Читать книгу A Treacherous Seduction - Пенни Джордан, Penny Jordan - Страница 9

‘MORE coffee, Beth…?’

‘Mmm…’

‘You seem rather preoccupied. Is anything wrong?’ Dee asked Beth in concern as she put down the coffee pot she had been holding.

They had finished eating and were now sitting in Dee’s sitting room, where several furnishing and decorating catalogues were spread open around them. Dee was planning to redecorate the room, and had been asking Beth for her opinion of the choices she had made.

‘No. No…I like the cream brocade very much,’ Beth told Dee quickly. ‘And if you opt for the cream carpet as well, that will allow you to bring in some richer, stronger colours in the form of cushions and throws…’

‘Yes, that was what I was thinking. I’ve seen a wonderful fabric that I’ve really fallen for, and I’ve managed to track down the manufacturer, but it’s a very small company. They’ve told me that they can only accept my order if I pay for it up front, and of course I’m reluctant to do that, just in case they can’t or don’t deliver.

‘I’ve asked my bank to run a financial check on them and let me have the results. It will be a pity if the report isn’t favourable. The fabric is wonderful, and I’ve really set my heart on it. But of course one has to be cautious in these matters, as no doubt you know.

‘You must have really been keeping your fingers crossed in Prague whilst you waited for your bank to verify that the Czech company was financially sound enough for you to do business with.’

‘Er…yes. Yes, I was…’

Beth took a quick gulp of her coffee.

What would Dee say if Beth were to admit to her that she had done no such thing, that she had quite simply been so excited at the thought of selling the wonderful stemware she had seen that every principle of financial caution she had ever learnt had flown right out of her head?

‘Kelly rang me today. She was telling me that she and Brough are hoping to make an extended trip to Singapore and Australia…’

‘Mmm…they are,’ Beth agreed.

She ought to have asked her bank to make proper enquiries over the Czech factory. She knew that, of course. Not just to ensure that they were financially sound, but also to find out how good they were at meeting their order dates. She could even remember her bank manager advising that she do so when she had telephoned him to ask him for extra credit facilities. And no doubt if he hadn’t been on the point of departing for his annual leave on the very afternoon she had rung he would have made sure that she had done so.

But he had and she hadn’t and the small, nagging little seed of doubt planted earlier by her inability to make telephone or fax contact with the factory was now throwing out shoots and roots of increasingly strong suspicion and dread with frightening speed.

‘How will you manage whilst Kelly’s away? You’ll have to get someone in part-time to help you…’

‘Yes. Yes, I shall,’ Beth agreed distractedly, wondering half hysterically what on earth Dee would say if she admitted to her that, if her worst fears were confirmed and her incorrect order had not been a mistake but a deliberate and cynical ploy to take advantage of her there was no way she would need any extra sales staff because, quite simply, there would be virtually nothing in the shop to sell.

Another fear sprang into Beth’s thoughts. If she had nothing to sell then how was she going to pay her rent on the shop and the living accommodation above it?

She had absolutely nothing to fall back on, not now that she had over-extended herself so dangerously to purchase the Czech glass.

Her parents would always help her out, she knew that, and so, too, she suspected, would Anna, her godmother. But how could she go to any of them and admit how foolish she had been?

No, she had got herself into this mess, and somehow she would get herself out of it.

And her first step in doing that was to locate her supplier and insist that the factory take back her incorrect order and supply her with the goods she had actually ordered.

‘Beth, are you sure you’re all right…?’

Guiltily she realised that Dee had been speaking to her and that she hadn’t registered a single word that the older woman had been saying.

‘Er…yes…I’m fine…’

‘Well, if it would be any help I could always come and relieve you at the shop for the odd half-day.’

‘You!’ Beth stared at Dee in astonishment, surprised to see that Dee was actually flushing.

‘You needn’t sound quite so surprised,’ Dee told Beth slightly defensively. ‘I did actually work in a shop while I was at university.’

Had she hurt Dee’s feelings? Beth tried not to show her surprise. Dee always seemed so armoured and self-contained, but there was quite definitely a decidedly hurt look in her eyes.

‘If I sounded surprised it was just because I know how busy you already are,’ Beth assured her truthfully.

Dee’s late father had had an extensive business empire which Dee had taken over following his death, managing not only the large amounts of money her father had built up through shrewd investment but also administering the various charity accounts he had set up to help those in need in the town.

Dee’s father had been the old-fashioned kind of philanthropist, very much in the Victorian vein, wanting to benefit his neighbours and fellow townspeople.

He had been a traditionalist in many other ways as well, from what Beth had heard about him—a regular churchgoer throughout his life and a loving father who had brought Dee up on his own after his wife’s premature death.

Dee was passionately devoted to preserving her father’s memory, and whenever anyone praised her for the good work she did via the charities she helped to fund she was always quick to point out that she was simply acting as her father’s representative.

When Beth and Kelly had first moved to the town they had wondered curiously why Dee had never married. She had to be about thirty, and surprisingly for such a businesslike and shrewd woman she had a very strong maternal streak. She was also very attractive.

‘Perhaps she just hasn’t found the right man,’ Beth had suggested to Kelly. That had been in the days when she herself had believed that she had very much found the right man, in the shape of Julian Cox, and had therefore been disposed to feel extremely sorry for anyone who was not so similarly blessed.

‘Mmm…or maybe no man can compare in her eyes to her father,’ Kelly had guessed, more shrewdly.

Whatever the truth, one thing was certain: Dee was simply not the kind of person whose private life one could pry into uninvited. And yet tonight she seemed unfamiliarly vulnerable; she even looked softer, and somehow younger as well, Beth noticed. Perhaps because she had left her hair down out of its normal stylish coil.

Certainly it would be impossible to overlook her, even in a crowd. She had the kind of looks, the kind of manner that immediately commanded other people’s attention—unlike her, Beth decided with wry self-disdain.

Her soft mousy-blonde hair would never attract a second look, not even when the sun had left it, as it had done last summer, with these lighter delicate streaks in it.

As a teenager she had passionately longed to grow taller. At five feet four she was undeniably short…‘Petite’, Julian had once infamously called her. Petite and as prettily delicate as a fragile porcelain doll. And she had thought he was complimenting her. Yuck. She was short. But she was very slender, and she did have a softness about her, an air which had once unforgettably and almost unforgivably led Kelly to say that she could almost have modelled for the book Little Women’s Beth.

On impulse, before going to Prague, she had had her long hair shaped and cut. The chopped, blunt-edged bob suited her, even if sometimes she did find it irritating, and had to tuck the stray ends behind her ears to stop them from falling over her face when she was working.

‘You are beautiful,’ Alex Andrews had told her extravagantly when he had held her in his arms. ‘The most beautiful woman in the whole world.’

She had known that he was lying, of course, and why, and she hadn’t been deceived—no, not for one minute—despite the sharp, twisting knife-like pain she had felt as she had listened to him in the full knowledge of his duplicity.

Why would he possibly think she was beautiful? After all, he was a man who any woman could see was quite extraordinarily handsome in a way that was far more classical Greek god than modern-day film star. Tall, with a body that possessed a steely whipcord-fit muscular strength, he’d seemed to radiate a fierce and very high-charged air of sensual magnetism that had almost been like some kind of personal force field. Impossible to ignore it—or him. Beth had felt at times as though he was draining the willpower out of her, as though he was somehow subtly overpowering her with the intensity of his sexual aura.

He also had the most remarkably hypnotic silver-grey eyes. She could see them now, feel their heat burning her. She could…

‘Beth…?’

‘I’m sorry Dee,’ she apologised guiltily.

‘It’s all right,’ Dee assured her, with her unexpectedly wide and warm smile. ‘Kelly told me that you’d collected your stemware from the airport and that you were unpacking it. I must say that I’m looking forward to seeing it. I’ve got some spare time tomorrow. Perhaps if I called round…?’

Beth could feel herself starting to panic.

‘Er…I don’t want anyone to see it until the town’s Christmas lights go on officially,’ she told Dee quickly. ‘I haven’t got it on the shelves yet, and—’

‘You want to surprise everyone by making a wonderful display with it,’ Dee guessed, her smile broadening.

‘Well, whatever you decide to do with it, to display it, I know it’s going to look wonderful. You really do have a very creative and artistic eye,’ she complimented Beth truthfully, adding ruefully, ‘And I most certainly do not. Which is why I needed your advice on the refurbishment of my sitting room.’

‘Your eye is actually very good,’ Beth assured her. ‘It’s just when it comes to those extra details that you need a bit of help. That crimson damask trimmed with the dull gold fringing would make a wonderful throw…’

‘It’ll be very rich,’ Dee commented doubtfully.

‘Yes, it will,’ Beth agreed. ‘Perfect for winter, and then for spring and summer you could switch to something softer. Your sitting room French windows open out onto the garden, and a throw which picks up the colours in that bed you’ve got within view of the window would be a perfect way to bring the garden and the sitting room into harmony with one another.’

Beth glanced at her watch and stood up. It was time for her to leave.

‘Don’t forget,’ Dee urged her, ‘if you do need some help in the shop, let me know. I realise that Anna sometimes stands in, when either you or Kelly aren’t available, but…’

She stopped as Beth was already shaking her head.

‘There’s no way that Ward will allow Anna to spend several hours on her feet right now. Anna says that you’d think no woman had ever had a baby before. Apparently it doesn’t matter how often she tells him that being pregnant is a perfectly natural state, that she’s happy and there’s absolutely nothing for him to worry about; he still treats her as though she’s too fragile to draw breath.’

Dee laughed ruefully.

‘He’s certainly very protective of her. He was most disapproving the other day when he found out she and I’d been to the garden centre and that I’d let her carry a box of plants. But then I suspect he still hasn’t completely forgiven me for sending him away when he came to look for Anna before they were married.’

‘You were only trying to protect her,’ Beth protested. She liked Ward, and was pleased that her godmother had found happiness with him after being widowed for so long, but she could well understand how two such strong characters as Dee and Ward would clash occasionally.

Only a very, very fine line separated a strong, determined man from being a bossy, domineering one, as she had good cause to know. Ward, fortunately, knew which side of the line to be on; Alex Andrews did not.

Alex Andrews.

He would certainly have enjoyed her present predicament, and he would have enjoyed even more saying ‘I told you so’ to her.

Alex Andrews!

Beth parked her small car outside the shop and let herself into the separate rear door which led upstairs to the living accommodation she had originally shared with Kelly.

Alex Andrews!

She was still thinking about him as she made herself a cup of tea and headed for her bedroom.

Alex Andrews—or, more correctly, Alex Charles Andrews.

‘I was named for this bridge,’ he had told her quietly the day they had stood together on Prague’s fabled Charles Bridge. ‘A reminder, my grandfather always used to say, of the fact that I was half Czech.’

‘Is that why you’re here?’ Beth had asked him, curious despite her determination to remain aloof from him—aloof from him and suspicious of him.

‘Yes,’ he acknowledged simply. ‘My parents came here in the early days after the Velvet Revolution in 1993.’ His eyes had grown sombre. ‘Unfortunately my grandfather died too soon to see the city he had always loved freed.

‘He left Prague in 1946 with my grandmother and my mother, who was a child of two at the time. She can barely remember anything at all about living here, but my grandfather…’ He stopped and shook his head, and Beth felt her own throat close up as she saw the glitter of tears in his eyes.

‘He longed to come back here so much. It was his home, after all, and no matter how well he had settled in England, how glad he was to be able to bring up his daughter, my mother, in freedom, Prague always remained the home of his heart.

‘I remember once when I was at Cambridge he came to see me and I took him punting on the Cam. “It’s beautiful,” he told me. “But it isn’t anywhere near as beautiful as the river which flows through Prague. Not until you have stood on the Charles Bridge and seen it for yourself will you understand what I mean…”’

‘And did you?’ Beth asked him softly. ‘Did you understand what he meant?’

‘Yes,’ Alex told her quietly. ‘Until I came here I had thought of myself as wholly British. I knew of my Czech heritage of course, but only in the form of the stories my grandfather had told me.

‘They had no substance, no reality for me other than as stories. The tales he told me of the castle his family had once owned and the land that went with it, the beautiful treasures and the fine furniture…’ Alex gave a small shrug. ‘I felt no sense of personal loss. How could I? And neither did I feel any personal sense of missing a part of myself. But once I came here—then…then…yes…I knew that there was a piece of me missing. Then I knew that subconsciously I had been searching for that missing piece of myself.’

‘Will you stay here?’ Beth asked him, drawn into the emotional intensity of what he was telling her in spite of herself.

‘No,’ Alex told her. ‘I can’t—not now.’

It was then that the heavens well and truly opened, causing him to grab her by the arm and run with her to the shelter of a small, dangerously private alcove tucked into a span of the bridge. And then that he had declared his love for her.

Immediately Beth panicked—it was too much, too soon, too impossible to believe. He must have some ulterior motive for saying such a thing to her. How could he be in love with her? Why should he be?

‘No! No, that’s not possible. I don’t want to hear this, Alex,’ she told him shortly, pulling away from him and out of the shelter of the alcove, leaving him to follow her.

Beth had first come across Alex at her hotel. The staff there, when she had asked for the services of an interpreter, had prevaricated and then informed Beth that, due to the fact that the city was currently hosting several large business conventions, all the reputable agencies were fully booked for days ahead. Beth’s heart had sunk. There was no way she could do what she had come to the Czech Republic to do without the services of an interpreter, and she had said as much to the young man behind the hotel’s reception desk.

‘I am so very sorry,’ the man apologised, spreading his hands helplessly. ‘But there are no interpreters.’

No interpreters. Beth was perilously close to tears; her emotions, still raw in the aftermath of discovering how badly Julian Cox had deceived her, were inclined to fluctuate from the easy weepiness of someone still in shock to a numb blankness which, if anything, was even more frightening. Today was a weepy day, and as Beth fought to blink away her unwanted emotions through the watery haze of her tears she saw the man who had been standing several feet away from her at the counter turn towards her.

‘I couldn’t help overhearing what you were just saying,’ he told Beth as she turned to walk away from the desk. ‘And, although I know it’s rather unorthodox, I was wondering if I could possibly be of any help to you…’

His English was so fluent that Beth knew immediately that it had to be his first language.

‘You’re English, aren’t you?’ she challenged him dubiously.

‘By birth,’ he agreed immediately, giving her a smile which could have disarmed a nuclear warhead.

Beth, though, as she firmly reminded herself, was made of sterner stuff. There was no way she was going to let any man, never mind one who possessed enough charisma to make him worthy of having a ‘danger’ sign posted across his forehead, wheedle his way into her life.

‘I speak English myself,’ Beth told him pleasantly and, of course, unnecessarily.

‘Indeed, and with just a hint of a very pretty Cornish accent, if I may say so,’ he astounded Beth by commenting with a grin. ‘However,’ he added, before she could fire back, ‘it seems that you do not speak Czech, whereas I do…’

‘Really?’ Beth gave him a coolly dismissive smile and began to walk away from him. She had been warned about the dangers of employing one of the self-proclaimed guides and interpreters who offered their services on Prague’s streets, approaching tourists and offering to help them.

‘Mmm…I learned it from my grandfather. He came originally from Prague.’

Beth tensed as he fell into step beside her.

‘Ah, I see what it is. You don’t trust me. Very wise,’ he approved, with astounding aplomb. ‘A beautiful young woman like you, on her own in a strange city, should always be suspicious of men who approach her.’

Beth glowered at him. Just how gullible did he think she was?

‘I am not…’ Beautiful, she had been about to say, but, recognising her danger, she quickly changed it. ‘I am not interested.’

‘No? But you told the receptionist that you were desperately in need of an interpreter,’ he reminded her softly. ‘The hotel manager will, I am sure, vouch for me…’

Beth paused.

He was right about one thing: she was desperately in need of an interpreter. She had come to Prague partially to recover from the damage inflicted on her emotions by Julian Cox and, more importantly in her eyes at least, in order to buy some good-quality Czech stemware for her shop.

Via Dee she had obtained from their local Board of Trade some addresses and contacts, but she had been told that the best way to find what she was looking for was to make her own enquiries once she was in Prague, and there was no way she was going to be able to do that without some help. It wasn’t just an interpreter she needed, she acknowledged; she needed a guide as well. Someone who could drive her to the various factories she needed to visit as well as translating for her once she was there.

‘Why should you offer to help me?’ she asked suspiciously.

‘Perhaps I simply don’t have any choice,’ he responded with an enigmatic smile.

The smile Beth dismissed. As for his comment—perhaps he hoped to make her feel sorry for him by insinuating that he was short of money.

Whilst she was still wondering just what she ought to do a very elegant dark-haired woman in her early fifties came hurrying down the corridor towards them.

‘Ah, Alex, there you are!’ she exclaimed, addressing Beth’s companion. ‘If you’re ready to leave, the car’s here…’

She gave Beth a coolly assessing look which made Beth feel acutely conscious of her own casual clothes and the older woman’s immaculate elegance. She had the chicness of a Parisian, from the tips of her immaculately manicured fingernails to the top of her shiningly groomed chignon. Pearls, large enough to have been fake but which Beth felt pretty sure were anything but, were clipped to her ears, and the gold necklace she was wearing looked equally expensive.

Whoever she was, the woman was obviously very wealthy. If this man was acting as an interpreter for her he must be trustworthy, Beth acknowledged, because one look at the older woman’s face made it abundantly clear that she was not the sort of person to be duped by anyone—no matter how handsome their face or how sexy their body.

‘You don’t have to make up your mind right now,’ the man was telling Beth calmly. ‘Here is my name and a number where you can reach me.’ Reaching into his jacket, he removed a pen and a piece of paper on which he quickly wrote something before handing it to Beth. ‘I shall be here in the hotel tomorrow morning. You can let me know your decision then.’

She wasn’t going to accept his offer, of course, Beth assured herself once he and his companion had gone. Even if he had been an accredited interpreter provided by a reputable agency she would still have had her doubts.

Because he’s too sexy…too…too disturbingly male, and you’re too vulnerable, an inner voice taunted her. I thought you were supposed to be immune to men like him now. You said that Julian Cox had cured you of ever falling in love again.

No. That will never happen, she answered her sharp-tongued inner critic swiftly. There’s no way I could ever be in danger of falling for a man like him, a man who’s far too good-looking for his own good. Heavens, he must have women swarming all over him. Why on earth should he be interested in someone like me?

Perhaps for the same reason that Julian Cox was interested in you, her inner critic taunted. To him you probably seem to be an easy meal ticket. A woman on her own, vulnerable. Remember what you were told before you left home.

Beth was determined not to accept Alex’s offer, but in the morning, when she presented herself at the hotel’s reception desk again, insisting that she desperately needed an accredited interpreter, the man behind the counter shook his head regretfully, repeating what Beth had been told the previous day.

‘I am sorry, but we simply cannot. There are conventions,’ he told Beth.

It crossed Beth’s mind that she might have to abandon her plans to make this a business trip and simply do some sightseeing instead. But that would mean going home, having to admit to another failure…She had come to Prague to look for crystal, and she was not going to go home until she had found some.

Even if that meant accepting the services of a man like Alex Andrews?

Even if it meant accepting that—yes! Beth told herself sternly.

She had eaten her breakfast alone in her room; the hotel was busy, and, despite all the stern admonishments she had made to herself, she still didn’t feel confident enough to eat in the dining room—alone. Now she ordered herself a coffee and removed the guidebook she had bought on her arrival in Prague from her handbag. For all she knew Alex Andrews might not even turn up. Well, if he didn’t there were plenty of other foreign students looking for work, she reminded herself stoically.

She went and sat down in a corner of the hotel lobby, not exactly hiding herself away out of sight, but certainly not making herself very obvious either, she recognised with a small stab of irritated despair. Why was she so lacking in confidence, so insecure, so…so vulnerable? It was not as though she had any reason to be. She was part of a very loving and closely knit family; she had parents who had always supported and protected her. Perhaps that was what it was. Perhaps they had protected her a little too much, she decided ruefully. Certainly Kelly, her friend, seemed to think so.

‘The waiter couldn’t remember what you’d ordered, so I’ve brought you a cappuccino…’

Beth nearly jumped out of her skin as she heard Alex’s husky, sensual voice.

How had he found her here in this quiet corner? And, more importantly, how had he known she’d ordered coffee in the first place? And then, as he placed the tray he was carrying down on the table in front of her, Beth guessed what he had done. There were two cups of coffee on it and a croissant. No doubt all of them charged to her room!

‘I actually ordered my coffee black,’ she told him curtly, and not quite truthfully.

‘Oh.’ He gave her an oblique, smiling look. ‘That’s odd; I could have sworn you were a cappuccino girl. In fact I can almost see you with just a hint of a creamy chocolatey moustache.’

Beth stared at him in angry disbelief. He was taking far too many liberties, behaving far too personally. She gave him a ferociously frosty look and informed him arctically, ‘As a woman, I hardly find that a flattering allusion. Men have moustaches.’

‘Not the kind I mean,’ he returned promptly as he sat down beside her, a wicked smile dancing in his eyes as he leaned forward. His lips were so close to her ear that she could actually feel the warmth of his breath as he whispered provocatively, ‘The kind I meant is kissed off, not shaved…’

Beth’s eyes widened in outraged fury.

He was actually pretending to flirt with her, pretending to find her attractive.

She started to get up, too furious to even bother telling him that she was not going to need his services, when, out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of the beautiful crystal lustres the salesgirl was placing on the display shelves of the hotel’s gift shop. Beth caught her breath. They were just so beautiful. The lustres moved gently, catching the light, their delicacy and beauty so immediately covetable that Beth ached to buy them.

A friend of her mother’s had some antique Venetian ones which she had inherited from her grandmother, and Beth had always loved them.

‘What is it?’ she heard Alex asking her curiously at her side.

‘The lustres…the wall-lights,’ Beth explained. ‘They’re so beautiful.’

‘Very beautiful and I’m afraid very expensive,’ Alex told her. ‘Were you thinking of buying them as a gift, or for yourself?’

‘For my shop,’ Beth told him absently, her attention concentrated on the lustres.

‘You own a shop? Where? What kind?’ His voice was less soft now, sharp with interest and something which Beth told herself was almost avaricious—too avaricious to be mere polite curiosity.

‘Yes. I do…in a small town you won’t have heard of. It’s called Rye-on-Averton. I…we sell good-quality china and pottery ornaments and glassware. That’s why I’ve come to Prague. I’m looking for new suppliers here, but the quality has to be right, and the price…’

‘Well, you won’t beat those pieces for quality,’ Alex told her positively.

Beth looked at him, but before she could say anything he was telling her, ‘Your coffee’s going cold. You had better drink it and I had better introduce myself to you properly. As you know, I’m Alex Andrews.’

He held out his hand. A little reluctantly Beth took it. She had no idea why she felt so reluctant to touch him, or to have any kind of physical contact with him. Any other woman would have been more than eager to do so, she was quite sure. So what did that make her? A frightened little rabbit…too scared to touch such a good-looking and sexy man because she was afraid of the effect he might have on her? Of course not.

Quickly she shook his hand, and just as quickly released it, uncomfortably aware of the way her pulse-rate had quickened and her face become flushed.

‘Beth Russell,’ she responded.

‘Yes, I know,’ Alex told her, confessing, ‘I asked them on Reception. What’s it short for?’

‘Bethany,’ Beth told him.

‘Bethany…I like that; it suits you. My grandmother was a Beth as well. Her actual name was Alžbta, which she anglicised when she and my grandfather fled to Britain. She died before I was born—of a broken heart, my grandfather used to say, mourning the country and the family she had to leave behind.

‘When my parents finally visited Prague, after the Revolution, my mother said that she found it incredibly moving to hear her family talking about her. She said it made her mother come alive for her. She died when my mother was eight…’

Beth made an involuntary sound of distress.

‘Yes,’ Alex agreed, confirming that he had heard and understood it. ‘I feel the same way too. My mother missed out on so much—the loving presence of her mother and the comfort of being part of the large, extended family which she would have known had she grown up here in Prague. But then, of course, as my grandfather used to say, the opposite and darker side of that was the fact that because of his political beliefs he would have been persecuted and maybe even killed.

‘The rest of the family certainly didn’t escape unscathed. My grandfather was a younger son. His eldest brother would, in the normal course of events, have inherited both lands and a title from his father, but the Regime took all that away from the family.

‘Now, of course, it has been restored. There are some families living in the Czech Republic today who have regained so many draughty castles that they’re at a loss to know what to do with them all.

‘Fortunately, in the case of my family, there is only the one. I shall take you to see it. It is very beautiful, but not so beautiful as you.’

Beth stared at him, completely lost for words. British he might claim to be, British his passport might declare him to be, but there was quite obviously a very strong Czech streak in him. Beth had done her homework before coming to Prague; she knew how the Czech people prided themselves on being artistic and sensitive, great poets and writers, idealists and romantics. Alex was certainly romantic. At least in the sense that he obviously enjoyed embroidering reality and the truth. There was no way she came anywhere near deserving to be described as beautiful, and it infuriated her that he should think her stupid enough to believe that she might be. Why was he doing it?

She was about to ask him when the lustres caught her eye again. Alex was right; they would be expensive on sale in a hotel like this one, but there must be other factories that made the same kind of thing—factories that did not charge expensive hotel prices to tourists. Without an interpreter, though, she would have no chance of finding them.

Beth turned to Alex Andrews.

‘I know exactly what the going rate for interpreters is,’ she warned him fiercely, ‘and you will have to be able to drive. And I intend to check that the hotel management is prepared to vouch for you…’

The smile he was giving her was doing crazy things to her heart, making it flip over and then flop heavily against her chest wall like a stranded salmon.

‘What are you doing?’ she protested, panicking as Alex reached for her hand.

‘Sealing our bargain with a kiss,’ he told her softly as he lifted her nerveless fingers to his lips. And then, before they got there, he stopped and told her thoughtfully, ‘Although perhaps on second thought…’

Beth went limp with relief. But it was a relief that came a little bit too soon, for, as she started to pull away, Alex leaned closer to her and swiftly captured her mouth with his own, kissing it firmly.

Beth was too shocked to move.

‘You…you kissed me,’ she gasped in a squeaky voice. ‘But…’

‘I’ve been wanting to do that from the first moment I saw you,’ Alex told her huskily.

Beth stared at him.

Common sense, not to mention a sense of self-preservation, screamed to her that there was no way she could employ him as her interpreter, not after what he had just done, but his mesmeric grey eyes were hypnotising her, making it impossible for her to say what she knew ought to be said.

‘We’ll need a hire car,’ he was telling her, just as though what he had done was the most natural thing in the world. ‘I’ll organise one.’