‘Have you seen him since?’
‘No.’ She’d known he’d stayed the rest of the weekend but he’d kept himself to himself. Not that she’d been keeping a special eye out or anything.
‘Do you intend to?’
‘Absolutely not. It was a one-night—afternoon—stand. Non-repetition is kind of the point.’
There was another long silence as Kate absorbed this information. ‘Who are you and what have you done with my friend?’
‘Ha-ha.’
‘I knew moving to the country was dangerous,’ Kate muttered, picking up her knife and fork and attacking her lamb. ‘You’re unhinged.’
Undoubtedly. But that had happened long before she’d met Matt. ‘If I am,’ said Laura darkly as the image of her ex-boyfriend in bed with his secretary flashed into her head, ‘it has nothing to do with geography.’
Kate gave her a sympathetic smile. ‘No, well, I suppose I can see why you might need a bit of an ego boost. Lying cheating bastard.’
Laura couldn’t help smiling at the disgust in Kate’s voice. ‘Yup.’
‘You know, I still can’t believe he did that. To you of all people.’ Kate shook her head in bafflement. ‘I mean, you’re one of the most easy-going people I know.’
‘Too easy-going apparently.’
‘What?’
‘Paul said that I was partly to blame for his affair.’
Kate’s jaw dropped. ‘The cheek,’ she muttered. ‘How did he work that one out?’
‘He said I was too acquiescent. That if I’d stood up to him a bit more, been a bit more demanding, he might have thought twice about bonking his secretary.’
‘The complete and utter snake.’
Laura caught her lip between her teeth and frowned. ‘But maybe he did have a point. He kept calling me babe, and not once did I tell him not to even though I hated it.’
‘It used to make me wince.’
‘Me, too.’ Laura grimaced. ‘Anyway I’ve had time to think about it and, you know, I have been a bit of a pushover.’
‘Rubbish.’
‘So why do I end up giving the old people in the village lifts left, right and centre?’
‘Because you’re a nice person.’
‘Huh.’ Laura frowned. ‘I have a backbone of rubber. Well, not any more.’
‘So what’s the plan?’
‘I’ve already put it into action.’
‘So I can see.’
‘Not that,’ she said, batting back a blush. ‘The minute I moved to the country I enrolled on an assertiveness course.’
Kate’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Wow.’
‘I know.’ Laura nodded. ‘We learned to Embrace Confrontation, Say No With Confidence and to Go For What You Want.’
‘So you embraced confrontation and went for the afternoon of hot sex that you wanted.’
‘Quite.’ Something kicked in the pit of her stomach.
Kate grinned. ‘I can’t imagine there was a whole lot of saying no, either with confidence or without it.’
‘Not a lot.’ Just rather a lot of breathy yeses.
‘Well, I’m not sure about the rest of it, but that’s one way to get a lousy ex out of your system.’
‘That’s what I thought.’
Kate tilted her head and looked at Laura with something resembling admiration. ‘Reckless. Totally out of character. I like it.’
Laura felt a shiver run down her spine. ‘So did I.’ She nibbled on her lip and frowned. Up until the point she’d panicked and fled. That had been cowardly.
‘I’m so envious.’ Kate sighed. ‘Remind me why you aren’t going to see him again.’
Laura shrugged. ‘It wasn’t like that. The temporariness of it was what was so appealing.’ Well, one of the things. ‘We didn’t exchange numbers.’
‘I’m sure he’d be in the phone book. Have you Googled him?’
‘Of course not.’ She hadn’t given in to the temptation yet and she didn’t intend to.
‘Why not?’
‘I don’t want to see him again.’
‘That’s nuts. Great sex isn’t something to be dismissed lightly.’
‘It hasn’t changed anything,’ said Laura firmly, before she started agreeing with Kate and waving goodbye to all her good intentions. ‘I’m still off men. And I need another relationship like I need a hole in the head.’
‘But you’re always in a relationship.’ Kate frowned.
‘Exactly. And look what happens. I get smothered. I lose sense of my own identity and allow myself to get walked all over. And ultimately get hurt.’ She shrugged. ‘I’ve had enough.’
‘Well, I think you’re mad.’ Kate sniffed.
Laura smiled. ‘Actually I’ve never felt saner in my life. Which is just as well if I’m going to get this job. Now, let’s have pudding.’
HE’D been right about those damn hot pants, thought Matt grimly, glancing at his watch and noting he had five minutes before his meeting with the finance minister to discuss exactly how deep the corruption that had burrowed into pretty much every governmental department went.
They did haunt his dreams. As, to his intense irritation, did Laura.
It was bad enough that the minute he crashed into bed there she was, her hair fanning out over his cushions, her eyes shimmering and glazed with desire as she stared up at him and saying ‘more’ and ‘please’ in that breathy desperate way she had.
It was bad enough that he woke up pretty much every morning, aching and throbbing and twitching with desire.
But what was really driving him nuts was the lack of control he seemed to have over his thoughts while he was awake.
She kept popping up, shooting smouldering smiles at him, and the memory of the way she’d exploded and shuddered in his arms would slam into his head and his train of thought would derail and his body would react with annoying inevitability.
Like now.
Feeling uncomfortably hot and growing painfully hard, Matt scowled, got up and stalked over to the window.
Quite why Laura should be taking up so much of his head space when she’d been just a one-night stand and when he had plenty of other things to occupy his mind was baffling.
OK, so the way she’d run off like that had hardly been flattering but it wasn’t as if he’d intended on seeing her again, was it? She clearly had issues and that wasn’t his problem. And yes, the sex had been incredible, but it had been three weeks ago. He really ought to have got over it by now.
Matt threw open the window and inhaled deeply. He’d have liked a nice icy blast of around minus five to relieve the hot achiness of his body. But unfortunately Sassania was in the Mediterranean not the Baltic, and this being early summer all that drifted in through