The Determined Virgin. Daphne Clair

in headlights, giving him no hint of reciprocation, no encouragement, and he’d deflected the kiss to her cheek.

      Hours afterwards she’d fancied she could still feel the warmth of his lips on her skin.

      It’s called sexual attraction, she acknowledged with dawning surprise on Thursday morning, as she knelt on the floor of the workroom, packing a large glass vase into a shipping box. A normal, healthy emotion.

      She sat back on her heels, incongruously struck by the revelation. It was several minutes before she roused herself.

      After taping the box she reached for an air-freight label, peeled off the backing and smoothed the label with its familiar embossed angel wings onto the box. Her finger traced its outline.

      Gabriel. The name of an angel, but angels were sexless, genderless. And Gabriel Hudson was all male.

      Rhiannon had recognised that at their first meeting. Her predictable reaction had been alarm, but when he’d shown his concern after her fall the alarm was tempered by other less expected emotions, so foreign to her that she hadn’t at first recognised them.

      She was attracted to Gabriel. Not just distantly, aesthetically appreciative of his quite spectacular good looks, but physically affected.

      And he’d quietly but unmistakably signalled that he found her…at least interesting.

      An echo of the shock recoil she’d felt when he’d told her he’d ‘asked around’ about her sent out a warning signal. Reaching for a felt-tip pen, she waited a moment to steady her hand before writing an address on the Angelair label.

      She’d been mistaken about his reason. Gabriel had wanted to know if she was good enough at her craft to work on his mural. That was natural, and perfectly legitimate. She couldn’t go through life being suspicious of the motives of every male who crossed her path.

      Fear was a prison. Maybe this was her chance to break out of it. Many women of her age had already had several lovers.

      The pen slipped in her fingers, making a smudge. Lovers?

      She tightened her grip, took a shaky breath and completed the label with care as the door chime indicated someone had entered the shop and she heard Peri offer his help.

      Gabriel hadn’t suggested he wanted to be her lover. Was she was reading too much into the warmth of his smile, the lurking appreciation in his eyes? Perhaps she’d mistaken simple courtesy and his unnecessary remorse for reciprocation of her own tentative and muddled feelings.

      That would be a change. She stifled a nervous laugh. After all, Gabriel Hudson must have his pick of glamorous women, and although Rhiannon was aware she had been given an attractive face and figure, she made little effort to enhance them beyond meticulous grooming. ‘You could wait until you’re asked,’ she muttered aloud, with a small grimace.