LITMIR.BIZ

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there had been no one else, and perhaps that in itself was a commitment from a man who had previously lived with no woman but made love to many. Only it still wasn’t enough for her.

      ‘I’m sorry,’ she told him flatly.

      ‘Sorry!’ he scorned. ‘For what? For leaving me? Or for leaving at a time when you knew I couldn’t stop you? Because you know damn well I would have done, don’t you?’ he accused fiercely.

      She had known, and he was right, she had only found the strength to leave because he was away and unable to stop her. She would never have found the courage to come right out against him. ‘All that’s irrelevant now, Joel,’ she dismissed, running her fingertips through the silky tangle of her hair, feeling it fall back into style against her cheek. ‘I have left, and I have no intention of ever coming back.’

      His eyes had narrowed to tawny slits. ‘So where does that leave us now?’

      She swallowed hard. ‘I think that’s entirely up to you, don’t you?’ she said quietly.

      He thrust his hands into his trousers pockets, his shirt and waistcoat still unbuttoned, falling open to his waist. ‘You aren’t involved with Hillier?’ he demanded harshly.

      Lindsay frowned at his persistence in believing she was. ‘I’ve only ever seen him on the few occasions he’s been to the studio.’

      ‘When he made it perfectly obvious how attracted he is to you,’ Joel scowled his displeasure.

      With any other man she would have put his behaviour down to jealousy, but with Joel she knew that wasn’t so; he was never jealous or possessive, believing in total personal freedom for everyone. No, he was just annoyed at the thought of possibly losing his secretary. ‘Roger is like that with all women.’ She dismissed, with a smile, the young photographer who had helped Joel in the past, flirtatious with every woman he came into contact with, regardless of age or beauty, and it didn’t mean a thing.

      ‘Since he set up on his own he’s been looking for a secretary/receptionist.’ Joel still didn’t look convinced.

      ‘Well, he’s never mentioned that to me,’ she shook her head.

      ‘He’s mentioned it to me!’ he rasped. ‘And I warned him off you. It took me long enough to find you!’

      Lindsay stiffened as he confirmed what she had always thought to be true, that she was more important to him as a secretary than as the woman he lived with! ‘I’ve told you,’ she said coldly, ‘I’m still your secretary.’

      ‘For as long as I want you to be,’ he scorned.

      ‘Yes,’ she nodded.

      ‘I want you back where you belong!’ he grated, glaring at her. ‘At the apartment.’

      ‘I belong here, this is my home.’

      ‘Your home is with me!’

      She moistened suddenly dry lips. ‘Joel, I——’

      ‘I’m not going to beg,’ he cut in angrily. ‘If I leave without you now I’ll never ask you again.’

      She knew he meant it, knew he possessed a stubbornness that was equal to none, that pride often held him back from asking anything of anyone. ‘I’ll see you at nine o’clock on Monday morning,’ she told him softly, seeing the anger flare up anew in his eyes, knowing at that moment that he really hadn’t believed when he came here tonight that he would have to leave without her.

      ‘Damn you, then, Lindsay Pope!’ he bit out furiously, striding towards the door. ‘I never ask a woman for a second time!’ he warned her raggedly.

      She looked at him with unflinching green eyes. ‘I’m counting on it.’

      The apartment reverberated from the slam he gave the door as he left, and Lindsay winced from the aftershock, sitting down weakly in one of the armchairs. Whatever Joel had made of her last comment she knew that if he persisted in chasing after her she would eventually have given in. And that would just take her back to the same situation she had needed so desperately to escape from.

      But it hadn’t been easy to say no to him, and she shook from the need to run after him and tell him it had all been a mistake. But common sense held her back—that, and the knowledge that she couldn’t suffer through another six months of knowing she meant nothing to him only to have him then turn around and ask her to leave because he was bored with her.

      But it was going to be far from easy working, and seeing him every day, in future!

      ‘All right, Lindsay,’ her sister Judi, the older by two years, encouraged. ‘You can tell me what’s troubling you now that Mike’s gone out.’

      Lindsay had driven down to spend the day with her family at the house in Cambridgeshire, only to find her mother out for the morning at church, and her tormenting younger brother Mike refusing to leave the house in case he missed any of their gossip, finally being persuaded to do so by a couple of his friends who called round.

      She sighed at her sister’s perception. ‘You have to know some time, Judi. I’ve left Joel.’

      Her sister frowned. She was as blonde and pretty as Lindsay, with an underlying sadness always present in her hazel eyes. ‘I thought you were happy together,’ she prompted gently.

      ‘Joel was,’ Lindsay corrected pointedly. ‘As long as I didn’t make any emotional demands on him.’

      Judi’s expression was full of compassion. ‘And you made some, hmm?’

      ‘I had more sense than to try!’ she sighed. ‘It just didn’t work out, Judi,’ she explained in a stronger voice. ‘I thought I could be the one to change his mind about love and marriage. It must be the biggest deception a woman can give herself,’ she added self-derisively.

      ‘It was worth a try when you love him so much,’ her sister comforted.

      Lindsay’s mouth twisted wryly. ‘I’m sure Mother doesn’t think so!’

      ‘You mustn’t mind her,’ Judi said gently. ‘She doesn’t understand anything except marriage, it’s just the way she expects things should be.’

      Their mother had been left a widow five years ago, had enjoyed a happy married life with their father for over twenty years, and she just couldn’t understand—or forgive—Lindsay for simply moving in with Joel the way that she had. Nothing much had been said, the disapproval being mainly silent, but Lindsay had been as aware of it as if her mother had shouted it from the rooftops.

      She had tried to persuade Joel to visit her mother sure that once the two of them met they would get on together. Joel had refused, and her mother had been unenthusiastic about the idea too, always complaining about their living arrangements when Lindsay visited home alone. To make matters worse Mike considered her living with Joel was really great, further encouraging her mother’s disapproval. If she needed any encouraging!

      ‘Do you think I was wrong, Judi?’ she voiced her uncertainty to her sister.

      ‘Not when you loved him so much,’ Judi shook her head.

      ‘But you and Jonathan never—I mean——’

      ‘No, we didn’t,’ Judi confirmed hollowly. ‘But I’ll always wish that we had.’

      Lindsay’s eyes widened. ‘You will?’

      Judi nodded. ‘But he refused to once he knew how ill he was, said he didn’t want us to have any accidents that would maybe prevent my marrying after—after he was gone. As if I’ll ever want to marry anyone else now that he’s dead!’

      Judi’s fiancé Jonathan had died two years ago of leukaemia, leaving everyone who knew and loved him devastated by his loss, Judi had never recovered from losing her childhood sweetheart so tragically, the two of them having dated since they were at school together, and Lindsay now felt guilty about

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