LITMIR.BIZ

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of us for one table, so we were split among three, and he managed to keep me away from Selina and Grace. I found myself sitting with Jack on one side and Raymond Keller on the other.

      Raymond seemed a nice guy, apart from a tendency to look down my dress, but since it was designed for that I supposed it wasn’t fair to blame him.

      Charles and Jenny were facing me, and the others were youngish couples. They weren’t trying to trap Jack for themselves or their daughters, so the atmosphere was pleasant. I began to understand that Jack was a master of tactics.

      He played up, slipping his arm around my shoulders whenever he wasn’t eating, clinking wine glasses with me, and sometimes murmuring in my ear.

      I could just see Grace and Selina, who kept turning their heads to send forked lightning at me. I reckoned they were calculating every penny of the diamonds’ worth, and if they could have killed me, they would have done.

      ‘Now you’ve had a chance to relax with some of them,’ Jack said to me in the taxi. ‘But tomorrow you’ll be right in the lions’ den.’

      ‘Just lead me to it.’

      ‘You were a knockout tonight. Just keep doing it.’

      ‘Doing what, precisely?’ I teased.

      He drew a ragged breath. ‘Whatever it is you’re doing. And please don’t laugh like that. It makes my life extremely difficult.’

      I laughed again. I wanted his life to be difficult.

      When we were on board we said goodnight to everyone and went straight to the cabin.

      I ran a hot bath and snuggled down blissfully into the suds, thinking of the night to come. I told myself that I couldn’t be sure what was going to happen, but I’d chosen my nightdress very carefully.

      Nothing blatant, and not as sexy as Jenny’s, but silky and elegant. And it wasn’t going to hide a lot from a man in the same bed.

      During the day we’d talked with a sensual undertone. Whatever the subject, we’d actually been speaking about something else that didn’t need any words.

      We’d undressed each other with our eyes and our minds, and that had been very nice. But I knew that I’d really decided Yes! when we’d swapped grandfather stories. That was when my heart had warmed to him as much as my body.

      Now I was preparing to make love to a man I’d known barely twenty-four hours—something I’d never done before. And why? Because he loved his grandfather. Put like that, it made no sense. Except to me.

      I towelled myself dry and used a few discreet dabs of perfume. Then I slipped on the beautiful pale blue nightdress, and I was all ready. Taking a deep breath, I went back to the bedroom.

      There was only one small bedside lamp on. In the shadows I could discern that the other side of the bed, which had been empty when I went into the bathroom, now had a bump. A bump that lay with its back to me, breathing evenly.

      Next to it was another bump, the shape of a pillow.

      I wanted to scream and shout. I wanted to thump him and say how dared he go to sleep? I wanted to throw every piece of glass across the room until it smashed to fragments.

      But I didn’t, of course.

      Instead I climbed into my side of the bed, put out the light and lay in the darkness, silently reciting all the rudest words I knew.

      Chapter Six

       Della’s Story

      NEXT day we left Monte Carlo and headed for Sardinia. It was time for me to do my stuff.

      I made a grand entrance, sauntering to the smaller of the two swimming pools, where most of the others were stretched out. When their eyes were on me I pulled off a floaty chiffon jacket, leaving nothing but a tiny pink bikini. Then I stretched out and closed my eyes, as if totally unaware of everyone.

      ‘Well done,’ said Jack, stretching out beside me.

      I was lying on my back, my eyes closed. Now I opened them halfway and surveyed him. I managed a smile, but in truth I was furious with him for last night. To compound his crimes he was wearing tiny swimming trunks that cleared up the question of his shape once and for all.

      His build was slightly heavy, but he was tall with no fat, and gave an impression of controlled physical power that his elegant suits normally concealed. Seeing him almost naked reminded me of what might have been mine, and hadn’t been, and it didn’t improve my mood.

      ‘Good morning,’ I murmured. ‘Have we met?’

      ‘Yes, I’m the fellow who brought your coffee this morning. And I didn’t even get a tip.’

      ‘I never tip the hired help,’ I murmured languidly.

      He laughed, and whispered, ‘That’s great. Play the indifferent card for all it’s worth. Act like I’m dirt beneath your feet.’

      If he’d known how much I’d have liked to do just that he wouldn’t have risked saying it.

      ‘Are they watching us?’ I murmured.

      ‘And how!’

      ‘In that case—’

      I brushed the backs of my fingers against his face. At once he took my hand, turned it over and kissed the palm. I braced myself against the tremors that went through me, and managed to smile.

      ‘I’ve brought you some sunscreen,’ he said. ‘You shouldn’t lie out like this with that fair skin.’

      He handed me the bottle and I rubbed the lotion in well, until Jack took it and said, ‘Turn over.’

      He did my back and my hips, down as far as the bikini bottom. Then I felt him undo the clasp of the bikini top and begin to work cream into my skin there.

      ‘I had to undo it or you’d have had a mark,’ he explained.

      It would have been the easiest thing in the world to let his hand drift down the sides a little. But he didn’t. He simply finished oiling me and fastened the clasp again. It was like being guarded by a Boy Scout.

      After a while someone called him from further down the pool and he went to talk to them. I stayed where I was, controlling my feelings with an effort. How I’d have loved to toss him into his own pool and hold him under. But the sun was making me sleepy, so I decided to let him live—for now.

      I must have sort of dozed, because the next thing I was aware of was a hand rubbing more lotion into my back.

       ‘Mmm!’ I said.

      ‘Like it?’ asked a laughing voice.

      That wasn’t Jack. I twisted around and found myself looking at Raymond Keller.

      He was a pleasant sight—fortyish, lean and strongly built, with reddish hair. I was still sufficiently irked with Jack to do a little flirting.

      ‘I’m not quite sure,’ I mused.

      ‘Well, let me do a little more so that you can decide.’

      ‘No, I think that’s enough for today,’ I said, sitting up and regarding him.

      ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I’ve been trying to think where I’ve seen you before.’

      ‘Maybe you haven’t.’

      ‘Sure I have. You definitely look familiar.’

      ‘You’re probably just confusing me with some other girl in a pink bikini.’

      ‘It’s not really pink,’ he said. ‘More a kind of flesh colour. From a distance you look as if you’re not wearing anything. I’ve been watching you and studying the matter very seriously.’

      His grin made it impossible to be offended. Just the same, I played it safe.

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