Free White Lies by Sara Wood Page A

the bed and strike a match for the second.
    Transfixed by the set of his sensual mouth, she gave an involuntary quiver. Any woman would be quivering if she had been woken by Pascal, she thought in excuse. He was very handsome. Especially in a dinner jacket. Now that both candles were alight, the floor-to-ceiling mirrors behind the bed reflected the soft light—and the magnificent cut of Pascal's jacket. Or perhaps it was the magnificent chest that filled it.
    And to her eyes he looked more rakish than ever, partly because his black bow-tie had been undone and was hanging loosely around his neck while the collar of his dress shirt exposed his bare throat, and partly because his jaw and upper lip bore the dark shadow of a burgeoning beard and moustache. Designer stubble, she decided scathingly, though she had to admit that it was wickedly attractive. She imagined he knew that and wished she didn't. Something dreadful had happened to her inhibitions.
    'Now you can go,' she said coldly, flicking her tumbling hair back decisively.
    'Not yet.' He sat down again, crossing his elegantly clad legs.
    Mandy shrank warily back against the pillows, her naked shoulders golden in the soft light. 'So you think you're going to seduce me?' she challenged bluntly, saying it before he did.
    'As if!' he protested, with the air of a shocked monk.
    'Oh! Then.. .why—why come here? Why...?' She licked her lips in embarrassment. Why watch me? was a stupid question. The answer was perfectly obvious.
    'You think that the only reason I might be here is for sex?' he enquired with an air of faint reproof.
    Mandy glared through the curtain of silky dark hair that had flopped over one eye again. Yes! she wanted to snap, sensitive to the hot, humming space between them. 'You could be sleepwalking, I suppose,' she said tartly. 'Or lost. Or—'
    'Concerned,' he suggested with a bland smile.
    'Judging by your previous performance, that's unlikely!' she scathed.
    He lifted a golden eyebrow in disagreement. 'I got you back here, didn't I? I stopped you from reeling drunk- enly across the beach.'
    She glared. 'Yes! But you got me tipsy in the first place!'
    'I might have encouraged you to have a drink but I didn't pour the stuff down your throat,' he pointed out. 'You did. And I was worried. You didn't order room service—I checked. You hadn't changed your mind and come down for dinner, because I was in the restaurant and would have seen you.' He leaned forward, nothing but friendly enquiry on his face. 'I came to see if you were all right.'
    That seemed out of character. She gave him a disbelieving look. 'I'm fine. And I don't believe a word of your story. You were all for feeding me rat poison earlier,' she reminded him. 'If you only came because you were worried, why didn't you go at once, when you saw that I was breathing?'
    'Yes,' he said admiringly, pinning his blue gaze to her shrouded breasts. 'You have quite a rhythmic action there.'
    'Oh!' she croaked. He knew every intimate detail of her sleeping body! Not only her breasts, but... Thinking of Pascal's fascinated eyes on her casually sprawled legs and the sinfully languid way she'd stretched when she woke made her vocal cords freeze.
    Her body was private! she thought angrily. Only for Dave and no other man. And now Pascal had violated her privacy and taken away something she'd shared with her husband alone.
    'You rat!' she whispered, tormented by shame.
    He leaned closer still, his head slightly angled as if he was puzzled by her reaction. 'Is this modesty? I didn't think it would worry you that much,' he mused, a frown dipping his brows.
    Utterly lost for words, she stared back at him and tried to comprehend the kind of life he must lead if he thought women would be so blase about their bodies—especially if viewed by virtual strangers when asleep.
    'Get out!' she rasped. And then she screamed it like a banshee. 'Get out! Get out!' she yelled, every inch of her quivering with helpless