LITMIR.BIZ

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pride—kept him on his feet. He should have known Diane would come here looking for trouble, but however appealing Fliss Taylor might be—and he couldn’t deny she was appealing—he wasn’t interested.

      ‘She has a kid,’ he said wearily. ‘But then, you probably know that. You’re the one who seems to know everything about her.’

      ‘I used to,’ declared Diane dismissively. ‘Personally, I haven’t set eyes on her or her kid for years.’

      ‘OK.’ Matt endeavoured to control his irritation. ‘Well, for some reason, the kid decided her rabbit would be safer in my garden than hers. She’d stowed its cage near the back door and I caught her feeding it this morning. That’s all there is to it.’

      ‘So—then what? You phoned her mother and asked her to come and get it?’

      ‘No.’ Matt was tired of this interrogation. He didn’t know why Diane had bothered to come if all she intended to do was pick an argument with him. Surely she knew he was supposed to avoid any unnecessary stress, and getting riled up about something so trivial was definitely unnecessary. He blew out a breath. ‘She came here looking for her daughter. No law against that, is there?’

      Diane’s lips tightened. ‘I suppose not.’

      ‘Good. I’m glad we agree on something, at any rate.’ Matt turned away. ‘Want some coffee?’

      ‘So why didn’t they just take the rabbit with them?’ she asked after a moment, and Matt swore.

      ‘For pity’s sake,’ he snapped. ‘Does it matter? I’ve explained what happened. Let that be an end of it.’

      Diane hesitated. ‘I—suppose it would have been difficult to move the thing without a car.’

      ‘Right.’

      Diane nodded. ‘And Fliss didn’t know the kid had left the rabbit here?’

      ‘Diane…’

      Matt’s tone warned her not to proceed, but she spread her hands defensively. ‘I just want to know,’ she said innocently. ‘I suppose Amy still regards this place as her second home.’

      Matt swung round then, a frown drawing his brows together. ‘What are you talking about?’

      Diane looked smug now. ‘I thought you were sick of talking about it,’ she mocked, and then, realising she was pushing her luck, she gave in. ‘Fliss used to work for the old man who owned this place,’ she explained. ‘I’ve heard she used to bring the kid with her.’

      ‘What work did she do?’

      ‘What do drop-outs usually do?’ asked Diane contemptuously. ‘She was his housekeeper, of course. When she wasn’t working in the pub, that is.’

      Matt poured coffee into two mugs and handed one to her. ‘For someone who claims not to have seen the woman for God knows how long, you seem to know a lot about her,’ he said, sinking gratefully onto one of the two stools he’d brought down from London. He swallowed a mouthful of coffee, feeling the reassuring kick of caffeine invading his system. ‘Are you a snob, Diane?’

      ‘No!’ She was indignant. ‘But I can’t help it if I think she was a fool to throw away a decent education to be a single mother.’

      Matt arched a dark brow. ‘Is that what she did?’

      ‘Yes.’ Diane scowled. ‘I mean, she was sixteen, for God’s sake. She must have been crazy.’

      ‘Obviously she didn’t think so.’

      Diane shrugged. ‘More fool her.’ She shook her head. ‘It was the talk of the village.’

      ‘I bet.’

      ‘Well, it was so stupid. She could have had an abortion. No one need have known anything about it. It wasn’t as if the boy wanted to marry her. Mummy thinks her mother never really got over it.’

      ‘Ah.’ Matt was beginning to understand. ‘So you get your information from your mother.’

      Diane looked offended. ‘There’s no need to take that attitude. Mummy thought I’d be interested. After all, Fliss and I used to be friends.’ She grimaced. ‘To think, I used to be like her!’

      Matt was not prepared to get into that one. Instead, he concentrated on his coffee, knowing that sooner or later Diane would remember what they’d been talking about before the other woman had knocked at the door.

      And he didn’t have to wait long.

      ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘that doesn’t matter now. You were telling me what you intend to do with this place. I mean, look around you, darling. It’s going to take a fortune to make it anything like habitable.’

      ‘A small fortune, perhaps,’ he allowed, with a wry smile. ‘And I don’t intend to do it all at once. Just the main bedroom and a couple of reception rooms. Most of the changes are cosmetic, anyway. According to Joe Francis, the building’s sound enough.’

      ‘But what does it matter?’ protested Diane, setting down her mug with hardly controlled frustration. ‘Matt, you’re not going to stay here. You may kid yourself that this is what you want, but that’s just a passing phase. As soon as you’re feeling yourself again, you’ll realise that you can’t live anywhere but London. Your job’s there; your friends are there. You don’t know anyone in Mallon’s End. Except Mummy and Daddy, of course, and you don’t really care for them. Admit it.’

      ‘I know Mrs—Miss Taylor,’ remarked Matt, knowing it would annoy her. But dammit, she was annoying him right now. ‘And you don’t know what I want, Diane. What you’re talking about is what you want. How do you know my priorities haven’t changed?’

      ‘Because I do know you!’ she exclaimed fiercely. ‘You’ll soon get bored doing nothing. Even if you don’t need the money.’

      Matt shrugged. ‘We’ll see.’

      ‘Oh!’ Diane’s exclamation was impatient. ‘All right, what about me? Have you thought about me at all? I can’t live here. My job’s in London.’

      ‘I know that.’

      ‘And?’

      Matt bent his head, rubbing palms that were suddenly slick with sweat over the knees of his pants. ‘And—I think it would be a good idea if we cooled it for a while—’

      ‘No!’

      ‘Yes.’ Matt knew he was being harsh but he really didn’t have a choice. Not in the circumstances. ‘Help me on this, Diane. I need some time on my own; time to get my head straight.’ He paused, considering his words. ‘Pretending things are the way they used to be isn’t going to do it.’

      ‘It could.’ Diane quickly crossed the room to kneel at his feet. ‘Darling, don’t do this to me. To us. We’re so good together.’

      We were, thought Matt flatly, making no attempt to touch her. ‘Diane—’

      ‘No, listen to me.’ She looked up at him appealingly, her heart-shaped face alight with enthusiasm, grey eyes entreating now, eager to persuade him she was right. ‘I can help you, darling. You know I can. But not if you send me away.’

      ‘Dammit, I’m not sending you away,’ he muttered grimly, but she wasn’t listening to him.

      Moving his hands aside, she replaced them with her own. For a moment, she was still. And then, watching him with an almost avid concentration, she slid her hands along his thighs to the apex of his legs. Her intention was clear. When she licked her lips, he could see her anticipation. Then, she spread his legs and came between them…

      Matt couldn’t let her go on. With a surge of revulsion, he thrust her aside and sprang to his feet. Somehow he managed to put the width of the room between them, his pulse racing, his heart hammering wildly in his chest. But it wasn’t a good feeling.

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