She heard the other girl’s high heels clipping across the shop and knew she was alone with him. Panic streaked through her; she pushed him away and his arm dropped.
Those bright eyes gleamed with what she grimly recognised as mockery. So he was finding the situation funny, was he? Her teeth met.
‘Feeling better now?’ he enquired softly.
‘Yes, thank you.’ Her voice was cold and remote, hiding the rage she felt although she suspected he wasn’t missing it; his argument was open, unhidden.
The shop assistant rushed back, breathlessly said, ‘The taxi’s waiting.’
‘Thank you.’ He looked at Pippa. ‘Maybe you should take the veil off before we go?’
‘We’ go? she thought. She wasn’t going anywhere with him.
But the assistant came to help her. ‘So, did you want the coronet?’
‘Yes, please.’ Pippa fumbled in her bag, found her credit card and held it out.
The assistant offered her the payment slip a moment later and she signed it, then took back her card and put it away, very slowly and carefully, deliberately delaying in the hope that he might go outside to talk to the taxi driver.
She might then have a chance to escape, run off down the road, but he waited beside her, perhaps anticipating her intention. Finally she had to leave the shop, as they walked out on to the pavement he held her elbow lightly, propelled her towards the taxi.
‘I don’t want to…’ she breathed.
‘You might faint again; we can’t have that.’ He smiled, lifting her into the back of the taxi.
She couldn’t quite catch what he said to the driver before climbing in beside her, but before she could ask him the taxi set off with a jerk which almost made her tumble forward on to the floor.
‘Do up your seat belt,’ she was ordered, and her companion leaned over to drag the belt across her shoulder and down to her waist, clip it into place, his long fingers brushing her thigh. He had a fresh, outdoor scent: pine, she decided, inhaling it. She wished he would stop invading her body space. It was far too disturbing.
‘Where did you tell the driver to go?’ she asked huskily as he sat back, not meeting the eyes that watched her as if he could read her every thought.
‘I feel it’s time we had a private chat. I told him to take us to my hotel. Have you had lunch?’
Agitated, she protested, ‘I’m not going to your hotel! I have to get back to work.’
‘You can ring and tell them you’ve been taken ill,’ he dismissed. ‘Have you had lunch?’
‘Yes,’ she lied, and received one of his dry, mocking glances.
‘Where? You came out of your office, caught a bus and went straight to that shop. Where could you have had lunch?’
‘You’ve been following me? Spying on me? How dare you? You had no right,’ she spluttered, very flushed now. ‘Were you on the bus? I didn’t see you.’
‘No, I followed in a taxi, then walked behind you along Bond Street.’
She thought harder, forehead wrinkled. ‘How did you know where I worked?’
‘Your fiancé told me where he worked, so I rang up and asked the switchboard if you worked there, too.’
Simple when you know how, she thought; she should have guessed he would track her down if he wanted to, but she hadn’t thought he would want to.
‘They tried to put me through, but someone in your office said you had just left, were going shopping in your lunch hour. I was ringing on my mobile from the foyer of the building. A minute later I saw you come out of the lift so I followed.’
She was speechless. He made it sound perfectly normal to follow people around, spy on them—nothing to get excited about. But she was so furious she couldn’t even get a word out.
He gave her a wry grin, eyes teasing. ‘Stop glaring at me. I had to see you. You knew that, from the minute his car crashed into mine. You knew we had to meet again, that we have a lot to talk about.’
‘We have nothing to talk about! I don’t want to talk to you at all. I just want to get back to my office and forget you exist.’
But she was so nervous that she put up a shaky hand to brush stray strands of bright hair away from her cheek, aware that he watched the tiny movement with those intent, glittering eyes.
‘And you think you can do that, Pippa?’ he drawled, moving even closer so that their bodies touched.
She couldn’t bear the contact, shifted away into the corner, body tense and shuddering.
‘Yes.’ But her eyes didn’t meet his and she felt him staring at the telltale pulse beating hard in her throat.
He reached out a hand; one long finger slid down her cheek then down her neck, awaking pulses everywhere it rested, until it pressed down into that pulse in her throat. ‘What’s the point of lying? You’re not convincing me; you’re only lying to yourself.’
‘Don’t touch me!’ she muttered, knocking his hand away.
The taxi turned into a hotel entrance, set back from the road. She looked up at the grand façade, ornate and baroque, with ironwork balconies outside every other widow, flags flying on the steep roof. She had heard of the hotel but never been inside it; it was far too expensive. Normally she would have loved to go there for lunch, but not with him.
‘You get out here; I’ll go on to my office!’ she insisted, holding on to the seat with both hands.
To her relief and surprise, he got out without replying and paid the driver. Only then did he turn back towards Pippa. ‘Out you get!’ He reached over and undid her seat belt before she had notice of his intention.
She wanted to yell, scream, hit him, but the hotel doorman had appeared behind him, magnificent in livery dripping with gold braid, smiling an obsequious welcome, and she was too embarrassed to make a scene in front of such an audience.
‘I can’t. Let me go,’ she said instead, very quietly, still hanging on to the seat.
‘Let me help you,’ he blandly murmured, and the next second he had taken her by the waist and was lifting her out of the taxi. Keeping his arm around her, he guided her up the steps into the hotel foyer while the doorman closed the taxi door and followed them. A moment later Pippa found herself being propelled into a lift; the door shut and the lift began to rise.
There was nobody else in the lift with them; she felt free to break away from him, using every ounce of her strength, looking at him with angry hostility as she reeled against the lift wall.
‘How dare you manhandle me like this? And if you think you can get me up to your bedroom…’
‘Suite,’ he coolly corrected. ‘There’s a sitting room; we can have lunch there.’
‘I am not going with you! Bedroom or suite, I am not going anywhere alone with you!’
‘You’re alone with me now,’ he pointed out in silky tones, leaning over her in what she interpreted as menace, despite the laughter gleaming in his eyes. His proximity was threat enough, even when he didn’t touch her.
‘Stop it! Keep away from me!’ she whispered, trembling.
His face was inches away from her own. ‘What are you so afraid of, Pippa? Me? Or yourself?’
Confused, she muttered, ‘Don’t be stupid. How can I be afraid of myself?’
‘Of what you