Sharon Kendrick - London's Eligible Bachelors - The Unlikely Mistress

He was probably downstairs on the lookout in the huge marble foyer, waiting until she had gone back to her own hotel and the coast was clear for him to return to his suite.

Pausing only to brush through the tangled strands of her hair, she quietly left the room and located the lift, steadfastly ignoring the rather curious expression of a beautiful young Italian woman until it had reached the ground floor.

Stealthily slinking out, she peeped around one of the giant marble pillars to see, to her absolute horror, that Guy was sprawled out on one of the silk sofas, talking into a mobile phone.

He looked, Sabrina thought, completely businesslike. Miles away. Worlds away. Worlds apart. He’d shaved, put on a suit and smoothed down the hair which she had ruffled with her greedy, frantic fingers during the night. He didn’t look remotely like a man who had spent the whole night making mad, passionate love to her. Maybe that had been put in the out tray, she thought, her heart thundering like a cannon in her ears.

She waited until he turned his head, giving her a glimpse of that hard, beautiful profile as he gestured for a coffee.

Moving with a quiet and guilty step, Sabrina quietly left the hotel.

Guy opened the door to his suite, wondering whether Sabrina would still be in bed, telling himself that he would not join her there. After recklessness came reason.

But still a slow rise of colour begin to flush its way along his cheeks, and he moved quietly towards the bed and stared down at it with slowly dawning disbelief. Empty.

He stood very still. ‘Sabrina?’ he called softly, but even as he said her name he knew that it was futile.

She had gone.

He ripped the covers back, as if they were somehow concealing her, as if her slender frame could be hidden away, but there was nothing other than the lingering musky traces of sex marking the sheets.

His mouth twisted as he dropped the sheet as abruptly as if it were contaminated, his grey eyes growing steely as they travelled around the room.

Her clothes had gone. The discarded panties and stockings had disappeared.

Gone, just as if she had never been there.

A slow pulse began to throb unsteadily at his temple, his gaze not missing a thing as he walked round to the other side of the bed. His eyes scanned this way and that for the note which logic told him she had not left. And at first the glint of gold which gleamed so palely against the silken rug held no interest for him.

Until he realised that she had left something behind.

He bent and retrieved the delicate chain and stared down at it with dawning realisation as it glittered in the palm of his hand.

And his mouth twisted into a slow, cruel smile as his fingers closed over it and he dropped it deep into the pocket of his trousers.

THE old-fashioned bell on the bookshop door clanged loudly as Sabrina stepped in out of the rain. The shop was empty save for a mild-looking man with glasses who glanced up, his face brightening into a smile of welcome.

‘Sabrina!’ he said in delight. ‘Welcome back!’

Sabrina tried to match his smile, and wondered if it looked as lopsided as it felt. ‘Thanks, Paul,’ she said, and slowly began to unbutton her raincoat, brushing off the drops of rain as she did so. ‘It’s great to be back!’

‘So, how was Venice?’

Sabrina quickly turned to hang the dripping garment on the peg, hoping that he wouldn’t see the sudden defensive set of her shoulders. Or the swift shiver of memory which had her biting her lip in consternation. How could you ache so badly for a man you barely knew? she wondered. A man who had given you his body, but not his honesty?

But by the time she turned round again she had managed to compose her face into the kind of dreamy post-holiday smile which Paul would be expecting.

‘Venice? Oh, it was…’ She swallowed as recollections of mocking grey eyes and a hard, lean body swam unwillingly into her mind. ‘It was lovely!’ she finished lamely.

‘Lovely?’ echoed Paul, pulling a face. ‘This is the place that you wanted to visit more than anywhere else on earth and you describe it as “lovely”? What happened in Venice, Sabrina?’ He laughed. ‘Did you leave your descriptive powers behind?’

‘I’m a bit tired after all the travelling, that’s all. I went to see my aunt in Scotland as soon as I got back.’ She sat down at the desk and began to flick through the morning’s post.

‘Yes.’ Paul frowned. ‘You look a little pale. Like some coffee?’

‘I’d love some. I’ll make it.’

But Paul Bailey shook his head. ‘No, you won’t. I’ll do it. You look bushed. Sit down and I’ll bring you something hot and restorative.’

‘Thanks, Paul,’ said Sabrina gratefully. She dropped a discarded envelope into the bin and looked around.

It was hard to believe that she was back. That everything was just as she’d left it. And nothing had changed.

She bit her lip again and stared down at the pile of manila envelopes on her lap.

Except her. She had changed. In the course of those few days in Venice she had discovered some unbelievable things about herself—things she wasn’t sure she liked at all.

And now she was having to come to terms with the knowledge that she was the kind of woman who was able to have a passionate fling with a man who was little more than a stranger to her. A stranger who had left her heart breaking for him.

Paul came back into the room, carrying a tray with two steaming mugs of coffee, one of which he deposited in front of her, together with a chocolate bar.

She shook her head. ‘You can have the biscuit. I’m not hungry.’

Paul tutted, sounding torn between concern and impatience. ‘I thought that one of the reasons behind you going to Italy was to try and tempt yourself back into eating.’ His voice softened, along with his eyes. ‘Come on—you can’t keep pining for Michael for ever, you know, Sabrina. He wouldn’t want that.’

Sabrina quickly put down the coffee, terrified that she might drop it. For what would the decent and honourable Paul say if he knew how little she had been pining for Michael? She tried to imagine his reaction if she told him the truth about her holiday, and paled at the thought of how his opinion of her would be reversed if only he knew.

‘In fact,’ said Paul gently, ‘I thought you were going to come back from Venice a new woman—wasn’t that the plan?’

She lifted her head. ‘And I haven’t?’ she teased him. ‘Is that what you mean?’

He shrugged awkwardly. ‘Just as slim and even paler—what did you do out there?’

‘What does everyone do in Venice?’ she asked lightly, as she tried not to remember.

Paul grinned. ‘You travelled in a gondola, right?’

Sabrina forced a smile in response. ‘You bet I did!’ And that was how the whole damned thing had started—blinded by a man with night-dark hair and a body which had stirred a deep, primitive response in her. And she couldn’t blame Guy for that. She had set the wheels for that in motion herself. Unless she was planning to blame him for his physical beauty and impact. ‘Anyway, that’s enough about me, Paul. How has business been?’

Paul shrugged. ‘So-so. March is slow, as you know, but it’ll be Easter soon. Interestingly enough, I had a phone call yesterday from a man trying to track down a rare first edition.’

Sabrina sipped her coffee. ‘Oh?’

‘That’s right. You must have served him. He asked for you. I told him you weren’t due in until today.’

‘Really?’ she questioned absently.

Once she had drunk her coffee, Sabrina forced herself to get back into the slow and rhythmical pattern of her working day and found it comforting. She would put the whole affair down to experience and not let it get out of hand in her imagination. After all, lots of people had holiday romances which ended badly.