‘There are several mistakes in these last pages,’ he told her coldly. ‘I’ve marked the other alterations I want to make. If you’re ready I’ll dictate the new passages.’
His eyes, cold and impersonal, swept her trim figure in a dark blue skirt and a soft voile blouse in a pretty spotted fabric.
Tamara’s fingers were aching by the time he had finished. A glance at her watch confirmed that it was nearly eleven o’clock—with the alterations and corrections he had pointed out it would be late afternoon before she had finished work.
‘I’ve got to go and see a builder I’ve commissioned to work on the main house,’ Zach told her when he had finished. ‘I’ll be over there for most of the afternoon.’
Perhaps she ought to be thankful for small mercies, Tamara reflected tiredly when he had gone; at least with Zach out of sight she would be able to concentrate on her work without constantly being distracted by his proximity and her body’s treacherous reaction to it. Even when she was hating him for what he was doing to her, her body still melted yieldingly every time he came near her.
When Mrs Wilkes brought her a tray of tea at three o’clock she exclaimed over Tamara’s wan face and strained eyes.
‘Doing too much, that’s what you are,’ she told Tamara, ‘and you mark my words, no good will come of it!’
She came in half an hour later, greatly perturbed, to tell Tamara that her eldest daughter who was expecting her second child had gone into labour a month earlier than expected.
‘I’ll have to go, because there’s no one else to look after our Kevin—his dad’s at work, and besides, I promised our Susan I’d mind him, but I don’t like letting the Colonel down.’
‘I’m sure he’ll understand,’ Tamara assured her. ‘Don’t worry, you just go.’
‘I’ve made a casserole for dinner and there’s nothing to do except the potatoes and veg …’
When she had gone Tamara stretched wearily. She still had corrections to make and then she would have to process the new copy, but her back was aching so badly that she simply had to rest. She sat down in the comfortable leather chair—one of a pair either side of the fire—intending just to rest for ten minutes, but ten minutes stretched to twenty, her eyes closed, her breathing deepened and slowed.
Later, when the library door opened, she didn’t stir, and Zach checked a swift exclamation, his mouth tightening as he saw the pale mauve shadows of exhaustion beneath her eyes.
‘Looks like the lass has done too much,’ Johnson commented lugubriously. ‘And Mrs Wilkes isn’t here either, although there’s a casserole in the oven.’
‘You go and organise some food, I’ll take Miss Forbes upstairs,’ Zach instructed him. ‘There’s no point in waking her up now.’
* * *
It was dark when Tamara finally awoke from her deep sleep. It was several seconds before she realised that she wasn’t downstairs in the library but in bed, and that someone had undressed her.
A shadow moved by the door.
‘So, you’re awake. Are you hungry?’
She shook her head, sudenly dreadfully selfconscious as Zach detached himself from the wall and came towards her, her heart in her throat as he stood over her, piercing the darkness to find her pale face, as he waited for her to answer his question.
‘No,’ she told him huskily. ‘I’m sorry I fell asleep … I don’t seem to have as much energy since …’ Her face flamed under the protective cover of the darkened room, and she bit her lip, faltering into silence, feeling the tension emanating from the male body above her.
‘Damn you, Tamara,’ Zach muttered thickly, bending suddenly to capture her parted mouth with the warmth of his, and desire spread to every part of her body from the heated possession of his kiss, his fingers burning into her skin as he drew her upwards and held her against his body. She could feel the suddenly urgent thud of his heart, and knew that her own copied it, her pulses racing unevenly as he moved his lips from her mouth to the soft curve of her jaw, and from there to the vulnerable hollows behind her ears. As his hand sought and found the rounded curve of her breast warning bells rang in Tamara’s brain. She didn’t know what had sparked off Zach’s desire for her—but she did know that it spelled intense danger to her danger that she might betray herself to him, and for that reason she resisted the magnetic pull of his personality, and stiffened in his arms, forcing her lips into a firm line as she said coolly.
‘No, Zach. You seem to have forgotten, I’m engaged to Malcolm.’
She felt him tense, his eyes searching her face, boring into hers as though he intended to read all her most personal thoughts.
‘Maybe I ought to remind you how easily you forget that fact before,’ he said silkily. ‘Or don’t you think I can?’
When she didn’t speak, he lowered his head, trailing tormenting kisses against her throat, his voice rough with arousal as he said huskily, ‘Want me to prove it you?’
Her strangled ‘No!’ came a split second too late, and instead of stopping him, merely gave him access to the inner sweetness of her mouth, setting alight a thousand nerve endings as he delicately traced the shape of her mouth, the soft kisses he pressed upon it sending her into a mindless fever of desire. She moaned softly, her whole body trembling as she pressed her mouth to the skin exposed by the open neck of his shirt, all warnings forgotten as her fingers touched blindly over his body, his skin moist beneath her shaking mouth.
‘Tamara!’
Her name was a muffled groan, her own protest smothered beneath the demanding pressure of
his mouth. She never wanted the kiss to end; never wanted to let reality intrude on her perfect fairytale world where she could safely ignore the truth and pretend that Zachary felt for her what she felt for him.