snorted derisively. ‘A boffin with a management consultant on the staff? What do you research into? How to make a million on the Internet?’
He looked annoyed. At least, she was not looking into his face but he felt annoyed. His long legs ate up the paving stones until she had to break into a trot to keep up with him.
‘You’ve got a good memory. I barely mentioned my management consultant.’
She was puffing. ‘I told you I knew something about you.’
‘You told me you knew as much as you wanted to.’ He sounded angry and suspicious. ‘Was that it? Man with a management consultant must be a good bet?’
Bella was furious. ‘What do you think I am, an industrial spy?’ she panted.
He stopped suddenly and swung round on her. ‘Well?’
She stopped too with relief. She had a stitch. Pride prevented her from putting a hand to it. But not all the pride in the world could stop her grateful in-draught of breath.
‘If you remember you were the one who came on to me,’ she pointed out when she could speak. ‘I’ve been trying to get rid of you half the evening.’
They were two doors from the brownstone where she had the top-floor apartment.
‘And now I’m home. So goodnight.’
She offered an ironic handshake. It did not turn out like that. He took her hand and pulled her towards him.
Bella felt her feet skid on the icy pavement. She fell forward into his arms.
In a second that seemed like a lifetime, she saw his eyes widen. Then narrow…focus on her mouth…grow dark with desire…
Bella found that it was not too cold for a kiss. A kiss so passionate that it seemed to light up the sky. A kiss so intimate that it set her blood humming, reminding her that under the coat she was nearly naked. A kiss so new that it left her shaken and silenced when he put her away from him.
It seemed to have shaken him too. He looked down at her, unsmiling.
Under his breath he said, ‘This is crazy.’
‘Yes,’ said Bella, stunned.
He looked at the stone steps to her front door.
‘Let me come up.’
She nearly did. So nearly. And not because she did not want to be alone in the cold blue morning.
But then she looked at that curly rakish mouth and got a grip.
‘Oh, you can’t risk me prising any more of your secrets out of you,’ she said nastily.
And ran away from him, her feet slipping every which way on the icy surface. Bella did not care. She had her key out as she ran up the steps. She did not know if he tried to follow her. But she closed the door and leaned against it with her heart hammering.
‘The sooner he gets on that damned flight of his the better,’ she muttered.
She ran all the way up the stairs to her flat as if he was watching her and it was a point of honour not to stop and look back.
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