lips, the only embrace her mother allowed. ‘I’ll talk to you soon.’
Once out in the crisp October afternoon Liberty paused for a moment, taking great deep breaths of the city-laden air. It carried myriad traffic fumes in its depths but it was still preferable to her mother’s overheated, scented surroundings.
She felt better once she was seated in her little Ford Ka, but only slightly. A visit to her mother’s always resulted in a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach and a host of emotions and memories tumbling about her head. She sat for a moment with her hands resting on the leather-clad steering wheel, willing herself to calm down. Even this car—a thirtieth birthday present to herself six months before—had caused an argument with her mother. Miranda hadn’t been able to understand why she hadn’t gone for a sporty little number or a racy coupé, and Liberty’s explanation that she wanted a sweet-driving small car which looked good and was talented enough to take her anywhere had been lost on her mother.
Liberty patted the pale grey fascia. ‘I love you anyway,’ she said out loud, her thoughts still on the expensively dressed and coiffured woman in the fabulous apartment she had just left as she pulled out into the lunchtime traffic.
A squeal of brakes culminating in an impact which rattled her teeth informed her of her mistake even before her brain registered she hadn’t checked her mirrors.
She sat quite still, shock causing her to freeze for long seconds before she forced her numb mind and body into action. As she opened her door she saw the driver of the other car—who had slewed across the road in an effort to avoid her—exiting his vehicle, a prestige, state-of-the-art Mercedes in gleaming slate-blue. He reached her just as she stood shakily to her feet.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked very evenly.
A pair of granite-grey eyes held hers, and in the time it took for her to realise the man wasn’t as old as she had thought at first, and that the streaks of grey in the jet-black hair had misled her, she felt her knees start to buckle.
She heard him swear softly as he grabbed her, holding her against him as he said, ‘Breathe deeply a few times,’ whilst he opened her car door again, positioning her sideways in the seat with her feet on the road. She felt her head being pushed down to her knees but couldn’t resist, the all-consuming faintness rendering her helpless.
How long she remained like that she was never very sure, but it could only have been a matter of some sixty seconds or so before the dizzy weakness began to clear. ‘I’m sorry.’
She was aware of him standing next to her and the sound of car horns in the background, but all he said was, ‘Take your time,’ as though they weren’t blocking a major road at the height of the midday rush hour.
‘I…I’ll back in again, shall I?’ As she recovered her voice along with her senses she tried to get a grasp on the situation. ‘Maybe you could park somewhere close and we’ll exchange numbers and so on?’ she suggested more briskly.
‘Do you feel able to drive?’
She raised her head and looked him fully in the face for the first time. He had a lovely voice, very deep and almost gravelly but with a dark smokiness which took away any roughness. The sort of voice which would have made him a wow on the silver screen. He was attractive, too, in a somewhat unorthodox kind of way, his face too strong and tough for straightforward handsomeness but carrying a quality which was more powerful than pretty-boy good looks. She pulled herself together fast as she realised he was waiting for an answer to his question. ‘Yes, yes of course,’ she said hastily. ‘I’m only going to back into the parking space I’ve just left.’
He said nothing more, but the raising of black eyebrows a fraction and the expression on the hard-planed face made it very clear exactly what he thought of her driving prowess.
The colour was hot in her cheeks as she watched him walk over to his car, but then she shrugged mentally as she concentrated on backing into the neat little space she had vacated so arbitrarily just minutes before. She couldn’t blame him if he was less than enamoured with her performance to date; the accident had been totally her fault. Why hadn’t she checked her mirrors? She groaned inwardly. Basic procedure, something you did without thinking. Only she hadn’t.
Once she had parked she nerved herself to get out of the car and inspect the damage. Although he had obviously swerved violently and avoided going headlong into the side of her, the glancing blow to the rear had all but taken off the bumper, smashed the back light and dented the side bodywork. It was a mess.
A horrifying urge to burst into tears brought Liberty’s back straightening and her chin lifting. He already thought she was a menace to all road users; she wasn’t about to compound the image by giving way to waterworks.
She reached for her handbag on the passenger seat and hunted through for her insurance details, only to give another inward groan as she realised they were in the bag she had used the day before. She always made sure she was fully coordinated down to the smallest detail when visiting her mother, and the black bag of the day before hadn’t lent itself to the french-navy suit she was wearing today. Great. She swallowed hard. This was turning into one swell day.
She raised her head, glancing along the pavement as a tall commanding figure, who looked to be at least three or four inches taller than anyone else in the vicinity, caught her attention. It was him. Of course, it had to be—it went with the afternoon.
She watched him striding easily towards her with the sort of nonchalant arrogance which said his handle on life was very secure. He wasn’t hurrying but his long legs seemed to cover the distance between them before she could blink. He had a fantastic body.
The thought, coming from nowhere as it did, shocked her into lowering her eyes, and she rummaged in her bag as he drew alongside, pretending to still look for her papers.
‘Problem?’
‘I’m afraid so.’ She was ready this time when she looked at him and didn’t allow the flinty gaze to make an impact. ‘It seems I’ve left my insurance details in my other bag.’
He nodded.
It wasn’t a very nice nod, she thought irritably. It was a nod which said he might have expected something like this, or was she just being paranoid? ‘I can give you my name and address and registration number and so on,’ she said quickly, aware she was babbling but unable to help herself. ‘And I’m fully aware everything was my fault. Is…is your car badly damaged?’
‘No.’ He didn’t elaborate, looking down at her with a narrowed, assessing stare before he said, ‘Don’t you know it’s foolish to accept liability?’
She couldn’t hide the annoyance now, her voice something of a snap when she said, ‘I don’t play games, Mr—?’
‘Blake. Carter Blake.’
‘I don’t play games, Mr Blake. The accident was my fault and I’m just glad no one was injured. I’m fully prepared to take responsibility for my mistake.’
A brief smile touched his lips and then disappeared. ‘Unusual attribute in this day and age,’ he drawled smoothly, quite unmoved by her antagonism.
She couldn’t agree more. Her work highlighted this all too sad fact every day. However, for some reason this man had got well and truly under her skin and it went against the grain to see eye to eye with him about anything. She’d also just realised the pen she kept in her
