The Final Seduction(3)

'How could it be?' he asked impatiently. 'Fletcher was almost crippled  when you left-not jumping around like a puppy. I know they say that the  Milmouth air is rejuvenating but that would be a little short of  miraculous!'                       
       
           



       

'Still, I shouldn't have called him like that.'

'No, you shouldn't,' he agreed shortly.

'He's lovely, Drew,' she said, meaning it. 'When did you get him?'

'He isn't mine.' His eyes were wintry. 'I'm just walking him for somebody else.'

'Anybody I know?' The question came out before she realised that she had no right to ask him things like that.

He clearly thought so, too. 'What would you say if I told you I was out walking him for a sweet, little old lady?'

The trouble was that she would believe him. 'I'd say that you were a model citizen. An upstanding member of the community.'

'Would you?' he queried softly, and let his gaze drift unhurriedly over her face. 'Would you really?'

Shelley shifted. She was used to men staring. That was what men did in  Italy. It was acknowledged and recognised as perfectly normal to gaze at  a woman in open appreciation, as you would a fine painting, or a  delicious meal. But the way Drew was looking at her was making her feel  uncomfortable. As if she were some bit of flotsam he had found washed up  on the beach.

And he was shaking his head, as though he didn't like what he saw. 'What  on earth have you done to yourself?' he demanded in a low, incredulous  voice.

He made her feel like Cinderella before the transformation scene. 'Done  to myself?' Her indignation was genuine. 'What's that supposed to mean?'

He shrugged. 'Well, the dog wouldn't have knocked you over if you hadn't been so damned skinny.'

'Skinny?' she gritted. The word was insulting-as he had obviously meant  it to be. 'Don't you know anything, Drew? That a woman can never be too  thin-'

'What a load of rubbish,' he interrupted with quiet, curling distaste.  'Haven't you heard that the waif look is out? You look like you haven't  eaten a square meal in years.'

Should she bother telling him that women in Milan watched their figures  like hawks? Which was why they looked beautiful and elegant in the  wonderful fashions which the city was so famous for. 'Clothes look much  better if you aren't carrying any excess flesh,' she told him smugly.  'Everyone knows that.'

'Well, I prefer to see a woman out of clothes,' he drawled, noticing  with pleasure that she flinched when he said that. Good! He smiled as  his gaze lingered in a way which was now very Italianate. 'And when a  woman is naked a few curves are infinitely preferable to looking like a  bag of bones.'

'Bag of bones?' she repeated in horrified disbelief, feeling quite sick  at the thought of him with naked women. 'Are you saying that I look like  a bag of bones?'

He shrugged. 'Pretty much. You sure as hell don't look great. Mind you-'  and his gaze narrowed '-the clothes don't help-and what on earth have  you done to your hair?'

Shelley could hardly believe what she was hearing! She had learnt a lot  about looking good while she had been living with Marco. From a rather  wild and windswept girl, she had become high-maintenance woman. She had  transformed herself from small-town hick to city slicker. People admired  the way she looked these days-her hips were as narrow as a boy's and  she only ever wore neutrals.

But Drew didn't seem to be one little bit impressed by her new-found fashion know-how.

She glanced down at her admittedly rather crumpled grey linen suit-and then back up into a pair of judgemental navy eyes.

'I agree that this isn't what I would normally wear to walk on the  beach,' she allowed. 'But this suit was designed by one of Milan's most  desirable couturiers.' She saw him pull a face, and as the events of the  last days took their toll something inside her snapped.

'Most women would give their eye-teeth to own an outfit by this  designer!' she fumed. 'And as for my hair! For your information, it is  shaped and tinted with highlights and lowlights every six weeks, by one  of Milan's finest cutters. Have you,' she heard herself asking inanely,  'any idea of how much it costs to look like this?'

But as soon as the words were out and she saw the look on his face she wished she could unsay them.

Distaste wasn't the word.

'I should have guessed that money would have been at the top of your  agenda! So no change there.' He gave a scornful little laugh. 'Well, for  your information, kitten-you were done.'

'Done?'

'Yeah, done. Conned. Fleeced. Cheated.'

Shelley couldn't believe her ears. 'What?'                       
       
           



       

'You heard,' he whispered softly. 'You've become one of those women who  know the cost of everything and the value of nothing, haven't you,  Shelley? Seems like I had a lucky escape.'

'Or maybe you just don't like the way I dress because the clothes I wear indicate that I'm an independent woman now?'

'Independent?' His lips curled like an old-fashioned movie star's. 'I  don't think so! Being a rich man's plaything doesn't usually fall into  the category of independent.'

She didn't have to defend herself to him, so why did she suddenly feel as though she was in the witness box?

She chipped the words out like ice. 'I virtually ran the art gallery in Milan, for your information!'

'What? Flat on your back?'

Shelley opened her mouth to snap back at him, but no words came. This  wasn't how it was supposed to be. She had imagined seeing Drew again one  day; of course she had. Every woman thought of the man they had almost  married from time to time. And she had had lots of imaginary  conversations with him inside her head. But they had been nothing like  this. Rather, some of them had gone along the lines of him narrowing his  eyes in appreciation and giving a long, low whistle while a look of  profound regret would give his body a kind of deflated look, before he  said something like, 'Wow!'

Others had been stupidly unrealistic versions involving white lace and  rice and confetti, but she had banished those very early on. They used  to make her pillow damp with tears.

But not this. She met the mockery in his eyes.

'Actually,' she said, with acid-sweetness, 'while you've been busily  hammering nails into pieces of wood, I've learnt to speak fluent  Italian, as well as how to-' She looked pointedly at where the denim was  at its thinnest, stretched tautly over his mouthwatering thighs. She  swallowed. 'Dress.'

'Just not very attractively,' he amended silkily. 'Shelley, your arrogance is simply breathtaking.'

'Then it's a good match for yours, isn't it, Drew?'

'So where is he?'

She played dumb. 'Who?'

'Your lover, your mentor, your stallion-'

'Please don't call him that!'

'Why not? Does the truth offend you?' He looked around the empty beach  with exaggerated scrutiny. 'I expect he's somewhere warm and  comfortable, is he, polishing the leather of his hand-made shoes?'

'Why, you … you … Philistine!' Her eyes swivelled to his feet. He wore a  scruffy old pair of canvas deck-shoes, without socks. Without socks!  Marco would have sooner gone to prison than gone out in footwear like  that! He would have said that those were shoes for a tramp. And yet  somehow Drew managed to look nothing like a tramp. He looked, Shelley  realised with a lurch of horror, he looked incredibly sexy …

'You look like you should be standing on a street corner begging for small change!' She glared at him.

His body tensed, as though he was fighting some dark, internal demon,  and then he shook his head slightly. 'I guess we've traded all the  insults we need to. Why don't you tell me how long you're here for,  Shelley? Just passing through? Or have you come to put your mother's old  house on the market?'

She didn't stop to think, but then maybe she didn't need to. Maybe she  had known all along just what her answer to this would be. 'Why would I  be passing through? Milmouth doesn't take you anywhere. No, I've come  home, Drew,' she told him, observing his frozen reaction more with pain  than with pleasure. 'Home to stay.'

The screech of a gull could be heard over the whining wind and the relentless smack of the waves hitting the beach.

'You're staying?' He narrowed his eyes. 'For how long?'

'I haven't decided-and if I had I wouldn't be telling you! My plans are flexible.'

He considered this. 'And where exactly will you be staying, Shelley?'

'At my mother's house, of course. Where else?' She glared at him again. 'Sorry. Have I said something funny?'

He shook his head, still laughing. 'Ironic more than funny.'

'That's a little too subtle for me, Drew. Care to let me in on the joke?'

He shrugged, and Shelley's eyes were irresistibly drawn to the hard,  strong body moving beneath the thick knit. 'Just that I can't imagine  your rich lover gearing up for a night of passion in your mother's old  house. Apart from the limitations imposed by the room sizes-the walls  are paper-thin!'