Rival Attractions & Innocent Secretary

His kiss…he was kissing her! Frantically Charlotte pushed him away, standing back from him as he released her immediately. A hundred questions clamoured on her lips, but she couldn’t voice any of them, couldn’t ask why he had done such an extraordinary thing. She already knew, of course. He felt sorry for her. Well, she didn’t want his pity, nor his kisses. Nausea turned her stomach to ice. Had it really come to that…that a man kissed her out of pity?

‘Charlotte—’

‘Please don’t ever do that again,’ she told him fiercely. ‘I don’t need your…your kisses, and I don’t want them.’

Before he could say anything she turned on her heel and almost ran back into the house. When she reached the kitchen she was shaking. What an appalling thing to have happened.

And why had it happened? It had happened because she had behaved stupidly.

She shuddered now, remembering that moment in the car park when she had blurted out those fateful words. A small groan broke the silence of her kitchen. How could she have behaved like that…spoken like that? It had been tantamount to asking him to deny her words.

Was that why she had said them? Because a part of her had known that out of compassion he must reject them?

She winced at the thought, filled with a humiliating awareness of what Oliver Tennant must be thinking about her. What she could not understand was why, after what she had said, he had not changed his mind about lodging with her.

Telling herself it was pointless to go over and over the whole thing endlessly looking for explanations and reasons, she acknowledged that the only way she was going to be able to live with her folly was to behave as though it had never happened—and that included behaving as though that kiss had never happened as well. And yet almost she was unable to resist the impulse to touch her fingers to her mouth, as though in doing so there was some way she could recapture the sensation of his moving against it.

Angry with herself, she snatched her hand away. She had far more important things to do than to stand here agonising over a kiss given in pity. Far, far more.

CHAPTER SIX

‘GOOD, so you are in after all. I’ve been knocking on this door for ages!’ Vanessa exclaimed in an aggrieved voice as Charlotte drew back the final bolt on the front door and opened it.

Once she realised who was standing outside, Charlotte wished she had left the door closed. ‘I don’t use the front door much,’ she told her unwanted visitor, adding coolly, ‘Is Adam with you?’

‘No, I thought it best that we have our little chat alone.’

A tingle of apprehension ran down Charlotte’s spine. It was most unusual for Vanessa to come round to see her, and she suspected she knew what, or rather who had brought her.

Closing the door and heading for the kitchen, Charlotte was conscious of Vanessa’s deprecating study of the house.

‘I can’t understand why you simply don’t just sell this place,’ she sniffed as they walked into the kitchen and sat down. ‘It’s far too large for one person, and it needs a fortune spending on it to bring it up to scratch. You’d be better off with a small purpose-built flat. After all, it’s not as though you’re ever likely to marry, is it?’

The words, which only echoed her own private thoughts—thoughts which until recently she had found quite acceptable—now jarred, conjuring up an unwanted memory of those two dark-haired, blue-eyed imaginary children.

‘Whether or not I marry has no bearing on where I choose to make my home,’ she told Vanessa lightly, trying not to allow the other woman to get under her skin. ‘This house has been my home for all of my life. I may sell it, I may not. I haven’t made up my mind as yet.’

‘Oh, come on, Charlotte. There’s no need to pretend with me. There’s only one reason you’re hanging on to it and we both know what that is,’ Vanessa accused nastily. ‘The moment you heard that Oliver was looking for accommodation you made up your mind, didn’t you? I suppose I shouldn’t blame you. After all, how often does a woman in your position—single, plain, over twenty-five—get the opportunity to insinuate herself so closely into the life of an eligible, handsome man? As I said, I can understand perfectly well why you approached Oliver with this ludicrous idea of yours that he move in here with you, but, as one of your oldest friends, I felt that I must warn you. Even Adam agreed with me that in the circumstances—’

‘Adam? You’ve discussed this with Adam?’

Immediately she saw the triumph in Vanessa’s eyes, Charlotte regretted her sharp words.

‘Well, he is my husband, and I thought as a man he would be able to give me a man’s view of things. I must say it was no different really from mine. Of course, he put it rather more…well, bluntly than I would have done.