His Convenient Mistress Read Online Free PDF Page B

case she was busying herself in there, and, not seeing her, banged on the knocker.
    From upstairs, where she had just finished settling Simon, Sara heard the authoritative knock and immediately felt her spine straighten in irritation. It had been a hell of a day and seeing James Dalgleish was the last thing she needed, because she was certain that it was him. She had not gone to his wretched luncheon party and now he had come to check and find out why.
    She half debated whether she should just ignore the banging on the door and then remembered the way he had continued standing there the previous day, not prepared to budge an inch until she had invited him in. He would just keep banging if she didn’t answer until eventually Simon woke up.
    There was no time to try and make herself remotely presentable. Her hair was loose, having been washed only an hour before, and it fell around her shoulders in untamed ringlets, still half-damp. Instead of her usual jeans, she was wearing a loose grey jersey skirt that fell almost to her ankles and a clingy ribbed grey top that ended just above the waistband of the skirt.
    â€˜All right!’ she muttered irritably under her breath, hurrying down the stairs before he broke down the door in his attempts to be heard. ‘Did it occur to you that I might have been sleeping?’ she greeted him angrily as she pulled open the kitchen door.
    Idiot that she was, she had forgotten how overpowering he was. She had so successfully managed to shove him into the same category as her ex-boyfriend and her son’s father, the mere thought of whom was enough to fill her throat with sour bile, that to see James standing there against the backdrop of the sinking sun almost made the breath catch in her throat.
    He was so awesomely good-looking. He possessed skin that reacted warmly to the sun, and even in the space of a mere day he seemed browner than she recalled. The top two buttons of his cream shirt were undone, exposing the same, magnificently coloured skin, and the sleeves were roughly rolled back, and as her eyes dropped she took in his lean, muscled arms, then she blinked and her head cleared.
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜It’s after nine at night!’ she snapped, a little annoyed with herself for being bowled over, if only for a few seconds, by his physical allure. ‘And you normally go to bed at nine?’
    â€˜Why are you here, anyway?’
    â€˜I’ve now been here twice and both times you’ve given me a pretty hostile reception. Tell me, is it just me or is it the entire human race?’ He looked at her with lazy speculation in his eyes, knowing that she was taken aback by his comment, and while she was still struggling to come up with an appropriate response he continued in the same musing voice, ‘I think it’s the human race. Hence your willingness to bury yourself here without even botheringto take the time out to meet the people in whose community you have chosen to bury yourself.’
    â€˜And I think that you should keep your opinions to yourself considering I haven’t asked you to share them with me.’
    â€˜Where is your little boy?’
    â€˜Asleep.’
    â€˜My mother was disappointed that you didn’t come. She was looking forward to meeting you.’
    Sara flushed guiltily. She’d had no compunction about letting him down, but she hadn’t considered that she might be letting anyone else down in the process.
    James could read it all from her expression and from the delicate bloom of colour that crept into her cheeks.
    â€˜She wondered,’ he carried on, elaborating on this piece of fiction without the slightest twinge of guilt, ‘whether you had perhaps been taken ill. The Rectory is quite isolated and, as far as she knows, your telephone might well not have been connected as yet.’
    â€˜I…yes, the telephone is connected. With Simon…’
    â€˜Of course. Still…she was