could bear.
“What does any woman know of any man she meets?”
she countered warily, grateful for the sun glasses which
helped mask her expression. “I just made a snap
judgement, I suppose.”
“You walked in the garden with him for an hour,” he
said bitingly. “I saw you from my office window. He
kissed your hands. Rather fast work on his part—he was
never the wolf type. You must have given him a lot of
encouragement.”
He was furious because Jean-Paul had broken his
engagement to Pallas, she thought. But why take it out
on me? He’s looking for a scapegoat, but I’m not a
volunteer.
Aloud, she said, “He is a Frenchman, isn’t he? They
kiss hands to be polite.”
“He hasn’t been able to take his eyes off you since he
arrived,” Marc said tightly, his lips curling at the edges.
“Is that my fault?” she retorted. “What am I supposed
to do? Hang out a sign saying don’t look?”
“You put up one saying don’t touch,” he sneered.
“That was only for your benefit,” she flung, suddenly
too angry to care, and then realised, with a sinking
heart, that she had gone too far, and made him blazingly
angry.
His dark face tightened as though she had struck him.
He glared down at her, eyes glittering like points of steel,
and his mouth swooped, closing on hers savagely, his
hands gripping her sore shoulders.
For a second her heart seemed to stop, then it