Sharon Kendrick Collection

‘You know very well I can—’

‘That’s not the point.’

‘Then just what is the point?’ said Guy steadily, hooking his thumbs into the waistband of his jeans.

The movement distracted her, and suddenly she found his proximity disturbing. More than disturbing. Had she really thought that she would just be able to ignore that blatant sex appeal? ‘I’d just like to make a contribution while I’m here.’

Their eyes met.

‘Oh?’ questioned Guy softly.

She saw the swift darkening of his eyes. ‘I’ll contribute food,’ she told him shakily.

‘Food?’ Guy queried dazedly.

‘Towards the running of the household,’ she elaborated.

‘Yeah,’ he agreed distractedly. ‘Whatever you say, Sabrina.’

CHAPTER NINE (#ulink_cca28f56-ebfe-538c-ab28-c9550efdf148)

SABRINA was woken by a banging on the door, and her eyes flickered open for a few dazed moments before reality clicked in from unconsciousness. Her gaze drifted upwards. A high ceiling. A beautiful flat. Guy’s flat.

‘Sabrina!’

Guy’s voice!

‘What is it?’ she answered groggily.

‘Are you awake?’

‘I am now.’ She yawned and picked up her wristwatch, which was lying on the locker. Six-thirty? What time did he call this? She had never been the best early morning person in the world. Still in the warm haze of sleep, she felt too lazy to be inhibited.

‘Why have you woken me up?’ She yawned again.

‘I wondered why you weren’t up. Did you set your alarm? We don’t want you to be late on your first day, now, do we, Sabrina?’

That teasing little lilt set her senses fizzing. ‘Of course I set my alarm! I don’t have to be at work until nine!’

‘That late?’ he drawled. ‘I’ll have been at my desk for at least two hours by then.’

‘I’ll have a medal minted for you, Guy!’

He sounded amused. ‘I’m just off now—you’d better come out while I show you how the security system works.’

Sabrina was out of bed and pulling a face at her tousled reflection in an instant. She raked a brush through the unruly locks, pulled on her dressing gown and opened the door.

He was wearing the most beautiful dark pinstriped suit with a matching waistcoat and pure silk tie. The snowy shirt emphasised the blackness of his hair, the faint tan of his skin and the almost indecent length of his legs.

Sabrina couldn’t stop her heart from racing at just the sight of him—but it was with pure delight rather than desire, as if seeing Guy in the morning was the most perfect way to start a day. Even though her fingers flew automatically to her chest to clutch together the gaping blue satin of the robe.

Guy didn’t miss the movement, nor the tantalising glimpse of pale breast it obscured. He swallowed. ‘Let me show you how to set the alarm.’

‘Right.’ Sabrina tried to listen carefully to what he was saying, but it wasn’t easy. It seemed bizarre, crazy, stupid—tantalising—for her to be standing half-naked beside him, concentrating fiercely on which numbers his fingers were punching out on the alarm system and not on the delicious lemon and musk scent which drifted from his skin.

‘Now, this key,’ he told her, deliberately leaning a little bit away from her, because it was more than distracting being this close to the butting little swell of her breasts as they jutted against the slippery satin of her robe, ‘is for this lock here. The longer, thicker key…’ Oh, God, he thought despairingly, what was she doing to him? ‘That locks here.’ He swallowed. ‘Got that?’

‘Could you show me again?’ She had hardly heard a thing he was saying, and she wished he would just go. But the last thing she needed was for all his expensive paintings and books and furniture to suddenly ‘walk’—just because she hadn’t had the sense to lock up properly.

‘Do you want me to write it down for you, step by step?’ he questioned sarcastically.

‘That won’t be necessary!’

This time she listened as if her life depended on it.

‘Understand now?’

‘Perfectly, thank you very much.’

He shot a glance at his watch and gave a small click of irritation. ‘You’ve made me late now. I haven’t been late in years.’

‘Well, you could have shown me all this last night, couldn’t you?’

Yeah, he supposed he could have done—it was just that they had opened a bottle of wine during dinner and had then sat and finished it in the sitting room. Bad idea. And Sabrina had kicked her shoes off in front of the fire, perfectly innocuously, but Guy had been riveted by the sight of those spectacularly slender ankles and had found it difficult to tear his eyes away from them. He had never quite understood why the Victorians had considered the ankle such an erogenous zone, but last night the reason had suddenly hit him in a moment of pulse-hammering insight.

He usually did paperwork on Sunday evenings, but last night it had lain neglected. And now he was late.

He glowered. ‘I’ll be home around seven.’

She looked at him expectantly. ‘Will you be eating supper? Or going out?’

He had said that he would meet up for a drink with Philip Caprice—the man who was now working for Prince Raschid—but he couldn’t really leave her alone on her first full day in London, could he?

He sighed. ‘No, I won’t be going out.’

‘Then—’ she suddenly felt ridiculously and utterly shy ‘—maybe I could cook you supper tonight. I’ll buy the food and everything—as I said, that can be my contribution towards my upkeep.’

He hid a smile, unwillingly admiring her persistence, as well as her independence. ‘OK,’ he agreed gravely. He suspected that she would conjure up some bland but rather noble concoction of pulses or brown rice or something. He repressed a shudder. ‘I shall look forward to it.’

After her shower, Sabrina went back to her room to get dressed. At least now it looked slightly better than when she had first arrived. Guy had cleared away the clutter on the desk, and had pushed the filing cabinets back against the wall. The exercise bike had been moved from its inconvenient position located slap-bang in the middle of the room. It could do with some decent curtains, she decided suddenly, instead of those rather stark blinds.

She shook her head at herself in the mirror. She was here on a purely temporary basis—she certainly shouldn’t start thinking major redecoration schemes!

She dressed in black trousers and a warm black sweater and took the tube to where the London branch of Wells was situated, close to St Paul’s Cathedral.

It was an exquisite jewel of a Georgian building, set in the shadow of the mighty church. Sabrina had been there twice while negotiating her transfer and had met the man she would be working for.

Tim Reardon was the archetypal bookshop owner—tall, lean and lanky, with a fall of shiny straight hair which flopped into his eyes most of the time. He was vague, affable, quietly spoken and charmingly polite. He was single, attractive—and the very antithesis of Guy Masters.