LITMIR.BIZ

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half the tables were occupied when Lara walked in, causing a few brows to rise. She walked straight over to Mark.

      ‘I was worried.’ He put down his newspaper.

      It might have been more convincing without the petulant pout. What did I ever see in him?

      ‘Really.’ Her glance moved to the buffet breakfast he was tucking into. She struggled to imagine him spending his morning driving around the city to see that the woman he’d spent the night with was safe.

      ‘As you see, I’m fine.’ She spread her arms wide and hid her irrational hurt behind a flippant façade, trying to ignore the stares she was receiving from the other diners.

      ‘So how do you feel about the Coliseum?’ His glance slid down her dress. ‘After you’ve changed, obviously.’

      Lara shook her head and stared, not believing what she was hearing. ‘What?’

      ‘I worked out an itinerary. A weekend isn’t long enough to see everything Rome has to offer, but—’

      She moved closer to the table and lowered her voice to an incredulous whisper. ‘You expect me to go sightseeing?’

      ‘Look, this doesn’t have to be a total disaster.’

      His attitude made Lara want to hit his fat face. Actually, it wasn’t fat. She held on to her temper with both hands and made herself look objectively at the man she had decided would be a safe bet.

      Because that was what it boiled down to. In her determination to find a man who would see beyond her face and body she’d ignored other warning signs. One major flaw in her plan had been assuming a man capable of seeing her as more than a sex object would automatically be sensitive and caring, someone worthy of loving.

      No one would have looked at Raoul and thought he was sensitive and caring, she mused, heat accompanying the image of the man she had spent the night with flashing into her head.

      If she could have written a list of all the things she had been consciously avoiding in a lover he would have ticked more boxes than she knew existed.

      He was all the things, the breathing epitome, of what she had been avoiding in the man destined to be her first lover. Yet his raw, elemental sexuality had been matched by a gentleness and sensitivity... The only flickers of fear had been a fear of the strength of her own response, and that had quickly faded as she had embraced the passion that had blazed between them.

      One of life’s little jokes! It turned out she had wanted a man who would rip her clothes off and make her forget where she ended and he began.

      With a sigh she tuned back into what a red-faced Mark was saying. ‘The room is paid for.’

      ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I couldn’t possibly stay here with you.’

      Folding his napkin with irritating precision, he looked at her over the dark rim of his glasses and sounded annoyed as he asked, ‘What’s the alternative?’

      Pushed into a corner, she bit her quivering lip. ‘I want to go home.’ She was embarrassed before she had closed her mouth over the unguarded words; his reaction turned her humiliation to anger.

      ‘I thought I’d brought a woman away, not some little kid.’ The defensive aggression that she had sensed beneath the surface was now overt as he added, ‘I wasn’t funding a school outing for virgins.’

      ‘You weren’t funding anything.’ She had paid for her own flight. ‘I’ll leave the cash for my share of the hotel room on the dressing table before I leave.’

      Turning, she stalked from the room and stomped her way up the stairs to the bedroom; not a room with a view—that was extra. Walking to the wardrobe, she pulled her clothes off the hangers and flung them in a heap on the bed before transferring them to her case. Next came the toiletries out of the bathroom. It might well be a record, she decided, turning the key on the padlock, for packing and stupidity.

      She’d wanted to go away with safe and responsible and she’d got selfish and boring.

      ‘You know, you’re overreacting.’

      She didn’t bother to turn around but sighed and said in a flat little voice, ‘Well, that’s me, isn’t it? A drama queen.’

      ‘Not the best trait in a PA.’

      He threw it in casually, didn’t say outright that she’d be looking for another job as soon as she got home, but she’d need to have been stupid not to get the message. Lara’s stomach went into a nosedive. So this was why office romances were frowned on. When they went sour bad things happened for the person who wasn’t the nephew of the company owner.

      ‘Don’t worry. I’ve been thinking of moving on...’ Her pride made her say it, but in reality she needed the pay cheque. Without it...she didn’t want to go there! The only place she’d be going was back home with her tail between her legs.

      Mark didn’t immediately react. He crossed the room, picked up a tourist guide from the dressing table and shoved it into his pocket. When he finally looked at her she could see the relief on his face.

      ‘That might be the best idea. Don’t worry, I’ll give you a good reference.’

      She lost her struggle to hide her feelings. ‘Don’t make it sound like you’re doing me a favour. I’m damned good at my job.’

      ‘Yours, mine and everyone else’s. Not everyone likes being told what to do by a secretary.’

      Pride alone kept her chin up, another of her life choices coming back to bite her.

      It was strange, but last night had not been a decision in her head, more a collision, one of those celestial events that nothing could stop...and if she could have, would she? The answer should have depressed her, but, in the face of Mark’s unremitting nastiness, the fact it had happened made her feel not less in control, but more. She would never regret last night.

      No, weirdly it had not been one of her bad life choices. University...? Lara had laughed at the idea—three years out of her life that gave her zero experience of real life and left her with a pile of debt hanging around her neck. Back then she’d had this crazy idea that talent and enthusiasm would make her rise through the ranks. Maybe true in some firms, but not in the one she worked for. Her glass ceiling had been set very low and her lack of paper qualifications meant she was never going to push through it.

      There were no glittering prospects on the horizon, and until now she hadn’t admitted it even to herself, because doing so would mean she’d have to admit she’d made the wrong decision.

      ‘You know, sometimes it’s better to admit you made a mistake,’ she said.

      ‘But if you fly back without me, people—’

      She suddenly got it. ‘You mean the guys in the office you told will think you’re not up to it?’

      ‘I didn’t tell anyone,’ he lied, red-faced. ‘If I’m willing to make the best of this I don’t see why you can’t...’

      Arms folded across her chest, she looked at him, not seeing sensitivity shining out from behind his horn-rimmed spectacles but a pretty boring, unimaginative and selfish guy.

      ‘I’m really not your type, am I?’ Part of his attraction, if she was honest—and that was long overdue—was the fact that Mark had never made a pass. She’d never had to fight off advances or ignore smutty innuendo.

      It really ought to have occurred to her that he simply didn’t find her attractive. She huffed out a laugh of self-mockery and thought, That’ll teach you, Lara, for assuming you’re irresistible. As for being the strong, quiet, heroic type—well, he hadn’t even asked her where she’d been last night let alone made any attempt to find her.

      Mark gave an uncomfortable shrug. ‘You’re beautiful, I was flattered, but—’

      Suddenly Lara did not want to hear the but...which

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