He didn’t agree with her blurted declaration, just continued to subject her to a cool, steady scrutiny. ‘So, if pregnancy is not the reason for you fainting, what else could it be? Have you been eating properly?’
‘I…yes…no,’ she admitted eventually. ‘Not really.’
‘For how long?’ he clipped out.
‘It’s obvious, isn’t it? Since Michael died, I guess.’
Guy felt the flicker of a muscle at his cheek, unprepared for the sharp kick of unreasonable jealousy. So the fiancé had had a name, had he? ‘And how long ago was that?’
There was no way to answer other than truthfully, but mentally Sabrina prepared herself for his disapproval. ‘Four months,’ she told him baldly.
There was silence. ‘Four months?’ he said heavily, as though he must have misheard her.
She didn’t look away. ‘That’s right. I expect I’ve shocked you,’ she said. ‘Haven’t I?’
He gave a bitter laugh. ‘One way and another, I’ve done a pretty good job of shocking myself lately.’ Four months? His mouth hardened. It threw what had happened into a completely different perspective. He had wondered about her spectacular and uninhibited response in his arms.
So had he just been a substitute for the man who had died? A warm, living body filling her and reminding her of what life should be?
‘You didn’t waste much time, did you?’ he said flatly.
‘And here comes the condemnation,’ she said in a low voice.
‘It was an observation.’ He walked over to study an unimaginative little hunting print and resisted the temptation to punch his fist against the flowered wallpaper. When he turned around to face her, Sabrina could see the fire and the fury that sparked from his eyes. ‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me about it before?’
She bit her lip, willing her eyes not to fill with tears. ‘Why do you think?’ she said tremulously, before she had had time to think it through.
Guy stilled, his eyes narrowing perceptively. ‘Because I wouldn’t have made love to you,’ he said slowly. ‘Because even if it had killed me—’ and he suspected that it might have gone some way towards doing that ‘—there is no way that I would have taken a vulnerable woman to bed and seduced her over and over again! But you wanted me badly, didn’t you, Sabrina?’ he concluded arrogantly. ‘So much that you weren’t prepared to risk not getting what you wanted! That’s why you didn’t tell me!’
Sabrina shook her head, and it felt as though it were filled with lead. ‘You wanted it, too.’ She bit her lip guiltily. ‘You make me sound passive—and I wasn’t. We both know that. We both wanted it…’
‘Badly,’ he put in softly, seeing the answering colour which flooded her cheeks. ‘Very, very badly. Yes, we did.’ He shook his head in a gesture which was the closest he had ever come to confusion. ‘The question is why we both wanted it—so much that it drove reason and sane behaviour clean away.’
‘We were sexually attracted,’ she said shakily. But it had been much more than that. She forced herself to forget the warm glow of recognition she had experienced the very first time she had set eyes on him. As if she had known him all her life. Or longer. She stared at his handsome face and tried to sound coolly logical. ‘I’m sure that kind of thing happens to you all the time, Guy.’
He shook his head in anger. ‘But that’s just the point, dammit—it doesn’t! Oh…’ He shrugged as he saw her disbelieving face. ‘Women come on to me all the time, sure…’
Sabrina’s smile turned into a grimace, wondering if he had any idea how much he had just insulted her.
‘But usually it leaves me cold,’ he reflected thoughtfully. ‘I haven’t had casual sex since I was a teenager.’ And never like that, he thought achingly. Never like that.
Sabrina flinched. ‘I don’t remember coming on to you,’ she objected, but more out of a sense of pride than conviction. ‘I thought it was you coming on to me!’
He threw her a look of mocking query. ‘It was pretty mutual, Sabrina. You’re not going to deny that, are you?’
No, she wasn’t going to deny it. She looked down at her lap, as if the knotted fingers lying there would provide some kind of inspiration.
‘I’m still waiting for an answer, princess.’
The resolve which had deepened his voice made Sabrina frown at him in alarm. ‘That sounded like a threat!’
He shook his head. ‘Of course it isn’t a threat,’ he said patiently. ‘But surely you aren’t deluding yourself that we don’t need to talk about what happened.’
She bit her trembling lip. ‘C-can’t we just call it history, and forget it ever happened?’ she croaked.
‘No,’ he said flatly. ‘Of course we can’t. I think you owe me some sort of explanation, Sabrina.’
‘I owe you nothing!’
He wanted to know. He needed to. ‘Why did you run away the next morning?’
‘Why do you think?’ She shuddered as she remembered waking up all warm and replete in his bed. ‘Because I realised what I had done! And it was never going to be any more than a one-night stand, was it, Guy? Besides, you lied to me—so how could I trust you?’
‘And wouldn’t it have been more sensible to have thought all this through before it actually happened?’ he demanded. ‘I didn’t drag you back there with me! You weren’t drunk!’
His condemnation was like a slap in the face and Sabrina flinched beneath his accusing stare.
‘So what was I?’ he demanded. ‘A substitute? Did you close your eyes and pretend it was Michael?’ He ignored her look of pain, remorselessly grinding the words out. ‘Any man would have done for you, wouldn’t he, Sabrina? I just happened to come along and press the right buttons.’
She met the dark, accusing fire in his eyes. ‘You honestly think that?’
‘I don’t know what to think. It’s not a situation I’ve ever found myself in before. Thank God.’ His gaze narrowed into a piercing grey laser, and then he saw her white, bewildered face and felt a sudden slap of conscience. ‘You look terrible,’ he said bluntly.
‘Thanks.’ She sat up a bit and sucked in a breath. ‘I’m feeling a bit better, actually.’
‘Well, you don’t look it. ‘I’m going to ring down for some soup for you. You can’t go home in that state.’
‘Guy, no—’
‘Guy, yes,’ he countered, reaching out to pick up the phone, completely overriding her objections.
Soup and sandwiches arrived with the kind of speed which suggested to Sabrina that he might have already ordered them. Had that been the muffled conversation with the landlord she had overheard?
She told herself that she felt too weak to face food, but the stern look on his dark face warned her that if she refused to eat, he didn’t look averse to picking up the spoon and actually feeding her!
Guy sat and watched her. The thick broth sent steam over her pale features, but gradually, as the bowl emptied, some of the roses began to creep back into her cheeks. He saw her half-heartedly bite into a sandwich and then look at it with something approaching awakening—as if she had only just learnt how good food could taste when you were hungry.
Sabrina