Sarah Holland - Master Of Seduction

Emma walked with the others across the terracotta paving. Women stared at Patrick in open admiration, men with jealous awe.

‘He looks like one of your heroes, doesn’t he?’ Natasha said to Liz. ‘Tall, dark and dangerous.’

Emma pretended not to hear. Dry-mouthed, she wandered aimlessly around while the others took their places. Patrick sat at the head of the table, leaning back coolly, his powerful eyes watching her trying to sit as far away from him as possible.

‘Oh, are you sitting up here with me?’ Toby said in surprise as she sat down beside him, in the furthest chair from Patrick. ‘I thought you were getting on famously with Patrick?’

‘Well, I just ended up walking with him, that’s all.’ She smiled, aware of Patrick’s laser-blue eyes burning on her, and deliberately did not look in his direction, smiling instead at Toby. ‘And now I’ve ended up sitting with you.’

‘Good-oh!’ Toby giggled amiably. ‘What shall we talk about? Oh—I know! Let’s talk about sex! That’s always a good dinner party conversation!’

‘Trust Toby to lower the moral tone,’ Natasha said contemptuously. ‘I say—is that Brigitte Bardot over there?’

Everybody looked to see if it was.

The waiter came up to take their order. Emma decided on sole meunière with salad because she had a feeling she was losing her appetite, and didn’t want everyone to notice—especially not Patrick.

‘I must remember to use this restaurant in one of my books,’ Liz said when the waiter had gone. ‘It’s a great place for the hero to take the heroine. They could have that corner table over there and argue passionately over their main course.’

‘Why do they always have to argue?’ Natasha asked.

‘Because,’ said Liz, ‘when two people fall in love they invariably fight tooth and claw to stop it happening.’

Emma slowly leaned her head to one side to look at Patrick while he wasn’t looking at her. She knew he couldn’t be looking at her, because she could hear him talking to Charles, but she was mistaken—he was looking straight at her, and as their eyes collided she felt so violently exposed that it was like being staked stark naked to her chair.

‘Usually, though,’ said Liz, sipping her wine, ‘the man recognises it first and acts on it.’

Emma dragged her gaze from Patrick’s and stared at the crystal glass in front of her.

‘But it’s all tied up with sexual attraction, you see, especially for him,’ Liz went on. ‘So he just keeps trying to get the heroine into bed, and, of course, she reacts like a scalded cat, because she thinks that’s all he wants.’

‘It usually is,’ said Natasha.

Patrick’s blue eyes flicked briefly, hotly, to Emma’s breasts.

‘And that’s why they argue so much,’ Liz said. ‘It’s the age-old difference between the sexes.’

‘Men want sex and women want love?’ Natasha laughed. ‘Stale news!’

‘So the minute the man pounces on the woman,’ said Liz, ‘all hell breaks loose because he can’t admit his feelings and she can’t let him make love to her until he does. Stalemate. Somebody has to give.’

Patrick Kinsella looked directly at Emma, his face hard, handsome, very cool, and as she met his eyes she felt devoid of all defence, completely convinced that he could see the bare vulnerability in her face, her skin, her hands, her shoulders, the very set of her body.

Pull yourself together! she thought furiously, and looked down at her knife and fork. Her hands shook as she blindly rearranged them.

‘Oh, look!’ said Natasha. ‘Miss Baccarat’s gone all shaky!’

Emma flicked angry green eyes up to her spiteful face. ‘I’m tired. I should have slept instead of going shopping.’

‘Not all this talk about passionate lovers, then?’ Natasha laughed. ‘You must be getting quite desperate now that you’re twenty-six, mustn’t you? Speaking of desperate—where the hell is my lobster? I’m starving.’

‘Desperate?’ said Toby with a laugh. ‘Who, this little beauty? She’s the most gorgeous thing I’ve seen in years. In fact I’m surprised Patrick hasn’t commented on her stunning looks. He’s usually the fastest gun in the West when it comes to seducing a pretty lady.’

Emma’s mouth tightened and she steeled herself not to look at Patrick.

‘But then he’s so discreet,’ said Toby, ‘that he’s probably planning to come to your cabin later tonight and relieve you of your négligé.’

Patrick’s dark lashes flickered and a faint smile touched his hard, sensual mouth. He shot a quick, lazy, burning look at Emma that told her Toby had hit the nail right on the head.

That was exactly what he had been planning to do.

Over my dead body, thought Emma furiously, glaring at him. Over my dead body!

THE ship sailed at midnight.

Emma stood on deck, leaning on the railings, her hair flickering gently in the breeze as the yacht motored out of harbour. The sky was black, pin-pricked by stars, and St Tropez looked beautiful as it got further away in the distance, that little cluster of bleached buildings still lit up in gold, villas dotted on the dark hills around, and lights winking up and down the night-time coast of the Gulf of St Tropez.

Patrick was standing coolly on the other side of the deck, talking to Liz in a deep, murmuring voice. Emma was aware of his every move although she did not look at him once.

‘We’ll be in Málaga tomorrow lunchtime,’ Toby said, drinking a glass of champagne. ‘It’s the perfect place for lazy tourists.’

‘To be honest,’ Emma replied, ‘Málaga doesn’t really interest me. I’d much rather go to Granada. I thought I could hire a car…’

‘Oh, don’t be boring!’ Toby laughed. ‘Spend the day in Málaga with me. Go on. We are both young, single and gorgeous!’

Emma laughed wryly, caught the turn of Patrick’s head, saw the narrowing of his tough blue eyes, and knew not only that he had overheard Toby’s gentle pass at her, but had not liked it.

‘Besides,’ said Toby, putting an arm around her slim shoulders, ‘we’re stuck together on this yacht for the next fortnight. We may as well make the most of it…’

Emma instinctively slithered out of Toby’s embrace. Years of practice made her appear to brush him away affectionately, a smile in her eyes and warmth in her body. The perfect rejection of an unwanted advance. And Patrick Kinsella noted it with cynical amusement from the other side of the deck.

‘Speaking of getting used to this cruise,’ Emma said lightly as she moved completely away from Toby, ‘I’m exhausted. All that travelling! Would anyone mind if I went straight down to bed?’

‘No, of course not, Emma!’ Toby tried to kiss her goodnight.

‘Night night!’ she said lightly, slithering artfully away from him and his kiss.

Patrick’s eyes glinted as he watched her across the deck, but he said nothing, and as everyone else chorused their goodnights to her she went downstairs to her cabin.

The motion of the ship was strange at first, making her clutch the banister on the stairs as they swayed faintly this way and that. The wood was creaking slightly, the throb of the engines was oddly comforting, and she certainly felt a lot better moving into the privacy of her cabin after an entire nerve-racking evening with Patrick Kinsella around.

Once inside her cabin, she undressed, pulled on her black silk pyjamas, took off her make-up and brushed out her long curly black hair.

It was warm, private, something of a sanctuary with such low lighting, and as she slid in between the soft, clean sheets she was already feeling sleepy. Plunging out the lights, she buried her head on the fat pillows and closed her eyes. What exactly was going on—if anything—with Patrick? This deep physical attraction, this overwhelming awareness—how on earth had it sprung up so unexpectedly between them?