‘Are you suggesting that revenge was the only reason I went to bed with you?’ he queried in a slow, dangerous voice.
‘What else am I supposed to think? I should imagine that for a man who is as sexually experienced as you obviously are one extra notch on the bedpost would be neither here nor there, would it? And, of course, you were working on the theory that I would fall hopelessly in love with you. That would, I suppose,’ she added, almost reflectively, ‘make giving me the push so pleasurable. Only I expect that in your wildest dreams you did not expect to hit the jackpot, did you, Geraint?’
He had gone very still, a faint but unmistakable line of distaste hardening the sensual curves of his mouth. ‘The jackpot?’ he queried. ‘I’m not sure that I understand what you mean, Lola.’
She suspected that she was going too far, maybe already had gone too far, but she was in too deep now to stop, on a roll, the words too steeped in bitterness to be halted. ‘Me,’ she explained simply. ‘The jackpot.’ And, seeing his still uncompre-hending look, she lanced home her point with the addition of a cruel smile. ‘I mean, if you’re going to try to hurt someone. . . if you’re going to bed them in order to dump them. . . then what better subject to choose than a virgin?’
He had gone very white, his grey eyes blazing with contemptuous fire as he looked at her in bitter disbelief. ‘As I recall,’ he drawled deliberately, ‘it was me who was just about to leave and you who begged me to stay.’
How dared he? Lola stared back. How dared he stand there looking as if he was the one who had been wronged and made a complete and utter fool of? ‘Yes, and more fool me!’ she stormed. She looked into his eyes and was suddenly flooded with a violent urge to seek her own form of revenge—and, what was more, she knew the perfect way to go about it! ‘And what if I’m pregnant?’ she asked quietly.
He threw her a ruthless smile. ‘But we didn’t have unprotected sex, Lola—remember?’
She willed the blush to stay away but it seemed to take great delight in flooding her cheeks with a hot pink colour.
Oh, yes, she could remember all right—how Geraint had reached into the back pocket of his jeans for the kind of small foil packet she had only ever seen on sale in chemist shops and ladies’ lavatories. She had shivered slightly as it had brought the reality of what she was about to do crashing home to her, and her feelings at the time had wavered between relief that he was obviously sensible enough to prevent any unwanted pregnancy occurring and disillusionment that he had been so prepared. Did he always carry condoms, she had wondered disappointedly, or had he just been so sure that she would capitulate?
But then his mouth had come down hungrily to seek out all the erotic places of her body, and Lola had given up caring.
Until now.
She glared at him. ‘No, we did not have unprotected sex,’ she agreed cuttingly. ‘But the method we used is not guaranteed to be one hundred per cent effective, is it?’ she ground out. ‘As far as I am aware abstinence is the only technique which can lay claim to that!’
If she had thought he was white before, she had been exaggerating, because now his face looked absolutely bloodless. ‘What are you saying?’ he asked, in a voice which was so tightly controlled that it sounded as though it might snap at any minute.
‘I’m saying that I am right in the middle of my cycle!’ she lied shamelessly. ‘I’m saying that, although it’s a very small chance, I could be pregnant! And what price your petty revenge then, Geraint?’
There was a pause, and when he spoke again his face had resumed something of its normal colour, though the chilly light which glittered from his eyes made Lola want to slink out of the room in shame.
‘We could stand here trading insults all day,’ he told her frostily. ‘But there seems little point. And there’s certainly no point in my staying.’
He pushed his teacup away and stood up, and he looked so formidably tall and strong and powerful that Lola knew an aching and desolate sense of despair, but somehow she managed to keep it from her face.
All Geraint would see would be that proud little look of indifference she had plastered all over her features. ‘No,’ she agreed. ‘No point at all.’
‘Perhaps you’d like to inform me if there are any—’ his mouth tightened ‘—repercussions.’ He must have seen her bewildered expression for he added harshly and angrily, as though the words cost him a huge effort, ‘If you do happen to be pregnant, I will, of course, stand by you in whatever capacity you might wish—’
But he broke off mid-sentence, as if he was too appalled to continue, and, with a curt yet courteous nod of farewell—like a character from a costume drama—he strode out of the room.
Lola heard him going downstairs, but she did not hear the front door slam nor the gravel crunch beneath his firm step—because her broken-hearted sobs drowned out everything else.
LOLA woke next morning with swollen, gritty eyes and a dull ache where her heart used to be.
Now what? she asked herself as she picked up her wristwatch to discover that it was almost ten o’clock.
She showered and dressed and went downstairs to the kitchen where she made herself some real coffee in a vain attempt to cheer herself up. She poured herself a steaming mugful and sat at the table, gazing out at a forlorn-looking garden, the rain, which was pelting down, plastering daffodils to the sodden grass.
It was at times like this that she wished she had a normal job. With normal hours. So that for eight hours a day at least she could immerse herself in some mind-numbing tasks which might enable her to forget the conniving Geraint Howell-Williams.
But it was a futile hope. She now had six empty days looming ahead of her before she was due to fly again. Six days which stretched before her like a prison sentence. Except that while a prisoner would be dreaming of freedom she was doing her utmost not to dream of Geraint.
Which appalled her.
How could she give a second thought to a man who had so heartlessly seduced her? Who had taken her virginity without a qualm, motivated by an emotion as base as revenge?
He was a man she must now learn to hate, to ruthlessly erase from her heart and her mind—certainly not a man to dream of longingly.
Lola shuddered as she remembered her shock at discovering a tiny bruise on one aching breast in the shower this morning. Had that dark flowering been produced by the sweet way he had suckled her?
What if she really was pregnant? It was extremely unlikely, true, but stranger things had happened.
And why didn’t the thought of a baby produce stark horror—instead of a kind of wistful yearning?
The sharp ring of the doorbell had Lola pushing her coffee-mug away and then frantically running over to the mirror to check her appearance.
Ghastly!
Her red eyes made her look as though she was about to audition for the leading role in Dracula and her usually healthy, glowing skin was as white as paper. Well, that was just too bad! She hoped that Geraint recognised that he was the person responsible for making her look like a ghoul—perhaps it might make him feel an uncomfortable pang of guilt!
She pulled the front door open, her belligerent expression dying immediately when she saw that it was not Geraint who stood there but Triss Alexander, and, what was more, that the leggy ex-model was carrying her sleeping baby, cradled tightly against her shoulder.
‘Hi,’ Triss said tentatively, her enormous eyes sweeping over Lola’s pinched expression. ‘How are you?’
There was