‘Of course I didn’t. No offence meant to you, of course, but you know we’re just friends. But Dad believed me,’ he added with some satisfaction.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re looking so smug about,’ Leigh snapped. ‘I’m sure your father has no intention of letting you marry me.’ She raised her eyes heavenward. ‘No wonder he was annoyed!’

  ‘Dad wasn’t annoyed, Leigh, he was damned furious. So I thought I’d come round and warn you.’ He looked at his wrist watch. ‘I’m surprised he isn’t here by now.’

  ‘I don’t know what makes you think he’ll come here at all, unless it’s to tell me I’m not a fitting wife for his son. Why do you have to tell these lies, Gavin? I wouldn’t mind, but you only involve other people in your intrigues. And I have no wish to be involved in your family squabbles.’

  ‘Don’t be childish, Leigh,’ he said impatiently. ‘You’re involved right up to your beautiful neck, and when this thing explodes I hope we’ll all be happier.’

  ‘Now don’t you start calling me childish, I’ve had quite enough of that from your father—’ she was cut off in mid-sentence by the insistent ringing of the doorbell.

  Gavin stood up. ‘That’ll be Dad,’ he said with conviction.

  Leigh’s mouth set in a stubborn line. ‘I’m not going to answer it,’ she said firmly.

  ‘What!’ Gavin was astounded. ‘After all the trouble I’ve been to too?’ He walked purposefully towards the door. ‘If you won’t let him in I’m certainly going to. And cheer up.’

  ‘Why?’ she asked miserably.

  ‘You’ll see.’

  Leigh could hear the murmur of masculine voices in the hallway and looked up resentfully as Gavin and Piers entered together. Piers’ face was grim and Leigh hurriedly looked away as their eyes met for a brief moment. Gavin was the only one who looked happy, and Leigh wished they would both leave and give her back some peace of mind.

  ‘I believe you were just leaving, Gavin.’ Piers raised haughty eyebrows at his son.

  Gavin grinned unconcernedly. ‘I wasn’t, but I can take a hint.’

  Leigh watched in dismay as he prepared to leave. ‘No!’ she burst out, her look desperate. ‘I don’t want you to leave, Gavin.’

  ‘Oh, what it is to be popular,’ he teased. ‘But Dad doesn’t agree with you. Don’t worry, Leigh, you’ll thank me for it in the end. I’ll call you tomorrow,’ he promised.

  ‘Gavin!’ his father said harshly.

  ‘All right, all right, I’m going.’

  He let himself out of the flat, leaving a sudden tense silence over the room. Piers seemed in no hurry to speak, watching Leigh through narrowed eyes as she moved nervously about the room. Piers was dressed as he had been the first time she had seen him, in black thigh-hugging trousers and close-fitting black shirt. As she watched him from under lowered lids he removed his sheepskin jacket, loosening his shirt even more at the neck before seating himself comfortably in the armchair nearest the fire.

  It seemed strange to see him so casually dressed. On the last few occasions she had seen him he had been elegantly attired in an evening suit, or lounge suit, as when he had visited her at the hospital. Not that he looked any less attractive. Leigh recoiled from the blatantly masculine aura he exuded, feeling herself falling under his spell as she always did when she came into contact with him.

  ‘Gavin has informed me that he intends marrying you if you’ll have him,’ Piers broke the silence between them. ‘What was your answer?’ he demanded.

  ‘I don’t see that it’s any of your business,’ Leigh snapped defensively. ‘It’s something private between Gavin and myself, and not for discussion.’

  Piers’ eyes glittered dangerously and Leigh’s body stiffened in readiness for the verbal onslaught she knew was coming her way.

  ‘Why are you doing this to me? Just tell me that!’

  Leigh couldn’t move from his piercing eyes, her face pale. ‘I am not doing anything to you, Piers, at least nothing I’m aware of. You chose not to see me any more after Christmas. Oh, don’t worry, I’m not reproaching you for anything. Nothing happened, as you so gallantly put it, and even if it had I wouldn’t have expected anything from you. You’re a sophisticated man and much in demand. I’ve asked nothing of you except that you be civil. You’re the one who always causes a scene when we meet.’

  ‘I cause a scene!’ he snapped angrily, sitting forward in his chair. ‘Under the circumstances I think I should do more than that. You constantly flaunt your relationship with my son before my eyes and expect me to meekly sit back and take it! I chose not to see you after Christmas, as you put it, because I’m too damned old for you! I have more in common with your mother and father than I have with you, or at least I should have. Can’t you understand that!’

  Leigh flared angrily at him. ‘If you feel that way why don’t you go and see them instead of coming here and upsetting me?’ Her voice rose in anger. ‘Gavin lied to you. Oh yes, he did,’ she insisted when she saw his disbelieving look. ‘And don’t ask me why, because I don’t have the answer. He came here just now to tell me you’d probably be coming here and also that you’d probably be in a bad temper. And you are!’

  ‘You’re damn right I am! You can’t expect me to let you marry Gavin without putting up a fight.’

  Tears glittered in her violet eyes. ‘I wouldn’t marry your son if I were paid to do so. Much as I like Gavin I could never forget the fact that he is your son.’

  Piers’ mouth tightened grimly. ‘You hate me that much?’

  Leigh laughed bitterly. ‘I don’t hate you at all. The night of the party you asked me to deny that I still wanted you,’ she choked on her words. ‘I couldn’t deny that because it wouldn’t have been true. You have a very disturbing effect on my equilibrium.’

  ‘Is that all?’ he asked harshly.

  ‘Yes, that’s all! What else could there be?’ Except this pain that was ripping her apart and the weak feeling in her body every time he came near her.

  Piers moved quickly, grasping her from behind to pull her sharply back against his already roused body. ‘There could be the same feeling that I have for you,’ he groaned softly, his lips leaving a trail of fire along her throat. ‘There could be this burning inside for the feel of one special pair of hands to caress and hold you, to arouse you to the heights of heady passion that you know only that person can do. Couldn’t there?’ His voice was softly caressing.

  Leigh forced herself not to give in to the seduction of his words and bring about an unhappiness she didn’t think she could bear. Undoubtedly there would be an ecstatic few months, but that couldn’t compensate for the pain she would suffer when they parted. She had to hold on to her self-respect. She couldn’t become just another woman who for a brief time in his life would satisfy the burning desire she had seen deep in his eyes, until slowly the passion died and he tired of her, seeking avidly for another beautiful face and looking with impatience at the girl he no longer wanted who sat at his side. That wasn’t for her.

  ‘There could,’ she agreed huskily, not resisting the caress of his lips but forcing herself not to respond either. ‘But there isn’t,’ she added hardly.

  Piers swung her round to face him, his hands resting possessively on her narrow hips, his eyes searching her pale set face. ‘You’re lying to me, Leigh. I don’t know why, but I mean to find out. Now tell me.’ Leigh shook her head. ‘Tell me!’

  ‘I—’ Leigh couldn’t look into his face, knowing that to do so would be her undoing. ‘I don’t feel that way about you.’

  His hands tightened viciously and his mouth drew into a thin narrow line. ‘Leigh! You’re still lying. I’ve told you before that I can tell when you lie to me. You know I want you, why can’t you admit you feel the same? Or is that lowering your pride too much?’

  Leigh swung away from him. ‘No, of course it isn’t. I’ve already admitted as much. But I don’t want to be just another woman in your life and then discarded when I’m no longer desirable.’

  She heard him groan softly behind her before he buried his face in her soft hair. ‘You’ll always be desirable to me, Leigh, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. Don’t you know that I love you, I love you so much that if I don’t soon make you mine I’m going to go quietly out of my mind. I tried to forget you, Leigh, I really tried. But in America I found I couldn’t stand any more. I had to come home and find out how you felt about me.’ He breathed deeply of her perfumed skin. ‘I love you, Leigh,’ he groaned. ‘I love you!’

  Leigh could only turn to stare at him, sure that he couldn’t really be saying these words. Not to her! ‘You—you love me?’

  Piers laughed softly, a light unsure sound that caught in his throat. ‘As I’ve never loved anyone or anything before in my life. I love you with every bit of me, until my body cries out to you for satisfaction, for your complete surrender. Please, Leigh,’ he almost begged, ‘say something. Anything!’

  The tears that had threatened for so long to overspill finally coursed down her now flushed cheeks. ‘I don’t believe it,’ she choked, shaking her head. ‘It’s impossible!’

  Piers’ hands dropped to his side and his face became a controlled mask. ‘You mean because of my age. Is that what it is? If it’s only that you don’t love me I could make you love me if you’d let me,’ he bent his dark head towards her. ‘I could, Leigh.’

  Leigh put up one of her hands and gently smoothed away the lines of pain and unhappiness that had appeared either side of his mouth and deep blue eyes. Suddenly he was as vulnerable as she was, with all the fears and hopes she herself possessed. ‘It isn’t your age,’ she chided him gently, loving the feel of his strong smooth skin beneath her fingers. ‘I would love you if you were eighty,’ she smiled through her tears. ‘But I’m glad you’re not,’ she moved into the comfort of his arms. ‘I love you just the way you are.’

  For long seconds Piers stared at her as if unable to believe what she was saying. What he read in her eyes must have reassured him, because the next moment she felt herself pulled savagely against him, his lips urgently parting her own as he put his brand of possession on her young sweet lips. This kiss was like nothing they had ever shared before, searing their hearts together in a wealth of love and passion. Leigh felt as if they had both taken wings and were floating in a void of love so overwhelming it threatened to engulf them until nothing else mattered.

  Finally he put her away from him, his face pale with the effort it cost him to control the clamouring of his senses for full possession of that which was his. ‘Oh God, Leigh,’ he sighed deeply, taking huge gulps of air into his starved lungs, ‘you’re just too much!’

  Leigh smiled shyly into the face of the man she loved, seeing her adoration returned if not excelled. ‘Will I really do?’ she asked tremulously. ‘I’m not experienced. I won’t know how to satisfy you and then you will discard me for someone else,’ and she shuddered involuntarily. ‘I couldn’t bear it if I didn’t please you.’

  ‘You please me. And when you’re my wife I’ll—’

  ‘Your wife!’ cut in Leigh. ‘But—but you didn’t say anything about—’ she broke off in confusion.

  ‘About marrying you? Really, Leigh! You shock me,’ his blue eyes teased her. ‘What did you think I was going to do with you, lock you up in my apartment solely to satisfy my manly lusts?’ He shook his dark head. ‘Oh no, young lady. You belong to me and I’m going to make sure everyone knows it. Make your escape now or stay with me for ever. Nothing less will satisfy me.’

  ‘But me! I’m not—well, I’m not worldly enough for you. I don’t know anything about—’ she hesitated, ‘about being a wife.’

  ‘Marriage is a partnership, Leigh. Don’t you think I’m worrying about whether I’ll be a satisfying lover to you?’

  ‘But you—you know so much more than I do. I won’t know how to please you, I don’t know anything about—about sex.’

  ‘And I don’t want you to,’ he reprimanded gently. ‘Sex is completely different from making love. Sex is just the satisfying of bodily senses, whereas making love is the union of two people who love each other and want to give themselves to each other. It’s something I’ve never experienced either, and I can assure you I’m just as nervous as you are.’ He lifted her chin. ‘Love me?’

  She buried her face into his hair-roughened chest. ‘So much it hurts. Oh, Piers! I want to tell the whole world how much I love you. I want to shout it from the rooftops so that everyone will know I’m yours to do with as you will.’

  ‘As long as you always tell me I don’t care about anyone else.’ His eyes darkened with slumbering passion. ‘And now I think you’d better go and make us some coffee before I decide to do what I really want to do.’

  Leigh’s eyes opened innocently as she ran her hands lightly through the dark hairs on his chest. ‘And what’s that?’ she asked teasingly.

  ‘Baggage!’ Piers turned her firmly around and gave her a gentle push towards the kitchen. ‘Don’t trust me at the moment. Please,’ his voice deepened with suppressed emotion as she turned to him with appealing eyes. ‘At the moment I’m wanting you so badly I—Just leave me for a few minutes!’

  Leigh did as she was told, realising that he was very near to losing control of the situation, and that was certainly an admission from a man such as Piers. He was sitting back in the armchair when Leigh came back with the coffee, but his eyes instantly kindled with that sleepy passion that she longed for. She couldn’t believe that he actually loved her. And he wanted to make her his wife! It was something she had never believed possible, not even in her wildest dreams.

  ‘You’re beautiful,’ he breathed huskily, his face softened with love. ‘No,’ he stopped her as she made to sit on the arm of his chair. ‘Sit over there. Please, darling. I can’t think straight when you’re near me, and we certainly have some talking to do.’

  ‘But Piers!’ she pleaded.

  ‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘Just do as I ask.’

  Leigh complied reluctantly, longing to go back into his arms. ‘Why do we have to talk? Why can’t we just—’

  ‘Because we can’t! Now behave yourself. I’m the man you’re going to marry, remember?’

  ‘Oh, I remember,’ Leigh replied huskily.

  ‘Mm, well, we have to talk because we have a few misunderstandings to sort out.’

  ‘Piers, when did you first know that you loved me?’

  ‘You’re changing the subject again,’ he said sternly.

  ‘Oh Piers, please,’ she pouted at him coaxingly.

  Piers grinned. ‘The first time I saw you I knew you were trouble. No one had ever treated me as you did or spoken to me as you did. And you glared at me with such beautiful eyes that I instantly fell under your spell.’

  ‘You didn’t act like it,’ she said indignantly. ‘You were very insulting.’

  ‘I was in shock,’ he corrected. ‘I’d managed to live through thirty-seven years of my life without finding that elusive feeling everyone calls love when suddenly you appeared before me, a violet-eyed beauty full of defiance. And no more than a child! I couldn’t believe what was happening to me, and you can depend upon it that I fought it all the way.’

  ‘I noticed,’ Leigh said dryly, wrapping her arms about her bent knees. ‘And what about me? I’ve been very hurt by some of the things you’ve said and done to me.’

  ‘But not all,’ his eyes caressed her. ‘You surely weren’t hurt by the incident in the car? I certainly wasn’t.’

  ‘But I was. Oh, not by what happened between us, but by your attitude afterwards. I felt—used.’ She screwed up her face.

  Piers shook his head. ‘It wasn’t meant to be that way. Much as I denied it, if those men hadn’t arrived when they did I would have made you mine, and once I’d done that there would have been no escape for you.’

  ‘But I didn’t want to escape.’

  ‘I didn’t know that at the time.’

  ‘That night I realised you were the man I loved—much later than you, I’m afraid—but I was so busy hating you I didn’t realise why I hated you.’ She studied him a moment. ‘You did it on purpose, didn’t you?’

  ‘Guilty, I’m afraid,’ but he didn’t look very repentant. ‘But even that rebounded on me. I leave you alone to let you find out for yourself whether or not you love me, and you start taking this extraordinary interest in Gavin. And the last thing I wanted was to be your father-in-law! Can you imagine what that would have been like?’

  She shook her head. ‘It would never have happened. It was Gavin’s idea to go out together, he thought it might make you jealous. I said it wouldn’t, but he told me to wait and see.’

  ‘So you planned my downfall together.’

  ‘No, we did not! Gavin planned this out all by himself. I didn’t understand what he was talking about half the time. Now it’s all starting to fall into place. He knew that you loved me and he knew I loved you, all he had to do was get one of us to admit it.’

  ‘Clever little devil, isn’t he?’

  ‘Like his father.’ Leigh’s face became serious. ‘Do you think he’ll mind? I know he schemed all this, but do you think he realised what would happen?’

  ‘He realised. Don’t worry, Leigh, Gavin already loves you. But what about your parents? Will they object?’

  ‘No, they like you tremendously. If you’d exerted half as much charm on me as you did on them I would have admitted my love for you days ago.’

  ‘But what of my first marriage—if you can call it that. I gather you know the sordid history of my marriage to Pamela?’ he saw her shake her head. ‘No?’ he sighed. ‘Oh well, there isn’t really much to tell. We were young, looking for adventure and thought we had found it together. What we had found was that we were good in bed together. That was all we were good at. Unfortunately Pamela got hooked on drugs, she got to the stage where she would sell her soul for the damned things—or in her case her body. The usual thing happened. She met a man with more money than I—I was just starting out in racing then. And she married him.’ His fists clenched angrily. ‘She died two years later aged twenty-five and looking fifty.’