A Little Seduction Omnibus Read Online Free PDF Page A

her.
    Immediately Beth panicked—it was too much, too soon, too impossible to believe. He must have some ulterior motive for saying such a thing to her. How could he be in love with her? Why should he be?
    ‘ No! No, that’s not possible. I don’t want to hear this, Alex,’ she told him shortly, pulling away from him and out of the shelter of the alcove, leaving him to follow her.
    * * *
    Beth had first come across Alex at her hotel. The staff there, when she had asked for the services of an interpreter, had prevaricated and then informed Beth that, due to the fact that the city was currently hosting several large business conventions, all the reputable agencies were fully booked for days ahead. Beth’s heart had sunk. There was no way she could do what she had come to the Czech Republic to do without the services of an interpreter, and she had said as much to the young man behind the hotel’s reception desk.
    ‘I am so very sorry,’ the man apologised, spreading his hands helplessly. ‘But there are no interpreters.’
    No interpreters. Beth was perilously close to tears; her emotions, still raw in the aftermath of discovering how badly Julian Cox had deceived her, were inclined to fluctuate from the easy weepiness of someone still in shock to a numb blankness which, if anything, was even more frightening. Today was a weepy day, and as Beth fought to blink away her unwanted emotions through the watery haze of her tears she saw the man who had been standing several feet away from her at the counter turn towards her.
    ‘I couldn’t help overhearing what you were just saying,’ he told Beth as she turned to walk away from the desk. ‘And, although I know it’s rather unorthodox, I was wondering if I could possibly be of any help to you...’
    His English was so fluent that Beth knew immediately that it had to be his first language.
    ‘You’re English, aren’t you?’ she challenged him dubiously.
    ‘By birth,’ he agreed immediately, giving her a smile which could have disarmed a nuclear warhead.
    Beth, though, as she firmly reminded herself, was made of sterner stuff. There was no way she was going to let any man, never mind one who possessed enough charisma to make him worthy of having a ‘danger’ sign posted across his forehead, wheedle his way into her life.
    ‘I speak English myself,’ Beth told him pleasantly and, of course, unnecessarily.
    ‘Indeed, and with just a hint of a very pretty Cornish accent, if I may say so,’ he astounded Beth by commenting with a grin. ‘However,’ he added, before she could fire back, ‘it seems that you do not speak Czech, whereas I do...’
    ‘Really?’ Beth gave him a coolly dismissive smile and began to walk away from him. She had been warned about the dangers of employing one of the self-proclaimed guides and interpreters who offered their services on Prague’s streets, approaching tourists and offering to help them.
    ‘Mmm...I learned it from my grandfather. He came originally from Prague.’
    Beth tensed as he fell into step beside her.
    ‘Ah, I see what it is. You don’t trust me. Very wise,’ he approved, with astounding aplomb. ‘A beautiful young woman like you, on her own in a strange city, should always be suspicious of men who approach her.’
    Beth glowered at him. Just how gullible did he think she was?
    ‘I am not...’ Beautiful, she had been about to say, but, recognising her danger, she quickly changed it. ‘I am not interested.’
    ‘No? But you told the receptionist that you were desperately in need of an interpreter,’ he reminded her softly. ‘The hotel manager will, I am sure, vouch for me...’
    Beth paused.
    He was right about one thing: she was desperately in need of an interpreter. She had come to Prague partially to recover from the damage inflicted on her emotions by Julian Cox and, more importantly in her eyes at least, in order to buy some good-quality Czech stemware for her shop.
    Via Dee she had obtained from their