Free Marriage by Deception by Sara Craven Page A

desolation.
    Besides, she wasn’t sure how he’d react. He could be angry. Could even get up from the table and walkout of the bar, and out of her life. Which would undoubtedly solve all kinds of problems. Except that she wasn’t ready for that.
    ‘Then I’ll get the bill and take you home.’
    ‘I was going to pay half,’ she remembered.
    ‘We’ll argue about that later.’ He helped her into her jacket, coolly, politely.
    As the fresh air hit her, she felt suddenly giddy—light-headed. Oops, she thought. I’ve had too much to drink.
    Two glasses of wine was usually her limit, yet tonight there’d been all that champagne before the Orvieto had arrived. Had he done it deliberately? Was this part of his grand seduction technique? She asked herself as disappointment settled inside her like a stone.
    On the corner, she paused. ‘There’s really no need for you to come any further. I’ll be fine.’
    His hand was firm under her elbow. ‘I prefer to make sure,’ he said. ‘One of my little foibles.’
    When they reached the house, she found the bulb had failed in her exterior light, and she fumbled trying to get her latchkey in the lock.
    ‘Allow me.’ Sam took it from her hand and, to her fury, fitted it first time.
    ‘Thank you,’ she said grittily.
    ‘Don’t say things you don’t mean, Janie.’ She could hear the grin in his voice. ‘You know you’re damning my eyes under your breath. Now, put the hall light on while I check everything’s all right.’
    ‘Another of your little foibles, I suppose?’ she tossed after him.
    ‘The age of chivalry isn’t dead,’ he returned, giving the ground-floor rooms and basement area a swift inspection. At the door of the sitting room he paused, as if something on the other side of the room had engaged his attention. When he turned back to her there was a faint smile playing round his mouth, and dancing in his eyes. ‘And to prove it,’ he went on, ‘I’m going to wish you a very good night, and go.’
    She felt her lips part in shock. ‘But…’ she began, before she could stop herself.
    ‘But you thought I was going to close the door and jump on you,’ he supplied understandingly. ‘And don’t think I’m not tempted, but I noticed how carefully you were walking and talking on the way back, and I’d prefer to wait for an occasion when you know exactly what you’re doing—and why—so that you can’t plead unfair advantage afterwards.’
    Ros walked to the front door and jerked it open. ‘I’d like you to leave. Now. And don’t come back,’ she added for good measure.
    He smiled outrageously down into her hostile eyes. ‘You can’t have been listening to me, Janie. I told you—I don’t take no for an answer. Now, sleep well, dream of me, and I’ll call you tomorrow.’
    His hand touched her face, stroking featherlight down the angle of her cheek, then curving to caress the long line of her throat before coming to rest, warm and heavy, on her slender shoulder. It was the touch of a lover—deliberately and provocatively sensuous in a way a simple kiss on the lips would never have been. It was both a beckoning and a promise. A demand and an offering.
    Ros felt the brush of his fingers burn deep in her bones. The ache of unfulfilled sexual need twisted slowly within her, and she knew that if he didn’t take his hand from her shoulder she would reach up anddraw him down to her. Take him into her arms, her bed and her body.
    And then she was free, and freedom was a desolation.
    She heard him say, ‘Goodnight,’ and the small sound in her throat which was all she could manage in response. And then he had gone, the door closing quietly behind him.
    She leaned forward slowly, until her forehead was resting against the cool, painted woodwork.
    She thought, What am I doing? What’s happening to me?
    And Rosamund Craig, the cool, the rational, could find no answer.

CHAPTER FIVE

R OS woke with a start, to find sunlight pouring through her