LITMIR.BIZ

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on the top floor. He took her through the spacious adjoining sitting-room, switching on the lights to move to the drinks cabinet. ‘Brandy, I think,’ he murmured, pouring some into a glass before handing it to her. ‘Where was your husband while all that was going on?’ he snapped in a harsh voice.

      ‘He—he stepped outside for some air,’ she invented, sipping the brandy, and instantly beginning to choke as the fiery liquid hit the back of her throat.

      Matthew came forward to pat her gently on the back. ‘Good grief, girl,’ he said impatiently, ‘anyone would think you'd never drunk brandy before!’

      ‘I haven't,’ she choked, tears wetting her cheeks.

      He raised his eyes heavenwards. ‘How old are you? Ah yes, twenty-five,’ he answered his own question. ‘But you don't like to socialise.’

      It was a statement that didn't really require an answer, so she didn't proffer one.

      ‘Your husband likes to—socialise,’ he continued, his mouth twisting contemptuously.

      ‘Yes,’ she acknowledged huskily.

      ‘But you don't?’ he persisted.

      ‘No.’

      ‘You didn't attend the dance last year with your husband, did you.’

      Jessica evaded his eyes. ‘No.’

      ‘Why not?’ he rasped. ‘Office parties are notorious for starting—affairs.’

      She looked up now, meeting his probing gaze unflinchingly. ‘Are they?’ she asked uninterestedly.

      ‘Yes,’ he hissed. ‘Why weren't you here last year?’

      Jessica looked down at her hands. ‘My little girl was ill,’ she mumbled, knowing she would have done her best to get out of it even if Penny hadn't been ill, as she had tried to this time, to no avail. ‘I—stayed at home to take care of her.’

      ‘But your husband didn't feel the same necessity?’ he snapped.

      She shrugged. ‘It was only a cold, I didn't see why we should both miss the—fun.’

      ‘Fun …?’ Matthew repeated slowly, his gaze searching, disbelieving. ‘Do you like to have—fun?’ he asked softly.

      ‘I—No—I——’ She stood up. ‘I think I would like to rejoin Andrew now,’ she told Matthew coldly.

      ‘No!’ It was almost a shout, and Matthew was at her side within seconds. ‘I'm sorry, I didn't mean to imply—God, I don't know what I mean any more!’ he groaned in an aching voice.

      Jessica only had time to raise startled eyes before she felt herself being pulled into his arms, his mouth slowly lowering towards hers. ‘No!’ She flinched away from him, but he just kept right on coming, his mouth taking possession of hers.

      It was five years since she had been kissed by anyone except Penny, and that firm cruel-looking mouth felt strange on hers, his lips moving sensually against hers, remorselessly so.

      Jessica didn't respond or resist, standing impassive in his arms until he at last released her. His face was white, his expression grim. ‘So you do love your husband after all,’ he said harshly, pushing her away from him.

      ‘Yes,’ she said emotionlessly, knowing that nothing could be further from the truth. She had stopped feeling anything but fear of Andrew years ago.

      Matthew swallowed hard. ‘I'll take you back to the dance.’

      ‘Thank you.’

      ‘Jessica——’

      ‘Andrew will be looking for me.’ She looked at him with unwavering eyes.

      ‘Like hell he will!’ he exploded. ‘He—Oh, never mind!’ he dismissed impatiently. ‘I'll take you back downstairs, if that's what you want.’ He hesitated, as if hoping she would say it wasn't.

      ‘It is,’ she said firmly.

      They didn't talk at all going back down in the lift, both seemingly lost in their own thoughts—Jessica's tortuous.

      Matthew Sinclair was the only other man to kiss her besides Andrew, and he had kissed totally unlike her husband. His lips had been gentle, searching, anxious to evoke a response within her, asking for that response.

      And hadn't she felt the stirrings of that response, a gravitation to the warmth after so many years of coldness? Heavens, she was a married woman, had a child, and yet she had let a complete stranger hold her in his arms and kiss her!

      But why had Matthew Sinclair kissed her? Did he think that because Andrew had affairs she was the same, that they were one of these so-called ‘modern’ couples who had sexual relationships outside marriage?

      If he had he hadn't received the response he wanted. But the kiss had unsettled her, shown her that she wasn't as immune to physical warmth as she had always thought she was, as Andrew had convinced her she was.

      Frigid, Andrew said she was. Well, she might be, but that one brief kiss of Matthew Sinclair's had shown her that frigid or not she liked to be held against another human being, to feel cared for, protected. After five years of Andrew's jibes and insults the other man's show of warmth, if not true affection, had caused an ache of longing she had thought buried deep within her, an ache for something she had never known—something she would never know!

      She was married to Andrew, would stay married to Andrew, and despite the constant stream of women in his life she knew she would never turn to another man. Why face the name-calling and bitterness for a second time in her life? There was something missing from her body, something fundamental, that prevented her giving or receiving pleasure from any man.

      ‘I'm sorry,’ Matthew said abruptly at her side.

      Jessica looked at him with pain-filled eyes, knowing that he apologised as much for what he had briefly thought about her as for the way he had kissed her. ‘Yes.’ Her voice was emotionless through years of practice.

      ‘I have no excuse for what happened just now,’ he continued stiffly.

      They stepped out of the lift together, the dance sounding noisier than ever. ‘It isn't important,’ she dismissed, already looking for Andrew.

      Painful fingers bit into her arm. ‘It is to me,’ Matthew ground out. ‘I'm not in the habit of kissing married women.’

      Jessica turned to look at him; his face was harsh, a pulse beating erratically at his jaw. No, he wouldn't be in the habit of kissing a woman who belonged to another man. The pride in his brow, the forbidding line of his mouth told her that he deeply regretted it had happened this time.

      ‘I have no intention of telling my husband——’

      ‘Your husband!’ he cut in angrily, his tawny eyes blazing. ‘I couldn't give a damn about your husband. It's you I'm apologising to, not him.’

      ‘And I've accepted that apology,’ she told him in a puzzled voice, not understanding why he was so angry.

      His eyes darkened. ‘Jessica—Oh, why the hell did you have to be married!’ He swore before walking off, anyone who was in his path quickly getting out of the way.

      Jessica turned away, knowing she had seen the last of Matthew Sinclair. She knew why she was married, why she was still married despite Andrew's affair—because of Penny, because of the one person who meant anything in her life. Every time Andrew's behaviour became too much for her she would take one look at her young daughter and know it was all worth it.

      ‘Where the hell have you been?’

      Andrew wasn't smiling charmingly this time, he was scowling heavily, and he wasn't alone either. Alicia was clinging to his arm—and looking as if she had a perfect right to be there! Her expression was blatantly insolent as she looked down at Jessica, at least six inches taller, and very sure of her own beauty.

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