Sleeping Partners

She saw the flash of admiration in his eyes before he could conceal it, and then his expression was hidden from her as he walked across to the table, retrieving both their glasses and turning and handing her hers before he said, ‘It wasn’t altogether a demonstration, Robyn. I need a little taste of what is to come now and again if I’m going to keep my sanity, because at the moment I’m eating, sleeping, breathing you and it’s driving me mad.’

‘I haven’t promised you anything.’ Her voice was jerky but the unexpected confession had unnerved her like nothing else could have done.

‘I know that, my sweet little brown-eyed temptress,’ he murmured softly. ‘But you don’t have to, not with your mouth. Your body says everything I need to know.’

‘How convenient for you,’ she said icily, and then glared at him when he laughed quietly.

‘You’re a formidable opponent, Robyn Brett.’

Opponent? Ridiculously it hurt. This was just a game to him, she thought painfully. The thrill of the chase and all that. Since she had met him again she had been the very antithesis of the young, starry-eyed teenager who had hung on his every word and had gazed at him adoringly, and it had probably pricked his male ego. Oh, she hated him. And loved him. And if there was anyone who was being driven mad…

‘A new toast.’ He was looking at her intently and now she stared at him, waiting warily for what was to come. ‘To you, my brown-eyed temptress, with your hair of russet-red and your skin of thick warm cream. One day I shall make love to you like you ought to be made love to, but until then I will worship from afar.’ He grinned at her, and in spite of herself Robyn couldn’t help but smile back. ‘With the odd fall from grace now and again,’ he added silkily, just as Mrs Jones called them in to dinner.

It was an enchanted evening. Robyn didn’t want to enjoy herself, in fact she would have given the world to find out that Clay had grown boring or offensive or tedious over the years, but he was…perfect. Just perfect, she acknowledged silently.

Once they were seated at the splendid dining table with course after course being presented by the reputable Mrs Jones, who turned out to be a magnificent cook, Clay was the epitome of the faultless host. He was charming and funny, the magnetism that was at the root of his dark attraction non-threatening for once. And she found herself laughing and relaxing in a way she could never have imagined even just hours before.

Afterwards Robyn could remember little of what they had talked about, she just knew she had never laughed so much or felt so gloriously vibrantly alive.

They had coffee in the sitting room next to the drawing room, which was smaller and cosier but again had windows opening onto the gardens, and with just a table lamp mellowing the scented darkness from the roses outside the window the effect was magical. And intimate. Robyn was very aware of the intimate, waiting all night long for Clay to make a move.

But at just gone midnight the taxi he had ordered to take her home arrived—Clay having drunk several glasses of champagne, and brandy with his coffee—and they both left the house without so much as a kiss being exchanged. He came with her in the taxi and again she felt she was on tenterhooks, but he merely chatted easily about this and that, his arm round her shoulders and his big body hard against her thigh. And once they arrived in Kensington he walked her to the door while the taxi waited.

‘Tomorrow. A drive into the country and dinner at a little place I know, okay?’ He tilted her chin up and kissed her lightly. ‘I’ll pick you up about three in the afternoon, and then you can work in the morning. I presume you want to work?’ he added wryly.

‘Yes, but I ought to work all day,’ she began worriedly, only for him to shake his head as he put a finger to her lips.

‘Three is as far as I’ll compromise,’ he said softly. And then he kissed her again, a quick kiss on her parted lips, and strode back to the taxi.

It waited while she opened the door and put the lights on, and then the engine revved and the car disappeared into the night.

Robyn stood at the window staring out into the dark street for some moments before she went upstairs, and her mind replayed the evening over and over while she had a bath and got ready for bed, her whole being still gloriously tinglingly alive.

This whole relationship was

impossible and undeniably dangerous, and she was getting in deeper and deeper every time she saw him. The warning was suddenly impossible to ignore.

She frowned to herself as she pulled out the bed-settee and fetched her duvet and pillows from the big pine chest at the far end of the room, and once settled under the covers tossed and turned for some time as sleep eluded her.

She should never have agreed to his putting up the capital and becoming part of her business for a start; that had been her first mistake. Clay Lincoln as a sleeping partner had not been one of her better decisions. Sleeping partner… She bit her lip hard and after a few more minutes padded down to the kitchen for a mug of cocoa and the obligatory chocolate biscuits.

But he was her sleeping partner—in business—and that was how it was going to stay, she affirmed silently, once she was back in bed. She just had to be sensible and on her guard the next little while until he accepted she wasn’t in the market for a casual affair. And then, then he would be off. She couldn’t hope for anything more, not with Clay.

She repeated the thought again, and then again, ignoring the sick feeling it produced that even the chocolate biscuits couldn’t remedy. He didn’t want permanency in his private life—his choice. He’d made it clear from the word go. And the trouble was anything less wasn’t viable, the way she felt about him. So, stalemate.

She snuggled down under the covers again after finishing the cocoa and biscuits, shutting her eyes, and despite the fact that she had expected to lie awake for hours was asleep in seconds.

CHAPTER SEVEN

THAT summer was the most breathtakingly wonderful on the one hand, and the most excruciatingly miserable on the other, of Robyn’s entire life.

After the business in the States was settled which Clay had been involved in at the start of their relationship, he spent four weeks on the trot in England, and they saw each other almost every evening. Robyn soon found that it was useless to say no to a date with Clay; he would simply sweep in, all guns firing, and whisk her away ignoring all her protests as though he was deaf.

Not that she wanted to say no if she was being truthful, which confirmed to her absolutely that no should be her answer! Everything they did together was heightened by Clay’s fierce zest for living; he could turn the most mundane activities into enchanting times and he did it with a natural expertise that was scary. Because—and Robyn had to keep reminding herself of this a hundred times a day—this affair that wasn’t an affair couldn’t last. And there the excruciatingly miserable side came to the fore.

Not that he put any pressure on her to take their lovemaking to its logical conclusion. He made it very clear the first week he stayed in England that he expected to kiss and caress her as his right, but that he acknowledged the boundaries she’d put on their physical relationship and was prepared to keep to them…for the present.

And as one summer day made way for another, Robyn found she was discovering more and more about him, about the real man behind the mask Clay adopted to the rest of the world most of the time. Little things, but each one subtly dangerous.