Harlequin Presents January 2015 Box Set 3 of 4(148)

I’ve only harmed myself—betrayed my self-respect, she thought, feeling sick. Something I can neither explain nor excuse, but shall just have to live with, somehow.

But Cilla’s been unfaithful to Jonathan—the man she loves and plans to marry. So how can she ever forgive herself?

While Andre Duchard had the unmitigated, hypocritical gall to castigate me for that—goodnight peck, she told herself, biting at her already tender mouth.

When she got back to the house, she was thankful to find it deserted and went straight to her room.

She stripped and went into the shower, using a massage sponge soaked in gel to scrub every inch of her body, trying to remove any lingering evidence of his hands and mouth.

If only it was as easy to clear the memory of his touch from her brain, she thought as she shampooed her hair, letting the hot water cascade over her until every vestige of foam had gone. To forget how it felt to have him sheathed inside her. To erase the recollection of the pleasure, which still had the power to make her tremble.

She dried herself, rubbed scented lotion into her skin, put on her robe and then, at last, looked at herself in the mirror, wondering how to disguise the total giveaway of the haunted eyes and swollen mouth.

In a few short hours, she thought dispassionately, she had become a stranger to herself, not just physically but emotionally.

The girl whose life she’d been living for twenty-two years had never believed that the world was well lost for lust. Nor ever would.

Because lust was all it had been. Anger transmuted in the heat of the moment into another far more dangerous passion.

That other girl had hoped some day to fall in love, and to discover the joys of sex in a relationship that mattered, not to give herself unthinkingly on the well-used mattress of a hotel room on a winter afternoon to a man who was, to all intents and purposes, her enemy, whatever his surface attraction.

Because that was nothing less than degrading. And what could she say in her own defence? Plead momentary insanity?

She should have talked to her sister quietly and privately, to warn rather than sit in judgement. Darling Cilla, please—please think what you’re doing, because he’s not worth it, was what she’d have said. Trying to take care of her as always. Wouldn’t she?

Except, I hardly know any more, she thought. And I certainly don’t know the creature I became a few hours ago. She was just—a temporary aberration. Something I can’t afford.

She sighed, thinking wistfully how wonderful it would be if everyone could put the clock back—just once. Be allowed to correct a truly hideous mistake before any real damage was done.

She collected up her discarded clothes and took them downstairs. She had just filled the washing machine and set it going, when the rear door opened and Mrs Pel, in a warm coat and woollen hat, bustled in on a blast of cold air.

‘Why, Miss Ginny,’ she exclaimed. ‘I wasn’t expecting to see you. Did the café close early?’

‘No, I—I didn’t feel too well, so I came home.’ Ginny hoped her flush would be attributed to the warmth of the kitchen rather than telling a downright lie, which was something else she might have to get used to, she acknowledged miserably.

Mrs Pel tutted. ‘Lot of nasty viruses about,’ she said darkly. ‘Now, why don’t you go back to bed, and I’ll bring you some hot lemon.’

‘I think I’ve spent quite enough time in bed,’ said Ginny, her flush deepening as she reverted to perfect truth. ‘It would do me more good to take Barney out.’

Mrs Pel looked at her in dismay. ‘He’s not here, Miss Ginny. A man came for him first thing this morning. Said it was all arranged.’

‘Arranged?’ Ginny’s heart skipped a beat. ‘But I knew nothing about it. What’s his name?’

‘I didn’t hear it. Miss Cilla spoke to him. But he seemed pleasant enough—and got Barney into this cage in the back of his Land Rover.’

‘A cage?’ Ginny was beginning unhappily, fearing the worst, when the front door bell jangled, making Mrs Pel tut again.

‘Now who can that be?’

‘I’ve no idea.’ Another lie. Because she knew who it was as surely as if he was standing in front of her. She went on quickly, ‘But Mother and Cilla are out, and I’d really rather not see anyone. So, could you say none of us are here?’ She paused. ‘Whoever it is.’

‘Of course I can.’ Mrs Pel regarded her with concern as the bell rang again. ‘You do look peaky and no mistake. You run along, and I’ll wait till you’re safely out of the way.’

Ginny didn’t go straight to her room. Instead she lingered on the galleried landing, shielded from the hall below by an antique cupboard.