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

She stared down into the trickle of brandy left in her glass and started to feel nervous. ‘Can I have another drink, please?’

‘No, you bloody well can’t!’ He didn’t take his gaze from her downcast head. ‘Sabrina? I’ll ask you again. Why hide it from me?’

‘I d-don’t know.’

‘Oh, yes, you do.’ He sucked in a deep, painful breath. ‘Is it an engagement ring?’

Well, now he would know what type of woman she really was. ‘Yes. Yes, it is. You know it is!’

He nodded, unprepared for the jerking pain of jealousy. And a bright, burning anger—as fierce as anything he had ever experienced. It pierced like an arrow through his heart. He tried to stay calm, but it took every shred of self-restraint he possessed. ‘I see.’

There was something so wounding about the way he said those two empty words that Sabrina looked at him with a question in her eyes.

‘Now I understand,’ Guy said heavily. He pushed the chain across the table towards her and gave a hollow, humourless laugh. ‘You must have had a lot of explaining to do.’

She stared back at him in genuine confusion. ‘Explaining?’

He leaned back in his chair a little, as if close proximity to her might taint him. Or tempt him. ‘Well, yes. Hell, I know you’re a liberal woman, Sabrina—you certainly proved that—but surely your fiancé would be a little jealous if he found out about your little lapse?’ His mouth curved. ‘Though maybe not. Maybe you’re the kind of couple who play away.’ He lowered his voice into a sexy, insulting whisper. ‘Then get turned on by telling each other all about it. There are couples like that, or so I believe.’

The blood left Sabrina’s face and she stared at him in horror, scarcely able to make any sense of his words. She would have risen to her feet and walked out there and then, except that her legs felt so unsteady she didn’t think she would be able to stand properly. ‘How d-dare you insult me?’ she whispered.

‘You’re honestly asking how I dare?’ His eyebrows disappeared into the still damp strands of his ebony hair. But now it was his turn to look outraged as he leaned forward, his voice little more than a harsh, accusing whisper. ‘Quite easily, actually. When you meet a woman and she does what you did to me that night, it’s kind of disappointing to discover that she’s got some poor sucker of a fiancé waiting on the sidelines.’

His mouth twisted as his anger drove him on remorselessly. ‘Maybe you were bored with him, huh? Or were on the lookout for someone a little more…loaded.’

He deliberately gave the taunt two meanings, and his dark gaze flickered insultingly in the direction of his lap, seeing her flinch as her eyes followed his. And then he shifted in his seat, angry and uncomfortable, realising that he was starting to get turned on. What the hell did she do to him? ‘Was that it?’ he snarled. ‘Were you looking for someone with a little more to offer than your home-spun boy?’

Sabrina felt sick and she shook her head, unable to speak. But he didn’t seem to be expecting an answer because he ploughed on, a hard, clipped edge of rage to his voice.

‘So what did you tell him? Did you describe in full and graphic detail the things I did to you? The things you did to me? Just what did you tell him, Sabrina?’

The unwitting inappropriateness of his question brought her a new kind of strength, and she wanted to reach out and to wound him, just as he had wounded her.

‘Nothing!’ she choked out. ‘I didn’t tell him anything! I couldn’t, could I? Because he’s dead, you see, Guy! Dead, dead, dead!’

And the spots which danced before her eyes dissolved into rainbows, and then, thankfully, into darkness.

GUY knew that Sabrina was going to faint even before the great heavy weight of her eyelids flickered to slump over her eyes. The colour blanched right out of her face and she swayed, slender and blonde as a blade of wheat.

He caught her just before she slid to the ground, pushing her head down to her knees while with his other hand he reached round to undo the top button of her shirt. He felt her wriggle beneath his fingers.

She groaned. ‘Guy—’

‘Don’t try to say anything.’ His words were controlled and clipped as he rubbed the back of her neck, while inside his mind raced. A dead fiancé. His eyes narrowed. Why the hell hadn’t she told him that right at the beginning?

Sabrina felt dizzy, dazedly aware that the other customers must be staring at her and knowing that the last thing she wanted was to attract more attention to herself. She needed to get out of here. And fast. But Guy’s fingers were distracting her so. She tried ineffectually to shrug off the fingertips which massaged so soothingly at the nape of her neck.

He felt her flinch beneath his touch and his mouth hardened. ‘Don’t worry,’ he ground out agitatedly. ‘I’m not going to hurt you.’

How could he hurt her any more than she had been hurt already? As if his words had not wounded her and left her smarting. She felt the salty trickle of a tear as it meandered its way down her cheek and she sucked in a choked kind of sob. As if she were listening through a cotton-wool cloud which had dulled all her senses, she heard Guy talking to someone else. And then he was easing her head back and dabbing at her damp temples with some deliciously cool cloth.

She opened her eyes with difficulty, startled by the flickering gleam of concern which had briefly softened the hard eyes. ‘I’m OK.’

‘You are not OK,’ he contradicted her, crouching down so that his face was on a level with hers. ‘Do you want me to take you home?’

In this state? Why, her mother would start fretting about her—and hadn’t she had enough to worry about over the last few months? ‘Can we wait here for a little bit?’ she asked weakly.

Guy made a slow, glittering appraisal of all the curious faces that were turned in their direction and frowned. ‘Or somewhere less public? There are rooms upstairs. Why don’t I see if we can use one—at least until you recover.’

Sabrina stared at him in undisguised horror. Surely he didn’t imagine for a moment that…that…

‘Oh, I see.’ Guy gave a low, hollow laugh. ‘Is that what you think of me, Sabrina?’ he questioned. ‘So governed by my libido that I’d take any opportunity to pounce on the nearest woman, even though she’s only half-conscious?’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘No, you didn’t have to,’ he said grimly. ‘The accusation was written all over your face. But don’t worry, princess—that’s not really my thing.’

Sabrina let her head fall back against the rest. ‘I don’t want to stay here.’

‘You don’t have to. Come on, let’s go upstairs,’ he said, and his arm was strong at the small of her back as he helped her to her feet.

The temptation to just lean back and lose herself in the warm haven of his arms was overwhelming, but Sabrina feebly pushed his guiding hand away from her. Touching him in any way at all was too much like trouble.

‘I can do it myself,’ she said stubbornly.

He looked as if he didn’t believe her, but didn’t argue the point, just walked right behind her in case she stumbled and fell.

Gripping the bannister with a grim kind of determination, she was glad when they reached the top and he pushed open the door of one of the rooms.

It was as different from his suite in Venice as it could have been—clean and middle-of-the-road, with a mass of chintz and swagged fabrics—and Sabrina heaved a small sigh of relief. She certainly didn’t need reminders in the way of vast, luxuriously appointed beds or priceless paintings.

She flopped down onto the flower-sprigged duvet and heaved a sigh of relief.