‘I wouldn’t dream of it. I’ll make up the guest room, Didi. I know where everything is.’
‘Don’t be silly.’ Didi waved the suggestion down. ‘I’m not your Victorian maiden aunt, Georgie, and there’s no need to go bright red. I know what happens between two young adults in love!’
Georgie, trying hard not to look appalled at what was inevitably coming, pinned a wooden smile on her face.
‘You and Pierre,’ Didi announced, backing out of the kitchen with a yawn, ‘can share. You’ll just need to fetch a fresh towel from the airing cupboard and I’ll see you both in the morning!’
Georgie turned slowly to Pierre as soon as the kitchen door was shut and glared at him.
‘This is your fault!’ she hissed accusingly.
‘I’ve been blamed for many things in my time,’ he said coolly, ‘but never for the weather.’#p#分页标题#e##p#分页标题#e#
‘I’m not talking about the snow and you know it.’ She began clearing the table. It had been a one-pot meal, so at least not too many dishes. Didi didn’t possess a dishwasher, which she associated with somehow deeply endangering the environment and aiding and abetting global warming, so Georgie began filling the sink with hot water, not even looking in Pierre’s direction because the minute she did she knew that she would also, in her mind’s eye, have a sickening vision of him alongside that big king sized bed that was in his bedroom.
Pierre swung her around to face him and his face was like granite.
‘Don’t even think of doing the maidenly outrage act, Georgie!’ His voice was soft and silky and as cutting as a whip.
‘I know I got us into this, Pierre. You haven’t failed to remind me of that every step of the way but…’
‘But? You’re suddenly finding the consequences of your actions a little too uncomfortable for your liking?’
Georgie looked at him mutinously and found herself being distracted by his eyes. Amazing eyes and fabulously long, thick, dark eyelashes. The sort of eyelashes any woman would have given her right arm for. No wonder those brainy women he favoured had also all been stunning. He could have it all. The brains and the beauty. She blinked and forced herself back to the reality of him gripping her shoulders and glaring at her while the yellow rubber gloves she was wearing dripped water on the flagstone floor around her.
‘But you didn’t have to go overboard with the lovey-dovey act.’
‘But isn’t that what we’re supposed to be?’ he asked in a voice that dripped sarcasm. ‘Madly in love? I was only playing to my brief, after all.’
And it’s all your doing was the rider to that observation, unspoken but as clear as a bell.
‘And don’t even think about getting into that sewing machine of a car of yours and trying to drive back to your cottage in this weather.’
‘I wasn’t,’ she said sulkily. ‘But if you were any kind of gentleman, you would offer to drive me. Your car could handle the trip easily.’
‘But I’m no gentleman,’ Pierre said without batting an eyelid. He abruptly released her and stood back, shoving his hands in his pockets and observing her with apparent fascinated interest. ‘We’re in this ridiculous situation together…’ his mouth quirked with the irony of what he said next ‘…for better and for worse, so you might as well resign yourself to the fact. And I’m really surprised that you’re not a little more pliable,’ he murmured, ‘considering you went to such lengths to nab me in the first place.’ He grinned as angry colour streamed into her cheeks. ‘I mean, phoning my office when you were in London, inveigling your way up to the directors’ floor and waiting two hours for me to finish my meeting so that you could invite me to dinner…’ He had never thought himself to be creative, but he had certainly risen to the task of describing their fictitious love affair with astounding inventiveness and he had thoroughly enjoyed every minute of the storytelling. ‘Then those jazz tickets you managed to get hold of, knowing that I would be tempted to go with you…worked, though, didn’t it? You landed your man!’
‘How could you invent all those stories?’
‘That’s rich, coming from the Queen of Invention!’
Georgie, without much of a leg to stand on, didn’t say anything.
‘Tut-tut, no need to look so hot and bothered,’ Pierre soothed. ‘As Didi said, this is the twenty-first century and there’s nothing wrong with the woman doing all the running. Now—’ he looked at his watch and then back to her ‘—I’m going to do an hour’s work so that’s a headstart for you, and if you’re in need of some sleepwear you can always borrow one of the tee shirts I keep here in the cupboard. Be a nice touch, don’t you think? Wanting to wrap yourself up in your man’s clothes so that you can breathe him in?’#p#分页标题#e##p#分页标题#e#