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‘Feeling better now?’ he enquired softly.
‘Yes, thank you.’ Her voice was cold and remote, hiding the rage she felt although she suspected he wasn’t missing it; his argument was open, unhidden.
The shop assistant rushed back, breathlessly said, ‘The taxi’s waiting.’
‘Thank you.’ He looked at Pippa. ‘Maybe you should take the veil off before we go?’
‘We’ go? she thought. She wasn’t going anywhere with him.
But the assistant came to help her. ‘So, did you want the coronet?’
‘Yes, please.’ Pippa fumbled in her bag, found her credit card and held it out.
The assistant offered her the payment slip a moment later and she signed it, then took back her card and put it away, very slowly and carefully, deliberately delaying in the hope that he might go outside to talk to the taxi driver.
She might then have a chance to escape, run off down the road, but he waited beside her, perhaps anticipating her intention. Finally she had to leave the shop, as they walked out on to the pavement he held her elbow lightly, propelled her towards the taxi.
‘I don’t want to…’ she breathed.
‘You might faint again; we can’t have that.’ He smiled, lifting her into the back of the taxi.
She couldn’t quite catch what he said to the driver before climbing in beside her, but before she could ask him the taxi set off with a jerk which almost made her tumble forward on to the floor.
‘Do up your seat belt,’ she was ordered, and her companion leaned over to drag the belt across her shoulder and down to her waist, clip it into place, his long fingers brushing her thigh. He had a fresh, outdoor scent: pine, she decided, inhaling it. She wished he would stop invading her body space. It was far too disturbing.
‘Where did you tell the driver to go?’ she asked huskily as he sat back, not meeting the eyes that watched her as if he could read her every thought.
‘I feel it’s time we had a private chat. I told him to take us to my hotel. Have you had lunch?’
Agitated, she protested, ‘I’m not going to your hotel! I have to g
et back to work.’
‘You can ring and tell them you’ve been taken ill,’ he dismissed. ‘Have you had lunch?’
‘Yes,’ she lied, and received one of his dry, mocking glances.
‘Where? You came out of your office, caught a bus and went straight to that shop. Where could you have had lunch?’
‘You’ve been following me? Spying on me? How dare you? You had no right,’ she spluttered, very flushed now. ‘Were you on the bus? I didn’t see you.’
‘No, I followed in a taxi, then walked behind you along Bond Street.’
She thought harder, forehead wrinkled. ‘How did you know where I worked?’
‘Your fiancé told me where he worked, so I rang up and asked the switchboard if you worked there, too.’
Simple when you know how, she thought; she should have guessed he would track her down if he wanted to, but she hadn’t thought he would want to.
‘They tried to put me through, but someone in your office said you had just left, were going shopping in your lunch hour. I was ringing on my mobile from the foyer of the building. A minute later I saw you come out of the lift so I followed.’
She was speechless. He made it sound perfectly normal to follow people around, spy on them—nothing to get excited about. But she was so furious she couldn’t even get a word out.
He gave her a wry grin, eyes teasing. ‘Stop glaring at me. I had to see you. You knew that, from the minute his car crashed into mine. You knew we had to meet again, that we have a lot to talk about.’
‘We have nothing to talk about! I don’t want to talk to you at all. I just want to get back to my office and forget you exist.’
But she was so nervous that she put up a shaky hand to brush stray strands of bright hair away from her cheek, aware that he watched the tiny movement with those intent, glittering eyes.
