But love could strike without warning. It wasn’t exclusive. Just because she’d been in love once before, that didn’t mean it couldn’t happen again. What she’d felt for Michael hadn’t been what she felt for Guy. Her feelings were different, but that didn’t make them any less valid. And they were all-consuming.
She wanted him, she realised, on whatever terms he was prepared to take her.
But he wouldn’t know that. She would keep her dignity and play at being a modern woman, not a lovesick fool who would settle for anything—just as long as it included him.
‘OK, let’s just enjoy it,’ she echoed, and slanted him a smile.
Her look was one of pure provocation, and just for one second Guy wavered, itching to undress and climb into bed with her and lose himself in her body.
But he’d broken so many rules where Sabrina was concerned—wouldn’t one more be his downfall? Hadn’t he controlled his life according to a rigid plan laid down by the circumstances of his youth? It would be nothing short of recklessness to go in deeper than he already was. Her fiancé wasn’t long gone, he reminded himself. For Sabrina, this was a purely physical affair on the rebound. It had to be. Logic told him that.
He stood up quickly, not trusting himself to kiss her. Just being this close to her and knowing she was stark naked underneath that sheet was playing havoc with his senses. ‘Time I was out of here,’ he said abruptly, and then softened to give her a smile. ‘I’ll see you tonight, princess.’
She watched him go, heard the front door slam, shatteringly aware that he hadn’t even kissed her. Maybe she should be grateful for that. At least he wasn’t filling her head with false promises of happy-ever-after.
She sighed. They would carry on as before. Living together—only this time, as Guy had so unromantically put it, with sex as part of the equation.
The next three weeks ticked away like a time-bomb, with Sabrina alternating between giddy elation and wild despair but determined to show neither emotion.
Guy took her to the theatre, and to concerts. He even skipped work on the Saturdays when she was off and they explored London together, like tourists.
And at night…
At night he couldn’t seem to keep his hands off her. And it was really quite disturbing how one dark, sensual look levelled mockingly at her across the sitting room was enough to send her running straight into his arms.
While sometimes she despised herself for her instant surrender whenever he touched her, at least she had the comfort of knowing that it didn’t seem any different for him. She could reduce him to putty in her hands.
Why, she had even made him late for work this morning, and thrown his careful schedule into disarray. All because she had strolled into the bathroom one morning, wearing nothing but a pair of silver camiknickers while he’d been combing his hair.
Guy had stilled as he’d seen her reflection in the mirror, the pale swell of her breasts and the long curve of her legs beneath the frivolous lace trim. A pulse had begun to beat steadily at his temple.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked, in an odd kind of voice.
She batted him an innocent smile as she bent down to retrieve a book from where she’d been reading it in the bath the previous night while waiting for him to get back from Rome.
‘I forgot this,’ she said, and straightened up.
But the sight of the silver silk stretching tightly over her bottom had been enough to send his senses into overdrive. He put the comb down with a hand which wasn’t quite steady.
‘Kiss me goodbye,’ he ordered throatily.
She went into his arms without a word, and pressed her lips to his, feeling them part on a sigh to greet her. ‘Goodbye,’ she whispered, but she couldn’t resist moving her body closer and feeling the sudden responding tension in his.
His hand snaked around her waist, drawing her in closer still. He was painfully and erotically aware of her barely clothed state, even through the thickness of the suit he wore.
Trapped against his hard, virile body, Sabrina felt the warm pooling of a desire so strong that she couldn’t have resisted it if she had tried. And she certainly wasn’t trying.
‘I don’t want to be late,’ he ground out, but once again he drove his mouth down onto hers in a sweet, crushing kiss.
‘God forbid,’ she murmured, and flicked her tongue inside his mouth, hearing him groan in response.
‘Stop it, Sabrina,’ he pleaded, but only half-heartedly.
Caught up with longing and compelled by a need to shatter that rigid control, she moulded her breasts brazenly against his torso. ‘Stop what?’ she murmured, and allowed her fingers to trickle down over the rocky shaft of his erection, feeling him jerk in distracted response. ‘Do you want me to stop this?’ She ran her hand expertly over him. ‘Do you, Guy?’
A shudder ran through him as he felt her begin to unzip him. There would be no stopping now, he realised with a hot, heady rush of blood, and then his hands were on her breasts, feeling them spring into excited life beneath his hungry fingertips.
She struggled to free the zip and the trousers fell redundantly to his ankles. She heard him swear softly, and then, very deliberately, he moved the damp silk panel of her camiknickers aside and delved his fingers deep into the honeyed moistness. She gasped.
‘Do you like that?’ he murmured, feeling her thighs instantly parting for him. ‘Do you?’
Her response was instant and overwhelming. Sabrina swayed as she clasped his dark head against her, murmuring a protest she didn’t feel, her knees sagging weakly as she felt the swift heat of need. He lifted his head to glitter her a look of provocative assessment and swiftly turned her over so that she was bending over the bath.
He ripped her camiknickers off without compunction and let his silk boxer shorts fall to his ankles, and she realised that he was going to…going to…
‘Oh, Guy!’ she gasped ecstatically, as he entered her.
He groaned as he submerged himself in her hot, molten depths, thinking that it shouldn’t be this simple—or this out of control. And then he wasn’t doing any thinking at all. The world had shifted focus and then hardened, to a brighter focus, and now it splintered out of all recognition as they both cried out at the same time.
He pulled out of her and turned her around, thinking how shaken she looked. Well, hell, he was pretty shaken him self. When had he ever acted like that before? In Venice, he reminded himself grimly, that was when.
‘You’ve made me late for work,’ was all he said. Then he gave her a hard, crushing kiss before turning and swiftly walking out of the bathroom.
Flushed with orgasm, and a bitter kind of regret, Sabrina slammed the lock home behind him and then sank to her knees on the bathroom floor as dry, shuddering sobs began to tear at her throat. What on earth was happening to them?
As a demonstration of lust, that experience had been in a class of its own. Guy had used her for sex, but hadn’t she gone ahead and allowed herself to be used? She loved him, yes, but he’d never given any indication that he felt even a fraction of love for her. And she didn’t want to love again. Not like this. Bad enough that she’d loved and lost Michael—but at least Michael had felt the same way about her.
And she had known then with a sinking certainty that this one-sided love would bring her nothing but heartbreak. Far better to begin to distance herself. Starting from now.
It was late-night shopping this evening, and she’d make herself go browsing round after she’d finished work, deliberately make herself late home.
But Guy was even later. He’d had to juggle his day to include the missed meeting, and then had sat through it, bored and distracted, trying not to keep glancing down at his watch and thinking about Sabrina.
This was getting slightly ridiculous, he thought exasperatedly as he let himself into the flat. Going home at night had become the highlight of his day.
But tonight there was no meal cooking.
Just Sabrina sitting on the sofa, l
ooking moody, an unopened book lying on her lap.
He dropped his briefcase and gave her a thoughtful look. ‘Hi,’ he said softly.
‘Hi.’
He thought how wooden her voice sounded. And maybe he deserved it. ‘Sabrina, listen—about this morning—’
‘No, Guy, please.’ She shook her head, her cheeks growing pink as shame vied with remembered pleasure. ‘It happened—let’s forget it.’
That was the trouble—he couldn’t forget it. It had been on his mind all day. And so had she. ‘I shouldn’t have been so abrupt with you afterwards.’
‘No, you shouldn’t!’ She threw him a furious look. ‘And maybe I shouldn’t have committed the terrible sin of wandering in looking like that when you were getting ready for work. How wicked of me to unwittingly throw temptation in your path, Guy! Heaven forbid that you should ever break your rigid routine and be late!’
‘Sabrina,’ he said softly, ‘are we going to fight about this all night?’
‘No, we aren’t.’ She drew a deep breath. They weren’t going to fight about anything and she was going to be very calm and grown-up about what she had to say. ‘We ought to talk about me going.’
He went very still, as though he hadn’t heard her properly. ‘Going?’ he echoed. ‘What are you talking about?’ His voice softened. ‘Aren’t you taking things a little too far, princess? I know what we did was pretty wham-bam-and-thank-you-ma’am, but there’s no need to overreact.’
‘This has nothing to do with this morning.’ But she forced herself to remember that brutal and loveless kiss, and that somehow made what she had to say all the easier. ‘I only came here on a temporary basis, remember? And the six weeks are nearly up.’
If she’d detonated a small bomb on the carpet in front of him he couldn’t have been more shell-shocked. Her stay had merged into one pleasurable and sensual blur. Had she really been here for that long? Guy stared at her. ‘But you aren’t really going?’
It was a million miles away from the ‘please, don’t go’ she’d been hopelessly praying for. She kept her face carefully composed. ‘I have to, Guy—I won’t have a job after next Friday, and they won’t hold my job in Salisbury. Believe it or not, jobs in bookshops are highly sought-after.’
He could believe it quite easily—but then he’d seen her at work. A meeting had been cancelled and he’d called for her unexpectedly one lunchtime, dismissively waving away her protests that she’d brought a sandwich with her.
‘We’ll feed it to the pigeons,’ he’d murmured, thinking that the books and the old polished wood of the shop only seemed to enhance her bright-haired beauty. One look at Sabrina sitting busy at her desk, and any sane person would have thought it the most perfect job in the world.
‘So leave.’ He shrugged.
Sabrina froze. ‘Leave?’
Guy gave a slow smile. ‘Sure. I can support you.’
‘I don’t want your support,’ she said stiffly. ‘Or your charity.’
‘Sabrina.’ His voice softened as he walked across the room and sat down beside her on the sofa, not missing the almost imperceptible shift of her body as she leaned away from him. ‘It’s not charity. I earn obscene amounts of money—’
‘You said it, Guy.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘You don’t need to work,’ he said quietly.
‘I don’t need to work?’ she repeated in disbelief, before leaping to her feet to stare down at him in an angry blaze. ‘Says who? Says you! Well, if that’s the case, you don’t know anything, Guy, not really!’
‘Oh? This is fast becoming a real home-truth session,’ he drawled. ‘Do continue, Sabrina—I’m fascinated.’
‘Don’t you have any idea about my need for independence?’ she stormed, ignoring the dangerous note in his voice. ‘Or did you think I would just fall to the ground in a grateful heap because you’ve offered to “support” me?’
‘Clearly not,’ came the dry retort. A lot of women would have done. His mother, for example, had never forgotten what he’d done for her. But that had been different. That had been called survival.
Jenna, he realised, would have adored the idea. So would many of the other trust-fund babes. Not Sabrina, though, he realised slowly. Her principles were in a different class.
‘It’s your flat!’ she stormed. ‘You have all the control here—so just imagine if you started paying for me, too. How unequal would that make things? At least buying groceries now and then makes me feel as though I’m doing my bit!’
He looked at her steadily. ‘So what do you suggest we do?’
She looked at him sadly, realising that she’d talked herself into a corner. There was no solution—or at least not one that would make her happy. Only one thing could do that, and he wasn’t offering her permanence.
Because if she accepted his offer to stay while he supported her, then where would that leave her? Busy clinging on to a relationship which would grow increasingly more one-sided.
Even if she found herself another job here in London, wouldn’t that just be postponing the inevitable heartbreak when he tired of her?
‘I’ll leave at the end of next week,’ she said impassively. ‘As orginally planned.’
Guy’s body quickened, even as his heart felt the unfamiliar pang of rejection. But if she was expecting him to beg her to change her mind, she had a lot to learn about him. Needing something enough to beg made you vulnerable, and he had once made a vow never to be vulnerable again. He paused. ‘So, until you go, will we continue as…before, Sabrina?’
How very delicately phrased, she thought with a slight tinge of hysteria. ‘You mean, will I be sharing your bed at night?’
He thought that there were a few more flattering ways she could have described it. ‘That’s exactly what I mean,’ he answered coolly.
Her hunger for him warred with her self-respect, but it was never going to be much of a battle. She thought about how bleak her future would be without him, and knew that she wanted to savour every last, glorious moment. ‘Ask me tonight,’ she said flippantly.
He knew from the darkening of her eyes just what her answer would be, but any triumph was eclipsed by a slow, ticking anger. So she thought she could just play cat and mouse with him when it suited her, did she?
He rose to his feet with stealthy grace and pulled her into his arms without warning. ‘Why don’t I ask you now?’ he drawled, before claiming her mouth in a kiss which had her reeling.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
SABRINA let herself into the flat with a heavy heart and went to put the shopping in the kitchen.
Two more days. Just two.
It was inconceivable. Especially as Guy had spent the last few days seemingly hell-bent on showing her just what she would be missing. He didn’t seem satisfied until he had her sobbing out her shuddering pleasure, night after night…but he’d never asked her to stay.
She made herself a coffee and then went to stand at the window, where the bright hues of early summer dazzled from the garden in the square. How on earth could she ever go back to being what she had been?
Or maybe that was the wrong way to look at it. She could never really go back to being the old Sabrina—there was a new one now, ready and willing to take her place. And rebirth, like birth, was always painful. Why else would she feel this terrible, tearing pain at the thought of never seeing Guy Masters again?
Would he miss her? she wondered achingly. Probably, just a little, yes. And certainly in bed. But the missing, like their relationship, would be unequal. Guy called the shots and Guy had all the control. He would miss her for a little while and then move on.
Sabrina glanced down at her watch. It was only just past six, so there was at least an hour and a half before he would grace the flat with his presence.
She had bought a load of cheap vegetables at the market, and she had just begun to chop them in order to make a soup when there was a sharp ring at the doorbell. Wiping her hands down over the apron which she insisted on wearing
, and which Guy always teased her about, Sabrina went to answer it, to find Tom Roberts standing on the doorstep.
‘Hi, Tom.’ She smiled affectionately.
She’d last seen Guy’s cousin at a drinks party a couple of weeks ago, and then he’d been sipping at a Bloody Mary and laughing at something Sabrina had said. But today he looked wary.
‘Hi, Sabrina—may I come in?’
‘Oh, yes, of course, of course,’ babbled Sabrina, and pulled the door open. ‘Only I’m afraid that Guy isn’t back from work yet.’
‘I know that. It isn’t Guy I’ve come to see. It’s you.’
‘Oh.’ She smiled. ‘That’s nice. You’d better come in.’
‘Thanks.’ He followed her into the sitting room and sat down.
Sabrina looked at him expectantly. ‘Can I get you a drink, Tom?’
‘No, thanks—I’m out to dinner later and Trudi will kill me if I turn up with an inane grin on my face.’ He suddenly grew serious. ‘Is it really true? Guy says you’re leaving.’
Hearing the words spoken aloud like that by a third person made Sabrina realise just how horribly true it was.
‘That’s right. I am.’
‘But, Sabrina, why? I mean, I’ve never seen him looking so contented—happy, even! And you’re the first woman he’s ever lived with, even though women have been mounting campaigns to snare him for years. He says that he doesn’t want you to go, but that you’re going anyway. So why?’
She shook her head. ‘I can’t go into it, Tom. It’s too complicated, and it isn’t fair on Guy.’
‘Fair on Guy?’ Tom repeated slowly. ‘Sabrina, look…’ He seemed to be having difficulty choosing the right words. ‘I’ve known Guy all my life, but, with him, what you see isn’t automatically what you get.’
‘You’re talking in riddles, Tom.’
He pulled a face. ‘Everyone looks at him and thinks that he’s Mr Invulnerable—strong and rich and powerful—’
The Unlikely Mistress Page 16
