Chapter Seventy Nine

'That must give you a lot of satisfaction,' she ran on, suddenly hating the fact that she'd had no part in it, hadn't been invited to take any part in it.

'Yes,' he acknowledged, but the mockery was back, deriding this conversation, telling her it had no relevance.

It goaded her into demanding some recognition of her as a person, not just the object of a desire he could pick up and put down as he liked.

'Why don't you ask me about my year?'

'Because I don't want to know.'

Ruthless truth. He only wanted to know her in the biblical sense.

She averted her gaze from the intensely raw penetration of his and writhed through the shame of blushing like a schoolgirl.

'It's trivia, Jasmine, and it won't change anything,' he stated harshly.

'Well, my life might be trivia to you but it's not trivia to me,' she flashed back at him, a fierce resentment surging at his dismissive attitude.

His eyes narrowed, weighing the strength of her attack and whether it was worth his while to make any concession to it.

'So what do you want to tell me?' he demanded. 'Give me the important highlights.'

There were none. Her job had provided a few little triumphs —winning accounts against strong competition—but they were hardly huge highlights that would make her shine for him. Her personal life was virtually a void, although she had taken up yoga and done a course in Italian cooking, both activities giving her considerable satisfaction. She wasn't about to admit that her experience with him had put her off other men.

'I bought two goldfish,' she tossed out, not caring about his definition of trivia. Rhett and Scarlet had become the one daily constant in her private life since he had left it and she loved having them to come home to.

He looked startled, then bemused. 'Two goldfish,' he repeated with mock gravity.

'Yes.' She tilted her chin to a challenging angle. 'And I bought a beautiful bowl for them to swim in.'

His mouth burst into a wide, dazzling grin. Then he threw back his head and laughed, startling her with his wild amusement. He clasped her closer, whirling her around, his thighs driving them both across the dance floor in a flurry of steps that carved a path through the crowd of other dancers, out past the opened French doors and onto the veranda.

The cooler night air did nothing to lessen the heat Collins Templeton generated in her. 'That wasn't meant to be funny,' she protested, feeling intensely vulnerable now that they weren't completely surrounded by people. He had danced her down to the far end of the veranda, away from the other guests who were grouped around the door or leaning against the wrought-iron balustrade nearby.

His dark eyes twinkled amusement as he answered, 'Only you would tell me about goldfish, Jasmine.' His chest heaved against her breastsand his slowly expelled breath tingled over her upturned face. 'Only you...' he repeated, his deep voice lowered to a caressing murmur.

Thinking of all the high-flying women he surely met while doing international business in the movie world, Jasmine muttered, 'I don't lead your kind of exciting life.'

He shook his head as though she hadn't grasped his meaning. He seemed about to say more, stopped, grimaced, then flatly answered, 'The pace is tough. I'm on a flight back to London in the morning, jasmine. I only came for Leonard's wedding.'

Fair warning...like last time...and if she had any sense she would walk away from him right now because it meant—as before—he had no intention of involving himself in an ongoing relationship with her. It was here now, gone tomorrow, no different to their first night together. Yet even knowing this, Jasmine could not quash the feelings he aroused.

'It was good of you to make the time. Leonard is so pleased you came,' she said in an equally flat tone, her lashes sweeping down to hide the emotional conflict of wanting far more than he was ever likely to give her, yet not wanting to turn away from him.

She stared at his bow tie sitting neatly at the base of his neck and wished she was a vampire, able to sink her teeth into his jugular vein and get into his bloodstream so powerfully he could never shake free of her.

Her heart was thumping with the need to hold him to her any way she could. Her hands curled, the urge to claw and dig in sweeping through her in a fierce wave, driving her nails into her palms to stop such primitive and futile action.

'I'm sure your mother is, too,' she forced herself to add, a biting reminder of the hours of torment she had already suffered on his account. Collins Templeton was not going to be swayed from his course.

There was no chance of anything more than another brief encounter with him.

He hadn't introduced her to his mother.

Didn't that tell her she was nothing but a bit of fluff on the side to him?

So stop this now. Stop it and do the walking away herself.

Before she gave her heart and soul to him again. Though weren't they his already.

'My mother thinks you're very beautiful,' he murmured.

It jolted her into looking up, meeting the simmering warmth in his eyes. 'You talked about me...to her?'

'She's right. You are.' His mouth curved into a sensual little smile.

'Irresistibly so.' His head dipped towards hers. A kiss was coming. Her heart catapulted around her chest. Her mind screamed that this was the moment to stop him. But her whole body yearned to feel again how it was with him and when his mouth touched hers there was no thought left of pulling back. Any last shred of denial was swamped by a rush of blood to the head, blood that sang for all the sensations she craved.

Yes...it was a lilt of exultation as the desire for passionate possession exploded between them.

Yes...it was a fierce throb of satisfaction as his arms crushed her into an intimate awareness of the power of his need.

Yes...it was a paean of triumph that all the barriers that had separated them were being comprehensively smashed.

They kissed and were united in a deep inner world of their own. Feverishly claiming all they could while they could—a savage feast of kissing, of touching, of immersing all their senses in each other. But it was never going to be enough out here on a public veranda in open view of anyone who chanced to look their way. That frustration did eventually break into the headlong rush to recapture all they had spent so many months remembering...or trying to forget.