The Deserving Mistress

One thing he did know, he needed to get this whole thing back into perspective, to concentrate on his objective, which was to buy this land and then leave.

And, to do that, he had to get away from May Calendar.

Besides, April would be waiting for him back at the hotel. Charming, entertaining, thoroughly agreeable April.

May Calendar looked at him unblinkingly. ‘I did listen to him, Mr Marshall, but I don’t have to listen to you—’

‘That’s it!’ His patience, what there was of it, had been blown completely at her determined continuation of the formal ‘Mr Marshall’. Damn it, he had tried to be kind to her—even though she would so obviously have preferred that he wasn’t—to be reasonable; he had even bought her dinner.

With no ulterior motive? a little voice taunted inside his head.

And what if there had been? She could still have been a little more grateful than she had.

May eyed him mockingly now. ‘That’s what, Mr Marshall?’ She smiled tauntingly.

‘This,’ he bit out forcefully—seconds before he swept her up into his arms and kissed that mocking smile right off her lips.

Mistake, Jude, he admitted with an inward groan. Mistake!

She tasted of honey. Her lips were soft and responsive—probably because she was too surprised to do anything else, he acknowledged ruefully, even as he moulded her body against his, the warmth of her breasts crushed against his chest, the dark swathe of her silky hair falling down over his arm as he tilted her head back to deepen the kiss.

Nectar.

Sweet, sweet, nectar.

So intent was he on tasting that nectar that he didn’t at first notice the tiny fists pummelling against his chest, only coming to a full awareness of her resistance as she wrenched her lips away from his to glare up at him.

‘Let go of me,’ she ordered furiously, pushing ineffectually at his chest now. ‘You—you—’

‘Yes?’ he derided challengingly even as his arms dropped back to his sides and he stepped away from her.

It had taken several seconds to get his own raging emotions back under control, but now that he had…

Exactly what had he thought he was doing? Okay, so May was beautiful, immensely desirable, challenging—but she was also, in this particular situation, the opposition!

She put up a hand to her slightly swollen lips, her eyes wide and accusing as she looked up at him. ‘I have no idea where you thought such behaviour was going to get you, but… Get out,’ she told him quietly, shaking her head dazedly. ‘Just get out.’

Oh, he was going, intended putting as much distance between himself and this woman as possible.

She was dangerous. To his self-control. To his self-preservation. To his self-possessed existence!

He gave her a deliberately mocking smile. ‘Don’t feel too bad about responding, May,’ he said tauntingly. ‘You won’t be the first woman to do so—or the last,’ he added derisively.

If anything her face paled even more, those glittering green eyes the only colour in her face now. ‘Get out!’ she repeated between clenched teeth.

Jude calmly bent to pick up the jacket he had dropped seconds ago to take her into his arms, easily holding her accusing gaze as he put the jacket on, deliberately taking his time, much to her obvious impatience.

‘Have something else to eat, May,’ he drawled as he walked to the door. ‘It would be a pity to waste all that food just because you don’t like the person who bought it for you,’ he added dryly.

‘Goodbye, Mr Marshall,’ she said as pointedly as he had to the man called David a few minutes ago.

Jude paused in the open doorway. ‘Oh, not goodbye, May,’ he assured her grimly. ‘Unlike my—associates, I don’t intend leaving until I’ve done what I came here to do.’

She gave a scornful laugh. ‘Then I would suggest you start looking to buy a house in the area—because I’m not interested in selling the farm, to you or anyone else.’

‘No, you’re obviously not,’ he accepted lightly. ‘But your sisters may feel differently now that they are both engaged to be married.’

Jude regretted having made this last challenge even as he made it. He saw the way her cheeks paled once again, that slightly haunted look in those deep green eyes telling him that she was no longer as sure of her sisters’ feelings in the matter as she wanted him to think she was.

Making him feel like a complete heel.

Oh, he was determined, forceful, had never let a business challenge get the better of him, but he had never considered himself to be deliberately cruel before.

What the hell was wrong with him?

May Calendar, with her big green eyes, her magnolia skin, her air of fragility, that was what was wrong with him.

And it stopped right now!

‘Have a nice day,’ he told her glibly, closing the door softly behind him before strolling over to get back into his hire car.

Damn, damn, damn!

CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_ba4730bb-8e23-5da3-976e-1a1f425b3515)

‘THIS is very kind of you, David.’ May smiled shyly across at him as they sat in the bar of the hotel restaurant while waiting to go to their table. ‘But I’m afraid it’s just a waste of your time, that it isn’t going to change anything,’ she added with a rueful shake of her head.

‘I don’t consider having dinner with a beautiful woman as time wasted,’ David Melton assured her huskily, blue gaze warm in the rugged handsomeness of his face.

He was so nice; that was what made all of this so difficult. That, and the fact that May really would have loved to accept the part in his forthcoming film he had repeatedly offered her. But, for reasons she had no intention of telling him—or, indeed, anyone else—the whole thing was simply impossible.

But she had kept her promise to telephone David at his sister’s earlier today, had repeated what she had told him in London a couple of weeks ago, and again yesterday evening, only to have him ask her to come out to dinner with him this evening. No pressure, he had assured her as she’d hesitated, just a friendly dinner together, when he wouldn’t even mention the film role if she would rather he didn’t.

It had been too tempting an offer for her to refuse, David extremely handsome as well as being a charmingly interesting man. And with the added incentive not to mention the film role…

And now she had been the one to introduce the subject…!

Primarily because she felt so guilty about the time David had taken to give her the screen test a couple of weeks ago—only to have her turn down his offer after that test had proved successful.

To be offered a film role, on the basis of one performance in a local pantomime, was the stuff that actresses’ dreams were made of, and May knew that David must wonder at her sanity for having turned down such an offer.

‘Does your reluctance concerning playing the role of Stella have anything to do with the man I met last night?’ David prompted lightly, looking at her over the top of his glass as he took a sip of the white wine he had ordered for them both as a pre-dinner drink.

‘The man you— Oh.’ May grimaced as she realised exactly whom he was talking about. ‘No,’ she assured him with a firm shake of her head. ‘Jude is a total irrelevance to this situation— What’s so funny?’ she prompted with a puzzled frown as he gave a husky chuckle.

He gave a rueful shake of his head. ‘I doubt that particular man has ever considered himself an irrelevance in any situation!’ he explained dryly.

May smiled at what she was sure was an accurate observation where Jude Marshall was concerned. ‘No, I’m sure that he hasn’t,’ she agreed. ‘But in this case, he is,’ she insisted firmly.