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jump in the lake,’ she urged pleasantly.

      Luc grinned at her venom. ‘It’s a reasonable question,’ he protested.

      ‘My personal life is none of your business,’ she told him frigidly.

      ‘It is if you have a secret boyfriend hovering in the background somewhere,’ Luc retorted. ‘If someone is likely to try and knock my lights out I’d like to know about it.’

      She gave a disdainful laugh. ‘So this is about you being scared, is it? I should have known,’ she sneered scornfully.

      He sighed. ‘My secret is out.’

      ‘Well, you can relax. Your pretty profile is not in any danger.’ Actually he looked, in stark contrast to herself, totally relaxed, especially considering the barrage of abuse she was aiming at his dark head.

      ‘No jealous boyfriend lurking…?’

      She half turned then with a hard laugh flung over her shoulder.

      ‘No boyfriend full stop. And before you progress to the painfully predictable male, you-must-be-a-lesbian line…I’m not.’ She stopped dead and frowned. ‘I’ve not the faintest idea why I’m explaining myself to you,’ she admitted angrily.

      His shoulders lifted. ‘Don’t look at me, but go on—I’m finding it educational.’

      Megan fixed him with a narrowed resentful glare. It was actually good advice—looking at him,…even hearing his deep drawl, was a recipe for stress and mental disintegration.

      ‘I have no time for a boyfriend. As I have already told you, at this point in my life I want to concentrate all my energies on my career.’ It made Megan so furious, if she had been a man her decision would not have caused any raised eyebrows.

      ‘And…’ he prompted when she stayed silent.

      ‘There is no and,’ she told him crossly.

      ‘A love life or a career is not generally considered an either-or decision.’

      ‘For me they are.’

      ‘Aren’t women meant to be big on multitasking?’

      ‘That rumour was undoubtedly started by a man who was more than happy for his partner to run herself ragged trying to do all the things he didn’t have time for.’

      Luc looked amused. ‘You could be right, but you were engaged so you couldn’t always have felt that way.’

      Unconsciously Megan’s hand went to her cheek.

      ‘How did you know about Brian?’

      ‘Your mother told me; she was pretty gutted that you chucked him.’

      ‘She got over it.’ Frankly she didn’t care if he thought she was a cold, heartless bitch.

      ‘No job is a substitute for sex.’

      The way Brian did it, it was. ‘Did I say I was celibate?’

      His brows lifted sardonically. ‘Your mother thinks you are.’

      Megan flushed. ‘This is the twenty-first century, Luc,’ she told him, injecting scorn into her voice. ‘Does everything have to be about sex?’ When did I start panting? Megan pressed a hand to her throat and made a concerted effort to slow the shallow, rapid character of her breathing.

      Knuckles pressed to the slight indent in his chin, Luc pretended to consider the matter. ‘Yes.’ Eyes that seemed scarily knowing zeroed in on her face.

      Now she wasn’t just panting as if she’d been running a marathon, she was sweating too. Did everybody find his mouth as fascinating as she did? Megan wondered as she watched one corner drop in a cynical smirk.

      ‘Few things in life are constant, but sex is,’ he contended in a throaty purr that ought in a fair world to have been preceded by a ‘there are flashing lights in this film’ type warning for the susceptible.

      Megan was definitely susceptible! The moisture between her aching thighs was ample evidence of that.

      ‘It doesn’t really matter what decade or, for that matter, what century; it doesn’t change. Scratch the surface of the most sophisticated male and you’ll find a man who is thinking about sex. Take me, for instance…’

      This smooth suggestion wrenched an instinctive croak of protest from Megan’s throat. He angled a questioning brow at her flushed, uncomfortable face.

      ‘I don’t think I will, if it’s all the same to you. You may be right about men, they probably haven’t evolved beyond the Neanderthal, but women—of course, I can only speak personally—can rise above their hormones. We’ve learnt how to work the system like men have been doing for years. A man doesn’t date a woman with the primary intention of settling down and starting a family. Why should it be different for a woman?’

      ‘So you’re telling me that any sexual needs you have are satisfied by no-strings one-night stands.’

      Megan wasn’t, she had been blustering, but she was quite prepared to take the credit for this idea. In reality the idea of emotionless sex was not something she warmed to, but he didn’t need to know that.

      ‘You have a problem with that?’ she gritted belligerently.

      ‘Men and women are driven by very different biological needs. A man has the basic urge to impregnate a woman, to nurture.’

      ‘That’s remarkably sexist…’ But sadly probably essentially true…is that me talking or my conditioning? In the end does it really matter? I am, and I don’t do casual sex.

      ‘No, that’s a biological fact,’ he stated bluntly. ‘I’d say if you try to act like a man you stand every chance of being badly hurt.’

      ‘On the contrary it’s women who fall in love with men and idolise them who get hurt when they…’ Aware that her comment had awakened a speculative gleam in his eyes she checked her emotional flow abruptly and began to examine her linked fingers.

      ‘Who did you idolise?’

      ‘We were all young and stupid once.’

      The silence between them lengthened.

      ‘What’s through there?’

      Relieved that he had dropped the subject, she turned and saw him lifting the latch on a tall wrought-iron gate half hidden in the ivy-covered wall.

      ‘It’s an entrance to the workshops,’ she replied absently, ‘but this isn’t the way back to the house. Where are you going now?’

      ‘What’s the hurry?’ he asked, skimming her a questioning look before pushing the gate open to reveal a courtyard.

      CHAPTER SIX

      MEGAN followed Luc into the attractive flower-bedecked courtyard, her heels clicking loudly on the wet cobbled surface. ‘It used to be the old stables.’

      ‘And now it’s…?’

      ‘A bit of a tourist attraction.’ She saw him lift his hand to his eyes to peer into the darkened window of the forge. ‘That’s Sam’s studio.’

       ‘Sam…?’

      ‘He was a bus driver, now he makes terrific wrought-iron stuff to order.’

      A local potter had approached her father ten years earlier with a view to him renting her workspace. The idea had snowballed…

      ‘And the others…?’ Luc’s expansive gesture took in the rest of the quadrangle.

      ‘There are about ten workshops here now all used by local artists and craftsmen,’ she told him proudly. ‘They double as workspace and a shop front. There’s a really marvellous community feel about the place. People can come and watch them work

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