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have had her bristling with indignation but...it didn’t.

      She licked her lips nervously—an unconsciously erotic little gesture that made Sergio shift in his chair, easing the pain of an erection that wasn’t going anywhere.

      ‘The coat,’ he reminded her softly. ‘Take it off.’

      Susie obeyed. She got the feeling that people always obeyed what he said. Maybe that was why he was allowed to take up valuable space in a pricey restaurant without actually putting any money in the coffers by eating. She had thought he was being charming and self-deprecating when he had described himself as arrogant. Maybe he was just being truthful.

      The coat came off.

      Sergio’s breath caught in his throat. What had he been expecting? He didn’t know. He just knew that if she was out to see what she could get from him, then she had been inspired in her choice of dress, because it displayed every inch of her fabulous figure in loving detail. The tiny waist. The generous breasts. Shapely legs. But she wasn’t overly tall, and he liked tall. She wasn’t brunette, and he preferred brunettes. And she certainly wasn’t a career woman—unless you could call not having a steady job a career choice—and career women were the only women who interested him.

      But she was doing terrific things to his libido.

      He smiled a slow, curling smile as he inspected her lazily from head to toe and back again.

      ‘That’s rude!’ Hot and bothered, Susie hurriedly sat down and wiped clammy hands on the dress.

      ‘Come again?’

      ‘That’s rude...’

      ‘Don’t tell me you don’t like being looked at? If you didn’t you wouldn’t be wearing a red dress that leaves very little to the imagination.’

      ‘It was a mistake buy.’

      She was mortified to feel dampness seeping through her underwear and the tingle of her nipples, which had reacted to that lingering, unhurried inspection as though they were being played with.

      What was going on? she wondered in confusion. She never reacted to guys like this. She was comfortable around them. Always had been. Yes, she had had two boyfriends, but neither of them had had this sort of effect on her.

      Mistake buy? Sergio nearly burst out laughing. ‘Mistake buys’ weren’t small, red and sexy. Small, red and sexy were designed to do one thing and one thing only, and that was to attract a man. To attract, in this case, him. It had worked. He was attracted.

      And the way she could barely meet his eyes... She was the very picture of flustered, pink-cheeked innocence. It might be great acting, but the flustered pink-cheeked innocence was as sexy as the dress.

      Hats off to her for a new and interesting route to getting through to him. Had she just turned up at the bar wearing the sexy red dress he might have looked but he wouldn’t have gone there. But her storyline... She had enticed him with more than the dress and the body...she had enticed him with her personality—and, frankly, he was in the mood to be enticed.

      She was a refreshing change. He needed a break from intellectual women who had opinions and could become borderline tedious on the subject of their high-powered careers. What could be more of a break than a frisky little number who didn’t have a job?

      ‘I’d dispute that,’ he told her, with that same curling smile that made her short of breath. ‘In fact, from where I’m sitting, it looks like anything but a mistake buy.’

      He was hardly aware of their glasses being refilled by a waiter, or of menus being placed in front of them. In fact he was hardly aware of ordering food.

      ‘So, does the bartending and the occasional picture-painting pay the rent? In London?’ he asked.

      ‘Just about. I can’t say I have much left over at the end of the month...’

      Her parents would have loved nothing more than to install her in their grand apartment in Kensington, which was only used when they occasionally decided to descend on the city for the theatre or the opera, but she had always stuck to her guns and refused the offer.

      Pride, however, did entail roughing it in a not particularly great part of London and having to put up with a good-natured but lazy landlord who didn’t see a problem with eccentric central heating and appliances that only worked when they felt like it.

      ‘And yet you’re here...?’

      ‘Sometimes you’ve just got to live a little.’ Susie blushed and looked away. ‘I should have done what I always wanted to do,’ she said, staring off into the distance. ‘I mean, have you ever found yourself sucked into following a career path that just wasn’t for you?’

      She had been eighteen...with no interest in going to university...and the family consensus had been that a secretarial career would at least provide a steady income, with the possibility of branching out at a future date. The unspoken conclusion had been that she was just not academic enough for much else.

      ‘No.’

      ‘You mean you’ve always known what you wanted to do with your life? Where you wanted to go and how to get there?’

      ‘Circumstances have a cunning way of steering us down an inevitable road,’ Sergio murmured, a little surprised to be participating in this abstract conversation.

      ‘What does that mean?’

      ‘So you were “sucked into” becoming a secretary...?’

      Susie duly noted his avoidance of her question—and yet he had sounded, just then, as though he had been speaking from experience...what experience?

      ‘It seemed to make sense at the time.’ And anything that made sense had seemed so important at the time—more important than standing her ground and pursuing a career in fine art.

      ‘But in retrospect it was the biggest mistake of your life, because things that are done because they make sense are not always the things one ends up enjoying...?’

      ‘That’s so true!’ Susie leaned forward. She laughed, delighted that he had caught on so quickly, had almost read her mind and expressed her thoughts in a handful of words. ‘You’re very insightful,’ she murmured shyly.

      Sergio raised his eyebrows. Insightful? One adjective that had never before been applied to him.

      ‘I wouldn’t get carried away,’ he murmured drily. ‘If I were you I’d remember what I told you before. I’m arrogant...you’d be far better off bearing that in mind...’

      Copyright © 2015 by Cathy Williams

       Vows Made in Secret

      Louise Fuller

       ‘I honoured you with a gift. The most important gift a man can give to a woman. I made you my wife and you threw it in my face.’

      Prudence gaped at him, shock washing over her in waves. She opened her mouth to deny his claim but the words clogged her throat. His wife? Surely he didn’t really think that they were actually married? Her heart was pounding and the palms of her hands felt suddenly damp. Married? That was ridiculous! Insane!

      Dazedly she thought back to that day when she’d been led, giggling and blindfolded, to his great-uncle’s trailer. Laszlo had been waiting for her. She felt a shiver run down her spine at the memory, for he’d looked heartbreakingly handsome and so serious she had wanted to cry. They’d sworn their love and commitment to one another and his great-uncle had spoken some words in Romany, and then they had eaten some bread and some salt.

      Her pulse was fluttering, and despite her best efforts her voice sounded high and jerky. ‘We’re not

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