Valentine Vendetta

It had been the perfect antidote to the January blues—with scones and cream and outrageously fattening cakes and Fran had savoured the afternoon and his company with a guilty pleasure.

And they spoke on the phone most weeks. He had an easy and familiar way of talking to her which made her feel that they were old friends from way-back, rather than new and temporary colleagues. Dangerous.

‘Sam!’ She looked up into his eyes and found that she couldn’t disguise her delight in seeing him. Now why this overwhelming feeling of pleased recognition towards a man she was supposed to dislike, and had met on precisely three occasions?

And why was he wearing jeans, for heaven’s sake? And not just any old jeans, either—these ones looked like denim-coloured skin—the way they clung to those magnificent thighs and buttocks. Fran Fisher! she thought despairingly. What on earth are you thinking of?

‘Why aren’t you dressed, Sam?’ she demanded.

A smile played at the corners of his mouth. He was surprisingly pleased to see her. But then she hadn’t done what he had expected she would do. Plagued him with phone call after phone call. Invented all kinds of spurious reasons why she needed to meet with him. After a lifetime of women pursuing him, it was rather a relief to find one who didn’t. For the first time in longer than he cared to remember he had been the one making the phone calls!

He stared down at the faded denim and the crumpled blue linen shirt he wore. ‘It’s true I look a little rumpled,’ he admitted, with another lazy smile. ‘But I’m not indecent, am I, honey?’

Fran blanched at the sexy undertone to his voice. Good! she thought. Make some more outrageous remarks like that! Remind me why I’m here. Reinforce that manipulative sex-appeal of yours so I don’t get affected by that occasional glimpse of little boy lost in those big blue eyes of yours. ‘I meant,’ she said stiffly, ‘you aren’t dressed for dinner. And time is getting on!’ She gave a repressive glare at her watch.

‘Rubbish! We’ve got hours to go yet.’

‘Three, to be precise. And there’s still lots to do.’

‘Well, while we’re on the subject of clothes,’ his eyes skimmed over the scarlet gown, pupils darkening into jet—‘aren’t you a little…um…overdressed for last-minute checking?’

Maybe she was, but she had good reason to be. Sam had offered her the use of his house to get changed, and she had deliberately chosen to change early. Because the last thing she had wanted was to risk running into him outside the bathroom….

The red dress she had hired was in richest velvet with a tight, boned bodice. From the waist, the material flared out over a stiffened petticoat, falling in great swathes of intense, glowing colour which brushed the ground as she walked.

Only her shoulders were bare—with lots of gold-flecked flesh on show. And she had been persuaded by the hire-shop to wear a strapless bra which pushed her breasts together, giving her an impressive cleavage which spilled over the top of her gown like overfilled ice-cream cornets.

It wasn’t a colour or a style she would normally have come within six feet of, but the woman in the hire-shop had told her that it was perfect. ‘You don’t like it?’ she asked him uncertainly.

He gave a small, disappointed laugh, thinking that women had a very devious way of inviting compliments. ‘That wasn’t what I said at all and you’re smart enough to know it. If you’re really interested—you look exactly like the heroine of an old-fashioned bodice-ripper. Or at least, you would if you let your hair down.’ He gave her a questioning look and resisted the urge to run his tongue over his lips. ‘Are you going to?’

‘Since I have no desire to look like the front cover of a lurid book—no, I’m not!’

‘Pity,’ he said softly. There was a pause. The pulse in his temple begin to accelerate as he thought of how she could answer his next question. ‘And what exactly are you planning to do between now and the start of the ball, Fran?’

Something in his eyes was making the tips of her breasts push hard and uncomfortably against the tight bodice. ‘Oh, you know—’

‘No, I don’t. Tell me.’

She felt the breath begin to catch in the back of her throat and threaten to choke her. ‘L-last minute checking.’

His eyes flickered over the straining swell of the bodice. ‘Won’t you be a little…’ he paused, and his voice deepened imperceptibly. ‘Hot?’

She felt her body reacting to the sensuality in his voice, even as her mind rebelled against it. This was how she had got into trouble last time. With Sholto. She had fallen for a lazy smile and an abundance of sex appeal. Silver eyes and a silver tongue. And just look where that had led her…. She fixed him with the kind of prim smile which an elderly schoolteacher might give to an unruly young pupil.

‘Oh, no!’ She shook her sleek, coiffeured head and not a strand moved. ‘The temperature in the marquee is maintained at a steady degree throughout the evening—thermostatically controlled, of course! Right now it is comfortable, but it will obviously be lowered when the place starts to fill up,’ she added helpfully. ‘So none of your guests will get overheated, if that’s what you’re worried about, Sam.’

‘That wasn’t what I meant.’ He gave a faint, perplexed smile.

She knew that, but sometimes playing the innocent was safer. ‘I’m sorry.’ Her voice was bright and interested as she gave him a brisk, professional smile. ‘What exactly did you mean?’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ he growled.

‘Well, if you’re sure…?’

‘Yeah. I’m sure.’ Oh, that prissy way she had of talking could be incredibly erotic, thought Sam achingly. ‘Everything looks pretty-near perfect to me,’ he murmured, finding that he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the creamy expanse of her shoulders. There was something almost unbearably erotic about the contrast between the white-gold flesh and the glowing scarlet of her dress. Why didn’t she dress in colours like that more often, he wondered? Instead of those drab, dreary shades she always seemed to wear. ‘Just perfect,’ he finished slowly.

‘Why, thank you, Sam!’