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She fished her keys out of her bag, unlocking her front door and going inside.
She had fallen in love with her small house the moment she had seen it, feeling as though its smallness somehow wrapped itself protectively around her. She had lovingly decorated and furnished it, spending hours at antiques fairs and house sales, looking for exactly the right pieces of furniture.
Some of her most treasured pieces had been lovingly restored, dozens of coats of paint stripped from them to reveal the richness of their wood, but this evening as she walked through her small hall, the pretty little oak table with the mirror above it and the pair of wall sconces either side of it, which were some of her favourite finds, failed to lift her spirits.
Tiredly she inspected the contents of her fridge, before acknowledging that she was far too nervous to want to eat.
Some fruit and a cup of coffee—that was about all she could manage.
Upstairs she stripped off her office clothes and showered quickly, desperately trying to ignore the treacherous sensuality of her own skin. Had her body always possessed this hidden awareness of its power to respond to the subtle messages of another human body? And, if so, why had she never recognised it before? Why was it only now that she was aware of the silky sheen of her damp skin, of the softness of the curves and hollows of her body, of its shape, its sexuality, of its physical design that was both so tactile and so sensitively responsive to physical touch that its reactions were clearly visible to the naked eye?
Experimentally, angry with herself for doing so and yet somehow driven to test herself, to punish herself, she thought about Marsh, pictured him as she had seen him last, standing in the doorway to her office.
Immediately her stomach muscles knotted and her nipples hardened, a tiny frisson of sensation bringing her body out in a rush of goose-flesh and making her stomach churn tensely.
If he were here with her now... how would it... how would she... ?
Stop it, she warned herself fiercely, quickly reaching for her towel, as though somehow by wrapping it tightly around herself she could suppress what she was feeling, binding it so tightly that she deprived it of the ability to survive.
In her bedroom, she opened her drawers, removing clean underwear, dressing quickly in her jeans and a cotton top with a round neckline and four small buttons unfastening the front.
It had been an impulse buy, but now, glancing at her reflection in the mirror, she frowned a little. She hadn’t realised that the round neckline revealed quite so much of her bare shoulders, nor that those four tiny buttons would look quite so... so... provocative somehow.
She frowned a little, deriding herself that it was only her imagination, her physical awareness that made her think so. Her imagination that furnished her with that dangerous mental image of Marsh leaning towards her, his fingers touching those buttons, his mouth exploring the warm curve of her throat and shoulder.
Her face bright red with temper and embarrassment, she reached for her hair-drier, telling herself that for someone who wanted to keep Marsh completely out of her life she was behaving in a very odd way.
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When he arrived at seven-thirty she was ready, her heart beating frantically fast, all her senses leaping into sharp awareness as she opened the door to him.
It was like living life on a different plane, changing into a different and far more dangerous gear. It was an awareness that sharpened and accentuated every single one of her senses and which made it impossible to walk with him to his car without having to distance herself from him.
Once she was actually in the car with him it intensified even further. She felt quite sick with tension, exhausted by the frantic race of her heartbeats and yet at the same time so on edge that she felt as though it would never be possible for her to relax properly again.
‘Are you all right?’ Marsh asked her, glancing briefly at her as he waited for a set of traffic-lights to change.
Immediately her tension increased. She glanced away from him, hoping that the hot colour she could feel burning her face had not extended to her throat, where he might see it.
‘Yes, I’m fine,’ she lied, carefully keeping her voice cool and distant.
She could see that he had registered that distancing vocal warning. His face hardened a little, but he made no further comment other than to say how very relaxing and enjoyable he found living in Chester after the faster pace of London and New York.
‘But surely eventually you’ll have to return to one or other of them?’ Debra commented. Her comment was intended to remind her that his time in Chester was limited; that he would not be there for very long, rather than to ask personal questions, but he, of course, could not know that, she admitted as she felt the quick look he gave her almost as though her question, her interest, had surprised him.
‘Not necessarily,’ he told her. ‘I could, if I wished, choose to stay in Chester.’
‘But surely the best jobs, the best career moves for you, must be in London or New York?’ Debra insisted, suddenly anxious and edgy.
‘That depends on how one defines the description “the best”,’ Marsh said wryly. ‘I don’t happen to subscribe to the view that the most important thing in a man’s or a woman’s life must necessarily be his or her career. For me it certainly isn’t. It’s true that I’ve enjoyed the challenges my work has given me, but I don’t intend to become a man who has nothing else in his life other than work.’
Debra couldn’t bring herself to ask him what else he might want in his life.
Because she was afraid of the answer?
‘What about you, Debra?’ he enquired, turning the tables on her. ‘Do you intend to make your career the main focus of your life?’
‘No.’ Her denial was so immediate that she flushed a little in chagrin at what it might have betrayed.
