The Mistress Scandal

‘I know I look a complete idiot; there’s no need to dwell on the subject.’ Businesslike, she tucked her jaw-length brown hair behind her ears and, back pressed to the wall, levered herself upright in one supple sinewy motion. ‘You took me by surprise,’ she added defensively.

Gabriel—how strange after three years to be able to put a name to the face, not to mention the body. He automatically extended a steadying hand which she pointedly ignored.

She had thought perhaps delayed shock had exaggerated the memories of that night. No man really had a physical presence that could reach out across a room and turn your stomach inside out. She’d been wrong. It wasn’t just that he was physically just about the most impressive male she’d ever seen, it was more than that—much more. The ‘more’ was in the innately elegant way he moved, the dark intelligence lurking in his deepset eyes and the bone-deep aura of confidence.

She’d sometimes wondered what would happen if their paths crossed again. Would he recognise her? Would she wonder what it was about him that had made her behave so crazily? Now there’s a prime example of wishful thinking! Why is this happening to me?

Superficially he was very like Oliver; that was what had first made her stare that night. But it wasn’t the fleeting similarity to her dead husband that had made her carry on … and on …

Oliver had been nearly six-five too, and broad across the shoulders. But the only exercise Oliver had had the time or inclination for in the last few years of his life had been the occasional round of golf. That combined with the fact he had rarely been without a glass in his hand outside working hours had softened and thickened him around the middle.

There was nothing remotely soft about Gabriel MacAllister, then or now! His belly was washboard-flat and his hips were sleekly lean. Alice raised both hands to her cheeks; they felt inordinately hot.

‘Did you know?’ she asked with terse suspicion.

‘Dark, devious plot time?’ Gabriel suggested with a raspy scornful laugh that made her flush. ‘You mean have I spent the last three years trying to track down the woman who slipped into my bed and slipped out of it just as casually?’ A nerve jumped spasmodically in one lean cheek. ‘If it hadn’t been for the scratches I might even have thought you were a dream.’ The erotic, soul-stealing variety.

‘I tried to get on with my life … Alice.’ His voice was a low, mocking drawl. ‘Such a nice, sweet, innocent little name for a nice, sweet, innocent little housewife.’ He looked at her bare left hand where it lay curled tightly around her right forearm. ‘Still no ring, I see. Tell me, does your husband know about your little escapades?’

The image flashed into her mind of the ugly expression on Oliver’s face when she’d flung her ring at him across the candlelit dining room.

‘Escapade in the singular.’ She hugged her arm even tighter over her breasts but felt no responding surge of security. She’d not noticed that night how uncompromisingly hard his angular jawline was.

Was he asking her to believe that a ring would have protected her from his advances that night? Highly sexed men like Gabriel, used to getting their own way, were not, in her opinion, big respecters of social convention. He’d got what he wanted, so why was he complaining? She’d got something too, to remind her permanently of that night.

Perhaps I ought to have let him think he was one amongst many? Better a trollop than a silly, weak-willed woman … or does a one-night stand qualify a woman for trollop status these days, irrespective of the extenuating circumstances?

‘I was the only one?’ Gabriel didn’t bother to hide his derisive disbelief. ‘I’m flattered.’

‘Don’t be. You were convenient.’

She hadn’t intended her crisp words to be interpreted as a blow for liberated womanhood, but from the brief flash of hot anger which briefly illuminated his bronze-flecked eyes he didn’t like her response one little bit.

‘You’re very frank, Alice.’

‘Don’t call me that …’

‘Why not? It’s your name.’

‘I don’t like the way you say it.’ It was like a finger skimming the downy surface of her skin, or maybe a tongue. Her thoughts skittered to a dead stop and dark damp patches appeared down her back where her tee-shirt was adhering to her hot sticky skin. Be sensible. Don’t think skin, tongues or anything remotely similar around this man.

‘Is that why you’re shaking? You were shaking the last time …’

‘My car had been stranded in a snowdrift for two hours on that occasion,’ she reminded him huskily. What’s your excuse now, Alice? Unwillingly she met the derision in his dark, compelling gaze. A shiver slid like ice all the way down her shock-stiffened spine—no man had a right to be that good-looking!

The emergency services had taken her and several other unfortunate travellers to a hotel. People forced together by adversity often shared a unique sense of camaraderie which broke down the usual reserves, and that had been the case that night. The plush foyer had been loud with voices of folk sharing stories and whisky, which the hotel bar had been liberally dispensing.

Alice had felt an odd sense of detachment as she’d stood there with an untouched glass in her hand. Nobody there could have been aware that her numbness extended far beyond her icy fingertips. She’d felt as though her soul had been surgically excised—she’d been empty.

Inevitably it would hurt at some point, but she had wanted to delay that inevitable moment for as long as possible. She’d had no idea where she was, and she hadn’t been interested enough to ask. She’d just got into her car after the funeral and started to drive. In her right mind she’d have curtailed her journey when the weather had gone from bad to impossible. That evening she’d recklessly driven on, even when the conditions had become a total white-out.

The dark stranger’s appraisal had been frankly sensual, even a little contemptuous, but for some reason this hadn’t angered or even flustered Alice. The strange sense of recognition, she had told herself later, must have had something to do with the uncanny resemblance. But the closer he’d come the less he’d looked like Oliver, and the stronger the aura of arrogance and power had become.

‘You were trapped in the snow …?’

His deep voice held an unusual rasp that sent a sharp electrical jolt all the way down to her toes. She opened her mouth and gave a soundless gasp. How had she known he would sound like that?

Alice ignored the opening he’d left for her name. ‘Yes.’

‘For how long?’

Her slender shoulders lifted in the dark fake-fur-trimmed coat she’d thrown on over her simple black dress. She fingered the single string of pearls around her throat.

‘I don’t know,’ she replied honestly.

‘You’re not drinking?’

She shook her head and the barrette that secured her long silky brown tresses came adrift. The rich warm cloud reached all the way to her slender waist.

‘I am.’

The throaty confession surprised her. He didn’t look or sound drunk, she decided, but there was a certain wild, reckless gleam in his eyes. There were other things there too …

Alice’s throat felt very dry when she spoke.

‘Were you caught in the blizzard too?’

‘No, I have a room …’

‘They’re turning the lounge into a dormitory for us.’ Personally she didn’t care if she slept on the snooker table.

‘British resourcefulness at its most impressive.’ The sultry intensity of his dark-eyed regard had not left her face for a second. ‘Would you like to share my room?’

Alice couldn’t tell from his expression if he really expected her to take his offer seriously.

‘Yes.’

If you discounted please she’d continued to say yes at all the vital moments during the rest of that long night.

Alice dismissed the distracting images from her head by sheer will-power alone. ‘I’m in shock,’ she said with icy dignity. ‘I didn’t expect …’

‘Your sordid past to knock on the door?’ His helpful suggestion earned him a bitter glare. ‘Think how I felt! Greg had led me to believe you might be able to fit me in between baking for the church fête and …’ He paused with a frown. ‘Sorry, my knowledge of wholesome rural activities is a bit sketchy.’

His patronising drawl made Alice grit her teeth.

‘And what do I get …?’ The mocking smile faded slowly from his face as he looked at her. ‘A lot more than I bargained for,’ he admitted huskily. ‘You were the most uninhibited lover I’ve ever had.’

His uninhibited lover went scarlet, and a mortified squeak emerged from her throat.