‘How was your evening chatting to the parents?’ he asked silkily, tightening his grip when he felt her trying to pull away. She felt girlishly fragile under her layers of clothing.
‘Very good! Thank you! Didi, shall I pop these flowers in a vase for you?’
‘Not at all. I’ll do that. You two can disappear to the sitting room and catch up. I can still remember what it’s like to be young, you know.’ She smiled warmly. ‘Besides, I have some last-minute cooking to see to if we’re ever to eat tonight.’
As soon as Didi had disappeared towards the kitchen, Georgie sprang back and glared at him.
‘What was that all about?’ she hissed.
‘It was all about us being in love,’ Pierre answered innocently. ‘Isn’t that what we’re supposed to be?’
‘Yes, but…don’t you think you were taking the performance a little too far?’
He shrugged and stepped back, allowing her to sweep past him into the sitting room where, he noticed, she made sure to take the only one seater in the room. He sat on the sofa and shook his head, patting the space next to him. When she tucked her legs under her, he sighed laboriously, stood up and went across to where she was looking at him nervously.
‘Won’t do.’
‘What won’t do?’
‘You sitting all on your own over there. Not really the right image of a couple madly in love, is it?’
He had leant down to speak to her and, in the half light in the room, Georgie shivered, realising conclusively what she had managed to get herself into. This man didn’t play by the rules.
‘B-but we’re not madly in love,’ Georgie stammered. Her lips still tasted of him. She almost couldn’t believe that he had done that, kissed her like that.
‘Oh, but we are, when we’re here.’ They both heard Didi returning and he pulled Georgie quickly to her feet so that they were still entwined when his mother entered the room.
He feathered a kiss lightly on the crown of her head and Georgie was tempted to poke him soundly in the back because she knew just what he was doing. He didn’t like her and he certainly didn’t much care for the position in which he now found himself, but, beast that he was, he wasn’t going to be the biddable force she wanted. He was going to make sure that she was hoist by her own petard. He ran a finger along her spine and she shivered and only managed to create a little distance between them when she accepted the glass of wine his mother was proffering to her, though not for long.
‘Tell me all about these wonderful meetings of yours,’ Didi encouraged as they sat on the sofa, Pierre’s arm casually draped over her shoulders so that she was pulled against him. She had brought in a large platter of bites, which she assured them would have to do for starters. Prawns, little salmon rolls, bread sticks and a salsa dip in the middle. It gave Georgie a few seconds worth of time putting some of the delicacies on her plate to gather her thoughts together.
For someone of whom she intrinsically disapproved, the man was having a ridiculous effect on her nervous system. Thank goodness she had dressed for the weather, lots of flowing layers, because she shuddered to think how her body might react if those arrogantly wandering hands of his came upon her bare flesh.
‘Why don’t you tell your mum all about it, darling?’ She smiled sweetly at him over her shoulder and then edged away so that she could tuck into the food, which tasted delicious. Didi had done precious little cooking of late, and even though the salmon and prawns were not a complicated affair they tellingly revealed the change in her state of mind.
She looked encouragingly at Pierre. Safely out of range of physical contact, she felt her scattered nerves begin to haltingly regroup.
‘Oh, the usual.’ Pierre smiled at Didi’s eager expression and helped himself to a mountain of titbits. ‘Looks good, Didi. Have a lie-in in the morning. I’ll bring you a cup of tea and some toast.’ It would be a first for him, cooking breakfast for someone else, and it was hardly an invitation to fly to the moon, but he was awkwardly aware that he had delivered a mighty treat, judging from his mother’s radiant smile. It had never occurred to him that such a small gesture could evoke such a richly rewarding response. Normally he woke with the larks when he was in Devon so that he could download his emails and catch up on whatever he might have missed the night before while his mother snoozed. Often he would grab a slice of toast long before she had awakened and would keep her company in the kitchen while she ate, his mind half on whatever deal he happened to have on at the moment.
‘Goodness, Pierre! There’s no need to, although it would be lovely…’
‘You were about to tell your mum how we met…I haven’t exactly been forthcoming with details, have I, Didi?’ Georgie turned fully to Pierre and shot him a look implicit with meaning. ‘I thought you’d like to hear it from Pierre himself. I know he’s not terribly—hmm, now what’s the word?—open when it comes to expressing himself…but I just know how much he’s been dying to fill you in…’
Georgie wondered what he would say. They had not communicated during the week and she knew that he would have been simmering at the uncomfortable position in which he had unwittingly found himself. She could apologise until the cows came home and it would make no difference. He would still be angry with her. Even though he must surely see the beneficial effects of their little deception. Didi had blossomed. Once her strength and purpose had returned, then, yes, they could decide how to break it to her that their relationship was over. She would be able to cope.
Georgie had only vaguely contemplated this scenario. She preferred to live in the present and appreciate its rewards rather than dwell on situations still yet to occur.
‘She chased me,’ Pierre said, looking at her from under his lashes as he sipped the wine. ‘Like a shameless hussy—’
‘Hang on!’
‘Georgie!’ Didi exclaimed, tickled pink by her son’s outrageous lie.
‘I think chase is a bit strong, darling.’
‘Nonsense.’ He deposited his empty plate on the table and relaxed back into the sofa, linking his fingers behind his head so that he could watch her through half-closed eyes. Georgie couldn’t imagine how she could ever have found this man boring. Since when was dangerous boring? She wondered at the countless times in the past when she had taken him to task over his parents. She had never felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end then as they did now. But then she had never in the past invaded his life, had she? Yes, she had irritated the hell out of him, but this was a different situation, wasn’t it?
‘Oh, there’s nothing wrong with the woman making the first move!’ Didi said delightedly, leaning forward in her chair, her hands pressed together. Where Pierre was tall and forbidding, his mother was delicate and warm, only their strikingly swarthy complexions linking them as mother and son. Her eyes were shining.
‘I think Pierre might be exaggerating just a tad!’ Georgie said, cornered.
‘You called me, don’t you remember?’ Pierre raised his eyebrows in unbidden amusement. ‘You said that you were in town and were at loose ends for dinner…sounds like an invitation to me…’ He gave his mother a conspiratorial look, which tickled her pink. ‘Naturally, what could a gentleman do?’ he asked with a casual shrug of his broad shoulders.
Georgie cast her mind back to the gentleman who had greeted her at his gym with barely concealed hostility and impatience, as if a yapping dog had suddenly materialised clinging to his tailor-made Italian trousers.
The gentleman, it turned out, was more than prepared to be open about the winding course of their relationship. Georgie would never have credited him with the imagination, which showed how perilous it was to imagine you knew someone when you had only skimmed the surface, she decided.
Over dinner, which was tasty and hot and filling and washed down with liberal amounts of white wine, which Didi must have had delivered earlier in the day, he expanded on dates they had never had, kisses they had never shared, a love of theatre, which she supposed they migh
t well have shared if given half a chance. She barely managed a word in edgewise.
Eventually, he gave her a secretly satisfied half-smile. Georgie, in return, grinned wanly at Didi.
‘It’s late, isn’t it?’ She yawned widely. ‘Why don’t you and Pierre catch up, Didi, and I’ll tidy the kitchen?’
Eight o’clock had turned into midnight. Didi, as if suddenly waking up to reality, walked to the kitchen window, pulled up the blinds, which had kept the winter night at bay, and turned to Georgie with a frown.
‘Georgie, darling, how did you get here?’
‘Drove,’ Georgie said, surprised. She got up and walked across to the window and stared out in dismay. The cold snap had finally broken and the snow that had been threatening for the past four days was falling down over the fields, the trees, everything. Including her car. ‘I’m going to have to go, Didi,’ she said, in a panic.
‘You can’t drive back, Georgie,’ Didi said firmly. ‘Can she, Pierre?’ She glanced over to her son for back-up and he dutifully joined them at the window, where he fell silent at the sight of the snow. It hardly ever snowed in London. He had forgotten what a beautiful sight it was.
‘Absolutely not,’ Pierre said, meaning it. He looked at Georgie. ‘Your car’s never been noted for its reliability. In this weather, I should think all it wants is tucking up in a warm garage and a cup of hot chocolate.’
Georgie couldn’t help herself. She laughed, because the description was so damned accurate.
‘I keep telling her that she should get rid of it, but you’re fond of that old thing, aren’t you, dear?’ Didi made a halfhearted effort to bustle towards the kitchen sink but, as though suddenly aware of the passage of time, it was obvious that her energy was flagging and she looked relieved when Georgie insisted she go upstairs and get some sleep.
‘And you won’t be attempting that trip back, will you?’ Didi asked anxiously from the door and Georgie shook her head with a reassuring smile.
‘I wouldn’t dream of it. I’ll make up the guest room, Didi. I know where everything is.’
‘Don’t be silly.’ Didi waved the suggestion down. ‘I’m not your Victorian maiden aunt, Georgie, and there’s no need to go bright red. I know what happens between two young adults in love!’
Georgie, trying hard not to look appalled at what was inevitably coming, pinned a wooden smile on her face.
‘You and Pierre,’ Didi announced, backing out of the kitchen with a yawn, ‘can share. You’ll just need to fetch a fresh towel from the airing cupboard and I’ll see you both in the morning!’
Georgie turned slowly to Pierre as soon as the kitchen door was shut and glared at him.
‘This is your fault!’ she hissed accusingly.
‘I’ve been blamed for many things in my time,’ he said coolly, ‘but never for the weather.’
‘I’m not talking about the snow and you know it.’ She began clearing the table. It had been a one-pot meal, so at least not too many dishes. Didi didn’t possess a dishwasher, which she associated with somehow deeply endangering the environment and aiding and abetting global warming, so Georgie began filling the sink with hot water, not even looking in Pierre’s direction because the minute she did she knew that she would also, in her mind’s eye, have a sickening vision of him alongside that big king sized bed that was in his bedroom.
Pierre swung her around to face him and his face was like granite.
‘Don’t even think of doing the maidenly outrage act, Georgie!’ His voice was soft and silky and as cutting as a whip.
‘I know I got us into this, Pierre. You haven’t failed to remind me of that every step of the way but…’
‘But? You’re suddenly finding the consequences of your actions a little too uncomfortable for your liking?’
Georgie looked at him mutinously and found herself being distracted by his eyes. Amazing eyes and fabulously long, thick, dark eyelashes. The sort of eyelashes any woman would have given her right arm for. No wonder those brainy women he favoured had also all been stunning. He could have it all. The brains and the beauty. She blinked and forced herself back to the reality of him gripping her shoulders and glaring at her while the yellow rubber gloves she was wearing dripped water on the flagstone floor around her.
‘But you didn’t have to go overboard with the lovey-dovey act.’
‘But isn’t that what we’re supposed to be?’ he asked in a voice that dripped sarcasm. ‘Madly in love? I was only playing to my brief, after all.’
And it’s all your doing was the rider to that observation, unspoken but as clear as a bell.
‘And don’t even think about getting into that sewing machine of a car of yours and trying to drive back to your cottage in this weather.’
‘I wasn’t,’ she said sulkily. ‘But if you were any kind of gentleman, you would offer to drive me. Your car could handle the trip easily.’
‘But I’m no gentleman,’ Pierre said without batting an eyelid. He abruptly released her and stood back, shoving his hands in his pockets and observing her with apparent fascinated interest. ‘We’re in this ridiculous situation together…’ his mouth quirked with the irony of what he said next ‘…for better and for worse, so you might as well resign yourself to the fact. And I’m really surprised that you’re not a little more pliable,’ he murmured, ‘considering you went to such lengths to nab me in the first place.’ He grinned as angry colour streamed into her cheeks. ‘I mean, phoning my office when you were in London, inveigling your way up to the directors’ floor and waiting two hours for me to finish my meeting so that you could invite me to dinner…’ He had never thought himself to be creative, but he had certainly risen to the task of describing their fictitious love affair with astounding inventiveness and he had thoroughly enjoyed every minute of the storytelling. ‘Then those jazz tickets you managed to get hold of, knowing that I would be tempted to go with you…worked, though, didn’t it? You landed your man!’
‘How could you invent all those stories?’
‘That’s rich, coming from the Queen of Invention!’
Georgie, without much of a leg to stand on, didn’t say anything.
‘Tut-tut, no need to look so hot and bothered,’ Pierre soothed. ‘As Didi said, this is the twenty-first century and there’s nothing wrong with the woman doing all the running. Now—’ he looked at his watch and then back to her ‘—I’m going to do an hour’s work so that’s a headstart for you, and if you’re in need of some sleepwear you can always borrow one of the tee shirts I keep here in the cupboard. Be a nice touch, don’t you think? Wanting to wrap yourself up in your man’s clothes so that you can breathe him in?’
‘Hilarious. I never knew you had such a sense of humour.’ It would be a mad rush finishing the kitchen and scrambling to be safely asleep before he waltzed into the bedroom, but it could be done. With any luck, she would be fast off by the time he headed up and oblivious to his presence.
She sprang into immediate action the minute he was out of the kitchen, flying through the remainder of the dishes at speed and with a good forty minutes to spare before he finished doing whatever he was doing downstairs. She had no idea how anyone could contemplate sitting in front of a computer at such a ridiculous hour but she wasn’t about to complain.
As she drew the thick, light obliterating velvet curtains, the snow was still falling steadily outside, a thick layer of eerie, pristine white over the fields that stretched behind the house.
The bedroom, in which she herself had slept a couple of times in the past when Didi had had friends to stay and had wanted her help, was not large. The bed dominated the room. There was a small old-fashioned mahogany wardrobe with a mirrored front, a chest of drawers on which a bowl of pot pourri released a fragrant scent, and a little dressing table by the window, which overlooked the open fields. No handy sofa bed. No sofa, in fact.
And more galling was the fact that she actually did end up in one of his tee shirts and it did, in some obscure way, sm
ell of him, a peculiar tangy, fresh and utterly masculine scent that filled her nostrils.
She closed her eyes and in the darkness felt her skin tingle at that fleeting, remembered touch of his mouth on hers.
It wouldn’t do!
Making sure that she was on the furthest side of the large bed, she resolutely thought about school and the nativity play that they were rehearsing and in the end, when that failed to work, she fell back on the age old sheep until her brain stopped whirring and sleep kicked in.
CHAPTER FIVE
PIERRE wasn’t sure whether he would find Georgie awake and huddled at the side of the bed experiencing an attack of the vapours, or else pretending to be asleep, but actually when he finally hit the bedroom it was to the even breathing of someone fast asleep.
The curtains blocked out what little outside light there was and it took him a few seconds just staring in before his eyes acclimatised to the darkness.
Then something constricted inside him because, not only was she soundly asleep, she had also worked her way out of the duvet and he could make out one slender thigh resting provocatively on top.
Very quietly he closed the bedroom door, not wanting to wake his mother, aside from anything else. He had already showered using the bathroom on the landing because the cottage was glaringly devoid of anything as up-to-date as a guest room with en suite. As a courtesy to his bed companion, he had worn boxer shorts to bed, in the absence of any pyjamas, and a tee shirt.
Which, judging from what he could see, replicated her own nightwear save for the boxer shorts.
He grinned in the darkness. So she had resorted to using one of his tee shirts. He grinned even more as he recalled her outraged expression when he had provoked her by insinuating that she might want to have the smell of him on her. She was remarkably easy to wind up and had the sort of expressive face that showed every passing emotion. Not cool, not calm, not collected, but not the sort whose company could ever put a man to sleep.
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