Читать книгу By Request Collection April-June 2016 - Оливия Гейтс - Страница 25

MELANIE stared at the letter in her hand. The heavy black scrawl danced before her eyes and she had to blink a few times before reading it again, unable to believe what her brain was telling her.

Didn’t Forde understand that this was impossible? Absolutely ridiculous? In fact it was so nonsensical she read the letter a third time to convince herself she wasn’t dreaming. She had recognised his handwriting as soon as she’d picked the post off the mat and her heart had somersaulted, but she’d imagined he was writing about something to do with their divorce. Instead…

Melanie breathed in deeply, telling herself to calm down.

Instead Forde had written to ask her to consider doing some work for him. Well, not him exactly, she conceded reluctantly. His mother. But it was part and parcel of the same thing. They hadn’t spoken in months and then, cool as a cucumber, he wrote out of the blue. Only Forde Masterson could be so spectacularly outrageous. He was unbelievable. Utterly unbelievable.

She threw the letter onto the table and began to open the rest of the post, finishing her toast and coffee as she did so. Her small dining room doubled as her office, an arrangement that had its drawbacks if she wanted to invite friends round for a meal. Not that she had time for a social life anyway. Since leaving Forde a few weeks into the new year, she’d put all her energy into building up the landscape design company she had started twelve months after they’d married, just after—

A shutter shot down in her mind with the inflexibility of solid steel. That time was somewhere she didn’t go, had never gone since leaving Forde. It was better that way.

The correspondence dealt with, Melanie finished the last of her first pot of coffee of the day and went upstairs to her tiny bathroom to shower and get dressed before she rang James, her very able assistant, to go through what was required that day. James was a great employee inasmuch as he was full of enthusiasm and a tirelessly hard worker, but with his big-muscled body and dark good looks he attracted women like bees to a honeypot. He often turned up in the morning looking a little the worse for wear. However, it never affected his work and Melanie had no complaints.

Clad in her working clothes of denim jeans and a vest top, Melanie looped her thick, shoulder-length ash-blonde hair into a ponytail and applied plenty of sunscreen to her pale, easily burned English skin. The country was currently enjoying a heatwave and the August day was already hot at eight in the morning.

Before going downstairs again, she flung open her bedroom window and let the rich scent of the climbing roses outside fill the room. The cottage was tiny—just her bedroom and a separate bathroom upstairs, and a pocket-size sitting room and the dining room downstairs, the latter opening into a new extension housing a kitchen overlooking the minute courtyard garden. But Melanie loved it. The courtyard’s dry stone walls were hidden beneath climbing roses and honeysuckle, which covered the walls at the back of the cottage too, and the paved area that housed her small bistro table and two chairs was a blaze of colour from the flowering pots surrounding its perimeter. In the evenings it was bliss to eat her evening meal out there in the warm, soft air with just the twittering of the birds and odd bee or butterfly for company. It wasn’t too extreme to say this little cottage had saved her sanity in the first cru-cifyingly painful days after she’d fled the palatial home she’d shared with Forde.

The cottage was one in the middle of a terrace of ten, all occupied by couples or single folk and half of them—like the ones either side of Melanie—used as weekend bolt-holes by London high-flyers who retreated to the more gentle pace of life south-west of the capital, where the villages and towns still retained an olde-worlde charm. It was also sixty miles or so distant from Forde’s house in Kingston upon Thames, sufficient mileage, Melanie had felt, to avoid the prospect of running into him by chance.

She had wondered if her fledgling business would survive when she’d moved, but in actual fact it had thrived so well she had been able to take on James within a month or two of leaving the city. The nature of the work had changed a little; when she had been based in Kingston upon Thames she’d been involved with the layout of housing areas with play facilities and general urban regeneration. Now it was mostly public and private garden work, along with forest landscaping and land reclamation. Some of the time she and James worked with members of a team that could include architects, planners, civil engineers and quantity surveyors depending upon what the job involved. On other projects they worked in isolation on private gardens or country estates. Inevitably office work was part of the deal, along with site visits and checking progress of work where other bodies were involved.

Becoming aware she was in danger of daydreaming, Melanie turned away from the window, her mind jumping into gear and detailing what the day involved.

James was due to oversee the bulldozing of a number of ancient pigsties, which the client wanted transformed into a wild flower garden, being concerned about the loss of natural habitats in the countryside in general and in the surrounding area of the old farmhouse he’d bought in particular. Melanie had suggested a meadow effect, created with a profusion of wild flowers growing in turf on soil that was low in fertility, the mowing regime of which had to allow the flowers to seed before being cut.

In stark contrast, she was off to put the finishing touches to a formal garden she and James had been working on for three weeks. It was a place of calm order, expressed in a carefully balanced treatment of space and symmetry, the details of which had been all-important. The retired bank manager and his wife who had purchased the property recently in the midst of a small country town had been delighted with her initial plan of a neat lawn and matching paved areas at either end of the grass, clipped bushes and trained plants—along with fruit trees in restricted shapes—providing a gentle approach to the precise layout they’d first requested.

She loved her job. Melanie breathed a silent prayer of thankfulness. Devising a personal creation for each individual client was so satisfying, along with reconciling their ideas with the practical potential of the available plot. Not that this was always easy, especially if a client had seen their ‘perfect’ garden in a magazine or brochure, which inevitably was bigger or smaller than the space they had available. But then that was part of the challenge and fun.

Half smiling to herself as her mind skimmed over several such past clients, Melanie made her way downstairs, pausing at the door to the dining room. It was only then she acknowledged that since reading Forde’s letter, every single word had been burning in her brain.

Dear Melanie,

I’m writing to ask a favour, not for myself but for Isabelle.

Typical Forde, she thought darkly, her heart thudding as she glanced at the letter lying on the table. No ‘how are you?’ or any other such social nicety. Just straight to the point.

She hasn’t been too well lately and the garden at Hillview is too much for her, not that she would ever admit it. The whole thing needs complete changing with an emphasis on low maintenance now she’s nearly eighty. The trouble is she won’t even allow a gardener onto the premises so I’ve no chance of persuading her to let strangers do an overhaul. But she’d trust you. Think about it, would you? And ring me. Forde

Think about it! Melanie shook her head. She didn’t have to think about it to know what she was going to do, and there was no way she was going to ring Forde either. She had insisted on no contact between them and that still held.

Walking over to the table, she picked up the piece of paper and the envelope and ripped them into small pieces, throwing the fragments into the bin. There. Finished with. She had enough to do today without thinking about Forde and his ridiculous request.

She stood for a moment more, staring into space. What did he mean when he’d said Isabelle hadn’t been well? She pictured Forde’s sweet-faced mother in her mind as her heart lurched. It had been almost as bad walking out of Isabelle’s life as that of her son all those months ago, but she had known all threads holding her to Forde had to be severed if she had any chance of making it. She’d written a brief note to her mother-in-law, making it clear she didn’t expect Isabelle to understand but that she’d had good reasons for doing what she’d done and that it hadn’t altered the genuine love and respect she had for the older woman. She had asked Isabelle not to reply. When she had, Melanie had returned the letter unopened. It had torn her in two to do it, but she hadn’t doubted it was the right decision. She wouldn’t put Isabelle in the position of piggy-in-the-middle. Isabelle adored Forde, an only child, and mother and son were closer than most, Forde’s father having died when Forde was in his late teens.

Her mobile ringing brought her out of her reverie. It was James. There had been a bad accident just in front of him and he was stuck in a traffic jam that went back for miles so he was going to be late getting to the site. Was it possible she could go there and detail to the workmen exactly what needed to be done and get them started before she went on to her own job? They had the plan of work on paper but there was nothing like face-to-face instructions…

Melanie agreed. After a disaster on an early job when a perfectly sound conservatory had been demolished and the old ramshackle greenhouse had been left intact, she didn’t trust workmen to take the time to read plans, and this was something she’d drummed into James from the start.

Sighing, she mentally revised her morning, decided to leave straight away rather than see to a pile of paperwork she’d hoped to sort out before she left the house, and within a few minutes was travelling towards the farmhouse in her old pickup truck. It was going to be a hectic day but that was good—if nothing else, of necessity she wouldn’t have time to think about Forde’s letter.

It was a hectic day. Melanie arrived home in deep twilight but with a big, fat cheque in her pocket from the retired couple who had been thrilled how their garden had come together. After sliding the truck into the parking space reserved for her in the square cobbled yard at one side of the row of cottages, she walked along the narrow pathway that led off the yard and along the back of the cottages, pausing at the small doorway in the long, ivy-festooned wall that led into her tiny garden. Unlocking the door, she stepped into her small haven of peace, breathing in the delicious perfume of the roses adorning the walls. She was home, and she wanted nothing more than a long, hot bath to relax her aching muscles. She had been determined to finish the job on schedule today and hadn’t even stopped for a bite of lunch.

Locking the garden door, she entered the house through the kitchen as she did most days, slipping off the thick walking boots she wore on a job and leaving them on the cork mat ready for morning. Barefoot, she padded upstairs, flinging open the bathroom window so the scents of the garden could fill the room, and began to run the bath before going into the bedroom and divesting herself of her clothes.

Two minutes later she was lying in hot, soapy bubbles gazing up at a charcoal sky in which the first stars were peeping. Not for the first time she blessed the fact that the developers who had renovated the string of cottages had had soul. In placing the big, cast-iron bath under the window as they had, it meant the occupier could lie and see an ever-changing picture in the heavens through the clear glass they’d installed. Melanie never closed the blinds until she was ready to get out of the bath and on occasions like tonight, when she was tired and aching, it was bliss to lie in the dark and think of nothing. Although tonight the carefully cultivated trick of emptying her mind and totally relaxing wasn’t working…

Melanie frowned, acknowledging Forde had persistently been battering at the door to her consciousness all day, however much she had tried to ignore him. And she had tried. How she’d tried. She didn’t want any contact with him, however remote. She didn’t want to have him invading her mind and unsettling her. He, and Isabelle too, for that matter, were the past, there was no place for them in the present and less still in the future. This was a matter of self-survival.

She heard the telephone ring downstairs but let the answer machine take a message. Forcing her tight muscles to relax, limb by limb, she slid further into the silky water, shutting her eyes. After a few minutes her mobile began playing its little tune from the pocket of her working jeans in the bedroom. It was probably James, reporting how his day had gone, but she made no attempt to find out. This was her time, she told herself militantly. The rest of the world could take a hike for a while.

It was another half an hour before she climbed out of the bath, and the house phone had taken another two messages by then. After washing her hair and swathing it on top of her head with a small fluffy towel, she slipped on her bathrobe. Her stomach was reminding her she hadn’t eaten since the two slices of toast at breakfast, and, deciding food was a priority, she didn’t bother to get dressed, making her way downstairs just as she was.

She had reached the bottom step and her tiny square of hall when a sharp knock at the front door caused Melanie to nearly jump out of her skin.

What now? She shut her eyes for an infinitesimal moment. It could only be James reporting some disaster or other after he’d been unable to reach her by phone. And that was fine, she was his boss after all, but she really had wanted to simply crash tonight. It was clearly too much to ask.

Wiping her face clear of all irritation and stitching a smile in place, she tightened the belt of her bathrobe and then opened the door.

The six-foot-four, ruggedly handsome male standing on her doorstep wasn’t James.

A bolt of shock shot through her and then she froze.

‘Hi.’ Forde didn’t smile. ‘Am I interrupting something?’

‘What?’ She gazed at him stupidly. He looked wonderful. White shirt, black jeans, a muscled tower of brooding masculinity.

The silver-blue eyes with their thick, short, black lashes flicked to her bathrobe and then back to her stunned face. ‘Are you…entertaining?’

As the full import behind his words hit, hot colour surged beneath her high cheekbones along with a reviving dose of adrenaline into her body. Her expression becoming icy, she said slowly, ‘What did you say?’

Forde relaxed slightly. OK, so he’d got that wrong, then. But he had been waiting all day for a response to his letter, which had never come, and after ringing several times tonight he’d decided to see if she was ignoring him or wasn’t home. There had been lights on—upstairs—and then she’d come to the door flustered and dressed like that, or rather undressed like that. What was he supposed to think? ‘I wondered if you had visitors,’ he said carefully, getting ready to use his shoulder on the door if she tried to slam it in his face. ‘You weren’t answering the phone.’

‘I was late home from work and then I had a bath—’ She stopped abruptly. ‘What am I explaining to youfor?’ she added furiously. ‘And how dare you suggest I had a man here?’

‘It was the obvious answer,’ said Forde.

‘To you, maybe, but you shouldn’t judge everyone by your own standards.’ She glared at him angrily.

‘I’m suitably crushed.’

His mocking air was the last straw. Forde had always been the only person in the whole world who could make her so mad the cool façade she hid behind normally melted in the heat. Having been brought up in a succession of foster homes, she had learnt early on to keep her feelings hidden, but that had never worked with Forde. ‘Will you please leave?’ she said tightly, trying to close the door and finding his shoulder was in the way.

‘Did you get my letter?’ In contrast to her fury he appeared calm and composed, even relaxed. That rankled as much as his outrageous assumption she’d had a man in her bed.

Melanie nodded, giving up the struggle to close the door.

‘And?’ he pressed with silky smoothness.

‘And what?’

He studied her with the silvery gaze that seemed to have the power to look straight into her soul. ‘Don’t pretend you don’t care.’

For a moment she thought he was referring to him and then realised he was talking about her concern for his mother. She blinked, the anger draining away. Quietly, she said, ‘How is Isabelle?’

He shrugged. ‘As stubborn as a mule, as always.’

Melanie could almost have smiled. Forde’s mother was a softer, more feminine version of her strong-willed, inflexible son but every bit as determined. But Isabelle had always been wonderfully supportive and loving to her, the mother she’d always longed for but never had. The thought was weakening, intensifying the ever-present ache in her heart. To combat it her voice was flat and without emotion when she said, ‘You said she’d been unwell?’

‘She fell and broke her hip in that damn garden of hers and then there were complications with her heart during surgery.’

Melanie’s dark brown eyes opened wide. When he’d said in his letter Isabelle had been unwell she’d imagined Forde’s mother had had the flu, something like that. But an operation… Isabelle could have died and she wouldn’t have known. Her heart thudding, she murmured, ‘I— I’m sorry.’

‘Not as sorry as I am,’ Forde said grimly. ‘She won’t do as she’s told and seems hell-bent on putting herself back in hospital, refusing to come and stay with me or take it easy in a convalescent home somewhere. She was determined to return home as soon as she was discharged and against medical advice, I might add. The only concession she’d make was to let me hire a live-in nurse until she’s mobile again, and that was under protest. She’s impossible.’

Melanie stared at him. Forde would be exactly the same in those circumstances. He was impossible at the best of times. And easily the sexiest man on the planet.

The last thought caused her to pull the belt of her robe tighter. Don’t let him see how him being here is affecting you, she told herself silently. You know it’s over. Be strong. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said again, ‘but you must see me doing any work for your mother is ridiculous, Forde. We’re in the middle of a divorce.’

‘We are. That shouldn’t affect your relationship with Isabelle, surely? She was very hurt when you returned her letter unread, by the way,’ he added softly.

Unfair. Below the belt. But that was Forde all over. ‘It was for the best.’

‘Really?’ He considered her thoughtfully. ‘For whom?’

‘Forde, I’m not about to stand here bandying words with you.’ She shivered involuntarily although the night air was warm and humid.

‘You’re cold.’ He pushed the door fully open, causing her to instinctively step back into the hall. ‘Let’s discuss this inside.’

‘Excuse me?’ She recovered her wits enough to bar his way. ‘I don’t remember inviting you in.’

‘Melanie, we’ve been married for two years and unless you’ve put on a pretty good act in all that time, you are fond of my mother. I’m asking for your help for her sake, OK? Are you really going to refuse?’

Two years, four months and five days, to be precise. And the first eleven months had been heaven on earth. After that… ‘Please go,’ she said weakly, much more weakly than she would have liked. ‘Our solicitors wouldn’t like this.’

‘Damn the solicitors.’ He took her arm, moving her aside as he stepped into the hall and shut the door behind him. ‘Parasites, the lot of them. I need to talk to you, that’s the important thing.’

He was close, so close the familiar delicious smell and feel of him were all around her, invoking memories that were seductively intimate. They brought a sheen of heat to her skin, her heartbeat speeding up and beginning to rocket in her chest. Forde was the only man she’d ever loved, and even now his power over her was mesmerising. ‘Please leave,’ she said firmly.

‘Look,’ he murmured softly, ‘make some coffee and listen to me, Nell, OK? That’s all I’m asking. For Isabelle’s sake.’

He wasn’t touching her now but her whole being was twisting in pain. Nevertheless, the harsh discipline she’d learnt as a child held good, enabling her to control the flood of emotion his old nickname for her had induced and say, a little shakily admittedly, ‘This isn’t a good idea, Forde.’

‘On the contrary, it’s an excellent idea.’

She looked at him, big and dark in her little hall, his black hair falling over his brow, and knew he wasn’t going to take no for an answer. And considering he was six-feet-four of lean, honed muscle and she was a slender five-seven, she could scarcely manhandle him out of the house. She turned, saying over her shoulder, ‘It doesn’t seem I’ve much option, does it?’ as she led the way into her pocket-size sitting room.

Forde followed her, secretly amazed he’d been allowed admittance without more of a fight. But, hey, he thought. Go with the flow. The first battle was over but the war was far from won.

His gaze moved swiftly over the small room, which had Melanie’s stamp all over it, from the two plumpy cream sofas and matching drapes and the thick, coffee-coloured carpet, to the old but charmingly restored Victorian fireplace, which had a pile of logs stacked against it. Very stylish but definitely cosy. Modern but not glaringly so. And giving nothing of herself away. A beautiful mirror stretched across the far wall making the room appear larger, but not one picture or photograph to be seen. Nothing personal.

‘Sit down and I’ll get the coffee.’ She waved to one of the sofas before leaving, shaking her hair free of the towel as she went.

Forde didn’t take the invitation. Instead he followed her into the hall and through to the kitchen-diner. This was more lived in, the table scattered with files and papers and the draining board in the tiny kitchen holding a few plates and dishes. He dared bet she spent most of the time at home working.

Melanie had turned as he’d entered and now she followed his glance, saying quickly, ‘I didn’t have time to wash up this morning before I left and I was too tired last night.’

Forde pulled up one of the dining chairs, sitting astride it with his arms draped over the back as he said easily, ‘You don’t have to apologise to me.’

‘I wasn’t. I was explaining.’

It was curt and he mentally acknowledged the tone. Ignoring the hostility, he smiled. ‘Nice little place you’ve got here.’

Her eyes met his and he could see she was deciding whether he was being genuine or not. He saw her shoulders relax slightly and knew she’d taken his observation the way it had been meant.

‘Thank you,’ she said quietly. ‘I like it.’

‘Janet sends her regards, by the way.’

Janet was Forde’s very able cook and cleaner who came in for a few hours each day to wash and iron, keep the house clean and prepare the evening meal. She was a merry little soul, in spite of having a husband who had never done a day’s honest work in his life and three teenage children who ate her out of house and home. Melanie had liked her very much. Janet had been with her on the day of the accident and had sat and held her until the ambulance had arrived—

She brought her thoughts to a snapping halt. Don’t think of that. Not now. Woodenly, she said, ‘Tell her hello from me.’ Drawing in a deep breath and feeling she needed something stronger than coffee to get through the next little while, she opened the fridge. ‘There’s some wine chilled if you’d prefer a glass to coffee?’

‘Great. Thanks.’ He rose as he spoke, walking and opening the back door leading onto the shadowed courtyard. ‘This is nice. Shall we drink out here?’

She was trying very, very hard to ignore the fact she was stark naked under the robe but it was hard with her body responding to him the way it always did. He’d always only had to look at her for her blood to sing in her veins and her whole being melt. Forde was one of those men who had a natural magnetism that oozed masculinity; it was in his walk, his smile, every move he made. The height and breadth of him were impressive, and she knew full well there wasn’t an ounce of fat on the lean, muscled body, but it was his face—too rugged to be pretty-boy handsome but breathtakingly attractive, nonetheless—that drew any woman from sixteen to ninety. Hard and strong, with sharply defined planes and angles unsoftened by his jet-black hair and piercing silvery eyes, his face was sexy and cynical, and his slightly crooked mouth added to his charm.

Dynamite. That was what one of her friends had called him when they’d first begun dating, and she’d been right. But dynamite was powerful and dangerous, she told herself ruefully, taking the opportunity to run her hands through the thick silk of her hair and bring it into some kind of order.

When she stepped into the scented shadows with two glasses and the bottle of wine, Forde was already sitting at the bistro table, his long legs spread out in front of him and his head tilted back as he looked up at the riot of climbing roses covering the back of the house. They, together with the fragrant border plants in the pots, perfumed the still warm air with a sweet heaviness. Another month or so and the weather would begin to cool and the first chill of autumn make itself felt.

It had been snowing that day when she’d left Forde. Seven months had passed. Seven months without Forde in her life, in her bed …

She sat down carefully after placing the glasses on the table, pulling the folds of the robe round her legs and wishing she’d taken the time to nip upstairs and get dressed. But that would have looked as though she expected him to stay and she wanted him to leave as soon as possible.

The thought mocked her and she had to force her eyes not to feast on him. She had been aching to see him again; he’d filled her dreams every night since the split and sometimes she had spent hours sitting out here in the darkness while the rest of the world was asleep after a particularly erotic fantasy that had left her unable to sleep again.

‘How are you?’ His rich, smoky voice brought her eyes to his dark face.

She reached for her glass and took a long swallow before she said, ‘Fine. And you?’

‘Great, just great.’ His voice dripped sarcasm. ‘My wife walks out on me citing irreconcilable differences and then threatens to get a restraining order when I attempt to make her see reason over the next weeks—’

‘You were phoning umpteen times a day and turning up everywhere,’ she interrupted stiffly. ‘It was obsessional.’

‘What did you expect? I know things changed after the accident but—’

‘Don’t.’ This time she cut him short by jumping to her feet, her eyes wild. ‘I don’t want to discuss this, Forde. If that’s why you’ve come, you can leave now.’

‘Damn it, Nell.’ He raked his hand through his hair, taking a visibly deep breath as he struggled to control his emotions. A few screamingly tense moments ticked by and then his voice came, cool and calm. ‘Sit down and drink your wine. I came here to discuss you taking on the garden at Hillview and making it easy for my mother to manage it. That’s all.’

‘I think it’s better you go.’

‘Tough.’ He eyed her sardonically, his mouth twisting.

Her nostrils flared. ‘You really are the most arrogant man on the planet.’ And unfortunately the most attractive.

Forde shrugged. ‘I can live with that—it’s a small planet.’ He took a swallow of wine. ‘Sit down,’ he said again, ‘and stop behaving like a Victorian heroine in a bad movie. Let me explain how things stand with Mother at present before you decide one way or the other, OK?’

She sat, not because she wanted to but because there was really nothing else she could do.

‘Along with her damaged hip she’s got a heart problem, Nell, but the main problem is Isabelle herself. I actually caught her trying to prune back some bush or other a couple of days ago. She’d sneaked out of the house when the nurse was busy. I’ve offered to get her a gardener or do the work myself but she won’t have it, although under pressure she admits it’s getting overgrown and that upsets her. When I suggested it needs landscaping she reluctantly agreed and then flatly refused to have what she called clod-hopping strangers tramping everywhere. You can bet your boots once the nurse is no longer needed in a couple of weeks she’ll be out there doing goodness knows what. I shall arrive one day and find her collapsed or worse. There’s nearly an acre of ground all told, as you know—it’s too much for her.’

He was really worried; she could see that. Melanie stared at him, biting her lip. And she knew how passionate Isabelle was about her garden; when she had still been with Forde she and his mother had spent hours working together in the beautiful grounds surrounding the old house. But what had been relatively easy for Isabelle to manage thirty, twenty, even ten years ago, was a different story now. But Isabelle would pine and lose hope if she couldn’t get out in her garden. What needed to be done was a totally new plan for the grounds with an emphasis on low maintenance, but even then, if they were to keep the mature trees Isabelle loved so dearly, Forde’s mother would have to agree to a gardener coming in at certain times of the year to deal with the falling leaves and other debris. And she really couldn’t see Isabelle agreeing to that, unless …

Thinking out loud, she said slowly, ‘I’d obviously need to make a proper assessment of the site, but looking to the future, James, the young man who works for me, is very personable. All the old ladies love him.’ The young ones as well. ‘If Isabelle got to know him, perhaps she’d agree to him coming in for a day or two once a month to maintain the new garden, which I’d design with a view to minimum upkeep.’

Forde shifted in his seat. ‘You’ll do it, then?’ he said softly. ‘You’ll take on the job?’

Melanie brought her eyes to his face. There was something in his gaze that reminded her—as if she didn’t know—that she was playing with fire. Quickly, a veil slid over her own expression. ‘On certain conditions.’

One black eyebrow quirked. ‘I might have guessed. Nothing is straightforward with you. OK, so what are these conditions? Nothing too onerous, I trust?’

It was too intimate—the hushed surroundings enclosing them in their own tiny world, the perfumed air washing over her senses, Forde’s big male body just inches away, and—not least—her nakedness under the robe. This sort of situation was exactly what she’d strived to avoid by not seeing him over the last torturous months. She really shouldn’t have let him in.

She gulped down the last of her wine and poured another for Dutch courage. Forde’s glass was half-full but he put his hand over the rim when she went to top it up. ‘Driving,’ he said shortly, settling back in his seat and crossing one leg over the other knee. ‘Spell out your demands,’ he added, when she still didn’t speak. ‘Don’t be shy.’

The sarcasm helped, stiffening her backbone and her resolve, but she still felt as though she was standing on the edge of a precipice. One false move and she’d be lost.

‘But before you do …’ He moved swiftly, taking her hand before she had time to pull away and holding it fast in his own strong fingers as he leaned across the table. ‘Do you still love me, Nell?’