First Love, Last Love

‘I never said I was that,’ she said crossly, angry with him and yet not really sure why. She felt as if he were bulldozing her into a relationship, forcing upon her a closeness to him that frightened the life out of her. She just wasn’t up to his sophisticated games. ‘I think I was wrong to agree to go out with you. In fact, I didn’t agree to it, you seduced me into it.’

‘As I’ll seduce you again if you start being awkward. And talking of us going out together, I’m too old to be creeping about like this. I’ve never considered myself that reprehensible that women are ashamed to say they’re going out with me.’

‘I’m not ashamed of it—’

‘Thank God for that!’ he mocked.

Lauri glared at him. ‘I’m not proud of it either. If it became public knowledge I would have a terrible time once you’ve finished with me. I can just imagine the sympathetic looks I’d get from your other employees when you stop dating me if they all knew about it. I’d have to leave my job, and I happen to like it.’

‘Wouldn’t that be rather extreme?’ He seemed to find it funny.

Her mouth set at his taunting. ‘You’ve obviously never heard the gossip that goes on around that place. I’ve only been there a few weeks, but I can see how someone’s life can be made hell through thoughtless gossip. You should hear some of the things they say about—’

‘Yes?’ he prompted.

‘Well, there’s a lot of gossiping done in a place that size,’ she told him resentfully. ‘And Jane and Steve would come in for their share of it too. They’d make mincemeat out of the fact that you’re dating your secretary’s niece.’ She shuddered. ‘I can just imagine some of the things that would be said!’

‘So can I,’ he acknowledged dryly. ‘But I believe you were going to tell me some of the things said about me …’ he quirked an eyebrow.

‘I wasn’t going to tell you anything of the sort! But now that I’ve met you I’m sure most of the gossip is true. I bet you’ve had a hundred mistresses,’ she recounted with relish. ‘And I bet you did walk away from them all unscathed,’ this last was added with an ebbing of her self-confidence. No doubt he would walk away from her unscathed too—and she wasn’t sure she would be able to do the same.

‘Hardly a hundred mistresses, Lauren,’ he said mockingly. ‘Maybe ninety-nine,’ he added with humour. ‘And I doubt I walked away from them all unscathed.’

‘One of them you didn’t, anyway.’

He frowned. ‘Which one?’

‘The one who made you cynical,’ she explained. ‘The one who made you distrust the rest of us.’

‘I see,’ Alex laughed. ‘A little psychology. But it’s wrong, I’m afraid, Lauren. It wasn’t one but all of those women who taught me those things.’

She gulped. ‘All of them?’

He nodded. ‘They all wanted marriage, wanted a little lapdog of a man who they could claim they had tamed. Isn’t that what attracts women to men, the need to be the one who puts the ring through his nose, the collar and lead around his throat?’

‘My God!’ she spluttered with laughter. ‘What a conceited man you are! “Ring through your nose”, and “collar and lead around your throat”,’ she repeated disgustedly. ‘Any woman who wanted to tie herself to you for life would have to be insane. It isn’t only men who are ensnared by marriage, you know, some women can feel that way about it too.’

‘Do you?’

‘Yes, I do!’

‘That’s because of your youth. Given a couple of years you’ll be in the marriage market like all the rest.’

‘Stop the car!’ she ordered furiously.

‘What?’ He blinked at her ferocity.

‘I said stop the car!’

‘What the hell for?’

‘So that I can get out! You insulting, self-opinionated, supercilious—’ she broke off her tirade as she saw he was laughing at her, openly chuckling at her remarks. ‘How dare you!’ she exploded, her face fiery red, her eyes sparklingly green. ‘How dare you laugh at me! Stop this car, you arrogant, rude, pigheaded—’

‘Oh, Lauren,’ still he laughed, ‘you’re fantastic!’

Lauri frowned. ‘Fantastic?’

‘Mm,’ he smiled. ‘You’ve insulted me more in the short time I’ve known you than anyone else has in the rest of my life. I think you’re adorable.’