His brows pulled together, and he stared at her mouth, which contrarily began to quiver, although she tried to stiffen it.
'Now you come to mention it, your lipstick is more a pale pink shade, and that was red on his mouth!'
'My lipstick is lavender-pink, to be accurate!' Sian said coldly, turning to go, but Cass caught hold of her shoulder and spun her round again.
'But you still haven't explained what he was doing in my aunt's garden and how he got in!'
'He had an invitation to the garden party—and I've no idea why he was allowed through the gates before the party started. You'd have to ask him.'
'An invitation?' Cass scowled blackly again. 'From you?'
'My editor passed on to him one of the complimentary tickets your aunt sent the newspaper.' Sian gave him a barbed smile. 'Well, it was your idea to invite the press. Your idea that I should be here so that they could write about us! You get what you pay for in this world, and Leo was only doing what comes naturally to a tabloid editor!'
'Is that guy a reporter, then?'
She shook her head and he stared speculatively, watching the colour deepen in her face as he thought aloud. 'So if he doesn't work for your paper, why should your editor have given him a ticket? Shall I guess? Hoping to provoke a scene? Get a more dramatic story for your paper? What was he hoping I'd do, I wonder? Shoot the guy? Throw him in the pond? Or just beat him up?'
Sian laughed. 'Something like that. Editors have very simple minds, and they like their gossip colourful.'
'What a pity I saw you two when I did,' Cass drawled. 'If you hadn't sneaked in here to meet your old flame in private…'
'I didn't! There were too many people around the gardens, so I came here to be alone, but Louis must have seen me and followed me in here. I had no idea he was here; Leo didn't tell me what he planned.'
Cass considered her drily and her green eyes met his, her face serious. He put his hand on her bare arm and a little shiver ran down her spine.
'There have been too many people around ever since I met you,' Cass said softly. 'I haven't had a real chance to get you alone.' Her breath caught and she looked down, her lashes brushing her cheek. 'It's just as well I didn't catch you with the old flame in public, or I hate to think what I might have done,' he said, his fingertips sliding caressingly up and down her skin. 'When I saw you two just now, I was so jealous I wanted to kill you.'
She shook her head fiercely, tears burning behind her lids. 'Don't…'
'Don't what, Sian?' he murmured, his voice hardening.
'Say things you don't mean.'
'I mean them. Why should you think I'd say them if I didn't?' He sounded baffled, uneasy.
'What about Annette?' she cried, voice shaky.
'Ah,' he said on a long sigh. 'Annette.'
'Nobody gets over loving someone that quickly!' Sian whispered, a tear trickling out from under her lid.
'Darling!' Cass said on a deep, shaken sound, and then his lips were on her wet eyes and his arms round her, and Sian ached to let herself yield weakly to the comfort of his strength, but she wouldn't— she pushed at his shoulders and turned her face away from those hunting lips.
'Do I have to bite you, too?'
Cass laughed, surprised. 'Termagant! I believe you would.'
'You'd better believe it!' she said firmly, but she didn't meet his eyes as he let go of her, because he would be able to read too much in her eyes and it would be dangerous to let Cass know how he made her feel. She hadn't believed it possible to feel emotion like this; the painful, burning intensity was a shock to her, utterly new and bewildering. She had had men friends ever since she'd left school at eighteen, she had even thought she might be in love once or twice; she had suffered when relationships broke up, but she had never quite been able to give herself completely to anyone else. She had always had reservations, held back a part of herself that was essential, the core of her own being. She had thought it would always be like that; she had come to think she wasn't capable of a really intense emotion, but that was what she was feeling now. It had never happened like this before. Her whole body seemed raw, as if she were haemorrhaging internally at the very idea of ever saying goodbye to Cass.
Cass backed and sat down on the ironwork bench. 'Then we'd better talk.'
She stayed where she was, eyes lowered, the curve of her face stubborn. 'Talk away.'
'Come and sit down!'
It wasn't so much a suggestion or request as an order, a
utocratically given, and Sian stayed at a distance, grimacing.