Sandra Marton - Mistresses - Bound with Gold / Bought with Emeralds

That e-mail hadn’t been an invitation, or a trap—because Joshua had obviously never sent it! And Regan had been so eager to believe that he wanted to see her again that she had never entertained the idea that it might have a cruel joke perpetrated by someone else entirely!

Oh, God!

Her confidence smashed into a million tiny pieces as Joshua’s gaze dipped, his eyes suddenly narrowing with predatory sharpness as he recognised the combination of classic black sheath, black stockings and gold-heeled evening sandals. Even the bag she was carrying was the same one she had been carrying That Night.

‘Regan?’ This time his voice was redolent with heated speculation, and a hint of amusement.

A hot flood of embarrassment welled up in her soul as she sought to extricate herself from her gross folly. She couldn’t bear to be the object of his derision. ‘I—I’m sorry, I—this is a mistake.’

Joshua was up the rest of steps in a flash, the sheet of paper he had been holding wafting unnoticed to the floor. ‘What makes you say that?’

She tried to back away and stepped on Pierre’s foot, ignoring his yelp. ‘I—I must have come to the wrong door…’ she invented absurdly.

Joshua looked at her provocative garb. ‘Did you want the elderly grandmother to the left of me, or the gay art director on the right?’ he asked gravely.

‘Floor. I said the wrong floor, ’ she quickly corrected herself, putting her hand to her throat to cover the fluttering pulse on which he seemed to be fixated.

Another mistake. He saw the watch— his watch—still strapped to her wrist and smiled, as if he knew that she hadn’t taken it off for even a second since the day he had given it— lent it—to her…as if he knew that she lay in bed each night with her hand tucked under her cheek, the almost inaudible ticking a lullaby that sang her into her dreams of the man to whom it—and she—belonged.

‘Well, why don’t we make the most of your Freudian slip?’ he purred. ‘Won’t you come in and have a drink for old times’ sake?’

She frantically shook her head, and he lowered his voice to a coaxing murmur.

‘Please…’ He held out a hand, palm up. ‘Eve…one drink with me?’

Unable to trust herself to speak, Regan continued to shake her head, resisting the explicit invitation in his eyes and voice.

‘To keep me company…’ he appealed, and thrust his outstretched hand into his trouser pocket and produced a set of keys. ‘Because Pierre was just going out—weren’t you, Pierre?’

He tossed the keys through the air and Pierre fielded them in one hand. ‘To be sure, m’sieur.’

‘Have a good time, and don’t forget to set the deadlock when you leave—I don’t want anyone breaking in on me while you’re gone…’

Pierre had already slipped out of the door before Regan realised the implications of the message that had been passed over her head. She grabbed at the heavy brass handle but it was too late; the door refused to even rattle on its hinge.

She closed her anguished eyes, raising her fist to rest it helplessly against the wood.

‘You must see that now that you’re here I can’t let you go,’ he said quietly.

‘No, I don’t see!’ she cried. ‘I told you, my being here is a mistake—’

‘Dressed like that? I don’t think so,’ he said with that same awful, quiet certainty. ‘You came here to see me, didn’t you? And you came in the persona of Eve, because Eve isn’t as vulnerable as Regan.’

She whirled around, her back flat against the barrier to her freedom. ‘What do you know?’ she scorned proudly.

But his eyes weren’t gloating or triumphant, they were beautifully solemn. ‘About you? Not enough, it seems. About me? Not as much as I thought I did. I thought I had everything under control, including myself. I was wrong. Quite spectacularly wrong.’

He approached her soft-footed, holding her captive with that hypnotic gaze. ‘By the way, you might be interested to learn that I’m not marrying Carolyn.’

‘I know, I saw her this morning—’ She broke off, biting her lip as she saw his eyes light up at the nugget of information. Now he was really locking himself into the mindsetthat she had come rushing over here to grovel for his attention.

‘I’m a cynical swine,’ he continued, on his original course. ‘Experience has taught me that it’s safer to expect the worst of people instead of trusting to the best—’

‘Is this an apology?’ Regan cut him off stonily. All she could think was: He didn’t invite you here. He thought she had come crawling back to him.

He met her aggression with a soft answer. ‘Oh, I think you’ll find it’s much more than that. Won’t you come in and sit down? You may as well accept that I have no intention of unlocking that door—even if I did know where Pierre kept his keys.’

He held out his hand again, but she ignored it as she stalked past him down the stairs. He allowed her to evade him until they reached the level of the sunken lounge, then his fingers curled around her elbow as he turned her to face him.

She tried to jerk it away. ‘Don’t touch me!’

‘I can’t help it,’ he said, cupping her other elbow and drawing her towards him. ‘It’s a compulsion. Since the first time I met you I can’t be near you without wanting to have my hands on you. You churn me up, and in the beginning I wasn’t sure I liked that; I wasn’t prepared for it—it interfered with my plans. I wanted to be able to push what I felt for you aside until I was ready to deal with it. But do you know what I’ve found that I don’t like even more, Regan…?’

What I feel for you? She shook her head, dazed with feverish apprehension, her eyes huge in her face, unable to believe that this was real and not just a figment of her reckless imagination.

‘I don’t like you being away from me. I don’t like not having you around to churn me up—to intrigue me, infuriate me, comfort me, excite me and, yes—to enrage me.

Even when I’m furious with you I still want you near me…’

She began to tremble and he eased himself into contact, his trousers brushing her legs. ‘I don’t like knowing that I hurt you. That I prated on about family responsibility and honour and then failed to respect that you felt a duty to protect yours. I’m so used to people expecting me to handle their problems for them that I didn’t know how to act when I ran up against someone who was so determined not to demand anything of me. I should have admired you for having the courage of your convictions and for your stubborn loyalty. Instead I was furious that you’d continued to squander it on that crooked bastard you married rather than transferring it to me, even though I’d done nothing to earn it! I knew I couldn’t afford to make another mistake with you, so I’ve spent the last few days racking my brains to think of a logical reason I might use to persuade you to see me again.’

His fingers tightened and his voice roughened. ‘But it isn’t logic you want from me, is it, Regan? You can’t imagine how I felt when I saw you just now, when I realised that you’d been willing to sacrifice your pride to reach out to me, even after the contemptible way I treated you, that your desire to be with me was so strong that it conquered all your fears—’

‘Don’t!’ she choked, her fierce elation tempered by the knowledge she was a fraud.

His tender smile was a kiss upon her sight. ‘You’re going to stop me now? When I’m humbling myself for you?’

‘It’s not necessary—’

‘But it is. For me, it is. You’ve done your bit, now it’s my turn to do the risking.’