Guy nodded. So Sabrina had no father either.
‘No one will give the poor girl a chance to get over it. And the trouble is that this is where she grew up. Everyone knows her, and everyone knew Michael—and she can’t escape from their memories. I think she should get out and have a little fun. That’s why I persuaded her to go to Venice—she’d always wanted to go there—but when she came back she looked worse than ever.’
‘Have you quite finished, Mum?’
‘Can’t you get away somewhere?’ queried Guy thoughtfully.
‘Like where?’ She met the stormy challenge of his gaze. She had tried fleeing to Venice and look where that had got her.
‘How about London? That’s where most people want to go.’
‘London’s expensive,’ said Sabrina defensively. ‘And I don’t earn very much. And, besides, I don’t really feel like going into a city where I don’t know anyone.’
‘But you know me, Sabrina,’ came the surprising response.
She violently began spearing at a piece of lobster.
‘You know you can always come and stay with me.’ He’d spoken the words aloud before he’d realised their implication.
For a second Sabrina froze, and then slowly lifted her head to gaze at him in disbelief. ‘What did you say?’ she whispered.
‘I have a flat,’ he said. ‘A big flat—plenty big enough to accommodate another person. Come and use the spare room for a while.’
She thought of sharing a flat with him, even temporarily, and her heart began to bang against her ribcage—until she forced herself to quash the hopeless dream and replace it with reality. ‘It’s a crazy idea,’ she said woodenly. ‘I don’t have a job to go to.’
‘So find one.’ He shrugged.
‘It isn’t as easy as that, Guy,’ said Mrs Cooper gently.
Sabrina found herself thinking that Wells did have another branch, in the capital, but loyally she found herself confirming her mother’s words. ‘No, it isn’t.’
Guy stirred his coffee, as if he didn’t really care, and Mrs Cooper got up from the table and beamed. ‘Will you excuse me for a minute?’
Guy rose to his feet until Mrs Cooper had disappeared, and Sabrina thought what impeccable manners he had. She stared across the table at him as he sat back down. ‘It’s very…kind of you, Guy, but you know very well I can’t accept your offer.’
He coolly returned her stare. ‘Do I?’
She narrowed her eyes in frustration. ‘Don’t be so obtuse.’
‘Then don’t be so damned evasive—and come right out with what it is you want to say!’
Surely he wasn’t really expecting her to say it out loud. But, from his unhelpful silence, he clearly was. Reminding herself that they had already been as intimate as any couple could be, Sabrina drew in a deep breath.
‘How could I come and stay with you, not knowing—’ she met his gaze without flinching ‘—whether we…we…’
‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ he snapped, as the meaning of her words became clear to him. ‘Do you really think that I’m about to start extracting rent in the form of sexual favours?’
‘That wasn’t what I said!’
‘That’s what you meant, though—isn’t it?’
She shook her head, but without conviction.
He leaned back in his chair and looked at her speculatively. ‘You told me you like to be in control, didn’t you? Is that why you’re afraid to come? Afraid that you’ll lose it again around me? Scared to risk it?’
She met the challenge in his eyes. ‘Do you think you’re so irresistible?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe that’s something we should both find out. Maybe we both need this opportunity to redeem ourselves.’
She stared at him in confusion. ‘Redeem ourselves?’
‘Sure. This is the perfect opportunity to demonstrate that we’re not completely ruled by our hormones—’
‘That’s a very nice way to put it!’
‘Sabrina, there isn’t,’ he told her bluntly, ‘a nice way to put it.’
‘So you’re saying that the relationship will be platonic?’
‘No, that’s not what I’m saying at all,’ he countered. ‘I’m not promising anything.’
Sabrina began to get a glimmering of understanding about what he meant. Put two people who were sexually attracted to each other in a flat, and in the end it all came down to who cracked first. And who didn’t. Control, that was what this was all about. Power and control. But she said nothing more as her mother had begun to walk back towards the table.
Nothing more was said on the subject during the drive back to her house, and Sabrina felt an unwilling sense of emptiness as Guy said goodbye to her mother, then turned to her, his enigmatic grey eyes glittering darkly.
‘Goodbye, Sabrina.’
‘Goodbye, Guy. Thanks for lunch.’
He gave a brief hard smile before climbing into his car.
Sabrina and her mother stood and watched the powerful car move away.
‘You aren’t going to go, are you, darling?’ asked Mrs Cooper. Sabrina carried on looking, even though the tail-lights had long since disappeared.
‘I don’t know, Mum,’ she said honestly. ‘I just don’t know.’
SABRINA’S pulse was hammering as she punched out the number, and it hammered even more when the connection was made and a rich, deep voice said, ‘Guy Masters.’
She opened her mouth but no words emerged.
The voice sounded impatient now. ‘Guy Masters,’ he repeated irritatedly.
‘Guy. It’s me—Sabrina.’
There was a two-second pause which seemed like an eternity.
‘Sabrina Cooper,’ she rushed on. ‘Remember? We met—’
‘Yes, of course I remember you, Sabrina. How are you?’
For a moment she was tempted to hang up and forget the whole stupid idea, but she had spent the last few weeks changing her life around. She couldn’t back out now.
‘I’ve managed to get a transfer!’ she said, and then, in case he had completely forgotten his proposal, rushed on, ‘To the London branch of Wells. They’ve said I can work there for six weeks. The bookshop,’ she added, just in case he had forgotten that.
‘Oh.’ There was a pause. ‘Good. So, when are you coming to stay?’
He did remember. Thank God. ‘I can start first thing on Monday.’ Sabrina crossed the fingers of her left hand and pulled a ghastly grimace at herself in the mirror. ‘If it’s all right with you, I thought I’d come on Sunday afternoon.’
‘This Sunday?’
‘If that’s a problem—’
‘No.’ The deep voice sounded thoughtful. ‘No, that shouldn’t be a problem.’
She thought he might make the effort to sound a little more convincing.