How long was she going to be here in Prague?
Somehow he would find a way of persuading her to drop her guard and allow him into her life...her heart...her love... Somehow.
Seeing the look in his eyes, Beth went cold with the icy sweat of misery that swamped her. What was it about her that gave Alex the idea that she was so desperate to be loved, so vulnerable to his patently false flattery that she would be deceived by him? Did she really come across as so needy, so...so...helpless? How many times before had Alex used the same ploy on other gullible female tourists? Beth’s teeth started to chatter, the icy cold shivers racking her nothing to do with the cool mountain air. In Prague it had been a warm, sunny day when they had left, but here it was much cooler, the sun obscured by mist.
‘You’re cold,’ Alex was telling her. ‘Here, take this...’
Before she could stop him he was removing his own jacket and wrapping it around her.
She wanted to refuse. The jacket smelled tormentingly of him, a subtle, sensually male scent that she could have sworn she would not normally have noticed, but which for some reason she suddenly seemed to have become acutely responsive to—far too acutely—if the heat that was now flooding her body was anything to go by.
Quickly she moved away from Alex and deliberately removed the notebook she had brought with her from her handbag. According to the details she had been given at home, the factory they were about to visit produced an extensive range of modestly priced goods.
What she was looking for, in addition to the kind of crystal she could sell in the shop, were some artistic and unusual little pieces that would make an eye-catching window display and tempt people in to buy, something along the lines of the pretty, delicately tinted glass sweets she had seen displayed to good effect in an exclusive shop she had once visited in the Cotswolds.
With one eye on the Christmas market, Beth was thinking in terms of some pretty and delicate glass Christmas tree ornaments, or even possibly some novelty, but still attractive, glass swizzle sticks.
However, once they had presented themselves in the factory’s main office, and she had introduced herself to the factory manager, Beth’s heart started to sink as he proceeded to show her some samples of the type of article they made.
The manager’s English was good enough for her not to have needed the services of an interpreter, which, when she realised that all Alex’s warnings about the unsuitability of the factory’s goods for her market had been more than justified, made her chagrin increase.
The things she was being shown were simply not of the high standard required by her customers, and far too mass market for her one-off select gift shop. With a heavy heart Beth wondered how on earth she was going to get out of accepting the offer of a tour of the factory which the manager was enthusiastically offering her. She had no wish to hurt his feelings, but...
Behind her she could hear Alex saying something to the factory manager in Czech. Enquiringly she looked at him.
‘I was just explaining to him that since you have other factories to visit there won’t be time for you to accept his very kind offer,’ Alex told her smoothly.
Illogically, instead of feeling grateful to him for his timely rescue, Beth discovered as they headed back to the car that what she was actually experiencing was a seething, impotent, smouldering, resentful anger.
‘Is something wrong?’ Alex asked her in what she knew had to be pseudo-concern as he unlocked the passenger door of the car for her.
‘You could say that,’ Beth snapped acidly back at him in response. ‘In future, I’d prefer it if you allowed me to make my own decisions instead of making them for me.’
As she spoke she wrenched impatiently at the car door handle, and then gave a small, involuntary yelp of frustrated anger when it refused to yield.
Imperturbably Alex reached past her and opened it for her.
‘And will you please stop treating me as though I’m totally incapable of doing anything for myself?’ Beth told him sharply.
‘I’m sorry if I’m offending you, but I was brought up in the old-fashioned way—where good manners were important and where it was expected that a man should exhibit them.’
‘Yes, I can see that. I suppose your mother stayed at home and obeyed your father’s every whim...’
Beth knew even as she spoke that what she was saying was unforgivably rude. No matter what her personal opinion was of men who treated women as second-class citizens, she still had no right to criticise Alex’s home life. Alex, though, far from being offended, was actually throwing back his head and laughing, a warm, unfettered sound of obvious amusement which strangely, instead of reassuring her, made her feel even more angry than before.
‘I’m sorry,’
he apologised. ‘I shouldn’t laugh, but if you knew my mother—when you get to know my mother,’ he amended with a very meaningful look, ‘you’ll understand why I did. My mother is a highly qualified senior consultant, specialising in heart disorders. She worked all through my childhood and still continues to do so. The old-fashioned influence in my life actually came from my grandfather, who lived with us.’
Immediately Beth felt remorseful and ashamed. Her own grandparents, who lived in the same small Cornish village as her parents, were similarly old-fashioned and insistent on the necessity of good manners.
‘I apologise if you thought I was trying to patronise you,’ Alex added once they were both in the car. ‘That certainly wasn’t my intention.’ He paused and looked straight at her, and then told her softly, ‘Has anyone ever told you that you have the most sexily kissable mouth? Especially when you’re trying hard not to smile...’
Beth gave him a frosty look.
‘I’d really prefer it if you didn’t try to flirt with me,’ she told him primly.
She tried to look away, but discovered that she couldn’t; there was something dangerously and powerfully mesmeric about the intent look in Alex’s eyes.