Free PAGAN ADVERSARY by Sara Craven, Chieko Hara

tables had been watching them during
    lunch, which Harriet supposed was inevitable. Even if they couldn't
    all put a name to him, Alex was clearly a celebrity of some kind. But
    some of their fellow-lunchers had recognised him, Harriet discovered
    as she passed the bar on the way to the powder room.
    'This place must be getting fashionable,' an overweight man with grey
    hair and a moustache was proclaiming. 'That tycoon fellow Alex
    Marcos is out on the terrace with a floozy, and one of his few
    mistakes in life, by the look of it,' and he bellowed with laughter.
    It would give Harriet immense pleasure to have emptied his vodka
    and tonic all over his opulently waistcoated stomach, but she passed
    by grimly on the other side.
    The powder room was momentarily deserted, and she took a long
    rather weary look at herself. A floozy—and in particular Alex
    Marcos' floozy? If it wasn't so funny, it could also have been sad.
    Probably by now someone had enlightened the fat man that Alex
    Marcos' taste ran more to voluptuous redheads than to over-slim
    blondes in chain store dresses and very ordinary sandals. And that, of
    course, when she thought about it—and she'd done very little else all
    morning—was why Alex had turned her down last night.
    Because that was what that scene in the bathroom had been all
    about—Alex being cruel to be kind, pretending the onus was on her
    whether their relationship proceeded to bed or not when, in fact, he
    could have said quite simply that she wasn't his type— that he didn't
    want her.
    He was an experienced man. It wouldn't have taken him long to
    deduce the way she was beginning to feel about fri™' and that was the
    last thing he wanted, so he had decided to administer the death-blow.
    It was shaming to think he had had to do it, she thought miserably.
    She must have been terribly obvious. But then she had given herself
    away that first evening 'when he had kissed her. She should have
    remembered that he hadn't been motivated by passion, but by a
    cynical compulsion to make a point. He had been determined to make
    her respond, and he had succeeded only too well, but now he was
    drawing the line, treating her with an aloof and slightly wary
    courtesy.
    It could be worse, Harriet thought with a sigh, but she didn't see how.
    She took out her lipstick, contemplated it, then tossed it back in her
    bag. To hell with it, she thought. She was an outsider trying to
    compete in a race which was strictly an invitation event.
    She left the hotel by the side entrance which led to the car park. At
    first she couldn't see Alex and Nicky, but eventually they came into
    sight, walking slowly from the direction of the gardens which sloped
    down to the river. Nicky was trotting at his uncle's side, holding his
    hand, occasionally giving a little hop of excitement, and as Alex
    looked down at the child his harshly attractive features were softened
    by a smile.
    They were alike, Harriet admitted to herself with a pang as she stood
    beside the car, and watched them approach. With their thick dark hair
    and olive skins, it was little wonder that they had been taken for father
    and son.
    'I'm sorry if we have kept you waiting,' Alex apologised formally as
    they joined her. 'Nicos wishes to give some bread to the swans.'
    She made an effort to smile. 'Did he know what they were? Up to now
    he's only encountered ducks.'
    'Then it is clearly time his horizons were broadened,' Alex remarked,
    and Harriet flushed at the implied criticism.
    'By a trip to Greece, no doubt,' she said.
    The driver had come round to open the rear door of the car and was
    lifting Nicky in. Alex's hand closed suddenly round her wrist with a
    grip that hurt.
    'Are you still determined to fight me over this?' he demanded in an
    undertone.
    Harriet looked away, unable to meet his arrogant dark gaze. 'I don't
    know,' she said after an unhappy pause. 'Please let go—you're hurting
    me,' she added urgently as his fingers tightened.He