Yuletide Reunion

‘No,’ he said carefully. ‘As I recall you had many talents, Clemmie, but telepathy wasn’t one of them.’

‘Just what are you implying?’ she demanded, furious at that critical look on his face, and even more furious at the unconscious quickening of her heart when she realised that he did remember her name.

He gave a disparaging smile. ‘Oh, you surely don’t need me to spell it out for you, do you?’

‘Oh, I do,’ she mocked sweetly. ‘I can’t stand innuendo! So if you’ve got something to say, Aleck, why don’t you just go right ahead and say it?’

He raised his dark brows so that they slanted in arrogant surprise. ‘You mean relate the simple fact that if we hadn’t been discovered, then we probably would have ended up making love—with you straddled over one of the classroom desks, your panties down by your ankles?’

All the heat drained from Clemmie’s face—she was so shocked and horrified by his crude portrayal of what had actually happened. What a way to put it! ‘How can you say something like that?’ she whispered, in a hollow voice. ‘How can you?’

He shrugged, apparently not bothered by her white face, nor her trembling mouth. ‘How can I not? It’s what happened, isn’t it, Clemmie? Or would you prefer to define the episode as true love? Maybe that’s how you usually justify your behaviour to yourself—I don’t know.’

He managed to make the word ‘love’ drip with such venomous sarcasm that Clemmie stared at him in horror. ‘But it was just a kiss!’ she protested.

‘Really?’ His eyes narrowed alarmingly. ‘Is that what it was? Some kiss! Do you normally let men who kiss you for the first time touch your breasts like that, Clemmie?’

She wanted to hit him. Because at least hitting him would detract from the way her body responded when he said ‘touch your breasts’. How could he? How could he? Her fingers itched to claw at him in some frighteningly primitive way, but to do that would be to compound his opinion of her as some emotional loose cannon.

‘Why are we discussing something which happened twelve years ago?’ she demanded, swallowing back her lust and her anger and attempting to transform them into dignity.

‘I thought that was what you wanted,’ he observed. ‘You were the one who persisted with the subject, weren’t you? After all, I came over simply to fetch my daughter—’

‘Then I’ll go and find her,’ said Clemmie tonelessly.

‘Before you do, Clemmie...’ He lifted his fingers and, annoyingly, Clemmie found herself halting in her tracks. ‘Didn’t it occur to you that I might be worried? Didn’t you consider ringing me to say that Stella was here?’

‘Of course I did!’ she defended. ‘And Stella told me that it was okay! She told me that she was home alone—’

‘She was not alone!’ he shot back repressively. ‘I was working in my study, and she was probably bored and saw you arrive. She’s ten years old, for God’s sake—didn’t it occur to you to check with me first?’

The trouble was that he was right. She should have checked, should have got Stella to ring her father, or should have done so herself. She hoped that he would have done the same if her girls had turned up unexpectedly at his house. And she wondered if she would have been so reluctant to ring if the father in question had been anyone other than Aleck Cutler...

He threw her a look that was distinctly insulting. ‘Though maybe you decided that it would suit you to have her stay so long.’ His eyes glinted. ‘Was that it?’

‘And why would I do that?’ she queried steadily, her heart pounding away in her head as she began to realise just what he was getting at.

‘Maybe you were hoping that I would come looking for her and...’

‘And what?’ she goaded, needing to hear him say the unbelievable.

‘And maybe you wanted to finish off what we started all those years ago?’

Clemmie came closer to hitting someone than she had ever done in her life, but she fought the feeling as if she was fighting for her life. She was not about to start brawling like a fishwife! She managed a tight, supercilious smile. ‘I don’t think so, Aleck. I grew out of teenage fumblings a long time ago. Besides, even if I was still turned on by heavy petting—I’ve always made it a rule not to fool around with married men.’

His eyebrows disappeared into the thick, dark hair as he feigned surprise. ‘Really? Then you must