LITMIR.BIZ

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wife. What did you expect? Men like Jordan Vine-Hall don’t go round unsnapped up unless they’re perennial playboys or gay.

      Bonnie suspected she looked as dismayed as she felt. Which was crazy. She should be grateful, since it put him firmly beyond her reach. God, get it together, girl, she told herself firmly. ‘What time would you like me to be available?’ she asked, avoiding his eyes and struggling to keep her voice steady.

      When he didn’t answer, she glanced up, only to find him staring at her with narrowed eyes.

      ‘Doesn’t your husband find it annoying to have you work every weekend?’ he asked sharply.

      Bonnie decided there was no point in continuing with this fiasco, which was beginning to be a strain. Besides, what would happen if someone back at the office let the cat out of the bag? She would look a fool.

      ‘I’m sorry,’ she said simply. ‘I didn’t realise you didn’t know. I’m a widow. My husband died three years ago.’

      Jordan felt as if someone had just punched him in the stomach. A widow. She was a widow!

      Goddammit, he thought savagely. Goddammit!

      His fists curled into tight balls and he rubbed them up and down on his thighs under the table, an explosive emotion charging through his veins. If he’d known she was a widow, he would never have mentioned Erica, would never have given her any reason to reject him.

      For he had to have her. He could see that now. He’d pretended to himself that he could resist temptation when it would have meant committing adultery, but not even the most noble intention had stopped him still wanting her. It had been building in him all afternoon. The desire. The passion. The need.

      Maybe he would have been able to resist in the end. Maybe he would have been able to go away meekly and forget her. But she’d opened the Pandora’s box now. She was free, free to accept his advances, free to accept his love.

      Love?

      Good God, was he mad? He didn’t love the woman. He didn’t love any woman. Love was for adolescents and masochists. He wanted her, that was all. It was sex, nothing more.

      This last reaffirmation sent his brain catapulting back to his earlier reasoning that it wasn’t Bonnie Merrick he was wanting so badly, but any woman. A night or two in Erica’s bed and this insane yearning would quickly become a distant memory.

      But what if it didn’t? What then, Jordan? What then...?

      

      Bonnie was taken aback by his reaction to her announcement. He looked almost angry. Yet why should he be angry? It didn’t make. sense.

      ‘You’re very young to be a widow,’ he said at last, ‘let alone one of three years.’

      ‘I’m twenty-five,’ she said, rather defensively.

      ‘Was your husband much older?’

      ‘A couple of years.’

      ‘Only a couple of years. What did he die of?’

      ‘He was killed on the job...in a car accident. He was a policeman.’

      He mouthed another of those non-committal ‘ahh’s.

      ‘And children?’ he went on after a few seconds’ silence. ‘Do you have children?’

      ‘No.’ Thank God, she thought. For a while she had begged Keith to let her have a child, thinking it might solve their problems, but of course it would have been the worst thing they could have done. She was grateful now that he had refused to give her a child, no matter how sick his reasons.

      ‘Do you regret that?’

      ‘Not really. I was too young to be a mother back then.’

      ‘How old were you when you were married?’ ‘Nineteen.’

      That is young,’ he agreed.

      Their food arrived at that moment, bringing a welcome break to what Bonnie was beginning to feel was an inquisition. Perhaps it was the lawyer in him, but when he asked questions Jordan was very intimidating. It reminded Bonnie uncomfortably of Keith’s never-ending third degrees. She decided it was time to turn the tables.

      ‘So tell me some more about your life, Jordan?’ she asked as she cut her vegetable pie into quarters. ‘Why haven’t you married before now?’

      ‘I hadn’t met the right woman.’

      ‘And is your fiancée much younger than you?’

      ‘Erica’s twenty-four. I’m thirty-six.’

      Bonnie detected a curtness in his voice. He didn’t want to talk about his fiancée, this Erica. She wondered why.

      ‘I’ll bet you work hard,’ she remarked.

      ‘Too hard.’

      ‘Which is why you need some place where you can come and relax.’

      His laugh startled her. ‘I doubt I’ll end up doing much relaxing up here.’

      ‘I... I don’t understand.’

      He settled those incredible eyes on her and a little shiver ran down her spine. ‘I write in my spare time, you see,’ he explained, obliterating the sudden ridiculous fear that he was somehow referring to her, that he meant to spend his weekends in orgies of wanton behaviour with none other than Mrs Bonnie Merrick, the closet nympho of Blackrock Beach. ‘When I write, I hole up in my study and tap away on my PC in a compulsive fervour. Relaxation is far from my mind, which is invariably tormented with all sorts of wild characters and wickednesses.’

      ‘Goodness!’ she exclaimed, hoping she wasn’t betraying any of her own wildly wicked thoughts. ‘What on earth do you write? Accounts of the murder trials you’ve been involved in?’ When talking of his work he’d explained that his law firm was ninety per cent criminal defence, mostly on capital cases.

      Again he laughed. ‘If I tell you, will you promise to keep it a secret?’

      ‘Of course.’

      ‘I write thrillers.’

      ‘But how wonderful! I love thrillers. Have you been published?’

      He nodded.

      ‘Would I have read any?’

      ‘I doubt it. I’ve only had three out so far, under the name of Roger Black. They’re all about a lawyer named Richard Halliday who solves the most gruesome crimes. Plenty of sex and violence, with undertones of political anarchy. My publisher thinks the public will love them, but, alas, my family and business colleagues would not.’

      ‘Why not?’

      He gave her a look that suggested she knew nothing of his world.

      ‘What about your fiancée?’ she persisted, perhaps foolishly. But she was curious about the sort of woman Jordan would choose as his wife. ‘What does she think?’

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