Dominic, however…

Mattie glanced sideways at him, met his eyes and shivered.

Dominic Drecos was no child. He was all, one hundred per cent man. He could hurt her in a different way. She knew that at some instinctual level, but at that same level she knew that he was an irresistible force.

„Stop finding excuses for the man,‟ he now said impatiently. „You may have gone back a long time with him, but that didn‟t stop him from being a noose around your neck.‟

„You‟re so cold and calculating,‟ she murmured.

„I‟m realistic. We‟re both adults and we‟re attracted to one another. More to the point, neither of us is looking for commitment and marriage. Are we?‟

„I definitely am not,‟ she said fiercely. „You needn‟t fear that you might become tangled up with a woman who‟s totally unsuitable for you.‟

„Is that what you think?‟ It was taking all his massive self-control not to reach out and touch her. He couldn‟t remember ever wanting a woman as much as he wanted her, or being forced to control himself the way she did.

„That there would be no chance of wanting a serious relationship with you because your background isn‟t the same as mine?‟

Mattie gave a cynical little toss of her head. „Not,‟ she said, „that it makes any difference to me. Just trying to clarify the situation.‟

„You mean you wouldn‟t be hurt if you thought that that was the case?‟

The minute he said that, homed in with his usual accuracy on that vulnerable side of her that she had grown so accustomed to keeping under wraps, Mattie‟s hackles rose in immediate self-defence.

„Why should I be?‟ She shrugged. „I‟ve been pointing out our differences from the first moment we met. Just call it satisfying my curiosity.‟

„And, as I‟ve told you every time you‟ve begun with your tired old arguments about us coming from the opposite sides of the tracks, your background makes no difference to me.‟ He gave an impatient shake of his head. „Maybe it‟s because I‟m not English so I haven‟t been inculcated with all that rubbish about social class. No, I don‟t want involvement because…‟

„Because what?‟

He looked at her in silence for a few fleeting seconds and then raked his fingers restlessly through his hair.

„Potted history, please,‟ Mattie told him. „You‟re very good at dodging questions you don‟t want to answer and I‟m tired of it.‟

„You‟re… what…?‟

„Well, you can‟t blame a girl for wanting to know just a bit about the man who wants to get her into bed.‟

Dominic laughed and looked at her appreciatively. „I‟m beginning to think you put on that me-working-class-girl act just to get your own way. Am I right?‟

„Bad relationship?‟ Mattie pressed. „Some poor woman got a little too involved and became the proverbial noose around your neck, which is what you accused Frankie of being?‟

„You turn me on.‟

„You‟re changing the subject.‟ But those four words made her breasts ache and her body go to liquid.

Dominic looked at her thoughtfully, shifted a bit so that he was leaning against the side of the car, looking directly at her. If there was one thing this woman wasn‟t it was coy, and he was discovering, to his amusement, that he liked that.

„Six months ago I broke up with a woman called Rosalind.‟ And you are the first person I’m talking to about this, he could have added, but didn‟t. „We had been going out for nearly a year and over that year she changed from an easy-going, enjoyable companion into a clingy, possessive woman who wanted to know my every move.‟

„Which must have been a serious blow to a free spirit like yourself,‟ Mattie said drily, and in the darkness of the car Dominic flushed darkly at the well-honed dart.

„Do I detect a note of sarcasm in your voice?‟

„If the cap fits… So then what happened?‟

„Do I have to go into the details?‟

„Yep.‟ She was enjoying this. „What‟s good for the goose and so on and so forth.‟

„Spare me the proverbs.‟ He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and wondered, not for the first time, why he was so taken with a woman who seemed to see a hurdle and automatically assumed it was there to be demolished.

„Spare me the evasion.‟

„Well, if you must know, she began making calls to the office. Not just one call a day, or two, but literally dozens. In the end, I had to instruct my personal secretary to block them. When I tried to speak to her about it, she would cry. That famous fallback that women use with such alacrity when it suits them.‟

„Excuse me. The women you know.‟

„And you‟ve never shed a tear?‟

„Not as a form of emotional blackmail,‟ Mattie said with distaste.

„Well, she did. Later on, there was worse. Later on, she moved from tears to anger.

Didn‟t I want to be with her? Eventually, I told her that it was finished, at which point she began stalking me. I would get home in the evenings to find her car parked outside, where she would be waiting for me to get home. It was a nightmare.‟

Mattie reflected on this in shocked, subdued silence. „What did you do?‟

„I confronted her, told her that if she didn‟t stop I would be forced to go to the police, that her parents would get to know about it. Thankfully that worked, but that‟s why I‟m, let‟s just say, a little cautious about further involvement with the fairer sex. So you see, our potted life stories have more in common than you think.‟

They had reached his apartment block without Mattie really even realising they had been travelling. She got out, waited for him to join her, and then said, thoughtfully, on their way in,

„And how did you feel, you know, about…?‟

„How did I feel?‟ This time there was no awkward sitting in the lobby. He was leading her straight towards the elevator, although, ludicrously, he still didn‟t know whether they would end up in his king-sized bed together. It frustrated the hell out of him.

„Yes, feel,‟ she was saying now. „Were you in love with her?‟

„I was very fond of her in the beginning.‟

„What about love?‟

„What about it?‟ The elevator doors slid shut. The mirrored sides reflected them. He could see those forth-right green eyes watching him from every angle. And, in her head, Mattie was already climbing down from pushing him for an answer to that one, because she realised she didn‟t want to have an answer. She didn‟t want to imagine him hurting because he had fallen in love with a woman who had turned out to be the wrong woman for him. She preferred to stick with the option that he had been fond of her because…because…