Wild About the Man (Mills & Boon Modern Tempted) Read Online Free PDF Page A

house but not in my bed, just in case you have any ideas to the contrary.’
    ‘I’d rather sleep with my ex. And if you could measure how much I detest him right now, then you’d realise how monstrous an insult that is.’
    Two nights later Clem sat, Indian style, on her bed under the mosquito net in Nick’s guest room, her open book unread in her lap. She hadn’t ventured further than his kitchen in two days and the last real conversation she’d had, with anyone, was the clipped one she’d exchanged with Nick the night he’d shown her to this room. In fact, it wasn’t a conversation, it was more Nick throwing a couple of orders at her head.
    There was food and drink in the fridge; she had to help herself. If she left anything out in the outdoor shower, the monkeys or baboons would probably swipe it, especially if it sparkled. If shesaw a snake, stand still. Sleep under the mozzie net; this was malaria country. She shouldn’t walk around outside because the electric fence didn’t extend to his house and if she heard any noises outside, she shouldn’t investigate. It could be a lion, leopard, hyena, all of which would like to take a chunk of her skinny hide.
    Clem rested her head on her bent knees, grateful for the swirl of cool air from the air conditioner. She felt utterly drained, as if someone had taken her and wiped the floor with her head. She’d held herself together until she’d heard Nick leaving in that wretched vehicle the night before last and then she’d dissolved. She’d sobbed for hours and hours and when she’d heard him returning she’d buried her head under her pillow and cried some more.
    Utterly drained, she knew that the worst of the emotional storm had passed and, as it passed, a modicum of sanity returned.
    It would be so much less embarrassing if she could say that she was crying over the loss of a grand passion, a soulmate, her raison d’être. But she couldn’t because she’d meant what she said on the plane about Cai—she didn’t care if he married what’s-her-face or an alien. Every last emotion she’d felt for him was dead, six feet under, and she just wanted to get past him and onto the rest of her life.
    So that couldn’t explain why she’d spent the last two days raising the world’s water levels.
    Clem buried the heels of her hands into her eye sockets and whimpered. The truth she could no longer avoid was that she was crying over lost time, stupid decisions, wasted years, humiliation, embarrassment and, hardest of all to admit, brazen, in your face and utterly fearless … fear.
    Terror.
    For the second time in her life the foundations of her world had been washed away. When her mother died she’d been rocked to her core. Nothing in the world made sense until Cai came along with his ‘live for today’ philosophy. He’d encouraged her to pursue instant gratification and the pursuit of pleasure had ruled their lives.
    At the time it had made sense to her.
    Fast forward a decade and what had she to show for those decisions? A spectacularly public failed mock-marriage, a closet full of clothes and an identity that was wrapped up in being Roz Hedley-Copeland’s daughter and Cai Campbell’s lover.
    If only she’d had the brains, the confidence to kick him to touch after she’d found out about his first affair but he’d talked her out of it. Guilted her out of it as well.
    No, don’t study … you’re too pretty to put your nose into a book.
    A job? Why would anyone want to hire a washed up ex-model who has never worked a day in her life?
    Working for charity? You?
    Face it, darling, you’re not much good for anything more difficult than looking gorgeous.
    Puke.
    So what could she do, who was she going to be? She needed to find a new normal, a new reality, a new everything and she was scared, soul-deep terrified.
    Clem rolled over in bed and placed her forearm over her eyes. She couldn’t hide out in a stranger’s house in South Africa for ever but the