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She knew be was laughing at her, but something else was far more worrying. Their bodies were too close. Almost touching. A frantic pulse began beating in her neck. She knew what was happening to her. She wasn't a schoolgirl. At thirty-two she was experienced enough to recognise all the reactions of her body. She knew what it meant, the fierce pumping of blood around her veins, the breathlessness, the heat between her thighs. She might hate the sight of Connel Hillier, but she couldn't deny he got to her sexually. His body spoke to hers below the level of consciousness. She knew she wanted him. The violence of her response was growing, her intelligence drowned by the primitive nature of what was happening inside her. How stupid can you get? she wildly asked herself. He's the last man on earth you should even think about.
Except that thinking didn't come into it What she felt had nothing whatever to do with her brain. It was all physical. Chemical. Breathing thickly, she found that admission comforting—how could you do anything about your own chemistry?
She stared up at him, a deep-seated ache of desire churning in her stomach. Silence engulfed them both. Connel watched her back. She heard him breathing thickly, rapidly, and felt the heat of his body intensifying. He wanted her, too. Strange how, without a word said on either side, they both knew how they felt. Body language, she thought. Our bodies speak to each other without our volition.
His head slowly lowered; s
he watched his mouth come closer. Her lips parted, her eyes began to close.
Then small hands fastened round her leg, making her jump sky-high. Her eyes fluttered open; she looked down in shock.
'Oh, it's that brat,' Connel groaned as they both saw Flora, pink-faced, bright-eyed.
Still clutching Zoe's leg, she demanded, 'What you doing, Aunty? Playing? Don't like that game—let's play hide and seek. Me, too. Want play hide and seek. Now.'
'Three's a crowd,' Connel dryly said. 'I'll go and have a chat with her father. Taking care of Flora is women's work.'
'Coward,' she flung after him as he walked away. He simply laughed.
'Play hide and seek, play hide and seek,' yelled Flora, glaring up at her.
Zoe capitulated. They played hide and seek around the row of young cypress trees for ten minutes before she managed to persuade Flora to return to her mother. Sancha and Martha were in the kitchen washing up glasses when Zoe found them.
'Here's your little ray of sunshine back. I can't take any more,' Zoe told her sister, and Flora ran to hug her mother and lean on her in the confiding way of small children who feel utterly certain of being loved.
'Mumma! Aunty Zoe's mean…she was playing games with Uncle Con, but now she won't play with me!'
The two women gazed at Zoe's pink face with sharp-eyed interest.
Crossly, she complained, 'I played hide and seek with her for ages!'
Sancha grinned. 'She's crotchety because it's long past her bedtime.'
'I'll take her up,' Martha readily said, scooping the toddler up and carrying her out They heard her crooning a lullaby as she went. 'Sleepy Flora, Sleepy Flora, up the wooden hills to Bedfordshire…'
Flora's voice answered between yawns. 'Don't want…go bed…no…want go back to party…'
'Martha actually seems to enjoy looking after her; she must be half-witted,' Zoe said, wondering how to get away without being too obvious about it before her sister started asking the questions she could see burning on Sancha's tongue.
'She hasn't got any children, and she loves Flora,' Sancha absently said, starting fixedly at her sister.
Zoe looked at her watch and pretended to start in amazement 'Good heavens, look at the time—I must go; I have to be up at five tomorrow.'
Ignoring that, Sancha demanded, 'Where did you and Connel Hillier vanish to? What's going on, Zo?'
'We were arguing,' Zoe said, rewriting the scene a little.
'What did Flora mean about you two playing games?'
'Who knows?' Zoe couldn't meet Sancha's eyes. Her sister knew her too well; she could read her expressions and Zoe did not want her to do so this time.
'What games?'
'Ask Flora. She was the one who said it Got to go, Sancha. Lovely party. See you soon.'
'Leave Connel alone,' her sister yelled after her, 'I know what happens to men you dump. They can turn nasty. I don't want Mark losing his job just because you couldn't keep your claws out of his boss!'
'I wouldn't touch his boss with a bargepole!' Zoe said, slamming out of the kitchen. Typical. Connel Hillier makes a pass at her, despite having it made crystal-clear that she isn't interested in him, and her own sister assumes she was the one doing the chasing.
