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

Much as she longed to let him do just that, she had to put him right before he went any further! ‘Joshua—’

She turned her head, searching for the right words, and suddenly caught sight of the frozen picture on the bigscreen television behind him. ‘What’s that?’

Joshua let her go and quickly scooped up the video remote control from the arm of a chair, pointing it at the machine.

‘Wait a minute.’ Regan snatched it out of his hand as she looked at the freeze-frame. ‘That’s me! ’

She moved around for a better look and swallowed a fuzzy feeling in her throat as she pressed the ‘pause’ button and her screen self began to move. ‘That’s the security video from the night I was here!’ she whispered as she watched herself tentatively step out of the apartment building lift.

Joshua sighed. ‘It’s the only picture I have of you,’ he said simply, and her eyes stung as he turned his brooding gaze back at the screen. ‘You look a little nervous here, don’t you?’ he murmured. ‘I’ve watched it over and over, and I definitely think the lady is having some second thoughts, but look there—see—she squares her shoulders and decides: What the hell! I’m going to go for it…’

He was watching the screen, but Regan was watching his softened face. She imagined him sitting here all alone, surrounded by every luxury money could buy, replaying those same few seconds of videotape over and over again, studying her every move and trying to analyse her thoughts, and her heart surrendered itself for ever into his keeping.

‘Oh, Josh …’ She wrapped her arms around him, wanting to protect him from ever being lonely again. Whatever he felt for her, she loved him enough for the both of them.

‘Now you know how I recognised Ryan had a crush on you,’ he said wryly, tipping her face up to meet his. ‘I felt the same way—only mine was the fully-fledged adult version. After that first night I was going to find out who you really were, and make arrangements to see you again,’ he confessed. ‘But then Carolyn called and events overtook me. But you still haunted the back of my mind. So much so that I thought I was hallucinating when I first saw you out the window at Hazel’s.’

She told him about Ryan and the tree, and he laughed. ‘No wonder he took to you so quickly. Hide-and-go-seek used to be one of his favourite games.

‘And speaking of favourite games…’ He leaned forward and whispered teasingly into her ear, ‘Are you wearing anything under that dress?’

Regan went utterly scarlet and he stilled, his eyes widening with stunned admiration as he realised the daring wickedness with which she had hoped to seduce him.

‘You’re not? ’ he guessed, erupting into more, very sexy laughter as she shook her head and hid her scalding face in the front of his silk shirt. His hand slid down to trace her shapely naked bottom through the dress. ‘My God, you did come prepared for battle, didn’t you, honey? I never stood a chance!’

She remembered what it was so important for her to make clear and lifted her hot face. ‘It wasn’t actually my idea to come here tonight,’ she told him, her eyes daring him to take back anything he had said. She told him about Derek’s call regarding the e-mail. ‘Naturally, I thought it’d come from you, ’ she said, thinking that a sleaze-bag made a rather unlikely cupid. ‘I thought you were making the first move.’

Joshua’s response was a slight touch of colour on his hard cheekbones, but he was too smug at the serendipitous outcome and too intrigued by the puzzle to be truly embarrassed by his error—the supremely arrogant assumption that had prompted him to reveal his deepest emotions.

‘If he was responding to my private Internet address then he would have presumed so, too. I don’t know what’s on there at the moment because I don’t check my personal messages every day. Ryan’s always on my back about—’

He broke off and backed out of her arms. ‘Excuse me a minute!’ He was a lot longer than a minute, but when he had finally hung up the phone and came back to her after his low-voiced conversation his eyes were glowing with dangerous amusement.

‘My son’s doing. It seems that Ryan suffers from a God complex.’ His ruefulness was an irresistible temptation.

‘I can’t imagine where he got that from!’ murmured Regan

He quelled her with the lift of an eyebrow. ‘Apparently he cracked the password on my e-mail account some time back and decided to use it to set us up.’

‘But—how could he know about—? Or that we called each other Adam and Eve?’ she gulped.

He ran a hand through his hair and slanted her a look that was charmingly abashed. ‘I had drink or three too many that night I lost my temper…after I found out you’d skipped out on me again, ’ he confessed. ‘I got a little rowdy—and drunkenly maudlin, according to Ryan—in my lecture to him on the evils of doe-eyed women who lead men around by the uh—certain parts of their male anatomy. He says I mentioned that Derek Clarke had arranged for us to meet…and I also mentioned that we had jokingly appropriated our middle names…’

‘You mentioned an awful lot to an impressionable fifteen-year-old-boy,’ Regan said ominously.

‘Yes, well…’ Joshua shed his chagrin in a little spurt of paternal pride. ‘I suppose his super-intelligence filled in most of the gaps and the rest just took a little research—for example, your full name is bound to be on the database at Harriman Developments, and as you well know my son doesn’t see privacy laws as a barrier to his investigations. Give him a computer, a modem and enough time, and Ryan could well rule the world.’

‘But why? ’ Regan said, not wanting to think that Ryan had intended for her to be hurt and humiliated by his father. ‘He knew that we parted on terrible terms.’

Joshua sighed. ‘That was why. He thought it was his fault, and that, with Carolyn out of the picture, if he could just get us together, propinquity would do the rest—although he had a rather more basic term for it…’

Regan put her hands over her still warm cheeks. ‘He must think I’m an awful tramp.’

He took pity on her mortification and took her back in his arms to kiss the tip of her pink nose. ‘I think he thinks you’re a very sexy woman whom his father is crazy about. He said to tell you, by the way, that he never broke his promise to you—what he did was not “dumb and misguided”—it was extremely clever; it was keeping the hard copy evidence that did him in!’

‘Still, what if you hadn’t wanted to see me?’ she worried.

His voice was warm with disbelief. ‘Darling, the boy watched me skewer you with a knife and then listened to me prose on about you for hours while I ploughed my way through half a bottle of Scotch. I assure you, he was in no doubt as to what I was going to do when I got my hands on you again.’

‘Throttle me?’

His hands tightened around her waist as his mouth came down on hers. ‘Never let you go.’

‘Oh…’ Bliss was a warm mouth and a strong pair of arms.

‘So, does that mean you’re willing to accept my son?’ he murmured against her throat.

‘I’ve already accepted he’s your son,’ she replied, confused.

‘No, I mean…as your own. I think all the children of one family should call the same person Mother.’ He lifted his head as she stiffened in his encircling arms. ‘Did you think I wasn’t going to ask the woman I love to marry me? Especially one as elusive as you—what kind of idiot do you take me for?’

Her small face was incandescent with joy. ‘I think you’re a pure genius. I guess that’s why I love you.’