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Her question bewildered Angie. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Never mind,’ Vanessa muttered. ‘What are you going to wear for this momentous occasion?’
‘I have no idea. Lance is picking me up at eleven.’
‘Eleven!’ Vanessa wrinkled her nose. ‘Oh, yuk. There’s nothing worse than doing it in the daytime. Takes all the romance out of it.’
Angie laughed. ‘You are funny! But I don’t think that’s what Lance’s plan is. He has some idea about my getting to know the new him first.’
Vanessa’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Really? That sounds promising.’
‘I thought so too... at the time...’
‘And now?’
‘Now I just feel sick.’
‘You can always back out. Ring him and say you’ve changed your mind.’
Angie shook her head vigorously from side to side. ‘I could never live with myself if I did that.’
‘Will you be able to live with yourself if this comes to nothing more than that kiss did all those years ago?’
‘I’ll have to, because there’s no going back, Vanessa. And no changing my mind. I’ll survive losing Lance again. I won’t survive not doing this.’
‘I suppose the experience will add perspective to your counselling abilities,’ her flatmate said drily. ‘My mother always said one should look for the plusses in every negative.’
‘I doubt many women would rate sleeping with Lance a negative,’ came Angie’s equally dry retort.
‘Really? I must get a gander at this god-like creature when he arrives to pick you up. Do let me answer the door.’
‘Be my guest. My knees will be knocking by then.’
‘Oh, no, they won’t be. You’ll sail out of here looking and acting as cool as a cucumber, because that’s the way you are. Or at least seem to be on the surface.’ A devilish gleam glittered in Vanessa’s dark brown eyes. ‘I’d sure love to be a fly on the wall later on when lover-boy takes you to bed. If he thinks he’s getting a shy, quiet little virgin then he might be in for a shock or two. I suspect there might be a hot little number somewhere behind those prissy clothes you wear to school.’
‘I wasn’t exactly dressed prissily last night,’ Angie reminded her friend.
‘No, and look where it got you. Almost being raped in the front seat of a car!’
‘I wasn’t nearly raped at all. I was all for it till the last moment.’
‘Which reminds me. Have a couple of glasses of champers or something equivalent before the real thing tonight. Relaxation is the name of the game, girl.’
‘All right. I’ll do that.’
‘And I’ll pop a few you-know-whats in your handbag in case Casanova has a memory lapse. Nothing kills passion more quickly than having to dash out to the chemist at the last moment.’
‘Yes, Teacher.’
‘Don’t knock it, honey. I wish I’d had an understanding flatmate to give me all this good advice before I did it for the first time. There again—’ she stopped to flash Angie a wicked grin ‘—I didn’t have a flatmate at fourteen.’
‘Fourteen!’
Vanessa shrugged. ‘I always was a precocious child. Now, shouldn’t you be hot-footing it into the shower? Time and tide waits for no man. Neither does man wait for woman.’
Angie was still smiling when she closed the bathroom door. But as she stripped off her pyjamas and saw her naked reflection in the vanity mirror, her smile faded.
A nice body wouldn’t be enough to capture Lance’s heart. He’d had enough nice bodies to last a lifetime. And proving to be a hot little number wouldn’t impress, either. No doubt he’d had some women who had been so hot they’d melted their satin sheets.
No, there was no point in Angie doing herself up sexily today. Or in trying to outdo all his other lovers in bed. She wouldn’t be able to, anyway. It would be like trying to win an Olympic medal at a sport she’d only just taken up the week before the games.
But she could give Lance what perhaps he’d never had before. A truly loving experience. A night full of warmth and affection and genuine gratitude. For she was indeed grateful to him. No matter what his motive, he was about fulfil part of her deepest dream—the one she’d once expressed in the poem she’d given him nine years ago.
