„I don‟t need an escort.‟

Green eyes. The purest green he had ever seen. The suggestive lighting in the nightclub had only given him a glimpse of her. Here, her face crystallised into huge, almond-shaped eyes, a nose sprinkled with freckles and a full mouth that was currently down-turned in an expression of fierce disdain.

„This place is deserted. Or maybe not. Maybe there‟ll be a few junkies and drunks waiting to get into the same carriage as you. Am I right?‟

„I‟m touched that you care so much about my welfare, but I do happen to do this particular route four nights a week. I think it‟s fair to say that I can take care of myself.‟ She gave him another scornful once-over. „Probably more than you can take care of yourself.‟

„More typecasting?‟

„Look, it‟s late,‟ Mattie said carefully, meeting his eyes and holding them with difficulty.

„I didn‟t appreciate the way you were looking at me in the nightclub and I don‟t appreciate the way you followed me out. Can I make myself any clearer? I need to grab some sleep if I‟m not to pass out tomorrow.‟

„Don‟t you have all day to catch up on your sleep?‟ The dark eyes narrowed speculatively on her face and Mattie felt herself blushing. Blushing like a teenager when in fact she was twenty-three years old and had had enough sobering experiences in her life for a cynical outer shell to be well and truly in place.

„I happen to have things to do,‟ she muttered. „The world doesn‟t cater for people who sleep by day and work by night, in case it‟s missed you. Now, go away.‟

„Fine. But I‟ll be waiting for you tomorrow at the club.‟

„Why?‟

This was something that was genuinely puzzling her. She had become experienced in a very short space of time in reading the men who patronised the nightclub. They were usually middle-aged, married but not so married that they didn‟t still lick their lips at the sight of a pretty girl in next to nothing. Harmless men. Then there were the groups of young, rich yuppies. She personally found them a lot more threatening because there was no wife at home waiting, no kiddies tugging on their consciences.

The man standing in front of her didn‟t seem to fall into either category.

In fact, he struck her as the sort who didn‟t need to trail behind waitresses in nightclubs or anywhere else for that matter because whatever woman he wanted would come to him with a click of his fingers.

„Because I don‟t particularly like being categorised without an explanation.‟ Which beggared the question of why he should give a damn in the first place, but he could tell that that train of thought hadn‟t occurred to her from the small frown.

„Look at it this way,‟ he pointed out smoothly, jumping into whatever she had been thinking so that she once more raised her eyes to his. „How would you feel if I insulted you by implying that since you were a waitress in a nightclub, willing to dress in next to nothing because the less the clothes, presumably the bigger the tips, you were therefore—‟

„A cheap tart?‟ Mattie snapped, interrupting him before he could voice what he had obviously been thinking. „A woman of easy virtue? Or maybe a woman of no virtue altogether?

A sad loser who has nothing better to do with her life than whistle it down the drain working for tips in a nightclub?‟ Yes, they all thought that. All the men who ogled her as she waited their tables. It still got her back up, though.

Not just with him, but with herself because she knew where she was going. She knew why she was doing what she was doing. What did it matter what one passing stranger out of the hundreds thought of her?

„Like it?‟ Dominic murmured lazily. „Think you might want to refute it?‟

„I don‟t have to refute anything to you, but let me just tell you that I‟m not an easy lay.‟

Understatement of the century, she was honest enough to think. One lover in all her years.

Frankie King, whom she had known since she was sixteen. And she hadn‟t even slept with him for…how many months now?

„So if that‟s why you followed me, then you can forget it. I won‟t be climbing into your bed, not now, not ever.‟

A mixed group of merry teenagers, drunk but too wrapped up in each other to be

threatening to her, jostled past and Dominic took hold of her arm and led her away from the ticket machines to the side.

„I‟ll take you home in a taxi.‟

„Oh, suddenly a little bit scared of our great British transport system, are you?‟ she sneered, not much liking the way she sounded. Hard and jaded and cynical, but this was the best way she knew of protecting herself.

„Oh, don‟t be such a damned little fool.‟

„Well, it might interest you to know that I‟d rather take my chances with that little lot that just waltzed past than cooped up in a taxi with you.‟

„Then I‟ll just put you in the damned cab and pay the man to take you wherever it is you live!‟

„Ah. Not so keen on my company now that you know I won‟t be sleeping with you.‟

Mattie shook her head with an expression of mock disappointment. „Now, why am I not falling down in surprise?‟

„Come on.‟ He had never met a more suspicious, cynical woman in his life, but did she have spirit! Was that why he was now hailing a taxi for her rather than letting her take the first tube of the morning home? Not liking the thought of her stepping into a carriage with a mob of drunks, even though she was right and was probably more accustomed to dealing with situations like that than he was?

„You, mister, are the last word in arrogance!‟

„Watch out. I might start getting used to your line of compliments.‟

„Hardly.‟ The black cab had slowed down for her and she knew better than to kick up her heels at his insistence. „Unless fate decides to behave in a freakish way, this is the last we‟ll be seeing of each other.‟

Dominic didn‟t say anything. Just opened the taxi door for her, handed the driver some notes, sufficient, he was assured, to cover the trip, before turning to her briefly.

His large, powerful frame was draped suffocatingly by her open door, and when he looked down at her his presence seemed to fill the entire back of the taxi like a drug.

„Oh, I don‟t think so,‟ he said in a low, silky voice, and Mattie felt a disturbing thread of excitement race up her spine. „After all, I have yet to refute your accusations, do I not?‟

„I apologise,‟ she said quickly. „There. Will that do?‟

„I‟ll see you tomorrow.‟

„I‟ll never sleep with you,‟ she hissed fiercely. „You‟ve got the wrong measure of me!‟