’
‘Maybe,’ she conceded, but couldn’t stop shivering.
‘Hey,’ he said quietly, ‘it’s over. I’m here.’ And he kissed her.
As an antidote to extreme nervous tension, it worked well. The shivering started to subside as his mouth closed on hers, and the incredible events that had befallen her gave way to something else.
How good it felt to be in his arms, how safe—and how ruthless he’d been in her defence, as if she meant an awful lot to him. Then even those thoughts receded and sensations began to take their place. She no longer noticed that she was in a mess. She began to be aware of herself on a different plane altogether, very much as a woman with all the needs and desires of one, most of which he was attending to with his hands and his lips.
He stroked her arms with his long fingers and she shivered quite differently, with delight. He kissed her lightly, then those cool, firm lips sought the soft hollows at the base of her throat while his wandering fingers combed through her hair. But not only was it what he was doing to her, it was the feel of his strong, hard body against hers that filled her with a lovely, special feeling of excitement.
Then he started to kiss her more deeply and she responded, shyly at first, then more and more freely. They drew apart once and she stared at him, suddenly overwhelmingly aware of the sexy side of Alex Constantin as she’d never been before. The mouth-watering masculinity of his wide shoulders and lean hips, the planes of his face, and what being under the gaze of his faintly amused eyes did to her.
It was one thing to be sitting beside him in a car and feel his presence like a body blow, she realised. It was one thing to have been kissed by him during their engagement—most chastely, she now realised. It was entirely another thing to have him focused squarely on her and kissing her with all that latent sexiness very much unleashed. Oh, yes, she thought a little wildly, this was another matter altogether.
‘This’ brought out the strangest thoughts in her. How glad, for example, she was to be wearing a minuscule but very fetching pair of white lace bikini briefs and a matching bra. How her skin would feel against the cream textured velvet of the couch when he undressed her; how hot, erotic and sexy she felt herself, so that the couch, the carpet, anywhere would be OK for him to make love to her, because she might die a little if he didn’t…
Then he slid his hand beneath the hem of her dress and stroked her thigh, and she made absolutely no protests of any kind—and the phone rang.
She thought he swore under his breath. She thought she made a husky little sound of sheer frustration, but in the next moment he’d released her and she was sitting very properly, with her hem tucked around her legs, while he went to answer the phone and the door.
‘The police,’ he said, coming back to her with his lips twisting to see she hadn’t moved a muscle. ‘I need to go down to the station but you don’t have to come. And you don’t have to worry about being alone. The apartment has been put under surveillance just to be on the safe side.’
Tattie licked her lips but found herself with nothing to say.
‘Why don’t you have a long shower and a rest?’ he suggested. ‘Or would you like me to call your mother or my mother?’
‘No! Uh…no, thank you.’ She tried to smile. ‘I’d rather not be fussed over at the moment.’
‘Tattie.’ He sat down beside her and put his arms loosely around her. ‘You look as if you’ve been in an earthquake, and I don’t mean physically, although there’s that too. But the fact that we both enjoyed that very much has got to help in our marriage, wouldn’t you agree?’
Her lips parted but again no sound came.
‘Anyway—’ he smiled faintly ‘—think about it. I’ll be as quick as I can. And I am going to call your mother and my parents—we can’t leave them to hear about it on the radio and I don’t think you should be alone.’
He waited until George, Irina and Natalie arrived. It didn’t take long for them to rush over. He suffered their concern—his mother thought he might need stitches in his arm—and admiration with a wry little smile.
And for a time after he’d gone Tattie was glad not to be alone. So she let them ply her with tea and cake and generally fuss over her, especially her mother, who kept folding Tattie in her arms. And she went through it all again with them, unaware of how her eyes shone as she described how magnificent Alex had been in her defence.
But all of a sudden she knew she had to be alone, and she told them she was going to have a sleep. It took some determination to persuade them—again, especially her mother—that she would be fine, but finally they left.
She took a bubble bath in the huge, raised marble bath that was fashioned in the shape of a shell in her en suite bathroom. The marble was champagne-coloured and all the towels, the soap and bottles were a soft jade-green. It was normally a most relaxing place but, even smothered in bubbles to her chin and with two fragrant candles burning as she soaked away the unusual events of the day, she felt far from relaxed.
Really, she thought, it was too much to be almost kidnapped then subjected to her husband at his dangerously sexy best—a first for her—all in the space of a few hours!
Was it any wonder she couldn’t think straight?
And was this why Leonie Falconer was determined to get Alex back? Because his dangerously sexy best was irresistible?
She looked at the pads of her fingers and discovered they were wrinkled. So she got out of the bath before she resembled a prune all over, but her thoughts continued like a string of pearls with synergy—one set of thoughts leading smoothly to the next. No, not smoothly, she contradicted herself, not synergy at all, really, but jumping about like fleas, with all sorts of possibilities for this turn of events presenting themselves…
How long had Alex deliberately deprived himself of his mistress, and did that have anything to do with him needing not necessarily her but any woman?
She would have to put it to him, she felt, although she quailed inwardly at the prospect. Because it was all very well to take these developments at face value, but what protection did that offer her against spending the rest of her life in love with him while he had a series of mistresses once he’d secured her, heirs for the dynasty and, of course, two cattle stations?
She dressed in a long fuchsia skirt, to hide her grazed knees,
