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definitely should have considered before now…‘You are engaged. Or intend to be married soon?’

      ‘Of course not.’ She looked down pointedly at her bare left hand before adding, ‘I wouldn’t be here having dinner alone with you if I was!’ She shook her head. ‘But I don’t intend always to be alone. I would like to be married at some time in the future, and to have children of my own one day. Whenever I’ve envisaged that day I’ve always thought I would be living in Bartholomew House,’ she said huskily.

      Guilt was not an emotion Drakon was in the least familiar with, and it now sat uncomfortably heavy on his shoulders. Especially when it was in connection with a young woman he found altogether too attractive for his own comfort! Nor was he particularly happy with the brief feeling of satisfaction he had experienced at knowing Gemini was not seriously involved with anyone else at the moment. The chances of her ever becoming involved with him, now that he had refused even to consider her proposal for purchasing Bartholomew House, were also extremely remote!

      He looked across at her through narrowed lids. ‘I don’t see how anyone could have reason to object to your having a business dinner with me?’

      Gemini accepted that it might have started out as a business dinner—except for the subdued lighting and those candles on the dinner table—but Drakon certainly hadn’t been feeling businesslike a few minutes ago, when she had felt the evidence of his arousal pressing against her. When whether or not they kissed each other had hung so delicately in the balance for several tense and breathlessly expectant moments!

      ‘Probably not,’ she accepted briskly. ‘But I wouldn’t have felt right about coming here if I was involved with someone.’

      Drakon frowned his irritation. ‘I don’t see why not. Or is it your intention, when this “one day” arrives with this as yet imaginary husband and children, to close yourself off from all other social contact?’

      ‘Of course not.’ Gemini gave him a derisive glance. ‘But going out for the evening to have dinner alone with—well, frankly with another man, who happens to be single and very eligible, really isn’t acceptable when you’re married to someone else.’

      He raised dark brows. ‘Even if it is a business dinner?’

      ‘Even then.’ She shrugged dismissively. ‘I wouldn’t be at all happy knowing my husband was out to dinner with some glamorous blonde or brunette, business or otherwise, so I wouldn’t expect him to like my doing it either. And I really have no idea why we are even talking about someone who doesn’t even exist yet,’ she added wryly. ‘It’s bizarre!’

      It was an odd conversation, Drakon acknowledged. One that gave him even more of an insight into the type of woman Gemini Bartholomew was.

      At the same time it reiterated his earlier impression that she was not the type of woman to enter lightly into what Drakon already knew, from that brief time of holding her in his arms, would be a highly volatile sexual affair between the two of them. Indeed, she was the type of woman who would need to be in love, rather than just in lust, with any man she went to bed with.

      Surely that didn’t mean she might still be a virgin at twenty-seven?

      Of course it didn’t; just because Gemini hadn’t married yet it didn’t mean she hadn’t already fallen in—and out—of love, or had sex. Or made love, as she no doubt thought of it!

      Drakon’s hands clenched at his sides just at the thought of other men making love to her. Of those men having seen her naked, with that beautiful white-gold hair falling caressingly over them as they touched and kissed all those delectable and willowy curves—

      Those regrets at his earlier self-denial had occurred even more quickly than Drakon had imagined they might!

      He nodded abruptly. ‘I will ring for the car and have you driven back to your home,’ he said.

      ‘There’s no need,’ Gemini replied. ‘I can easily get a taxi once I’m outside.’

      ‘I arranged for your transport here, and as such cannot possibly allow you to go home in a taxi,’ he bit out harshly.

      ‘You aren’t allowing me to do anything, Drakon.’ Gemini couldn’t help smiling a little at his arrogance. ‘And I want to go now,’ she insisted heavily, that humour quickly fading. ‘Not in ten minutes or so when the car arrives.’

      He straightened. ‘Then I will drive you home myself—’

      ‘That really isn’t necessary.’ She frowned at the mere idea of being confined in a car with him for the fifteen minutes or so it would take to drive her back to her apartment. Drakon had rejected her offer, and now she just wanted to get out of here—not drag this awkwardness out a moment longer. ‘Nor is it a good idea, considering you’ve been drinking wine—the licensing laws over here are pretty strict.’ She drew in a deep breath. ‘Thank you for dinner—’

      ‘Which you were too upset to eat.’ A nerve pulsed in the tightness of his jaw.

      ‘And the lovely wine—which I certainly wasn’t too upset to drink,’ she added pointedly. ‘And for listening to me, at least…’

      Drakon scowled his displeasure at the frown that had reappeared between those magnificent eyes. ‘There really is no reason for you to leave so soon—’

      ‘I’m afraid there’s every reason, Drakon.’ Gemini sighed. ‘You were my last hope, I’m afraid.’

      He knew that, and inwardly railed against the fact that he had ultimately proved to be so unhelpful to her. But, apart from his immediate family, business had always come first and last with him—certainly for the ten years since he had taken over as President of Lyonedes Enterprises. The appeal of a beautiful pair of sea-green eyes and the allure of a desirable body simply were not justifiable reasons for him to give even a moment’s consideration to Gemini’s impractical offer to purchase Bartholomew House.

      ‘I will need to come down in the lift with you, at least, in order to let you out of the building,’ he rasped.

      ‘By all means come downstairs and see me off the premises,’ she accepted teasingly. ‘Having already been confined by your security man once today, I would hate for it to happen a second time—and maybe this time involve the police because all the alarms go off as I try to leave!’

      As the two of them stepped into the lift together Drakon couldn’t help but admire Gemini’s cool dignity only minutes after he had dealt her what must have been a devastating blow. Many women, as he knew from experience, would have resorted to shrieking or crying—or even seduction—in order to try and get their own way, but not Gemini Bartholomew. There was no doubting she looked slightly more emotionally fragile than when she had arrived, but otherwise her calm dignity was still firmly in place.

      Not that any of those things would have worked where Drakon was concerned—although the seduction would no doubt have been enjoyable. But Gemini had not even tried to exert any of her feminine wiles on him.

      Was that disappointment Drakon felt? Possibly. In the circumstances, he could not in all conscience act upon his own desires, but having Gemini act upon her sexual awareness of him, which he had sensed in her such a short time ago, would have been a different matter entirely!

      Gemini was very aware of Drakon standing beside her as they went down in the lift together. And of a return of that sexual tension that had occurred earlier when he had taken her in his arms. If it had ever gone away…

      If she were honest with herself, she hadn’t really held out much hope of Drakon being receptive to her unusual offer to buy Bartholomew House from Lyonedes Enterprises when she’d agreed to have dinner with him this evening. She had already realised that from a business point of view it really wasn’t a very practical offer. So having Drakon turn down the offer had come as no real surprise.

      The physical awareness that had sprung so readily to life between them earlier and was still so tangibly evident most definitely had…

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