plan as a lost cause before it began after all. Here Dan was, his arms around her, murmuring suggestively in her ear. How much more encouragement did she need?
It wasn’t as if she wanted a long-term relationship. No, excitement was what she wanted, the headiness of a wild, passionate affair, not the nitty-gritty of compromising over squeezing toothpaste and whose turn it was to stack the dishwasher.
If she was being honest, a month on the emotional roller-coaster of getting involved with a man like Dan would be more than enough for her. She could wave him off to Africa and go back to her sofa with her honour, not to mention her libido, satisfied, and whenever Pel and Lucy started going on about getting a life, she would be able to remind them that she had had a fling with no less than Dan Freer.
So, get on with it, Freya told herself. Dan was making all the right moves, and with his tongue practically in her ear there was never going to be a better time to indicate that she was ready to have that fling.
Putting her arms around his neck, she smiled at him in what she hoped was a seductive way. ‘It can,’ she agreed, ‘if you want it to happen.’
‘I’m beginning to think that I do,’ said Dan. ‘You know, you’re quite a surprise.’
‘A nice surprise, I hope?’ Freya winced at the corniness of her response, but Dan didn’t seem to mind.
‘Very nice, and very intriguing. In fact, so intriguing that I think I’m going to have to do some undercover investigation to find the real Freya King. Could be an exclusive…’
It was actually happening. She, Freya King, was flirting with Dan Freer!
Over Dan’s shoulder, Freya could see Lucy grinning broadly and sticking her thumbs up, but still she couldn’t quite believe it. She could feel Dan’s hand pressing against her spine, pulling her into the hardness of his body; she could smell his aftershave, hear his voice, deep and warm, as his lips drifted from her earlobe down her throat. She should be thrilled, but all she could feel was vaguely detached.
It was all too pat. Dan might have been reading a script. Any minute now he’d be suggesting they go and find somewhere they could be alone.
‘Let’s go,’ whispered Dan. ‘Let’s find somewhere we can be on our own.’
Relax, Freya told herself sternly. This was it. She was on the verge of a passionate affair with an incredibly attractive man. It would be wild and exciting, and when it was over, she would be able to say that she had lived dangerously. Thirty years from now, when her hair was grey and she didn’t need to worry about her weight any more, she would be able to hint darkly at a broken heart and—
God, what was she doing fantasising about being fifty when Dan’s hands were on her bottom and his mouth was hot on her skin?
‘It’s my party. I can’t just walk out on everyone,’ she demurred, wishing she could stop feeling as if she were acting a part—and not very well, at that.
‘Perhaps they’ll all go home soon.’
Privately, Freya thought it was unlikely, knowing her friends, but it seemed safe to say that she hoped so. She made herself relax into Dan, and was rewarded by an un-curling warmth in her stomach as he began kissing his way along her jaw.
At last! This was what it was supposed to feel like. Just go with the flow. Tightening her arms around his neck, she turned her face towards Dan’s, but just as their lips were about to meet, someone tugged insistently at her sleeve.
‘Freya!’
‘Not now, Lucy,’ she muttered out of the side of her mouth.
‘It’s important.’
Reluctantly, Freya disengaged herself from Dan, who was looking understandably irritable at the interruption. ‘Somebody better be dead,’ she scowled. ‘What is it?’
‘I think the party might be over,’ said Lucy with a grimace, and turned towards the door.
Following her gaze, Freya saw a man in khaki trousers and a creased shirt with a battered bag at his feet. He had a stern, shuttered face, with thick flyaway brows that right then were drawn together in an intimidating frown. He looked very tired.
And very cross.
Freya’s heart did a sickening somersault as his peculiarly penetrating eyes found hers through the crowd, and she leapt away from Dan as if she had been jabbed with a cattle prod.
‘Max,’ she said in a hollow voice.
Hanging onto the kitchen door frame, Freya squinted through her hair at the man who was standing by the kettle. ‘It is you,’ she said in a voice of deep foreboding. ‘I thought it was all just a horrible dream.’
‘Good morning, Freya,’ said Max. ‘It’s lovely to see you, too.’
Freya groped her way over to the table and collapsed into a chair. ‘I think I’m going to die,’ she said simply.
‘Here.’ He put a glass of water and some paracetamol on the table beside her. ‘I’ll make you some tea.’
She screwed up her face as she took the tablets, and then, exhausted by the effort, pillowed her head in her arms so that her newly blonde hair spilled over the table. It felt as if a hammer was being swung around inside her skull.
‘I see you still haven’t learnt to drink in moderation,’ said Max, leaning against the kitchen counter and regarding her with disapproval.
‘I usually do,’ muttered Freya without lifting her poor head. It was true. Ever since the night of Lucy’s twenty-first, she had been careful not to risk another humiliation, but she was in no fit state to introduce that particular subject of conversation. ‘I was nervous last night,’ she said instead. ‘I think I must have drunk more than I realised.’
‘What were you nervous about?’
Very, very carefully, Freya lifted her head to rest her forehead in her palms. There was no way she could explain Dan to Max. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said. The noise of the kettle boiling made her wince. ‘It was just something silly,’ she went on feebly, ‘and obviously it wasn’t what I should have been nervous about, which was you turning up without warning! Why didn’t you let me know you were coming home?’
‘It all happened so quickly I didn’t have chance before I left,’ said Max. ‘I rang when I eventually got to Heathrow, but there was no answer, so I assumed you were out. I didn’t know that the only reason no one answered was because nobody could hear the phone ringing over all the noise that was going on here.
‘I’d been travelling for three days by then, and all I wanted was to sleep, so I thought I would just let myself in and leave you a note. I wasn’t best pleased to arrive and find the apartment heaving with strangers and my neighbours all ringing the council to complain about noise pollution,’ he finished sardonically.
‘I can’t remember very much about last night,’ Freya had to confess. ‘I mean, I remember you arriving, of course.’ She could still feel the way her heart had lurched at the sight of him. ‘I remember Lucy arguing, too, and something about sheets…did I make up a bed for you?’ she asked, puzzled in spite of herself.
‘You
