The realisation that things were spiralling out of control was what cleared Lola’s mind from the constricting mists of desire, and the facts began to seep coldly into her brain as she forced herself to remember how he had insulted her.
And yet here she was allowing herself to be meekly compromised by necking in a bush with him!
Angrily, she pushed him away. I don’t know what you think you‘re—’
‘Oh, spare me the hysterics, do,’ he interrupted calmly, and then he actually yawned—although Lola was convinced that it was deliberate! ‘When will you women realise that it really doesn’t count if you declare your unwillingness after the event? Particularly,’ he drawled insultingly, ‘when your willingness to participate was overwhelming at the time.’
His grey eyes glinted with remembered pleasure. ‘That was some kiss,’ he murmured softly, his eyes narrowing as he looked down at her, seeming taken aback by the dazed look on her face. And some of the abrasiveness had left his voice when he said, ‘Come on—I’ll walk you to the door.’
For about ten seconds Lola was completely speechless and then she made up for it. ‘Do you really think that I would let you anywhere near my house after that?’ she spluttered indignantly.
‘Why ever not?’ He looked perplexed.
‘Because I’m not used to being man-handled by jumped-up Lotharios who think that caveman tactics will have a woman swooning in their arms every time!’
‘And you are claiming not to have enjoyed my so-called caveman tactics?’ he drawled, his eyes glittering as he recalled that Lola had done exactly that. ‘I rest my case,’ he added insultingly as her hot, guilty cheeks added fuel to his argument.
‘Perhaps you’d better go,’ she suggested from between gritted teeth. Before she said something she might regret, she added silently.
‘Go? Sure.’ He gave her an unsettling smile and turned away with a lazy assurance which filled Lola with an inexplicable kind of fear. He did not look like a man who was going too far.
‘Goodnight, Lola.’
‘Wh-where are you going?’
‘Home.’ He raised his dark brows at her in sultry question. ‘Unless that was an oblique invitation for me to stay?’
‘Wh-where do you live?’ she demanded nervously. ‘On the estate?’
He smiled. ‘I’m afraid so. Although only temporarily, you understand. I’m staying at Dominic Dashwood’s house.’
‘B-but that’s next door!’ Lola spluttered. ‘To me!’
‘Exactly. So we’ll be neighbours.’ His eyes glinted with a wickedness that excited her, and with something else, too—something which unsettled her, unnerved her. Something she couldn’t define.
A chill, nebulous dread settled on her skin like a fog as she tried to imagine Geraint Howell-Williams living next door.
’N-neighbours?’ she stumbled.
‘Mmm. Now won’t that be fun, Lola?’
THE trolley rattled like a brass band as Lola struggled to push it up the last few yards of the aisle with something approaching dignity.
Perhaps Geraint Howell-Williams was right, she reflected as she tugged the tiny skirt down over her bottom. The yellow minis, edged with blue piping, left very little to the imagination. Or was it just something to do with her own rather curvy figure, which made the already inadequate skirt seem to ride even higher up her thighs?
And what the hell are you doing even thinking about Geraint Howell-Williams, anyway? she asked herself crossly. He is just a man you met for about an hour last night. A rude, arrogant, egotistical man who kissed you without asking permission first and let things rapidly get out of control. That’s how much you mean to him. That’s how much he respects you.
And you hate him! she told herself fiercely.
The only trouble was that saying the same thing over and over again did not necessarily make you believe it. She had already spent an almost sleepless night alternatively fretting and fuming, punching the pillow with a violence which alarmed her, and then feverishly burying her head in it as if it were Geraint’s face, like a woman possessed.
Consequently, she had drifted off just before the alarm clock rang, and she had staggered out of bed feeling like death—dreading the thought of having to face a flight to Rome, and then a stopover there.
By the time Lola pushed the trolley into the gallery, her best friend Mamie was waiting for her, pinching olives from the left-over hors d’oeuvres and shoving them into her mouth like a hamster.
Lola loved flying, but it was even better when you were working with someone you knew. And she and Mamie had started working at Atalanta Airlines together on the very same day, almost seven years ago.
‘You look terrible,’ observed Mamie, offering Lola an olive.
Lola waved her hand in refusal. ‘Thanks very much,’ she said waspishly.
‘Didn’t you sleep?’
Lola sighed. ‘You could say that.’
‘Any particular reason?’
Lola shook her head. It would not do her already pitiful reputation with men any good if she admitted to losing sleep over someone who was little more than a passing acquaintance!
‘Never mind.’ Marnie thoughtfully removed a piece of pimento from her fingernail. ‘I know just the thing to cheer you up. Or rather just the man! Have you noticed him yet?’
Lola began unloading the trays and wrinkled her nose. How she wished that people would not stub their cigarettes out in the sherry trifle! ‘Who?’ she asked absently. ‘Don’t tell me the captain has emerged from the cockpit and is strolling about smiling graciously and being pleasant to all the passengers?’
‘No, no, no!’ said Mamie. ‘Nothing as farfetched as that! No, I mean the guy two rows from the front in First Class.’
‘But I’m not working in First Class,’ Lola pointed out patiently. ‘Am I?’
‘That hasn’t stopped every other stewardess on the flight making it their business to go and look at him. Or should I say ogle him?’
‘I never look at passengers in that way,’ said Lola haughtily. ‘It’s unprofessional!’
Marnie had now started picking prawns off tiny triangles of brown bread and was curling them into her mouth with a long scarlet talon. ‘No, you don’t look at passengers—but you somehow get one of them to leave you a whacking great mansion worth almost a million pounds! Nice work, Lola!’
Lola opened her mouth to protest, as she seemed to have been protesting ever since the totally unexpected legacy had come her way, then shut it again. She had all but given up trying to explain away her unexpected stroke of fortune.
Even if she painted the facts as baldly as possible—that a passenger she had met through her job and her charity work with the airline had taken a shine to her and left her a whacking great housewell, people still put two and two together and came out with a rather grubby five.
Sex, sex, sex. That was all anybody seemed to think about these days! And even if the giver of the house had been over sixty and the recipient a mere twenty-five all but the very nicest people tended to think that Lola had had a red-hot affair with him.
When the truth was that she had never had a red-hot affair with anyone!
‘How’s your mother?’ asked Mamie. ‘Has she seen the mighty inheritance yet?’
Lola