‘Not at the moment, no.’
‘Has there ever been one?’
Georgie looked at him coldly, but something in her stirred with an odd mixture of hurt and resentment. She knew exactly what sort of women Pierre found attractive, just as she knew that, to him, she was little more than an overgrown tomboy. When he had been making his ambitious plans to leave Devon and make his mark in the city, she had been climbing trees and foraging the beach for driftwood, and later, when time had moved on and she no longer climbed trees, she had branched out in an even more incomprehensible way. Teaching had allowed her to avoid the boring uniform of the office bound woman. She wore trousers and flowing, comfortable clothes and did all the things he himself would never have deigned to do. She had always called it ‘having fun’ although, from what he had implied today, he too had fun in a completely different way.
‘What do you think?’ she asked, trying to inject a note of amusement in her voice although, to her own ears, she sounded sharp and offended.
‘No idea.’ He gave her a leisurely head-to-toe look that made her stomach do a little uncomfortable flip. ‘I somehow never associated you with a raging sex life.’
‘I don’t conduct myself like that!’
‘Like what?’ Pierre found himself oddly interested in her vehement protest and, from nowhere, he recalled what he had thought for those first few seconds when he had seen her wearing his clothes. She was small and slender and the clothes drowned her, but she looked sexy for that. Something about that slightly dishevelled look, as if life was constantly taking her by surprise and delighting her.
‘I don’t do casual relationships for the sex, Pierre.’
‘I thought all twenty-somethings did, or doesn’t it work that way in Devon?’
‘People in Devon are exactly the same as people anywhere else! There’s no need to talk about us as if we evolved from another planet!’ She felt herself building up to an explosion when she noticed that he was trying hard not to laugh. ‘Very funny, Pierre,’ she said sourly.
‘You were saying…that you didn’t believe in sex before marriage…’
‘I never said any such thing and you know it!’ She met those brilliant blue eyes and her stomach did another flip. ‘I just don’t have relationships the way you do. I don’t go out with people because I need a bed partner ever so often. Anyway, whether I’ve had boyfriends or not is none of your business.’
‘Oh, but it is…considering we’re now an item! Surely I’m entitled to know about your past?’
Georgie was beginning to harbour regrets about her impulsive decision to involve him in a phony relationship. She had pigeon holed him as a good looking but boring man whose only concern was the business of making money. Okay, so maybe his only concern was the business of making money, but she was beginning to have glimpses of a far more complex individual than she had given him credit for.
‘No, you’re not,’ she snapped. ‘Although, and I don’t know why I’m telling you this, but I have had several exciting relationships with some very interesting men.’
‘Obviously not exciting enough to have held your attention in the long term.’
‘So which weekend exactly do you have in mind to come to Devon?’ Georgie, unsettled by his prodding, chose to change the subject completely. ‘You mentioned a long weekend, but I guess your work commitments wouldn’t allow that.’
‘Do you mean you hope my work commitment wouldn’t allow it?’
‘I meant that if you can’t find time to have a relationship with a woman, then how can you suddenly find time to have a mini-break in Devon?’#p#分页标题#e##p#分页标题#e#
‘Did I have a choice? You can’t have really expected us to have a long-distance relationship until such time as Didi declared herself cured of her depression, did you?’
‘I feel awful that you’re deceiving your girlfriend.’
‘Well, you should have contemplated that possibility before you embarked on your bright idea, and, anyway, isn’t it a tad hypocritical to talk to me about feeling guilty about Jennifer when you’re happy to string Didi along?’
Georgie was silenced by that obvious truth, which didn’t mean that she didn’t give him a mutinous glare by way of response.
‘Thinking about it, next weekend would suit me, to answer your original question. Like I said, I’ll have to check my diary, but the sooner the better as far as I’m concerned.’
He looked at his watch. ‘And now, I’m going to do a couple of emails and then I’m heading up to bed.’