THE RELUCTANT BRIDE by Joy Wodhams Page A

so badly with all those women. And if
he'd loved me – how could he have – just walked out
without even a proper goodbye?”
    “ Poor
Gabriella.” Rod left his chair to sit beside her on the long
beige sofa. “Don't think about it any more tonight.”
    Drained
and exhausted, she let her head droop against his shoulder. When he
put his arm around her, cupped her face and raised her lips to his
she offered no resistance, yearning still for the comfort that
tonight he seemed able to give her.
    “ Poor
Gabriella,” he murmured again, his mouth moving over hers.
    She
wasn't sure when the comfort changed to something else but gradually
she became aware of an excitement building within her as they kissed
more and more deeply, and as his hand slipped within the collar of
her blouse and moved down towards her breasts an urgent tingling
filled her. When she felt his warm mouth against her bare nipple she
thought she had never experienced such exquisite pleasure.
    “ Rod,”
she whispered. “Rod.” There was a fire within her body
and a languor within her limbs that drove out all fear of the man and
if at that moment he had ordered her to his bed she would have gone
without hesitation.
    When
he pulled away she felt a wrench of disappointment that was almost a
pain. There was a dark flush to his face and his breathing was deep
and fast. She was sure that he had been as aroused as she was. Why
had he stopped?
    “ This
is no good,” he said when his breathing had slowed.
    She
stared at him without comprehension.
    “ I
can't take advantage of you like this. I know that if you hadn't come
back to White Gables, if you hadn't been so upset about your father,
you wouldn't have let me come near you with a – with a barge
pole!”
    She
opened her mouth to contradict him but the heat was leaving her and
caution taking its place.
    He
reached forward and rebuttoned her blouse, smoothed her tousled hair.
He touched a finger gently to her lips. “I've bruised your
mouth,” he said. “I'm sorry.”
    She
wanted to turn her mouth into his hand and kiss it but she didn't.
    “ Come
on,” he said. “I'll take you home.”
    She
lay awake for an hour or more as she relived the evening with Rod. He
had been so kind when she told him about her father. And later –
she touched her lips and breasts, feeling an echo of desire course
through her, marvelling that she had reached the age of twenty four
without experiencing such an overwhelming emotion. And when two
people experienced it together …
    Yet
it had been Rod who drew away, and somehow that pleased her most of
all, because surely it proved that she had been wrong. If he was as
unprincipled as she had believed, wouldn't he have seized his
opportunity?
    She
had been wrong about so many things, she realised now, and thought of
her father with renewed bitterness. At an age when she was probably
at her most emotionally sensitive he had shattered her illusions and
she had lived a warped existence ever since, believing that the only
safe relationship between a man and a woman was a passionless one
which made no demands on either side.
    Poor
Bernard. She had been completely blind to his needs. God knows how
much she had hurt him.
    Poor
Rod, too. Just because in his dark charm he bore some physical
resemblance to her father and because, like him, he was attractive to
women, she had condemned him untried. Was it possible, she wondered,
that marriage to Rod might not be hell after all? He had so many good
qualities, although she had stubbornly refused to credit him with
them until now. His wit and intelligence. His good humour. His
tenderness, the concern he had shown for her mother. The wide range
of interests that made him such a good companion.
    She
yawned. From tomorrow, she resolved, things would be different. Rod
would find he was dealing with a new person. Oh, she wasn't going to
make a fool of herself, throw herself at him. She blushed,
remembering the evening – had she in fact done