Bachelor's Wife by Jessica Steele Page A

you that you kept my name out of the paper—why did you, by the way?'
    'Blame it on my soft old heart,' said the man who must, she thought, have the hardest heart of any man she had ever met, the very devil dancing in his eyes. 'You certainly won't credit me with any gentlemanly instinct for not wanting the eighteen-year-old I remembered, regardless of the dishonesty she was practising, to receive some of the type of hounding by the press I've suffered in my day.'
    'I didn't mean to be dishonest,' she told him, her anger going at his consideration in keeping her name to himself, forgetful for the moment, that he would have saved her a lot more nagging worry had he not said anything to the press at all. 'I've told you I  was in a panic, worried about Trevor, his mother.'
    'I'll forgive you.' said Nash magnanimously, 'just as you forgave me for laughing in my office on Friday when I had you perched on my desk.'
    'Why did you?' she asked, taken out of her stride, and remembering then that he had suggested he might tell her the next time he saw her. Remembering too that she had said then that there would be no next time—did he always get his own way?
    'Call it relief from utter boredom.' The corners of his mouth curved upwards and, finding it infectious, Perry had the hardest work in keeping her mouth from following suit as he explained, 'I've already told you you're a new type to me. Perhaps I've dated too many of the same kind of woman, but there you were, not the least interested in me or my pocket. Spitting fire and ready to bash my head in—and do you know something, Perry?' his voice softened, a seductive quality entering. 'Beautiful as you are, like other women of my acquaintance, I knew then I could never be bored with you around.'
    'I...' she began, and realising full well that this sort of talk was getting nothing settled in the way of the divorce, felt herself becoming spellbound by the seductive way he was speaking. 'I ... I think,' she said, trying to shake free of the hypnotic hold she seemed to be in, 'I think we ought—should . . .'
    'Do you want to know what I think?' Nash asked softly, his look going from her eyes to her mouth.
    'No,' came from her, sounding nowhere near as firm as it was meant to. Then something inside her was disobeying what her brain was telling her to do, to get up from the settee and sit somewhere else as his hand came to her face, his fingers stroking her fine skin. 'Wh-what do you think?' she found herself asking huskily.
    He smiled, and if there was triumph lurking in that smile at the transfixed look of her, the husky note in her voice, then she missed it as she swallowed and looked down.
    'I think,' he murmured, 'that the least you owe me for keeping your name out of the papers is—a kiss.'
    'I—you kissed me on Friday,' she reminded him, her heart going crazy, all thought of Trevor forgotten. Never had she realised one could be seduced with so much ease; she barely realised it now.
    'Exactly. It was I who did the kissing.'
    Getting to know Nash as she was, Perry knew then that nothing further was going to be discussed until she had complied with his request. Though what they had to discuss was starting to grow dimmer and dimmer in her mind.
    'Very well,' she said, and, determined to treat the matter lightly, good sense demanded it, 'Pucker up!'
    Nash stayed still, making no move to meet her half way as she leaned forward ready to salute his mouth briefly with hers. She hesitated a few inches away from him, looked straight into warm grey eyes that were so near, and a choking sensation hitting her dropped her eyes to that equally warm waiting mouth.
    A thrill of excitement shot through her the moment her mouth touched his. Quickly she pulled back, her eyes wide as she looked into his face that was still so close.
    'And now,' he said softly, 'I think it's up to me to apologise in kind for being the cause of adding to the worry and panic you were already suffering before I spoke to