rush off.’ He reached out, and his fingers closed lightly but inexorably around her wrist.
‘Let me go,’ she said jerkily. ‘I don’t want to talk to you.’
He drew her back to the bench and, careful not to hurt her, applied just enough downward pressure to make it expedient to sit.
When she sank down onto the wooden slats, he smiled a little. ‘Well, if you really don’t want to talk, I can think of more exciting things to do.’ His eyes were fixed on her mouth.
Her voice shrill with panic, she cried, ‘No!’
‘Shame,’ he drawled. ‘Though it seems an age since I last kissed you, I can still remember how passionately you used to respond. You’d make little mewing noises in your throat, your nipples would grow firm and—’
She went hot all over and, seeing nothing else for it, threw in the towel. ‘What did you want to talk to me about?’
‘I want to know why you ran away. Why you left me without a word…’
Normally, he had a warm, attractive voice, a voice that had always charmed her. Now the underlying ice in it sent a chill right down her spine.
‘Why you didn’t at least tell me what was wrong.’
Feeling a deep and bitter anger, she wrenched her wrist free and rounded on him, eyes flashing. ‘How can you pretend to be so innocent? Pretend not to know “what was wrong”?’
He sighed. ‘Perhaps you could save the histrionics and just tell me?’
Unwilling to reveal the extent of her hurt, her desolation, she choked back the angry accusations, and said wearily, ‘It’s over two years ago. I can’t see that it matters now…’
Of course it mattered. It would always matter.
‘We’re different people. The girl I was then no longer exists.’
‘You’ve certainly altered,’ he admitted, studying her oval face: the pure bone structure, the long-lashed greeny-grey eyes beneath winged brows, the short straight nose, and lovely passionate mouth.
‘Then, you were young and innocent, radiantly pretty, almost incandescent…’
If she had been, love had made her that way. Happiness was a great beautifier.
‘Now you’ve—’ His voice suddenly impeded, he stopped speaking abruptly.
But she knew well enough what he’d been about to say. Each morning her mirror showed her a woman who had come up against life and lost. A woman whose sparkle had gone, and who was vulnerable, with sad eyes and, despite all her efforts to smile, a mouth that drooped a little at the corners.
She swallowed hard. ‘I’m surprised you recognised me from just that brief glimpse.’
‘I almost didn’t. That severe hairstyle and those glasses change your appearance significantly, and the “Miss Ashley” had me wondering. If I hadn’t been expecting to see you—’
‘So you knew I was there?’ she broke in sharply.
‘Oh, yes, I knew. I’ve known for some time. Did you really think I wouldn’t find you?’
Rather than answer, she chose to ask a question of her own, ‘What made you come into the gallery?’
‘I decided to check things out on a personal level.’
‘You told Charles that you wanted to buy Wednesday’s Child.’
‘So I do.’
‘Why?’
‘Surely you can guess. Will he be able to get it for me, do you think?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘But not if you can help it?’
When she made no comment, he added with a smile, ‘Though I guess I won’t need Wednesday’s Child when I’ve got the real thing.’
Afraid to ask what he meant by that, she remained silent, looking anywhere but at him.
‘From Raynor’s manner,’ Ryan went on, ‘I rather gathered you’d kept quiet about our…shall we say…relationship?’
‘It’s not something I like to talk about.’
He pulled a face at her tone. ‘So how much did you have to tell him in the end, to get him to see me in your place?’
‘I just said you were someone I’d once known and didn’t want to meet again.’
‘How very understated and cold-blooded.’
‘It happens to be the truth.’
She saw his face grow taut with anger, before a shutter came down leaving an expressionless mask.
‘I would have said I was rather more than someone you’d once known even if you’re using the word known in its biblical sense.’
She moved restlessly, desperate to get away, but knowing she stood no chance until he was willing to let her go.
‘That’s all in the past,’ she said tightly. ‘Over and done with.’
‘Hardly.’
‘It’s over and done with as far as I’m concerned.’
He shook his head. ‘That’s where you’re wrong. I want you back.’
‘What?’
Though he had sworn, ‘I’ll never let you go,’ the fact that she had gone, had run away and left him, should surely have hurt his pride to the point where he wouldn’t want her back under any circumstances?
‘I want you back,’ he repeated flatly.
Stammering in her agitation, she cried, ‘I’ll never c-come back to you.’
‘Never is a long time,’ he said lightly.
‘I mean it, Ryan. There’s nothing you can do or say that will make me change my mind.’
‘I don’t think you should bet on it.’ His little crooked smile made her blood run cold.
‘Please, Ryan…’ She found she was begging. ‘I’ve made a new life for myself and I just want to be left to enjoy it.’
‘You once told me you disliked being on your own.’
‘I’m not on my own.’ The words were defiant, meant to make an impression.
‘Let’s get this straight, we are talking about merely sharing accommodation?’
‘I wasn’t,’ she said boldly. If he believed she was seriously involved with someone else
