CATHERINE GEORGE - His Defiant Mistress - The Millionaire's Rebellious Mistress / The Venetian's Midnight Mistress / The Billionaire's Virgin Mistress

She shrugged. ‘Only temporarily. Besides, if you rule out mixing business with pleasure you shouldn’t have been asking me out in the first place.’

‘For you I broke my rule. Gladly.’ His eyes held hers. ‘But where you’re concerned, Sarah Carver, I had other cards stacked against me. Not only am I local, my name is Merrick!’

They gazed at each other in silence for a long interval. ‘Today,’ said Sarah slowly, ‘I found out I’ve been wrong about that. Oliver told me my father was offered a job as manager when his firm was taken over.’

Alex nodded. ‘It’s group policy in those circumstances.’

‘Why didn’t you put me right about it?’

‘Would you have believed me?’

Sarah flushed, and turned away from the bright, searching eyes. ‘Probably not. But I feel pretty terrible about it now.’

‘Why did Mr Moore tell you the truth today—of all days?’

Sarah raised her eyes to his. ‘He obviously thought it was time I stopped gunning for you. He likes you, Alex.’

‘I’m glad.’ He smiled. ‘But I’d be far happier if I thought you liked me too, Sarah.’

‘I do,’ she said simply.

Alex felt a surge of triumph so intense it took him by surprise. ‘Good.’

He held out his hand. ‘Shall we shake on it?’

‘Shake on what, exactly?’

‘Our friendship,’ he told her, his smile even more crooked than usual.

Sarah smiled back and took the proffered hand, startled by the frisson of response to the brief contact. ‘Done,’ she said lightly.

‘Enlighten me, Sarah. The moment I introduced myself at Easthope Court that night you turned to ice. I know the reason now, yet you seemed to notice me earlier on. Why?’

‘Your hair.’

Alex stared at her blankly. ‘It’s nothing out of the ordinary.’

‘Ah, but the other men at your table were bald, or getting that way, so your luxuriant locks caught my eye,’ she informed him, eyes sparkling. ‘You were years younger than most of the men in the place, too.’

‘It’s an expensive restaurant. So unless they’re footballers or hedge fund managers the male clientele tends to be elderly.’ His lips twitched. ‘Unlike their companions.’

‘Which is why you took it for granted I was Oliver’s current trophy!’

‘A natural mistake.’

‘You made your opinion so insultingly clear I wanted to punch you in the nose,’ she informed him.

‘You can now, if you like,’ he offered.

She grinned. ‘Not in cold blood.’

The last way he could describe his own. Alex itched to run his tongue over her unpainted lips, just to see if they tasted as good as they looked. He raised his glass instead. ‘So shall we drink to an end to hostilities?’

She thought it over and raised her glass, nodding. ‘I like the idea of being friends, Alex Merrick—’

‘For God’s sake just say Alex,’ he said irritably.

‘If we’re going to be friends, Alex Merrick ,’ she snapped, ignoring his groan as she hurled his surname at him like a missile, ‘we get things clear from the start. You don’t give me orders.’

‘God knows why I worried about you,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘You may be small, but you’re damned vicious.’ He held out his hand. ‘Now, sit down and be nice.’

Sarah smiled unwillingly. ‘I’ll make some coffee first.’

‘An offer I can’t refuse. You make great coffee. One of several indelible memories from the night I met Nero!’ He got to his feet to follow her to the narrow, high-ceilinged kitchen, but she held up her hand.

‘You can hover in the doorway if you like, but there’s only room for me in here.’

Alex leaned against the doorjamb, admiring the economy of her movements in the narrow space. ‘I wanted you as a friend from the first, incidentally, before you even put me right about your relationship with Oliver.’

‘You mean you saw me in my dirty overalls in the pub and wanted me for a chum?’ she mocked, her eyes wide when she turned round to see Alex nodding.

‘More or less,’ he said lightly, accepting the mug she gave him. ‘Now, this isn’t an order, but a friendly word of advice. Say no to future cosy dinners with Dan Mason.’

‘Why? Just because you don’t like him?’

Alex shrugged. ‘I disapprove of him rather than dislike him, I suppose. We went to the same school, but I belonged to a different set.’

‘Because you came from a wealthier family?’ Sarah couldn’t help asking.

Alex held on to his temper with both hands, and sat down on the sofa, patting the place beside him. ‘Do you think that one day you might try to think the best of me rather than the worst? I meant that I was good at most kinds of sport, and had to work a bit to pass exams, whereas Dan flew through exams but was a total duffer at any sport at all. So we didn’t mix.’

‘Sorry,’ she said penitently, and sat down. ‘But why do you disapprove of him?’

‘Because, although Ed and Betty Mason are the salt of the earth, and he’s their pride and joy, rumour has it that he rarely drives down from London in his Ferrari to see them. And when he does he never stays long.’

‘Do you disapprove of his car, too, then?’ she asked, smiling.

He looked down his nose. ‘Only the colour.’

Sarah laughed, then looked at him thoughtfully. ‘Do you see much of your family?’

Alex shrugged. ‘I check on my grandfather most days, just to make sure he’s still there. He thinks he’s immortal, but in the natural way of things even he can’t live for ever.’

‘How about your father?’

‘I see him when I visit the London office.’

Sarah slanted a glance at him. ‘So you’re filial and Dan is not. Is that your only objection?’

‘No.’ He thought it over. ‘I just don’t like him. I never have. He’s the type who measures success by the material possessions it buys him.’

‘But he’s entitled if he’s worked hard for them, surely?’

Alex turned to look at her. ‘I’ve worked hard, too. Damned hard. I still do. Just because I was born a Merrick it doesn’t mean I had everything handed to me on a plate. Once I was old enough I slogged on building sites or in warehouses every school holiday and university vacation unless I was on a cricket tour. And I always got landed with the hardest, dirtiest jobs.’ He stretched out an arm and flexed it. ‘I didn’t get these muscles behind a desk, Sarah. And there was no gap year for yours truly, either. I went straight from Cambridge into the firm. Not,’ he added emphatically, ‘that I minded. It was always what I wanted to do. Still is.’

‘I can relate to that. Because I’m doing exactly what I’ve always wanted to do,’ said Sarah. ‘And my school holidays were spent on building sites, too. But not because I was made to. Dad couldn’t keep me away.’

Alex couldn’t help touching her bare arm. ‘But your muscles are a lot prettier than mine.’ He raised her hand to his lips, and on impulse kissed each finger. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked, as he felt her tense.

‘You say you want to be friends, but you behave more like a lover. Or at least,’ she added with scrupulous honesty, ‘how I imagine a lover would behave.’ None of the boyfriends she’d had in the past had practised subtlety as foreplay.

‘You’re a very appealing female, Sarah Carver, and I’m your average male, so I want to touch.’ Need to—even crave to, more like it. He batted the thought away and smiled down at her. ‘But all I ask for is friendship. Unless you’re seized with overpowering lust for my body and sweep me off to bed right now, of course.’

Sarah’s gurgle of laughter entranced him. ‘How would I drag you up there?’