How would he fare as an artisan? Did small-town country girls let painter and decorators take immediate liberties whenever lust coursed through their veins? He saw her eyes darken. Saw the sweet, almost wary way she stared up at him. It seemed that they did.

‘No,’ he said suddenly. ‘Don’t leave.’

Cathy’s eyes widened. For a moment she thought that she had misheard him. ‘I’m sorry?’

‘I don’t want you to go anywhere,’ he said unevenly, and his smile was complicit. ‘Any more than you do.’

There was a split second before the fantasy she’d been nurturing ever since he’d walked in began to come true. As he began to move towards her Cathy felt she should protest, but no words came—despite the certainty that he was about to kiss her and that it was both inappropriate and unprofessional to kiss a man she had only just met.

But Cathy’s ego was bruised—she had been left feeling bitterly hurt by Peter’s rejection. The future she had imagined for herself was no longer an option and she felt empty and undesirable. When her fingers had tightened around her fianc'e’s letter, hadn’t she imagined that no man would ever desire her again? And yet, now—out of the blue—came this.

‘You don’t want to go anywhere, do you?’ he persisted, on a murmur.

‘I’m…I’m not sure.’

‘Oh, I think you are, cara. Just as sure as I am.’

Leaning forward, he brushed his mouth over hers and felt the corresponding tremble of her lips.

‘You like that?’ he questioned unsteadily.

‘Yes,’ she whispered back as the lips came back and this time lingered—and Cathy knew she was lost as he pulled her into his arms and began to kiss her in earnest. Because it felt as if her life had been on hold until that moment. Peter’s letter had left her feeling empty and aching and worthless. Yet all her fears and insecurities—all that hurt and rejection—were wiped away by the sheer, simple power of this man’s amazing kiss.

Xaviero felt her instant capitulation—she gasped when he deepened the kiss still further. He felt the instant and glorious response of his own body, and his mind began doing rapid calculations. How long before his security bleeped him? Time to lock these doors and push her to her knees and have her pleasure him with those incredible lips of hers? She was too easy, he thought despairingly as desire now became mixed with disgust—for Xaviero freely admitted to having the double standards of many men where women were concerned. But that did not stop him guiding her hand to the hardness at his groin.

Several things happened at once. Firstly, an alarm began to vibrate in the pocket of his jeans—a movement which corresponded with the blonde snatching her hand away with a little yelp. And somewhere in the distance, a telephone began to ring.

Through a haze of humiliation and a terrible unfamiliar aching sensation in her breasts, Cathy took a step back and stared up at the man in horror, her cheeks burning as the memory of his hot, hard ridge seemed to be imprinted on her fingers.

‘Wh-what the hell do you think you’re doing?’ she demanded tremblingly, though deep down she knew she should have been asking herself the very same question. Why had she let this stranger take such liberties with her?

Xaviero gave a scornful laugh as his gaze raked over her swollen breasts—their tips now clearly outlined against her ill-fitting overall, just crying out for the feel of his fingers and his lips. Frustrated desire quickly became selfcontempt. Was he so hungry for a woman that he should resort to behaviour like this? Like some teenage boy who had never known sex before?

‘I should have thought that was obvious,’ he grated. ‘I was giving you what your body was clearly crying out for and still is, by the look of you. Sadly, I don’t have time to oblige you, at least not right now—although, frankly, I prefer my women to put up a little more fight.’ His mouth hardened with a mixture of derision and frustration as he fought the desire to start kissing her all over again. ‘Did no one ever teach you that when something is given so carelessly it loses much of its appeal?’

Cathy felt a wave of injustice wash over her. He probably wouldn’t believe her if she told him that she’d never behaved in such a way with a man before and yet why should she take all the blame for what had just happened? He had been the one who’d started it—who had begun to kiss her with such practised skill that she had melted in his arms like a piece of molten wax.

‘I suppose you consider yourself to be blameless?’ she demanded, wanting to slap him around his arrogant face. But he obviously saw the itching temptation in her trembling fingers, because he shook his dark head, the gold of his eyes almost completely obscured by twin circles of black fury.