‘To Milmouth?’ she asked, surprised.
‘Uh-huh. There’s now a craft shop in the old bakery, which holds workshops in the winter months. You can make silver jewellery or learn to paint. And there’s a very good vegetarian restaurant—one of several new restaurants which have opened up. The down-side is, of course, that house prices are going up. But people seem to be opting out of stress-filled city life.’
‘And coming to Milmouth?’ she asked in surprise.
‘Why not? And speaking of opting out—did you know that Geoff sold the car showroom?’
Shelley shook her head. ‘I wasn’t really in Geoff’s good books when I left. What’s he doing now?’
‘Would you believe he’s bought an organic farm?’
‘Geoff?’ Shelley giggled. ‘Very trendy!’
‘And very successful, apparently.’ He looked at the way the candlelight flickered over her face. It was odd, this slotting into relaxed ways—feeling comfortable sitting at a table with her. Finding that talking to her was still as easy as a summer’s morning. Surely it shouldn’t still feel like that?
‘So Milmouth’s the place to be?’
He nodded. ‘Easy to see why—it’s an exquisite location, right by the sea, and it’s relatively inexpensive.’
‘Those are precisely the reasons I’m here myself,’ she agreed pensively.
‘Oh, Shelley!’ he mocked. ‘Didn’t I even enter into the equation?’
‘Yes! And nearly put me off coming back at all,’ she told him truthfully, wondering why that should cause him to smile.
He joined in with the food once the fish arrived, but drank only coffee while Shelley ploughed her way through a portion of chocolate mousse and cream.
‘Wow! When you break a resolution you really go for it, don’t you?’ he remarked softly.
She searched his face for hidden meanings, but there were none and she realised that the evening had passed in a pleasant blur. Apart from that bit at the beginning, they hadn’t really gone in for recrimination and heavy analysis. Thank the Lord. She didn’t think she could have taken it—it would have been too much coming on top of everything else.
‘Like some coffee?’
Shelley yawned. To be honest the food had provided a distraction as well as filling the gaping hole of hunger. It had been easier to put her head down and plough through the soup and that delicious fish than to have to meet that ocean-blue gaze head-on. And now she had eaten so much that she felt she must have gained at least ten pounds! She felt that her legs would barely be able to carry her back upstairs.
Which was good. She wanted to hit that pillow and just crash out. It was not on her agenda to lie awake half the night tossing and turning, unable to get Drew’s face out of her mind.
He saw her flagging and was infuriated by the sudden surge of protectiveness which washed over him. He guessed that old habits died hard. He would do the same for any woman who looked ready to drop, he told himself. ‘You look like you’re ready for bed,’ he murmured.
It was perhaps unfortunate that the way he said it made it sound full of sexual intent, and that a well-preserved woman in her forties who was passing their table on the way to the powder room heard him. She must have done. Why else did she ogle him, before raising her eyebrows slightly and passing Shelley a look of shrugging envy?
Shelley bristled at the implication. ‘I suppose you think that for the price of a discounted meal in a fancy restaurant I’m just going to fall straight into bed with you, do you, Drew?’
Her voice carried more than she had intended, or perhaps there was just a natural lull in the general low-pitched hubbub of the dining room. Whatever the reasons, the room grew silent and she could feel the eyes of every person in the place—bar the few people who were too polite to turn their heads—looking at them.
He studied her from across the table with eyes which were chilly now. ‘That isn’t my usual modus operandi, no. But maybe it’s yours. After all, isn’t that precisely what happened all those years ago? Only he got away without even having to buy you a meal!’
She glared at him, not caring about the interested faces of the other diners as she began to fumble around in her handbag. ‘I should never have agreed to eat with you! Or did you think that saying you wanted us to be equals gave you the go-ahead to just sit there insulting me?’ She pulled out her purse and caught the waiter’s eye, trying to calm her rage as he hurried over to their table. ‘Can we have the bill, please?’
‘Now what do you think you’re doing?’ growled Drew.
‘What does it look like? I’m paying my share of the bill, of course!’ She extracted a couple of crisp notes. ‘That way no one owes anyone anything! And certainly not in the bed stakes! Got that?’
The waiter was looking at Drew in a perplexed kind of way. ‘But Mr Glover usually settles—’
That did it! Shelley was appalled at her reactions and even more confused about their origins, but seemed helpless to stop herself from slamming the notes down on the table in front of him and leaning forward to demand, ‘Why? Just how many women do you generally bring here in the space of a week, Mr Glover?’
Drew laughed, suddenly elated. ‘And what’s it got to do with you, kitten?’
She frowned suspiciously. ‘In fact, you’ve hardly talked about yourself all evening. If we’re talking enigmatic—you fit the description pretty well!’
He smiled. ‘What did you want me to talk about?’
‘Well, where are you living, for a start?’
There was a brief pause. He had wondered how long it would take her to get around to asking. ‘In the old coastguard’s cottage.’
Her mouth fell open as if someone had twitched a string on a puppet. That was to have been their home—not his! ‘You mean you went ahead and bought it anyway?’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘Yes, of course I did. That had always been my intention. Or did you imagine that my pain was so great that I wouldn’t be able to lead an ordinary life there? That I’d be too haunted by memories of you?’
She knew that she was being unreasonable, selfish and illogical, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself from asking questions to which he was probably going to provide the most horrible answers.
‘And have you taken other….?’ She couldn’t ask.
‘Other?’ he enquired helpfully.
‘Women!’ she got out at last. ‘Have you taken other women there?’
A nerve flickered in his cheek. ‘What an audacious and arrogant question, Shelley. I can’t believe you had the nerve to ask it! You’ve been living with another man for the past three years—so what do you expect? Yes, of course I’ve taken other women there! Or did you really imagine that I spent night after night alone, dreaming of my lost love?’ He raised his eyebrows sardonically. ‘Dream on, kitten!’
‘Oh!’ She levered herself to her feet and picked up her handbag and tried to think of something really, really withering to say.
But those mocking blue eyes somehow took the wind right out of her sails and so did the fact that he had scraped his own chair back and was rising to his feet as well, big and dark and menacing. And suddenly the vulnerability was back. She had to get away.
‘I’ll see you to your room.’
‘Don’t bother.’
‘It’s no bother,’ he smiled, but there was no disguising the glint in his eyes.
‘This is harassment!’ she gritted.
‘It’s all a question of interpretation, surely?’ he countered. ‘Let’s just call it etiquette, shall we, for the sake of argument?’
It seemed a mile to the door and into the panelled hall, but there was no sign of the blonde at the reception desk.
Shelley put one spike-heeled shoe on the foot of the staircase. ‘Don’t you dare come any further!’ she warned.
‘Why? Don’t you trust yourself?’ Unexpectedly he reached out his hand and captured her wrist, pulling her towards him, his other hand slipping down to the small of her back,
so that she was enclosed and supported by him.
Standing on the step in her high heels meant that they were exactly the same height. His face was right up close, close as this afternoon’s dreams which had so tantalised her, blue eyes blazing with a passion she couldn’t tell was benign or malevolent. And the temptation to melt against him was intense.
She fought it. ‘Let go of me, Drew.’
His voice was a low, mocking caress. ‘Say it once more, kitten—only this time with meaning!’
‘Let me…Drew!’ He had dipped his head to her neck, a feather-light brush of his lips against the pale skin there, and Shelley trembled. ‘Oh! Don’t.’
‘Why not?’ His mouth had drifted to the line of her jaw, a brief stroking of velvet-soft lips there, more seductive than anything had a right to be. ‘Feels good, doesn’t it, kitten?’
It felt absolutely gorgeous, that was the trouble—but this was no innocent little kiss goodnight—despite what it looked like. She knew what he wanted—the tension in his body was almost palable, even from here—and he was barely touching her. Yet.
She wound her arms around his neck and put her face even closer, so that to an outsider it looked as if she was returning the embrace, while the duel being fought in their eyes told another story. ‘If you don’t let go of me right now,’ she told him in a low voice, ‘then I shall be forced to adopt tactics of self-protection which I guarantee you will not like. Certain parts of the male anatomy are extremely sensitive to rough handling!’
‘Is that what Marco used to like you to do?’
She didn’t react. ‘I enrolled in a course of self-defence in Italy, if you must know. Do I make myself clear, Drew?’
‘Perfectly.’ He let her go with an aching smile. ‘I can see I’m going to have fantasies about being roughly handled by you, Shelley.’
‘In your dreams!’
‘That’s exactly what I meant,’ he mocked. ‘Men have been having dreams like that about women since time began!’
She opened her mouth to snap back some smart comment, but the little spark which smouldered blue flames at the back of his eyes told her that she was playing with fire. ‘Be as outrageous as you like,’ she told him sweetly. ‘You won’t shock me!’
‘Is that an invitation?’ he murmured.
‘No, it is not!’ But she wasn’t giving him the chance to test her resolve.
‘Pity,’ he remarked, watching her prepare to take flight. ‘And you should be careful how you walk on those outrageously high heels, kitten.’ But he was still smiling as she scrambled up the stairs to her room, two at time.
CHAPTER SEVEN
IT WAS nearly ten when Shelley woke up in the most comfortable bed she had ever slept in, feeling like a different person. Even after the shock of discovering that Drew had obviously taken women—she wouldn’t let herself even try to estimate how many—back to the home which they had once both intended to share, she had still slept.
And maybe her subconscious had done her a favour during the night, because this morning she realised that he had been absolutely right. It had been an arrogant and audacious assumption on her part—to suppose that he had slept with no one. That didn’t stop it hurting, of course, but at least she could accept it. That was what being a mature person was all about…
At the open window, the breeze made the silky lilac curtains rustle and billow, so that they floated like a dancer’s skirt. She stretched extravagantly and got out of bed, stepping over the clothes which she had left where they had fallen. She had tumbled exhausted into bed last night—without even bothering to brush her teeth and take her make-up off. What on earth would Marco say? One day back in Milmouth and she was turning into a slut!
She went into the bathroom to repair some of the damage done overnight, wincing at her panda eyes and pale face, but once she’d showered and dressed she felt like a new woman. The blonde from the evening before was back on duty at the reception desk, and gave Shelley a helpful look of enquiry.
‘I suppose they’ve stopped serving breakfast?’ Shelley asked.
‘They have,’ the girl nodded. ‘But you can order a snack from the bar lounge, if you like. Or I’m sure that Chef would be happy to rustle you up something from the kitchen.’
‘Could you arrange to have fruit and yoghurt and a pot of coffee sent up to my room? I need to make a few phone calls.’
‘Certainly, Miss Turner.’ The blonde smiled back. ‘Any idea how long you’ll be staying with us?’
From out of the corner of her eye, Shelley noticed the impressive symmetry of the minstrels’ gallery. Above her head glittered the most flamboyant chandelier she had ever seen. Someone had spent a lot of time and money making this place beautiful, and she dreaded to think how much it must be costing her to stay there. Still, Marco had always paid her generously. And she could probably run to a few more nights until she got the house settled. Of course, only a fool would do that without checking first and she had already behaved foolishly over the water and electricity.
‘I’d better have a look at your tariff first, hadn’t I?’ she said, only half jokingly.
The blonde looked slightly taken aback. ‘Well, I don’t expect you’ll be paying for your room.’
‘What do you mean?’ Shelley smiled as she glanced down at one of the very glossy hotel brochures. ‘Has a new law come into being since I’ve been living in Italy? Don’t tell me! You’ve started offering free board and lodgings?’
‘Well, only sometimes!’ The blonde giggled, and then Shelley could have sworn that she almost winked.
Shelley frowned. There was something vaguely troubling about the other woman’s attitude towards her, something reminiscent of the way people used to treat her when she went to hotels with Marco. A kind of envy. She had understood why in those circumstances—he was a rich, eligible man and she was his partner. But not these. ‘I’m not sure that I understand,’ she said slowly.
The blonde had started to look worried now. ‘I shouldn’t have said anything. Honestly, it doesn’t matter!’
‘Oh, but I think it does,’ Shelley asserted. ‘Why on earth would I not have to pay for my own room?’
The blonde coloured. ‘Oh, heck! Look, I’m sorry. I certainly didn’t mean to cause offence. It’s just that—well, the boss made such a fuss before you arrived yesterday—he went around inspecting the place as if we were entering the Hotel of the Year competition!’
Shelley registered what the girl was saying, but one word alone stood out and blasted its way into her subconscious.
Boss.
Boss?
She stared very hard at the receptionist. ‘Who exactly is your boss?’ she asked, even though something told her she already knew the answer.
The blonde bit her lip. ‘Mr Glover. Drew Glover,’ she enlarged unnecessarily.
‘And he’s the manager of this hotel?’
‘The manager?’ The blonde blinked her lashes rapidly and nearly raised a smile at this. But not quite. ‘Oh, no-o-o, he’s not the manager! He owns the hotel. Well, a part share. The biggest share, actually,’ she confided, and this time she did wink.
‘He owns it?’ Shelley recited dully. ‘This hotel?’
‘Oh, yes!’
‘Anything else besides?’
‘Such as?’
‘Well, he hasn’t bought up the local golf-course while I’ve been away? Or the boatyard at Milmouth Waters?’
‘Oh, no!’ laughed the blonde. ‘But he’s got quite a few properties dotted around Milmouth. He has a reputation for being something of a wheeler-dealer in these parts.’
‘Oh, does he?’ questioned Shelley faintly.
The blonde had started to look really worried. ‘Only we weren’t supposed to say anything—not to you. That was the whole point. He told Dee—she does the opposite shift to me—’
‘The redhead?’
‘That’s right!’ The blonde nodded her head worriedly. ‘He told her that no one was to let on to you that he was anythi
ng other than an ordinary punter. That there was to be no fuss. I just thought that this morning…’
‘This morning what?’
‘I can’t!’ The blonde shook her head. ‘Mr Glover’ll kill me,’ she breathed.
‘Only if I tell him. I might decide not to.’
The blonde looked at her hopefully. ‘Why would you do that?’
‘In exchange for a little information.’
‘What kind of information?’
Shelley glanced down at the woman’s name-badge, then fixed her with a steady stare. ‘What were you expecting to happen this morning, Moira?’
The blonde blushed. ‘Well, I thought he might have told you about himself some time during the night.’
Some time during the night. The words reverberated round her head, heavy with implication. Shelley stared at the girl in horror. ‘Are you implying that Mr Glover and I spent the night together?’
The blonde looked as though she wished a trap-door would open up for her to disappear through. ‘I didn’t mean to cause any offence—honestly, I didn’t. It’s just that you didn’t come down for breakfast, and we haven’t seen him, and someone said you looked very close at dinner last night, and so I put two and two together—’
‘And came up with five hundred and forty-five?’ suggested Shelley drily.
‘Oh, heck!’ Moira moaned. ‘Why didn’t I just keep my big mouth shut?’
‘I’m very glad you didn’t.’ Shelley heaved out a long breath and the question which followed it was not one which should have been number one on her agenda. ‘He has women to stay here a lot like this, does he?’
‘Oh, no! He has a reputation for being picky,’ the girl revealed. ‘Women throw themselves at him all the time— I suppose that’s not very surprising when you think about it. But he’s ever so choosy.’
‘Is he, now?’ asked Shelley, more grimly than she meant to, but took pity on the blonde’s abject expression. ‘Listen, I think I’ll pass on breakfast. I’ll just nip up and pack my bag, and while I’m doing that I’d like you to total up my bill for me.’
The Final Seduction Page 9