No worse than she thought of herself, quite honestly, she decided. Her body was racked by an unconscious little shudder as she lathered soap over one of her acutely aching breasts and remembered how understanding he had seemed, as though he was really interested in hearing what she had to say.
Well, more fool her! That so-called understanding had been shallow and superficial—there was only one thing that Geraint was interested in where she was concerned, and she was just going to have to make sure he didn’t get it!
But what if he came to find her? What if she let him into her room and he started exercising that irresistible sorcery of his and she ended up falling into his arms and letting him make love to her—just as Marnie had predicted earlier?
Lola drew herself up short. Was she really so weak and pathetic and untrusting of her own actions that she was afraid to risk being alone with Geraint Howell-Williams in case he kissed all her doubts away? What was she—a woman or a wimp?
Let him come, she thought with determination as she boiled the hotel kettle then added water to an ancient-looking teabag. Let him try his damndest and beat the door down.
And then let him see how strong she could be!
Feeling much more resolute, Lola felt her appetite return and she hunted around in the mini-bar. She had done nothing but pick at her green salad in the restaurant.
But a quick search revealed that Marnie had eaten just about everything there was to eat and Lola couldn’t face waiting for Room Service to arrive. So she was forced to go to bed with her stomach rumbling, having consumed nothing more than a cup of black tea of uncertain age.
Foolishly, and hating herself for doing it, Lola lay awake for ages, listening to the sounds of other hotel guests returning from their evenings out, but Geraint did not come.
Even when her eyelids began to drift down, she was aware that her senses remained half-alert to the possibility of his appearance.
But still he did not come.
Poised on the dreamy edge of sleep, Lola was immensely irritated to realise that her last waking thought was to be one of profound disappointment!
BY FOUR O’CLOCK the following afternoon, as Lola drove her zippy little yellow car through the impressive navy and golden gates of St Fiacre’s, Geraint Howell-Williams had been consigned to his proper place in her memory.
Nowhere!
OK, she wasn’t denying that there was definitely some sort of powerful sexual chemistry between the two of them—because only a fool would deny that!—but clearly there was no future for them.
They didn’t seem to actually like one another very much—and just because their bodies went into overdrive whenever they were near each other that certainly was not a secure basis on which to begin a relationship!
The yellow car turned into the driveway of Marchwood House with an exuberant little spray of gravel as Lola put her foot defiantly down on the accelerator. She had been looking forward to these days off and she was not going to let her chance meeting with an insufferable Welshman spoil her hard-earned rest!
As the car stopped Lola experienced the by now familiar little sensation of awe as she stared up at the elegant, three-storeyed white house, with its impressive porticos and the two boxed bay trees which stood on either side of the shiny black front door. She still couldn’t quite believe that she owned this magnificent pile!
After managing to unlock the front door—which was a feat comparable to breaking into Fort Knox—Lola dumped her suitcases in the utility room and went off to see if there was any post, shrugging off her jacket as she went and impatiently unbuttoning her blue uniform shirt.
The house was much too hot, she decided, and turned the thermostat right down. She had been advised to leave the central heating on whenever she was away on a trip, especially in winter when there was a very real risk of the pipes freezing over. And although it was March the weather had been unsettled enough for her to continue doing just that.
However, the atmosphere was sultry enough for the house to be mistaken for a greenhouse at the moment! Lola wiped her damp brow with the back of her hand and bent down to pick up the post.
As well as the usual sundry bills and an invitation to the Dream-makers ball in May there was a letter from her mother, declining Lola’s invitation to come and spend Easter at Marchwood and telling her she had decided to spend the holiday weekend quietly on her own.
Lola sighed, disappointed but not surprised. As Marnie had pointed out, her mother’s visits had been infrequent enough when she had lived in her scruffy little flat, yet in all the six months that she had been living at Marchwood her mother had not visited once.
When she had first discovered that Peter had left her the house, Lola had worried that June Hennessy might be suspicious of her daughter’s relationship with Peter Featherstone. So Lola had told her mother outright that there had been nothing of a sexual nature between her and her benefactor, and Mrs Hennessy had, to her credit, sighed with slightly over-the-top relief and believed her.
So why was her mother still being so cagey about coming here?
Lola sighed.
Unless she was challenged directly, as she had been by Geraint in the restaurant last night, she tried her hardest to play down her inheritance. She disliked being envied and envy was usually the overriding emotion experienced by people when they discovered that she had been bequeathed a million-pound house for basically having a friendly smile and soft heart.
But what those people failed to realise was just how much it cost to actually run a house this size, particularly on an estate with the prestige of St Fiacre’s, which had such strict regulations governing the appearance of all its houses and gardens.
Lola did as much gardening as she could, but she did work full-time, and just keeping the extensive grounds in order was costing her an absolute fortune in help.
And sooner or later, she recognised as the sharp peal of the front doorbell penetrated her thoughts, she was going to have to think about selling up.
She had completely forgotten to put the safety chain on the door, and her mind was distracted as she absently pulled the door open, to find Geraint standing there, his legs slightly apart and his hands on his hips.
He looked like a cowboy, she thought, with that aggressively masculine stance which immediately made her feel all small and weak and feminine. And smitten.
Which was not the way she wanted to feel at all! She opened her mouth to lambast him, but he beat her to it.
‘Are you completely mad?’ he demanded, without any kind of preamble.
His clipped query took the wind right out of her sails, and Lola just stood there, too flabbergasted to respond—and, if she was perfectly honest, too overwhelmed by the sight of him to have the will to do anything other than gaze at him hungrily.
In daylight he looked even better than he had done in the restaurant last night. He wore a cream-coloured silk sweater which provided the perfect foil for the thick, dark hair which curled so invitingly around the tanned column of his neck, and an old pair of jeans.
Lola had once thought that she could not imagine him wearing jeans but now she recognised that that might just have been her mind protecting her from the prospect of actually seeing him in close-fitting, faded denim which clung indecently to every contour.
Because the pale blue material emphasised every centimetre of those thighs—and Geraint had the most magnificent thighs imaginable, she thought lustfully. In fact, he had the finest physique Lola had ever seen. Finer than that of the movie star she had spotted jogging around St Fiacre’s the other