CHARLOTTE LAMB - Dying For You

‘I’m sorry there’s nothing more exciting,’ he said, and she looked up, her green eyes startled, then smiled.

‘It’s great food—I’ve always loved a picnic; that’s what this is—a picnic indoors.’

‘But picnic food tastes better in the open air,’ he said, reaching over to pour white wine into her glass, and that was when Annie had another of those strange déjà vu flashes, a baffling sense of having seen him do that before.

As she drew a sharp, startled breath he looked up at her, his body stiffening, his face watchful.

‘Annie?’ he said again, as he had before, and she slowly lifted her own eyes to stare back at him, dazed.

He held her eyes. ‘Tell me what you felt,’ he softly said.

‘I don’t know,’ she whispered. ‘It was...nothing...’

‘It was something,’ he said, and his black eyes glittered. ‘You’re beginning to remember.’

‘WHY don’t you tell me when we’re supposed to have met, and stop playing games?’ Annie burst out.

Shaking his head, he gestured. ‘Taste the wine.’

‘Was it in England? In London?’

‘There’s no point in trying to guess. When you remember, you’ll know.’

But she was beginning to read his expressions, the fleeting thoughts passing through those brilliant liquid black eyes, the way his mouth changed, softening, tightening, twisting. He might not have denied that they’d met in England, but something about his face just then told her that that wasn’t where they had met. Where else could it have been? She was determined to make him tell her.

‘America?’

He laughed, shook his head.

That didn’t leave many other countries. Annie hadn’t travelled very widely yet. So she came to the most likely answer.

‘Was it here, in France?’

He didn’t answer, but his eyes were as bright as black stars.

‘It was, wasn’t it?’ she said slowly.

‘So now you believe we have met,’ he said, his voice deep, vibrating with a new note, passionate, excited. She felt her pulses leap, and this time it was she who didn’t answer. She didn’t have to; her sudden flush, the way she looked down, her dark lashes cloaking her eyes, spoke for her.

Huskily she finally said, ‘I believe you think we did. But I really don’t remember—I’m sorry. I’ve only been to France a couple of times—it must have been on one of those trips, I suppose. The last time I came here I spent two weeks in Normandy with my best friend and her sister. We stayed in a wonderful old hotel in Caborg, right on the sea. It was very hot that summer; we spent a lot of time on the beach—was that where we met?’

He shook his head, sipping wine and leaning back in his chair, his lids half down over his dark eyes, his legs stretched full-length sideways. Annie didn’t mean to stare, but she couldn’t help noticing that under his shirt she could almost see the ripple of lean muscled flesh every time he breathed. He had a very slim waist and hips, or was that a visual illusion because of the length of his legs? She couldn’t deny that he was her type. His long, supple body was intensely sexy.

Her eyes drifted back upwards, and with a start of shock met his gaze. Annie looked away, her colour high.

‘Well, where did we meet?’ Her voice was husky, defying him to make anything of the way she had been looking him over. ‘If I knew where we met I might remember it. Why don’t you tell me?’

‘Because you have to remember without any help from me,’ he said coolly.

‘Why?’ she persisted.

He ignored the question, gesturing. ‘Come on, eat some of your salad—you look as if your blood sugar is a little low. Maybe that’s why you’re so bad-tempered.’

‘I’m bad-tempered because you’ve kidnapped me!’ she retorted, but picked up her glass and drained the pale golden wine while he watched, his brows shooting up.

‘Careful! If you aren’t used to drinking wine it could go to your head if you drink it too fast.’

She reached for the bottle, which stood in a vacuum jug in the middle of the table, but Marc lifted it out before she seized it, poured her another half-glass, refilled his own, advising her,

‘Eat your food before you drink any more; it’s never wise to drink on an empty stomach.’

‘Will you stop giving me orders?’ But she began to eat all the same, and the food was delicious—the cheese, the bread, the salad with its tangy dressing tasting of lemon, vinegar and herbs and glistening with oil. All this tension seemed to have given her an appetite, or maybe it had been the wine, after all.

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