‘Dragged on!’ Liz’s laughter was as bubbly as the champagne. ‘You see how much she hates romance?’
‘I don’t hate romance,’ Emma amended quickly. ‘And you know I love working for you. I just don’t believe in the books you write, that’s all, Liz. You know what a cynic I am.’
Out of the corner of her eye, she suddenly noticed Patrick studying her with a smile on his tough mouth. Prickling, she gave him a cold, haughty look. He was the kind of man she could read like a book, and she knew precisely what that cynical smile of his meant. He thought all cynical women were available for sex without strings attached. Playboys always thought like that. Well, he could just go and playboy himself to death, if he thought she was that kind of woman.
Emma might have been cynical, but that didn’t mean she was cheap. Far from it. She wanted truth, honesty, integrity. Real emotions, real thoughts, no pretence, no lies…
What was wrong with romantic love was that it wasn’t the truth—any more than money, social position and material success were the truth. There was only one truth worth bothering with in life, and that was the fact that everyone was going to die.
Emma’s eyes glided contemptuously over the handsome playboy, Patrick Kinsella, glided on past him, flickered out to the sea and sky, which were hers as long as she was alive, and far more precious than all the material success or romantic delusion in the world.
The spirit, she thought with a slow, philosophical smile, is something which cannot be bought, and which lives on after death, like a soft sea breeze on that halcyon sky. Now that’s the only romance I’m prepared to believe in.
‘You’re not interested in romance at all?’ Natasha seemed to read her mind. ‘Or gorgeous, sexy men?’
Emma laughed cynically. ‘Gorgeous, sexy men are always a pleasure to look at, but usually inside they’re weak, selfish, vain, conceited and arrogant.’ Her smile flashed contempt at Patrick Kinsella. ‘I’m not interested in packaging. Only in what’s inside.’
‘Worthy sentiments,’ drawled Natasha, ‘but isn’t your life a little dull without romance?’
‘Hardly! I have a wonderful job, a lot of friends, opportunities for travel, and a very interesting future. What more could I ask for?’
‘A man.’ Natasha toyed with her glass in one redtaloned hand.
Emma smiled at her expression. Women like this little man-eater always tried to throw darts at Emma’s confidence in herself, presumably because it rattled them to think that a woman could be quite happy without being obsessed by men, flirtation, romance.
‘Every woman needs a man.’
‘Needs?’ Emma said. ‘I need to eat, I need to breathe, I need to sleep—but need a man? No, I don’t think that’s a statement I can agree with. After all, I’m going to die one day, and I can’t take him with me any more than I can take money or possessions or achievements.’
‘All right, then!’ Natasha’s eyes narrowed. ‘You’d like a man! Someone to love, to kiss, to flirt with.’
‘Well, that’s definitely debatable.’ Emma arched cool dark brows with amusement. ‘If I don’t want to kiss someone, I won’t, and there’s an end to it.’
‘And if you do want to kiss someone?’ Patrick Kinsella suddenly stepped forward, pushed his dark glasses up on to his head, and she saw his eyes. She was so struck by them that she just stared at him in silence for a split-second.
Those eyes were blue—dazzling blue, steely blue, Van Gogh sky-blue, and they seemed to fill the whole deck of the yacht, the whole town of St Tropez. She could no longer see his face or the colour of his hair or even his height or bare chest.
All she could see were those eyes, blazing at her like the brightest lights she had ever seen.
They were so at odds with her initial opinion of him— a handsome, cynical, sex-obsessed playboy—that for a second she was too knocked off balance to speak.
‘Cat got your tongue, Miss Baccarat?’ Patrick drawled.
She quickly pulled her shattered wits together. ‘If I wanted to kiss someone, I would do just that—kiss them!’
He laughed. ‘Are you telling me you’ve never wanted to? How old are you? Twelve?’
‘Well, of course I’ve wanted to!’ she snapped, flushing hotly. ‘But only when I was younger, more naïve, and believed in romance the way every teenager does.’
He was unfazed by her anger. ‘Which do you hate most? Romance or sexual attraction?’
‘What an impertinent question!’
‘Why is it impertinent?’
‘I would have thought that was perfectly obvious!’
‘Because I mentioned sex? Very interesting. I think you’ve answered my question.’
Her face flamed. ‘That’s just the kind of stupid, sexist remark I’d expect from an arrogant playboy!’
‘Resorting to personal insults already?’ He laughed softly. ‘Well, well, well. So it is sex that bothers you.’
‘Don’t you try to Freudian-analyse me, Mr Kinsella!’ Her green eyes flared with temper as she pushed her dark glasses up on to her head, glaring at him. ‘The truth is that I don’t hate either romance or sexual attraction! I just see through them.’
‘How do you do that?’
‘What do you mean—how do I do that?’ She was livid because her anger hadn’t stopped him pushing at her. ‘It must be perfectly obvious!’
‘Not to me.’
‘Then you must be even younger than the twelve you accused me of being!’
He laughed, enjoying her rage. ‘That annoyed you, did it?’
‘Of course it did!’ She was determined to remain lucid and intelligent, not to lose her cool again. ‘And I’m surprised at a man of your obvious experience saying you don’t see through either romance or sexual attraction. I should think you’ve had more than your fair share of relationships based on nothing but plain lust!’
He arched cool dark brows, revealing respect in his blue eyes at the direct honesty of her words. ‘Clearly— so have you.’
‘Of course I have.’ She remained blindingly honest. ‘I’m a young woman, I’m reasonably attractive, and I’ve had more than my fair share of men trying to seduce me.’
‘Trying to?’
‘Yes—trying to!’
‘Obviously you never let them succeed.’
‘Why should I?’ Her face flushed unexpectedly. She felt defensive, lifting her chin. ‘I have no intention of being hoodwinked by romantic delusion in order to let a man get the better of me sexually. That’s what the game is, isn’t it? That’s how playboys reach their goal!’
He smiled, studying her assessingly. ‘True, but not all men are playboys. You must have met at least one decent man since your husband died—surely? Or are you like most women, and find decent men boring?’
‘They’re certainly not as boring and predictable as playboys or fortune-hunters!’
‘Fortune-hunters? A rich woman as well as a cynic, then?’
‘Money and cynicism go hand in hand when everyone you meet just wants to relieve you of both your money and your virtue. And in truth I’d give all my money away to find one honest,