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The silence which followed was unendurable. Close up, Triss found herself wanting to run her fingertips over the shadowed curve of that strong jawline. She felt her hands actually begin to tremble with the urge to do so. And she knew she had to get away before he began to suspect how she still felt about him.
‘Excuse me,’ she told him shakily, ‘but I really must get myself some food.’
‘Of course,’ he answered formally, and she noticed for the first time how pale he looked. ‘I could use a drink myself.’ And he turned swiftly on his heel and left the room without another word.
After that, the party was ruined for Triss. Although she had planned to stay the night, for two pins she would have left right then. But the snow which had been nothing more than a chocolate-box flurry when she had arrived had been pelting down in thick and steady earnest as the party had progressed.
At one point four of the men, including Cormack, went outside to investigate the weather conditions.
‘We’re snowed in!’ Alastair announced gleefully on their return, and the party erupted into cheers—although the only thing that Triss registered was Cormack’s darkly glowering face as he stood behind Alastair, his blue-black hair peppered with snowflakes.
The music was turned up, glasses refilled and a real festive feeling took over as people got down to some serious dancing before counting the New Year in.
But for Triss it was nothing more than an ordeal to be got through, and by a quarter to midnight she couldn’t take any more. Unobtrusively, she sneaked over to Alastair and asked him to allot her a room as far away from the madding crowd as possible.
‘Stay and see midnight in at least?’ he pleaded gently, but Triss shook her head.
‘I won’t, thanks all the same, Alastair,’ she told him quietly. ‘I have a splitting headache—I’m no fun for anyone tonight.’
Once safely in her room, she heaved a huge sigh of relief, took off every scrap of make-up, untied her hair and brushed her teeth.
I am not going to do anything as predictable as crying into my pillow, she told herself firmly as she pulled her nightshirt over her head. In the past two years I have cried more than enough tears over Cormack Casey, thank you very much!
She took a book from her overnight bag and settled down in bed to read, because although she had made up her mind not to fall to pieces she was realistic enough to know that there would be little sleep for her tonight—not with Cormack settled in bed just yards away.
With someone else? she wondered briefly, but blocked the thought immediately because that was just too painful to contemplate.
She listened to the distant chimes of midnight and the singing of ‘Auld Lang Syne,’ and then the sounds of people gradually settling down for the night.
By four o’clock the house was completely silent, and Triss was still wide awake.
She slid out of bed, put her head outside the door and listened, but there was not a sound to be heard. Telling herself that a drink would help her sleep, she padded downstairs to the kitchen and poured herself a glass of milk. She sipped it standing by the sink, looking out of the window, noting that the snow had finally stopped falling and that the sky was now clearing. In the distance, the silvery light of the moon was becoming more visible by the minute as the snow-clouds scudded away like jet planes.
After she had drunk her milk, she washed the glass out and stood it on the drainer to dry, and made her way back upstairs.
And there, at the top of the landing, by the wide window-ledge, stood a motionless figure.
Triss took in those shadowed, sharply hewn features, saw the moonlight playing on the muscular definition of his bare skin, and her heart gave a helpless lurch.
‘Cormack?’ she whispered, half reluctantly, as if words might break the enchantment of seeing him there, like that, clad in nothing but a pair of jeans and looking so ridiculously approachable.
‘Hello, Triss.’ His voice was soft, and something in the way he smiled at her made it impossible to do anything other than go over and stand beside him.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Watching the moon,’ he told her, but he wasn‘t—he was watching her. He lifted a hand to indicate her free-flowing hair and her scrubbed face. ‘That’s much better,’ he observed.
She certainly wasn’t looking for his approval, and yet the warmth in his voice made her reluctant to say so. She turned to face him. ‘Is it?’
‘Mmm. You look so beautiful when your face is bare.’
And you look so beautiful when your chest is bare, she thought, though she said nothing about that either.
As he watched her intently he reached his hand out towards her arm, and one forefinger lightly stroked the cuff of the thigh-length shirt she wore. ‘And this is mine, isn’t it?’ he asked, a note of surprise in his voice.
In the darkness, Triss found herself blushing. What a complete and utter give-away! Fancy parading around the house at the dead of night wearing this old dress-shirt of his, which she had refused to give up—like a child hanging onto a much treasured security blanket. ‘You gave it to me, remember?’
‘Did I?’ he tease
