‘For your information, Marcus isn’t my boyfriend,’ she snapped, giving Mike a withering look. ‘And don’t presume to project your own moral failings onto other people!’
He gave her an admiring glance. ‘You’ve grown up in the last seven months, Kit.’
‘Oh, please!’ Her look of disdain intensified. ‘Haven’t I already made it obvious that you hold absolutely no charm for me? To the point where I actually walked out on a very well paid job just to avoid being anywhere near you?’
The handsome face grew dark with anger. ‘You always did consider yourself superior—’
‘I did not!’ she cut in indignantly, more stung by the remark than he could possibly imagine. ‘I simply didn’t—and still don’t,’ she continued heatedly, ‘find you in the least attractive!’
He appeared unmoved by her outburst. ‘Well, you’re wasting your time as far as Marcus Maitland is concerned.’
‘It’s my time to waste!’ she came back tartly, turning away from the array of desserts, having suddenly lost her appetite.
She already knew how stupid it was for her to be attracted to Marcus, didn’t need this obnoxious man to tell her so!
Mike shook his head, a taunting smile curving his lips. ‘You’re way out of your depth, Kit.’
Her eyes flashed deeply grey. ‘I would much rather have depth than be shallow!’ Like you, her words obviously implied.
So much so that even the thick-skinned Mike Reynolds couldn’t help but know exactly what she meant, his handsome face once again flushed with anger as he grated, ‘As long as you don’t mind being just another pretty face.’
Kit gave him a pitying look. ‘You’re just being pathetic now,’ she dismissed contemptuously, knowing that in a woman his behaviour would have been classed as bitchy rather than pathetic!
“‘The truth always hurts”,’ he quoted nastily.
Kit wasn’t about to give up. ‘You wouldn’t recognize the truth if it jumped up and bit you on the nose!’
To her surprise Mike laughed at this insulting remark.
But his next move surprised her even more as he reached out to pull her against him to kiss her on the mouth. Hard.
She jerked away angrily, totally bewildered by his action. ‘What on earth—?’
‘You always were a lot of fun, Kit,’ he told her cheekily, a maliciously triumphant gleam in his eyes now.
‘Yes, that’s Kit, all right.’ Marcus spoke from just behind her. ‘Fun and laughter all the way!’
Kit’s face paled as she turned to look at Marcus, feeling slightly sick as she saw the contempt in those deep blue eyes of his as he looked back at her.
Deservedly so, she acknowledged heavily, knowing that Mike had done this on purpose, that he must have seen Marcus’s return and had deliberately kissed her.
She pulled sharply away from Mike, uncaring that his fingers bruised her arms as she did so. ‘You can’t possibly believe I was enjoying that?’ She turned to Marcus disbelievingly.
He looked at her searchingly for several long seconds before turning back to Mike, his expression grimmer than ever. ‘I believe you owe Kit an apology,’ he said tersely.
‘Do I?’ Mike came back aggressively.
‘Is there a problem?’ Desmond Hayes enquired as he approached them, having obviously already seen that there was and moved smoothly away from the group he had been conversing with.
‘Nothing I can’t handle,’ Marcus assured him tightly. ‘I suggest that in future—’ he turned back to Mike Reynolds ‘—you save your less than obvious charms for someone who is more interested in them than Kit appears to be!’
‘And if I don’t?’ the other man challenged.
‘That’s up to you, of course.’ Marcus shrugged. ‘But I should warn you that I have no intention of letting you upset Kit.’
Kit could have wept at the scene that was unfolding in front of her eyes, couldn’t believe this was happening.
‘I believe that at the moment both you gentlemen are upsetting Kit,’ Desmond intervened, at the same time putting a protective hand on her shoulder. ‘I suggest we leave the two of you to sort this out in private.’
‘That’s fine by me,’ Marcus snapped, his icy gaze not leaving Mike’s angrily flushed face.
‘And me,’ Mike concurred, looking at Marcus with intense dislike. ‘If anything, you’re even more arrogant than your girlfriend,’ he told Marcus.
Kit gasped. ‘I told you, I’m not—’
‘Leave them to it, my dear,’ Desmond advised, turning her away from the other two men and back into the throng of the party. ‘Don’t you know better than to try to come between two males fighting over territory?’ he chided, reaching out to take a glass of champagne from a passing waiter and hand it to her. ‘Drink some of that,’ he encouraged. ‘It will make you feel better.’
Kit didn’t feel anything was going to succeed in doing that as she saw Marcus and Mike leave the house by the French doors. Doors that very firmly closed behind them!
‘They’ll be fine,’ Desmond assured her laughingly. ‘I believe Marcus was a champion boxer when he was at Cambridge. Unless, of course, it’s Mike Reynolds you’re worried about?’ He raised amused brows as the idea suddenly occurred to him.
‘Not in the least,’ Kit told him firmly, sipping her champagne agitatedly. ‘Tell me, does hitting another man actually ever solve anything?’
‘Not usually, no,’ Desmond confirmed. ‘But it makes you feel a hell of a lot better!’ he said with relish.
Kit laughed too. It was impossible not to, this man’s expression was so full of boyish mischief. In fact, it was easy to see, when he was amusingly charming like this, exactly why Desmond had been married three times.
‘All the things you’ve heard about me are true,’ Desmond said, those shrewd blue eyes seeming to read her thoughts exactly. ‘Except one of them,’ he added softly, suddenly serious. ‘I don’t intend letting my third wife divorce me. She’s the love of my life,’ he told Kit quietly as she looked at him enquiringly.
It was too much on top of everything else that had happened to her this evening; Kit’s eyes filled with sudden tears at the utter desolation she detected in the gentleness of his voice.
‘It does happen, you know,’ Desmond told her candidly. ‘The so-called biggest of womanizers, when they find the right woman, will never look at another one.’
‘I’m sorry.’ She bowed her head, searching through her small evening bag for the tissue she had placed in there earlier. ‘I know I’m being silly. It’s just—’
‘You’re falling in love with Marcus,’ he said knowingly.
Kit raised her head to look around them worriedly, concerned that someone might hear their conversation, reassured when she saw that no one was listening. She turned back to Desmond. ‘Of course I’m not falling in love with Marcus—’
‘Of course you aren’t,’ Desmond echoed her words teasingly. ‘In the same way I’m not still in love with my wife.’
Kit gave a rueful smile. ‘No, I really mean it—’
‘So do I,’ Desmond encouraged sympathetically. ‘Ah, the victor returns,’ he said with satisfaction after a glance