gh hell, Kieron, but we both know that you don’t have that much compunction, don’t we?’
He reached for her, but she was ready for him, sliding behind her desk and sitting down. Anger blazed in his eyes, his skin stretched tautly across the bones of his face. He had removed his jacket and his thin silk shirt showed the smoothly muscled wall of his chest with its covering of dark hair. With a sense of shock she realised that he was intensely male; something she had never fully appreciated before. Because he had hidden that side of himself from her? Of course he had never been attracted to her. He was the sort of man who had women coming out of his ears. How he must have laughed at her naïveté!
By five o’clock her desk was clear, but her head was pounding and all she wanted to do was to go home and go to bed. The heat in the city was oppressive, beating up off the pavements and clogging the air to mingle chokingly with the petrol fumes.
When she went down to the cloakroom to freshen up several of the other girls were already there.
‘What a waste!’ a giggly blonde from Fashion moaned to her friend. They were bent over one of the basins and neither of them had seen Briony come in. ‘That gorgeous hunk of male and Ice-Cold Winters! I bet she wouldn’t know what to do with a real man. Look at that wet Matt she goes about with!’
Someone kicked her on the ankle and she turned round complaining, her mouth dropping open when she saw Briony. For a moment Briony had a savage longing to tell her that she knew exactly what to do with a man like Kieron Blake, but she suppressed it, pretending she had heard nothing, which was stupid because the girl had a particularly shrill voice.
‘Ice-Cold Winters.’ Was that what they called her? She grimaced and then shrugged dismissively. What did it matter after all?
CHAPTER THREE
THE others were all gathered in the pub when Briony got there. Doug greeted her cheerfully, throwing his arm round her shoulders and insisting on buying her what she suspected was a highly lethal drink. She sipped it slowly, grimacing a little as the raw spirit hit her throat. The paper’s staff were well known in the small pub and a buffet meal had been organised. Briony left Doug chatting to some colleagues and went to fill her plate, glancing discreetly at her watch. At eight o’clock she would make her excuses and leave. She knew from past experience that a hard core of staff would remain as long as the bar stayed open, but she had told Gina to expect her about nine. She hated missing Nicky’s bedtime. Bathing him and tucking him up in bed was something she looked forward to all day.
Matt materialised at her side while she was standing by the buffet table. His face was pale and he was already a little unsteady on his feet.
‘Got to talk to you,’ he muttered. ‘Let’s go and sit down.’
Briony frowned. Matt had too much to drink, and it showed in his faintly slurred speech and dull eyes. Rather than create a scene she let him lead her to a small table, unobtrusively pushing her plate of food in front of him, guessing that he had had nothing to eat.
Gail was standing in front of them and Briony’s heart sank when she saw Kieron come towards her, hoping that he would not see them sitting behind his companion.
‘It’s Mary,’ Matt confided unsteadily. ‘She wants to come back to me. Her mother rang me this morning. Oh God, Briony, I just can’t believe it!’ His voice broke and Briony was dismayed to see that there were tears in his eyes. It struck her that his wife was far more fortunate than she deserved, and that it might do the marriage good were Matt not to appear too over-eager to take her back.
‘What did you say?’ she asked him cautiously. A tiny voice was warning her that it would be imprudent to embroil herself in Matt’s private life, and that once she did, she would be a prop that he would lean on for ever more.
‘I didn’t say anything,’ he confessed.
‘Then if you take my advice you won’t,’ Briony told him crisply. ‘At least not for a while.’
Matt was staring at her open-mouthed, but it was the open disdain in another pair of eyes, steel-blue with contempt, that made her flush. No one else had witnessed the small exchange. Kieron glanced away almost immediately, and Briony frowned, shrugging aside her momentary reaction, to concentrate on Matt.
‘I’m sure Mary will appreciate you far more if you don’t go running back to her straight away, Matt, but the decision must be yours. Look, I must go and say goodbye to Doug, and then I’m leaving.’
‘Stay a bit longer, and I’ll give you a lift home,’ Matt urged. ‘I’ve got the car.’
‘No, really, I can’t,’ she told him, standing up to look for Doug.
He greeted her with a rueful smile.
‘Don’t tell me you’re running off already?’
‘Got to, I’m afraid,’ she said casually. Gail and Kieron had joined the group round the bar, and she felt herself colour as Gail drawled in cool amusement:
‘A boy-friend? You do surprise me! Who is he? Or can we guess?’
She was looking at Matt as she spoke, her eyes openly deriding, and Briony squashed an impulse to tell her the truth.
‘How about a kiss for good luck?’ Doug suggested. He looked at her like a playful puppy, and Briony knew that if she refused he would be hurt. Leaning forward, she kissed him lightly on the cheek, while several of the others cheered. As though he knew how much the gesture had cost her Doug whispered, ‘Thanks, honey. Take it easy with Kieron, he’s not me, you know.’
‘Unfortunately.’ The word was out before she could stop it, but before Doug could make any comment Matt had lurched up to them, his expression belligerent as he threw his arm round Briony.
‘Briony’s with me,’ he told the older man. ‘I’m taking you home—aren’t I, Briony?’
Too furious to speak, Briony pulled away, but Matt refused to let her go. The alcohol he had consumed seemed to have wrought a sea-change to his character, and far from being embarrassed by his behaviour he seemed inclined to become even more possessive.