Rival Attractions & Innocent Secretary

The soft grass beneath the trees was thick with fallen blossom, the evening air heavy with its scent. Under the largest of the trees was a rug heaped with cushions. The setting was idyllic, like something out of a painting…a scene set for seduction.

Seduction? Did Oliver intend to seduce her? The sheer unexpectedness of what her senses were telling her shimmered through her, creating a warm welling of delighted shock, so that bubbles of disbelieving amusement combined with a heady sense of having strayed into a magical world of fantasy whirled into her bloodstream, making her buoyant and light-headed.

Like her, he had stopped walking, and now they faced one another. How did one ask a man if he was merely trying to provide a comfortable setting for a shared meal or whether it was something more intimate that he had in mind? And why would Oliver want to make love to her? Her face burned suddenly as she remembered how he had seen her this morning.

Did he think this was what she wanted? Had he gone to all this trouble simply because he felt sorry for her? Did men make love to women they felt sorry for?

Suddenly very deflated and miserable, she said uncomfortably, ’Oliver, I—’

‘I’m hungry,’ he interrupted her firmly. ‘Let’s eat, and then we can talk.’

He sounded so matter-of-fact and calm that it seemed idiotic that she should have thought even for a split second that he might have intended to make love to her, and so she followed him into the orchard and allowed him to settle her comfortably against the cushions, while he opened the hamper and removed its contents.

Charlotte blinked in astonishment at the luxury of the food inside. No sandwiches here, but instead tiny delicate quiches filled with salmon and other delicacies, so mouth-wateringly delicious that they were impossible to resist.

The champagne, cool and refreshing, bubbled in her glass.

And, as Oliver drank his own, he said softly, ‘This is how champagne should be drunk: in a warm garden filled with the scents of summer, with a beautiful woman by your side.’

Charlotte started to tremble. She gulped at her champagne to hide her agitation, and said quickly, ‘I can’t believe this food is for a picnic. It’s so luxurious.’

There was fresh salmon and an appetising collection of salad and vegetables, crusty French bread, strawberries and thick cream, all served on china with silver cutlery, and a beautifully starched tablecloth and napkins.

Luxury indeed.

‘It’s the kind of hamper they do for events such as Glyndebourne,’ Oliver told her.

When had his eyes narrowed to that sharp, almost glinting intensity that seemed to see through the defences she was trying to put up against him?

‘More champagne?’

She stared at him, and then realised that her glass was empty. She let him fill it, and drank it quickly while he watched her with unnerving intensity.

Despite the deliciousness of the food, she could barely touch it; she was too tense, too on edge. The champagne, though, was a different thing. She drank three full glasses and felt its mellow, uninhibiting effect on her body. She couldn’t stand the tension any longer.

Recklessly she turned to Oliver and asked huskily, ‘Oliver, are you going to make love to me?’

For a moment he was silent, and then he asked in turn, ‘Is that what you want me to do?’

It wasn’t the answer she had wanted. She bit her lip and stared at him, her mind suddenly fogged and confused by the champagne, her body and its desires, ignoring the cautioning whispers of her brain, challenging her to say fiercely, ‘Yes. Yes, I do.’

Oliver was so still that she thought she must have shocked him, but it was too late to retract now, too late to wonder dizzily why she had behaved in such an outrageous fashion, and to wonder even more why she should feel so unconcerned about it. She had never experienced before this extraordinary sense of being so cut free from her normal anxieties and self-doubts—perhaps because she was not normally in the habit of drinking so much strong champagne on an empty stomach.

‘I’ve been thinking about this all day,’ she heard Oliver saying thickly as he drew her towards him, his hands stroking the fragile bones of her shoulders, and then moving up to slide into her hair and tilt her head, so that she couldn’t have avoided the descent of his head even if she had wanted to.

He tasted of champagne, she recognised absently, as his mouth met hers—not as it had done before, in an explorative, gentle kiss, but open and moist, so that her heart leapt in heady response to the tension within him, and her body rejoiced in the sheer pleasure of knowing she aroused his desire.

While he kissed her, his hands shaped the back of her head, then her back itself, right down to her waist and beyond until they were cupping her bottom and pulling her into his body.