SARA WOOD - Expectant Mistress

A footfall sounded, soft and barely discernible. Looking up, he saw the barefooted Trish making her way thoughtfully down the silvered path between shrubs gleaming in the moonlight. His heart leapt and sank in quick succession. Carefully he commanded his racing pulses to subside. And they did.

‘Escaping my party?’ he accused laconically.

Trish jumped in surprise, looked embarrassed, and then tossed her gloriously shaggy black hair in an appealing gesture of freedom which caught so brutally at his heart.

“Fraid so! They’re all talking a foreign language in there!’ she declared. She remained—to his relief—a safe yard or so from him ‘Cell merge, bullets, and hyper-link... I wanted to scream!’

Adam chuckled. There it was again. Laughter. He felt less hassled already. ‘It’s a narrow little world,’ he admitted, reining himself in ruthlessly.

‘Like mine,’ she conceded, inspecting her perfect honey-coloured toes. ‘We really are living on different planets, aren’t we?’

He thought at first that she didn’t sound too happy about that. But she was smiling brightly, dazzling the darkness with her lovely laughing mouth, so he knew he’d been deluding himself.

Determined, however reckless that might be, to prolong this brief interlude alone with her, he said wryly, ‘My planet’s hurtling into chaos.’

She nodded. ‘That bomb?’ she asked uncertainly, widening her beautiful sapphire eyes. ‘I know you’ll think I’m stupid, but I didn’t understand the reference. You haven’t joined the bomb-disposal squad in your spare time, have you?’

Adam wondered if he could—should—spin out the explanation, or cut it short and get back to the party. No contest. Here there was a peace of sorts. And Trish. What the hell?

‘I don’t have spare tune,’ he reminded her. ‘No, the millennium time bomb is to do with the way some older computers were programmed, especially the large mainframe ones used by councils and corporations.’

He hesitated, disconcerted by her intentness. It was as though she was mesmerised, her huge eyes, beneath that ludicrous fringe, framed by spiky black lashes. Incredibly lovely, he thought, a little lurch of his heart warning him that he must be staring. But he longed to touch each faint laughter line around her sparkling eyes and work out how many laughs it had taken to produce each one.

‘Go on,’ she said, into the soft night.

To keep his hands from reaching out, he folded his arms firmly across his chest. Her gaze slowly passed over its curve, her lashes fluttering, her mouth emitting a faint sigh. An electric current switched on every nerve in his body. He wanted to kiss those drowsy, parted lips. Run exploratory fingers up the inside curve of her fabulous bare legs. It would take for ever—but it would be a journey worth making.

He sucked in his breath sharply, aware from the straining of his body that he wanted more than that. Appalled, he frowned and tried to drive out all lustful thoughts.

‘The date system,’ he said briskly, ‘was set up on the assumption that it would always be nineteen-something—1959, 1990, and so on. Suddenly everyone realised the millennium was due and panicked.’

He stopped, running out of breath. Because all he could think about was her lithe, shapely body writhing beneath his hands—

Trish took a few steps closer, her brow furrowed. ‘Why?’

‘Why?’ Yes. Why was he carrying a torch for his stepdaughter’s friend? he asked himself savagely. He had Louise. Stunning, clever, computer literate... His heart could remain untouched. What more could he want?

‘Why did they panic?’ she asked, some illusion making her voice sound throaty and infinitely appealing.

‘Because,’ said Adam curtly, finding it almost impossible to concentrate, ‘the systems only pay attention to the last two digits of a date. So to the computer the year 2000 means zero-zero. In other words, back to 1900 again.’

She gurgled with delighted laughter, her eyes twinkling with fun. ‘We’ll all have to leap into hansom cabs and celebrate the relief of Mafeking! How lovely! Technical experts thrown into a muddle! Oh. Sorry, Adam. That includes you, doesn’t it?’

‘Certainly does! And I’ve been trying to sort out the mess. It would be funny,’ he agreed with a crooked smile, ‘if it hadn’t meant that some people’s pensions weren’t going to be paid out—because according to the computer they wouldn’t have been born!’

‘Oh, dear! What a muddle!’ she said with a frown, as if she really cared about people she’d never met. But that was Trish all over.

An urge to kiss her open mouth and plunder its depths forced him to stare vaguely over her head. ‘Megabyte size,’ he agreed. ‘My company’s been flat out re-programming for the past few years. Our priority has been ensuring the smooth running of airlines and railways and other essential services. Without re-programming, they would have ground to a halt.’ Shaking from sexual tension, he passed a hand through his hair, dislodging the cow-lick, which was normally severely repressed. ‘It’s been a race against time itself. We’ve been working sixteen-hour days for as long as I can remember and we’re still picking up the pieces’

She sighed. ‘You look like you need a holiday.’ ‘Is that an offer?’ he asked quietly, before he could stop himself.

There was a pause, as if he’d confused her and she couldn’t think of a polite answer. Her cheeks looked pinker beneath the tan and he realised that she was thinking of a polite way to discourage him. She’d already fled once from his unwelcome advances.

‘On my island? In my guesthouse? Louise was right. You’d hate it,’ she said, her expression distinctly ice-packed. ‘It’s very small. Two doubles, one single. No, I see you in some vast, swanky hotel in the Seychelles—’

‘Lounging on a beach?’ he asked incredulously, his eyes hard and cynical as he dealt with her rejection.

‘No. Not you’ Her neat teeth briefly pulled at her plush lower lip ‘Louise will be sunbathing in a fabulous bikini and you’ll be making everyone furiously envious of your water-skring technique. Or paragliding. Or snorkeling.’

He frowned, taken aback by her perception. She had described the brief working holiday they’d had in Florida a few months ago. It had been something of a disaster.

What would he and Louise do in their leisure hours together? They’d never had any real free time, so it hadn’t occurred to him before how they’d fill it. She occasionally dashed out shopping for clothes; they ate hastily in the best restaurants and fell into bed—separately. They both fitted in their personal training sessions before breakfast and he couldn’t remember when they’d last indulged in a spontaneous passionate clinch.

Honour made him fight to hold onto the promises he’d made to his fiancée

‘I thought honeymoons were for non-stop sex,’ he said shortly, giving himself a point from which there was no return.

Trish winced, as if his directness was in bad taste. Which it was. But he needed to convince himself that he was doing the right thing this time. Her arms came protectively around her body as though she needed to defend herself from his coarseness.

Whereas she was more in danger of being kissed till neither of them could breathe. The moonlight gleamed on the proud Spanish bone structure of her face and shimmered alluringly along her shapely arms. Her defensive gesture had lifted her breasts and they were thrusting against the smooth emerald material. She must be cold, he thought dazedly, because her nipples had hardened into tempting peaks. There was something soft and vulnerable about her expression and he had never wanted anyone more.