Bridegrooms Required

CHAPTER EIGHT

IT WAS just very fortunate that starting a new business meant that there were always a hundred and one things to think about, and to do—and for that Holly was extremely grateful. At least it meant that she didn’t allow her mind to get stuck on that frustrating loop which wanted to know just why Luke Goodwin had:

a. Kissed her (and more)

b. Then acted as though she had some kind of infectious disease; and

c. Had disappeared conclusively from her life in the days following the opening of her shop.

She supposed that she could have picked up the telephone, or even gone round to his house, to ask the great man in person—but she had her pride. Luke wasn’t a man she could imagine being railroaded into anything, and she certainly wasn’t going to march round to beg him to make love to her!

So she forced herself to be sensible, filed all these unanswered questions away under ‘Waste of Time’, and resolutely refused to dwell on them further. Even though she missed him. Missed him like mad.

She had a few long, sleepless nights asking herself what had gone wrong, and why. Then she came to the conclusion that, since she wasn’t going to get any answers, then there wasn’t much point asking the questions. It was a useful safety mechanism.

Then she happened to bump into Luke’s cleaning lady, Margaret, in the general store.

Margaret smiled encouragingly at her, and Holly plucked up courage to ask, very casually, ‘How’s Luke?’

‘I wouldn’t know, dear,’ Margaret replied, with the repressed excitement of someone who knew that the person who had asked the question was hanging onto every word. ‘He’s gone away!’

Holly nearly dropped her organic wholemeal loaf on the floor. ‘Gone?’ she echoed in horror. ‘Gone where?’

‘He didn’t say, dear. Just upped and left the day after your shop opened, I think it was.’

‘And is he coming back?’ asked Holly, her heart feeling like a leaden weight in her chest.

Margaret shrugged. ‘I expect so. He hasn’t taken much—apart from his passport.’

‘His passport?’ repeated Holly, like a parrot.

‘That’s right.’

‘But you don’t know where he’s gone?’

“Fraid I don’t dear.’ A mischievous gleam entered Margaret’s rheumy eyes. ‘Shall I say you was asking?’

‘Er, no,’ said Holly quickly. She flashed her most beseeching smile. ‘I’d rather you didn’t, Margaret.’

The article about Lovelace Brides had appeared in the Winchester Echo and captured the public’s imagination. The people of Hampshire loved the story of Holly winning a wedding dress competition and opening a bridal shop—and then offering the same wedding dress as the prize in another competition!

It had proved so popular that it had been picked up by the national press, including one of the broadsheets as well as three tabloids. In a week where news was scant, journalists and photographers were dispatched to Woodhampton, where Holly posed standing next to the dress, trying like mad to pin a happy-go-lucky smile to her lips.

It was fabulous publicity for her, and she knew that she should feel overjoyed—it was just very annoying to feel so deflated. Especially over a man she had foolishly imagined had shared her feelings.

Which only went to prove that her imagination was best left to dreaming up wedding dresses, and not romantic scenarios with would-be suitors.

Lured by the competition, brides-to-be flocked into the shop in what became an unusually busy December. It was traditionally a slack month—too many parties and too much preparation for Christmas leaving brides with little enthusiasm for buying their wedding dresses. With the added inches from too much merry-making, they tended to leave that until the New Year.

As the steady stream of customers filed into the shop, Holly soon realised that she was going to have to recruit more outworkers than she had originally anticipated. She needed workers who were good enough to sew her intricate designs and close enough for her to be able to keep an eye on them. She scribbled out an advertisement and put it in the Echo.

On a dull Monday morning, a couple of weeks before Christmas, Holly was rearranging her window display when she saw a woman standing waiting on the pavement outside, trying to catch her attention.

‘Are you open?’ mouthed the woman, pointing exaggeratedly at her watch.

‘Not until ten!’ Holly mouthed back, then wondered why she was sounding so inflexible. It was her business, and she could open when she liked! With a final twist of fern, which Michelle had concocted into a huge, old-fashioned bouquet with white silk roses, Holly jumped down out of the window and went to unlock the door.

‘Come in,’ she smiled

‘You’re not supposed to be open until ten, are you?’ murmured the woman, but she stepped into the shop anyway and looked around. She was wearing dark corduroy trousers, a green padded jacket and wellington boots. She wore the traditional country clothes well—they suited her clear skin and her neat, butter-coloured hair. She was trim, with tiny wrists and tiny ankles—the sign, or so Holly had been told by her mother, of a true lady.

‘You’re only ten minutes off, and the shop is still very new,’ said Holly with a smile. ‘I need to build up a reputation, and it wouldn’t do mine much good if I forced you to stand outside in the cold, instead of bringing you in here and letting you browse around. I’m presuming that you are a bride-to-be?’

‘I most certainly am!’ giggled the woman. It was an attractive, infectious laugh, but a little girlish, too. And maybe just a tad inappropriate for someone pushing thirty, Holly thought. Until she reminded herself sternly that she was here to make wedding dresses, not value judgements! Still, she would bet, with a giggle like that, that this woman would go for flounces and frills and a bouquet as big as the Blackwall Tunnel!

‘When,’ asked Holly immediately, ‘is the wedding?’ The woman pursed her lips together in a smile. ‘Well, we haven’t quite decided yet—you know what men are for making a commitment! My fiancé came over without me—to get everything ready,’ she added with a coy shrug.

‘But you’re not planning a sudden Valentine wedding, are you?’ asked Holly quickly. ‘Because if you are, we’ll have to get a move on.’

The woman shook her head. ‘Oh, no! My fiancé and I haven’t actually discussed a date—but I want to be sure that, when we do, I’ll be ready to go!’

Keen, thought Holly with a smile. But, there again, so many brides were—and it would be a little disappointing if they weren’t! ‘Then we’d better introduce ourselves,’ she said. ‘I’m Holly Lovelace—owner and designer.’

‘Caroline,’ said the blonde, holding her hand out. ‘Caroline Casey. I’m afraid that I’m a novice at all this—what do I do now?’

‘You take a look at all those sample gowns hanging over there on the rail, and decide which ones you like the look of. Then you try them on, see which suits and whether you want any modifications made, and then I can have it made to measure.’

‘And do they all have price tags?’

Holly nodded. ‘Yes, they do.’ Not all shops carried prices on their gowns, but it had been a conscious decision of hers to do so, because nothing was worse than falling madly in love with a wedding dress, only to discover that it was much more than you could afford. Holly knew that brides rarely looked too closely at a gown which was financially out of their reach. ‘But if you’re on a budget and particularly like a certain design, then we can sometimes have it made up in a less expensive fabric.’

‘Oh, no!’ Caroline laughed delicately, showing teeth which were straight and white and even—teeth which told of a lifetime’s good nutrition, of sunshine and milk and no sweets to cause cavities. ‘Money’s certainly no object.’ She paused and gave Holly a helpless little shrug. ‘My fiancé has just come into a very large inheritance!’

Blinking away a brief but distracting feeling of déjà vu, Holly managed to smile, even though she thought the woman sounded more than a little smug. ‘Good for him! And for you!’ she added robustly, supposing that it was difficult to talk about a large inheritance without sounding smug. ‘Nice to be in love,’ she said wistfully. ‘And it’s probably even nicer if he’s rich into the bargain!’

‘Oh, I’d never have agreed to marry him if he hadn’t come into money,’ said Caroline, smiling and shaking her head when she saw the look of horror on Holly’s face. ‘Oh, no! I don’t mean that I’m marrying him just for the money—although I have to agree, it helps! It’s just that money brings with it responsibilities. And, more importantly, stability. And my fiancé was pretty wild before he inherited!’ She wrinkled up her pretty nose. ‘Very wild!’

The mind boggled. ‘In what way?’ asked Holly curiously.

‘In every way.’ Caroline shrugged. ‘The original rolling stone!’

Holly smiled, feeling a sneaking sympathy for the man. She suspected that the pretty but determined Caroline Casey would keep her errant flancé on a very short rein indeed! ‘Listen—why don’t I make us some coffee and leave you to browse through the dresses at your leisure?’

‘That’s very sweet of you.’

When Holly came back with coffee, it was her turn to feel smug, since the woman had done exactly as she’d predicted and picked out the most frothy, fairy-princess dress on the rail! It had a low, flounced neck, a jewel-encrusted bodice, nipped waist and a skirt wide enough to hide a family of six beneath its voluminous silk folds.

Holly didn’t just design dresses that she was passionate about—she also designed dresses to sell. You had to if you were a businesswoman, or so her favourite tutor had told her at college. And frothy, traditional dresses did sell—no doubt about it, there was always a market for them.

Caroline experimentally held the dress up in front of her. ‘Do you like it?’

‘Your waist is going to look like Scarlett O’Hara’s in that,’ promised Holly truthfully.

Caroline clutched the dress to her. ‘I’ve dreamed of a wedding dress like this one ever since I was a little girl!’

‘Well, that’s what tends to happen.’ Holly smiled. ‘Just so long as you aren’t marrying a man who wants you to elope in a short red dress on the back of his motorbike!’

Caroline frowned. ‘I think that’s what most men would like, if the truth were known. Men don’t like a lot of fuss, do they?’

Holly had learnt to agree with the customer—up to a point. ‘Generally speaking, no.’

‘But I’m a great believer in tradition,’ said Caroline firmly.

‘But not tradition simply for the sake of it, surely?’ the imp in Holly argued back.

Caroline fixed her with a look of mild amusement. ‘Most certainly I do. Tradition is the bedrock of society—the fabric that binds us together and links us with our past. Now...’ she ran her finger along a ruffle of lace on one of the sleeves ‘...can I go and try this on?’

‘Please do,’ said Holly. ‘The changing room is over here. What shoe size are you?’

‘Only four.’ Caroline gave a little wriggle of her shoulders as she projected a dainty foot forward like a ballet dancer. ‘I’m only little, I’m afraid.’

‘Then take these shoes with you—and call me if you need me,’ said Holly gently, and drew back the velvet curtain to the changing room. She found herself wondering why Caroline had no one with her. Brides rarely came looking for gowns alone—they generally brought their mother or a best friend. Someone close enough to be brutally honest when asked the universal question, Does my bottom look big in this?

While Caroline was in the changing room, Holly hunted around for more accessories—veil and headdress—which she thought might go well with the dress.

And when Caroline reappeared, looking a little self-conscious in all her finery, Holly experienced the familiar feeling of awe and wonder at how a wedding dress could transform a woman into a goddess. Women stood differently in a wedding dress. Walked differently.

‘That ivory silk does wonders for your complexion,’ she told her admiringly.

Caroline twirled in front of the floor-to-ceiling mirror. ‘Does it? It’s beautiful,’ she said breathlessly. ‘I feel just like a fairy princess!’

‘It’s much too big around the waist. Here—let me take it in a bit.’ Pins on her wristband, Holly crouched down and adjusted the waist and then the hem.

While she was making her alterations, Holly chatted and listened. Women opened up to their dressmakers, and Caroline was no exception. By the end of the fitting, Holly was left with the impression that Caroline was a pleasant and competent woman, but grindingly dull and conventional!

It was getting on for lunch-time when the bride-to-be came out of the changing room, an ordinary woman once more in her cords and sweater. Holly looked up from the ivory silk and smiled at her. ‘So what made you choose my little shop in Woodhampton for your wedding dress?’

‘Nothing more inspiring than geography, I’m afraid.’ Caroline found a compact inside her handbag, and, peering into the mirror, began to pat the shine off her neat little nose. ‘I’m going to be living here, you see.’

‘Oh? Whereabouts?’

‘In Woodhampton itself.’ Caroline’s voice became injected with pride. ‘There’s a rather nice Georgian house in the village,’ she confided. ‘Apson House. I expect you know it.’

For a moment Holly’s heart missed a beat while the world stopped turning. Either that or she would wake up in a moment. She felt all the blood draining from her face, and wondered whether she had a corresponding colour loss. ‘Yes, I know it,’ she replied, in a muffled voice which seemed to come from a different pair of lungs than hers. Then forced herself to ask the question, as if she didn’t already know the answer, ‘And wh-who’s your fiancé?’

Caroline frowned, antennae alerted by the fine beads of sweat sheening Holly’s brow. ‘It’s Luke,’ she said precisely, her pale grey gaze piercing. ‘Luke Goodwin. Do you know him?’

Holly was experiencing sensations she had only ever read about. Head like cotton wool. Legs like jelly. Stomach turned to water. She was terribly afraid that she might funt. And meanwhile the unbelievable fact was hammering into her brain. Luke Goodwin was engaged to be married to the grindingly dull Caroline Casey!

Luke Goodwin was a no-good deceiving bastard!

‘Do you know him?’ repeated Caroline ominously, sounding as if she were counsel for the prosecution, and Holly were on the witness stand.

Well, she couldn’t lie. Margaret, Luke’s cleaner, knew that she had been staying up at the house while the shop was being renovated, and so did everyone else in the village. ‘Yes, I know him,’ she answered steadily.

Caroline looked at her wordlessly, her eyebrows raised in expectation.

‘You see, I was...I was staying up at Apson House—’

‘You were what?’ came the disbelieving snap.

‘Just for a couple of weeks—’

‘A couple of weeks?’ Caroline’s eyes were spitting fire. ‘Perhaps you’d care to explain?’

Holly swallowed. ‘This shop and the flat above it were in the most dreadful state when I arrived, and Luke kind of came to the rescue. He had to sack the agent and there was nowhere habitable for me to stay—that’s why he put me up.’

‘And why would he do that?’ Caroline asked, in a voice of quiet menace.

‘Because he owns the freehold of this building—but you probably knew that already.’

Caroline’s mouth had thinned into a sarcastic line. ‘I’m afraid that my knowledge of Luke’s life in England is somewhat patchy—certainly when compared to yours. You must fill me in, Holly. Just how well do you actually know Luke?’

Holly stared at her. The inference was clear. ‘What do you mean, exactly?’

‘I’ll tell you exactly what I mean!’ Caroline put her head forward, like a tortoise emerging from its shell and blinked rapidly at Holly. ‘Luke is a man with certain, shall we say... appetites? And he’s a little old-fashioned at heart You know, one of those men who marry a woman because they love and respect her, but who will avail themselves of an attractive substitute should the need arise—if you’ll forgive the pun,’ she finished maliciously. ‘So did he?’

Holly’s throat was so tight she could scarcely breathe, let alone speak, but somehow she forced the words out. ‘Did he what?’

‘Did he sleep with you?’

Only in her tortured and exquisite dreams. ‘How dare you ask me that?’

There was a pause. Caroline looked her straight in the eye. ‘I’ll ask you again, Holly. I’m a very understanding woman, you know, and sex has nothing to do with respect—especially where Luke is concerned. Did you sleep with him?’

Thoughts buzzed into Holly’s mind like sandflies, but the most disturbing dominated all the others. She could hear Caroline saying it defiantly, almost proudly: ‘Oh, I’d never have agreed to marry him if he hadn’t come into money.’

She met Caroline’s gaze without blushing. Guided solely by instinct coloured with a gut feeling of pure indignation, Holly realised that with her next words she could wreck her reputation. But she had gambled everything else—why not her reputation? ‘I stayed in his house for days,’ she replied, with slow deliberation. ‘And you know Luke. What do you think?’

‘I’ll tell you what I think! I think you’re deluding yourself if you think you stand any chance with him.’ Caroline gave her a smile which was almost sympathetic. ‘Because Luke was always rather bored by any woman who was such an easy lay!’

CHAPTER NINE

AFTER Caroline had flounced out of the shop, telling Holly exactly what she could do with her wedding dress, Holly went through to the kitchen at the back and sat down, her hands trembling, her nerves shot to pieces by what Luke’s fiancée—Luke’s fiancée!—had just told her, and by the enormity of what she had done in retaliation.

Luke was engaged to be married.

That was the one fact which overrode every other thought. Crucial.

But even more crucial was the fact that he had deceived her. He had lied by omission. He had allowed an easy companionship to develop, and had ignited the flames of sexual desire when he could have effectively doused them completely by telling her the simple truth.

That he was engaged to be married.

Holly buried her head in her hands as she thought about him and found that she wanted to weep—she who never wept. Who as a child had constantly kept the noncommittal smile expected of her, even when her life had been torn up by the roots, time and time again.

It was bad enough that he had lied. Bad enough that he had chosen to commit himself to someone who, yes, Holly could see, had all the attributes of a good wife. Caroline was intelligent enough. Neat, organised, attractive, and determined but, oh ... how could a man like Luke—Luke—be contemplating spending the rest of his life with her?

Because even worse than the pain of his deceit was the pain of knowing why he had pushed her away, and why he had stayed out of her life in the days since that frustrating encounter. For he wasn’t hers, and he never would be. Holly had finally met a man she would change her life for, but he belonged to somebody else.

But businesswomen couldn’t hurl themselves to the ground and drum their feet in anger and frustration, which was what she felt like doing! There wasn’t even a packet of biscuits to defiantly plough her way through—not that she really wanted to start comfort eating at this stage in her life.

Instead, she spent the afternoon sewing her first full order—a gown for a Christmas wedding, with a full white taffeta skirt and a buttoned bodice in deep forest-green velvet The tiny bridesmaids’ dresses had the pattern reversed, with velvet skirts and taffeta bodices, and Michelle was going to make mistletoe and holly coronets.

She was undisturbed for the most part, with just two customers wandering in. Young women who said that they wanted to browse. They also wanted to enter the free draw for the prize-winning dress, which Holly suspected was their main reason for coming into the shop!

They filled out their cards respectively, and dropped them into the slightly garish red satin box which Holly had provided.

‘When’s it being drawn?’ asked one.

‘New Year’s Day,’ answered Holly with a faint smile.

‘At the stroke of midnight?’ asked the other hopefully.

‘Like Cinderella, you mean?’ Holly smiled properly then. Your emotional world could collapse around you, and yet romance never seemed to die. Thank heavens. ‘Why not?’ She shrugged.

The rest of the afternoon dragged like Christmas Eve to a child. At four o‘clock she was longing to shut up shop and go upstairs. There were accounts which needed to be sorted out and she could put the finishing touches to the green velvet wedding dress in comfort. Enough to keep her busy for the rest of the evening, anyway. That was if she could resist the temptation to crawl beneath the duvet and just wish that the world would go away.

She was just tucking a frilly blue garter to the back of a drawer when the shop bell rang and she looked up, her words dying on her lips when she saw who it was.

Her first thought was that it didn’t really look like Luke at all, since he was wearing an unfamiliar deep blue suit and a silk tie of palest blue. A tie! Luke! She would never have imagined him wearing such fine wool and silk, though it came as no surprise to see how well the formal clothes fitted his rugged frame. But the impeccably cut outfit had the effect of distancing him, making him look like some cool and devastating stranger.

Luke quietly closed the door behind him and then locked it, and something about his face and the rigid set of his shoulders made Holly run her tongue over her lips and say nervously, ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

‘What does it look like? I’m locking the door.’

‘But we’re still open!’ she objected, her pulse picking up speed like a racehorse. ‘You can’t do that.’

‘Oh, can’t I?’ He turned round then, and the shadowed fury which darkened his features made Holly freeze with apprehension.

‘Just watch me, sweetheart,’ he drawled, and he began to walk towards her.

Holly correctly read the menace and determination in that walk, and some mad, unthinking part of her wanted to run away from him. She found herself looking frantically from side to side, as though a trapdoor would suddenly appear and she would be able to make her escape.

Luke could see her anxiety, but he felt not a jot of pity for her, only the anger which had burned through his veins all afternoon and which was threatening to consume him.

He was directly in front of her now, and Holly saw that he was controlling his breathing only with great difficulty.

‘What are you doing here?’ she whispered, her voice sounding like a husky croak.

It was the wrong thing to say. His mouth curved into a thin parody of a smile which chilled her.

‘You know damn well what I’m doing here.’

‘I d-don’t.’

He drew a breath as though he were taking in poison. ‘What exactly did you tell Caroline?’

‘You mean your fiancée?’ she bit back.

‘Answer me, you little bitch!’

The insult first rocked her, then filled her with the fury to fight him back.

‘I told her the truth!’

‘You’re lying, Holly.’ He was itching to grab her by the shoulders, to haul her up against his chest and extract every raw, painful word of what she had actually told Caroline. And then?

‘You weren’t there,’ she pointed out.

‘I didn’t need to be.’

‘Well, then.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s her word against mine—whatever she’s told you.’

Her audacity momentarily stunned him. ‘I’ll tell you what she told me, sweetheart. That you and I apparently slept together.’ He gave a cold, empty laugh. ‘Strange, that—the earth can’t have moved for either of us, since I don’t actually remember doing it.’

Doing it. Holly felt the hot rush of excitement and prayed for it to pass. She shook her head in an effort to distract herself. ‘I didn’t tell her that I slept with you,’ she contradicted. ‘That was her accusation.’ Her lashes lowered by a fraction to partially conceal her eyes, but she was certain that he had read the longing there ‘An accusation which she found impossible not to believe was true.’

‘Particularly as you refused to deny it?’ he suggested, with icy calm.

Holly shrugged. ‘There was no point in denying it. Since Caroline—’ she spat the word out, appalled at herself for doing so and yet unable to prevent the anger which was still distorting her voice ‘—had already made her mind up. And she seemed to find it unbelievable that you and I had managed to remain under one roof for a fortnight without having sex!’

He found it pretty unbelievable himself, come to think of it, but that was beside the point. ‘What right do you think you have to start meddling in my life?’ he demanded. ‘How dare you let Caroline believe that we had been intimate?’

Holly had had enough. He was acting as if there had been nothing between them—as if the camaraderie which had grown up between them had not existed! ‘But we were intimate! You know we were!’

His mouth twisted. ‘I’m sorry? Have we been existing in parallel universes, or is there something I have missed? Just when are we supposed to have been intimate?’

She felt as if she was floundering in a dark, cold pool of misunderstanding. She remembered the touch of his hand on her ankle, the way she had drawn in a breath and looked down at him. Their gazes had locked the instant before they’d kissed, and something momentous had happened—surely he wasn’t going to deny that?

‘You touched me!’ she protested throatily. ‘You know you did!’

‘I touched you?’ he echoed in disbelief. ‘And you think that gives you carte blanche to try to take control of my life by implying that there had been so much more than that? What right do you have to do that, Holly?’

She shook her head distractedly, copper curls spilling like corkscrews over her shoulders. ‘But there are other kinds of intimacies, too—the little, unspoken ones. We grew close when I stayed with you, Luke—you know we did! You even admitted it! If you’d been honest with me then, and told me about Caroline, there would have been a completely different atmosphere between us! An atmosphere which would not have given rise to that kiss.’ She drew a deep shuddering breath. ‘So why didn’t you tell me, Luke? Just answer me that?’

He gave an arrogant smile. ‘You didn’t ask.’ But that wasn’t the full story, and he knew it. He hadn’t wanted to tell her, hadn’t wanted to say the words out loud because that would have meant acknowledging reality, and it had been sweet indeed to pretend that reality didn’t exist. It had been wonderful having Holly around. He had been enjoying the warmth of her company, and that was a fact. Enjoying the easy atmosphere coupled with the excitement of knowing that he couldn’t have her...

‘I can’t believe you didn’t even mention a girlfriend!’

His eyes glittered in legitimate challenge. ‘Well, maybe you should have asked me.’

‘That’s not fair and you know it!’ she objected hotly.

‘Isn’t it?’ His eyes were azure spotlights which fixed her in their glare. ‘Then let’s just say that I didn’t want to stray into the dangerous waters of the deeply personal.’

‘But you told me all about your mother—and you can’t get more personal than that!’

‘That’s different!’ he snarled, remembering her gentle questions, the careless way she had shrugged at his reluctance to answer, so that—perversely—he had wanted to tell her. And then the way that it had all seemed to come pouring out of him, like the bursting of a dam. Disturbing. And especially disturbing for a man like Luke who had grown up with no one to confide in, who had convinced himself that it was better like that. That feelings should be locked out of sight and out of harm’s way. When you were the only motherless boy in an English boarding-school, it was easier like that...

Holly gave a bitter laugh as she saw the shuttered look which had given him the face of a dark, beautiful statue. ‘I used to wonder why you hadn’t jumped on me like most men try to—’

‘Did that disappoint you, then?’ he enquired silkily. ‘Do you like being jumped on, Holly?’

She ignored the crude taunt. ‘I thought it was because you were a gentleman and that you respected me, but now I see I couldn’t have been more wrong! You’re a bastard, Luke Goodwin—to make a promise to one woman, and then to flirt like crazy with another!’

A pulse began to flicker ominously in his cheek. ‘If I had flirted like crazy, then you would have known all about it, sweetheart,’ he ground out. ‘And the bottom line is that we kissed. Nothing more. Like you said yourself at the time, as I recall.’ His mouth twisted with agonised desire. ‘Though, quite frankly, if you wear skirts as short as the one you had on that day then—’

‘Then I can expect men to lose all control?’ she put in. ‘Is that what you were about to say, Luke? That I was asking for it?’

‘But I didn’t lose control, did I?’ he retorted. ‘I stopped at a kiss, though God knows how, since you weren’t just asking for it, Holly, you were simply begging for it—’

That did it! ‘You bastard!’ There was a loud crack as her palm connected with his cheek, and they both looked at one another, aware that an unbreachable line had just been crossed.

Luke felt desire and anger bubbling up in a heady cocktail inside him as he slowly rubbed his reddening cheek. ‘So that’s the way you want it, is it, sweetheart?’

Holly looked at him, powerless to resist the primitive emotions which were swirling so powerfully in the air around them. ‘Luke...’ she began, but he shook his head, and something in his eyes silenced her words, though he could do nothing to still the shuddering of her breath.