‘Oh, that’s where you—’
‘No, I never quite went that far,’ she told him repressively.
‘Just me, huh?’ he asked with a raised eyebrow.
‘Just people who deserve it. Shall I continue?’
‘Please do.’
‘I was really sad when I had to leave here to go to college. I even thought of not going, but Joe lost his temper and nearly threw me out. He said if I didn’t seize my chance, I needn’t show my face here again. So I went, but I always came back in summer. To me it was the most wonderful place in the world.’
She sighed happily, looking around her at the beauty. But then her face grew sad.
‘He died recently and left it to me, but then I found he had huge debts. I’d had no idea. I used to send him money to help out, but apparently it all went into betting shops.
‘I never knew about his problem, and I have a horrid feeling it only developed after I left, because he was lonely. Now the cottage has to be sold to pay the debts. I’m just here to clear out my stuff and take a last look.’
‘You’re going to lose this place?’ he asked, sitting up and speaking sharply.
‘Just as soon as there’s a decent offer. I thought of trying to keep it by paying off the debts—I just can’t afford it. I even thought—’
She was interrupted by the sound of her cellphone. Justin didn’t miss her sudden alertness, or the eager way she scrabbled in her bag for the phone. He saw the sudden sagging of her shoulders as she said, ‘Oh, hi, Sally.’
There followed a conversation about proofs, galleys and corrections, and it was no surprise when she hung up and said, ‘That was my editor, about a book I have coming out next month.’
‘Not Andrew, then? Has he called you at all?’
‘I’ve only been here two days.’
‘And in those two days,’ Justin said relentlessly, ‘has he called you?’
‘Please don’t interrogate me, Mr Dane.’
‘I’ll take that as a no. If I were in love with a woman I wouldn’t forget to call her.’
‘Well, maybe he doesn’t want to seem too anxious. We’ve been having a few problems. That’s why he’s coming here.’
‘But is he coming here?’
She ignored this. ‘We’ll spend some time together sorting things out.’
‘It’s a bit early in the relationship for that, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said, wishing he’d drop the subject. But he wouldn’t, almost as if he knew how uneasy it made her.
‘Sorting things out is what happens when people have been together a while,’ he said, ‘and things have turned sour, but they want to recapture the magic. If you’re ‘‘sorting out’’ in the courtship stage, he’s the wrong guy.’
‘I’ll decide about that, thank you.’
‘You can decide what you like, but he’s the wrong guy. Why pick on him? Unless you’re afraid of being an old maid.’
‘Get lost!’ she said amiably.
‘Well, it has to be said. You’re no spring chicken. You must be pushing—what? Forty?’
‘Thirty!’
He roared with laughter. ‘I had a bet with myself that you’d tell me your age by the end of the day.’
She made a face at him and he laughed again. ‘So, thirty, and he’s your last chance. Life has passed you by. Men have passed you by. You’re pretty enough in a dim light, but nobody’s offered you lifetime commitment.’
His eyes were wicked and she smiled back, disconcerted by the sudden reappearance of his charm.
‘So, my guess is that you put up with any amount of awkward behaviour on his part, for fear of losing him.’
‘No way,’ she said. ‘It’s my awkward behaviour that’s caused the problems.’
‘Just because you stood him up that night, he’s throwing a wobbly?’
‘Don’t you throw a wobbly if you get stood up?’
‘I don’t get stood up,’ he said with an assurance that was so complete she almost admired it.
‘You are the most arrogant, conceited man I’ve ever met.’
‘I’m just recording facts. He can’t take it that you put him second that night.’
‘It’s not the only time—other things happen, and get in the way. But that’s over now.’
‘Because he’s your hero? The one and only whose voice makes your heart beat? The man who—?’
‘All right!’ she said, trying not to laugh. ‘It’s a bit more prosaic than that, but, like you said, old age is creeping up on me.’
‘Yeah, sure,’ he said in a tone of disbelief. Added to the way he looked her figure up and down, it amounted to a definite compliment.
It was the first time he’d even hinted that he admired her as a woman, and it threw her off balance. Suddenly the ‘modest’ bikini wasn’t modest any more. Her bosom was more generous than she’d realised, and the bra was cut low enough to display the fact.
It was like discovering that she’d been naked under his gaze all the time, and had never known it. She could feel herself beginning to blush.
But, just in time, she saw what he was really up to. He wanted her to think only of Mark, and if that meant fighting off other interests, then he’d do just that.
Well, forewarned was forearmed she thought, amused. It wouldn’t hurt to torment him a little.
‘The truth is that I’m at a crossroads in my life.’ She sighed. ‘Freedom’s all very well up to a point, but sooner or later a woman wants to settle down with a good man. And then there’s security. When I’ve paid off Joe’s debts there won’t be much left and I should be looking to the future.’
‘You mean you’d marry him for money?’
‘Not just that. You said it yourself, he’s my hero. His voice makes my heart beat with anticipation—’
She stopped. He was looking at her.
‘Well, something like that, anyway.’ She laughed.
‘You’re playing a very cool game. Why aren’t you in London, knocking on his door, making sure of him?’
‘Because that would send him running in the opposite direction. How would you feel about a woman who threw herself at you? Silly me, I suppose they already do.’
He regarded her satirically. ‘Think so?’
‘With your money?’ she asked airily. ‘Of course they do.’
It was a gross slander, she thought, looking at him stretched out on the sand in negligent ease. She had seen him from a distance, but close up he was even more impressive.
She considered this matter entirely dispassionately. Her own preference was for a man like Andrew, built on less spectacular lines, but with a mind that met hers.
And a man’s mind was important, she mused. Andrew was intelligent, literary, with fine, sensitive fibres. Justin Dane was undoubtedly intelligent. Or rather, where his own interests were concerned he was shrewd and cunning. He certainly wasn’t literary, and she suspected that his fibres resembled thick