‘Come here,’ he ordered, his face implacable.
‘Please, Alex …’
‘Come here!’
She went, standing just in front of him. ‘It’s no good, Alex. We—’ her words were cut off by the descent of his mouth on hers, his lips moving over hers in a gentle soul-destroying kiss. It was like none of the other kisses he had given her, her response instantaneous and unreserved as he plundered her mouth again and again, his own arousal unmistakable.
‘Far from being no good,’ he murmured throatily against her lips, ‘that was very good. Too good to throw away because of a little misunderstanding.’
Lauri jerked back, but remained in the circle of his arms when he refused to let her go. ‘Little misunderstanding?’ she scorned. ‘I don’t think it was little at all.’
‘Maybe not,’ he conceded. ‘You’ll have to put it down to the difficult week I’ve had—meeting you for the first time being part of it,’ he added ruefully.
‘Thanks!’
‘Well, you have to admit that all of our encounters so far have been pretty traumatic. And then there was that meeting with Laurence,’ his face was grim. ‘Have you seen anything of him, by the way?’
‘Me?’ Lauri frowned. ‘Why on earth should I have seen him?’
Alex shrugged. ‘He seemed rather—taken with you.’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. Maybe it just seemed that way because he realised he knew my mother. After all, he must have lost touch with most of his friends when he moved to Switzerland with your sister.’
‘Yes.’ Alex released her, his face harsh.
‘Well, it can’t have been very easy for him to come back after all this time and try to pick up the pieces,’ she defended.
‘Easier than you think,’ he muttered, looking at her coldly. ‘So you liked him?’
‘I don’t like or dislike him, I don’t know him. But I think if I got to know him I might like him very much.’
‘Oh, don’t worry, you’ll get to know him,’ Alex sneered. ‘Laurence was never one to pass up the chance of seeing a beautiful girl.’
‘I’m not beautiful—and as you just said, I’m only a girl. Goodness, he’s old enough to be my father!’
‘So he is,’ Alex nodded distantly. ‘What was your father like?’
‘Oh, very nice,’ she gave a sad smile. ‘Very kind. He always had time to sit and talk to me, always listened to my problems, even though he had the responsibility of Jane and Steve too.’
‘Your family seems to have suffered a lot of tragedies,’ he said dryly.
Her eyes flashed. ‘Death is not something one wants, it just happened that way. I loved my father very much.’
‘I can see that,’ he acknowledged gently.
‘He and my mother were very happy together, proving that young marriages can be a success. Mummy was only eighteen when they married, and Daddy was twenty. But they loved each other so much that they said it seemed silly to wait.’
‘They waited long enough to have you.’
She nodded. ‘I think I was an afterthought. Some marriages are like that, aren’t they, already complete even without a child. Mummy must have been in her mid-thirties when I came along.’
‘Were they happy together even then?’
She gave him a puzzled look. ‘Of course they were. What a strange thing to ask!’
‘It wouldn’t be the first time a wife has found herself another man,’ he rasped.
‘How dare you! Really, Alex, you’ve gone too far this time,’ she snapped. ‘Sniping at me and being sarcastic are things I can take, but when you start maligning my mother’s morals, the morals of a woman you know absolutely nothing about, then I think the time has come for you to go.’