At least he wasn’t using a French accent. Stepping back and showing him her legs - and glad now that she’d worn her short, charcoal-grey lycra dress - she said simply, ‘Mended.’
He nodded. ‘And how’s Kat?’
Ralph and Katerina had always got on so well together. An unlikely father figure, he had nevertheless formed a close and genuinely affectionate relationship with Kat, and their good-natured verbal sparring had been capable of keeping them happily occupied for hours. Experiencing a rush of belated gratitude, Izzy seized a bottle of Lanson and said, ‘Come on, my treat. It really is lovely to see you again.’
Happily, the bar remained quiet and she was able to catch up on all the gossip concerning their old friends.
‘And what about you?’ she asked finally. Knowing Ralph as she did; she was perfectly well aware that he was holding out on her.
He half-smiled, trying not to look too pleased with himself. ‘Oh, not too bad. This and that, you know.’
‘How can I know unless you tell me?’ she persisted, beginning to enjoy herself. Sam was still off-limits, after all, and if Ralph had finally decided to forgive her . . . well, she reasoned, he did have the most gorgeous eyes, and he could always make her laugh. Besides, when Sam had caught her with Kat’s sex manual, there had been more than a modicum of truth in her riposte that she was badly out of practice . . .
‘Well, as a matter of fact my agent rang me this afternoon,’ he admitted, breaking into a grin at last. ‘To tell me that I’ve landed the lead in a new TV drama series.’
Izzy’s shriek of delight startled even the seen-it-all-before stockbrokers sitting at a nearby table. ‘Ralph, that’s fantastic! My God, you must be so thrilled . . . tell me everything, every
detail
. . . quick, have another glass of champagne . . . you should be out celebrating!’ Leaning across the polished bar, she took his face in her hands and gave him a kiss. To her further delight, he didn’t show the least sign of resisting.
‘Maybe I wanted to celebrate with someone who’d really understand.’ Then, his eyes narrowing once more, he said, ‘Are you still seeing that other guy?’
‘Of course not!’
‘Anyone else?’
Not yet, thought Izzy, crossing her fingers beneath the bar. ‘Whoever in the world would want anything to do with a hopeless case like me?’ she said lightly. Then, since he continued to glare at her, she smiled and shook her head. ‘No. Nobody else.’
Ralph relaxed at last. ‘In that case, what time can you get away?’
‘Ah, there you are,’ said Sam, crossing to the bar and observing with amused interest the way Izzy jumped at the sound of his voice. Even more intriguing was the sudden rush of colour suffusing her cheeks, since as long as he’d known her she’d never blushed.
‘Sam . . . what on earth are you doing here?’ she demanded, far too quickly.
‘Such gratitude!’ He tut-tutted with mock reproval, then winked and pulled her purse from his jacket pocket. ‘I found it on the floor of the car. It must have fallen out of that disgraceful bag of yours while you were doing your make-up. Oh, and I phoned Kat in case you were panicking about it,’ he continued easily, apparently quite unaware of Ralph’s glowering presence beside him. ‘She said that if we were thinking of stopping off at the Chinese on our way home, could she please have lemon chicken with egg fried rice and double pineapple fritters.’
‘What did I say?’ protested Sam, as they made their way back to the house several hours later.
Izzy, with six boxes of Chinese food balanced precariously on her lap, threw him a suspicious sideways glance, but his immaculate profile was giving nothing away.
‘You know exactly what you said,’ she told him, still undecided whether to laugh or empty the carton of prawn crackers over his head.
‘OK.’ He nodded, keeping his own amusement to himself. ‘But what did I say that was so wrong? That guy stormed out so fast I didn’t even get a chance to admire the medallions around his neck.’
‘He doesn’t wear medallions.’ Despite herself, Izzy smiled into the darkness. It had been she, two years ago, who had had to break the news to Ralph that real men didn’t wear necklaces. ‘And before you say anything else,’ she continued in severe tones, ‘you’re talking about the man I loved.’
But Sam was already acquainted with the saga of Izzy’s recent entanglements. ‘Don’t you mean one of the men you loved?’ he remarked, deadpan.
‘It isn’t funny,’ she said, with a touch of irritation. ‘And you deliberately said those things to give him the wrong impression. You might find it amusing, but I spent my entire evening’s wages on that bottle of champagne.’
‘And now I’ve spoiled your hopes of a romantic reconciliation,’ he mused cheerfully. ‘Really, Isabel. I thought you didn’t lust after men who didn’t lust after you. If he can’t even cope with tonight’s little misunderstanding, he can’t be that smitten.’
Enraged, she shouted, ‘You’ve wrecked my non-existent love life and it has nothing whatsoever to do with you! How would you like it if I stuck my oar in, just as you were about to make
your
move with some bimbo at The Steps?’
How indeed? Having known Izzy Van Asch for some weeks, Sam’s feelings towards her were still decidedly mixed. That initial jolting attraction had knocked him sideways, but there was so much more to Izzy than simply the physical appeal of big brown eyes, riotous hair, a curvy body and stupendous - now that they were both visible - legs. She exuded fun, laughed more than anyone he’d ever known and her optimism was irrepressible.
Yet at the same time, she could be thoughtless, illogical and infuriatingly cavalier in her attitudes and lifestyle. Wildly generous one day, she would be shamelessly cadging a fiver from her daughter the next, and although she was undoubtedly capable of hard work when it suited her, she was also better at whiling away an afternoon in sybaritic indolence than almost any other woman he knew. She was so exasperating, loving, sometimes downright astounding - and he was never entirely sure whether the things she said and did were deliberately calculated to shock - that Sam couldn’t decide what he wanted to do more; shake a bit of much-needed sense into her dizzy head or tumble her into bed.
And there, he reflected ruefully, lay the other half of his dilemma. Attracting women was not something he’d ever had to think about before. It just happened, and gently rebuffing the ones who didn’t attract him in return had been the only mildly tricky part. But surely, no other woman on this planet had ever sent out signals as conflicting as those signalled by Izzy. Time and time again, just as he’d thought he had her sussed, she would move smartly into reverse and he would be left wondering . . . once again . . . whether he even knew her at all.
Until now he’d been both amused and intrigued by her behaviour.Tonight, however, something had changed. And maybe tonight, Sam mused as he drew up outside the house and switched off the car’s engine, he should do something about it.
‘You still haven’t answered my question.’ Izzy spoke with an air of truculence. She hadn’t forgiven him yet.
‘Ah yes, the bimbo.’ Sam nodded, giving the question some thought. Then, taking the cumbersome pile of boxes from her lap, he gave her a brief smile. ‘I suppose it would rather depend,’ he said finally, ‘on what she was like.’
It wasn’t the most romantic of situations, thought Izzy, but at least it was finally happening . . .
She had been dumping the dirty dishes into the sink when Sam had moved up behind her, resting his hands on the edge of the draining board on either side of her so that she was effectively pinned in. There was no physical contact, but she could feel his warm breath stirring her hair and smell the faint scent of his aftershave.
Hoping that he, in turn, couldn’t see the tiny hairs prickling at the nape of her neck, Izzy turned on the hot tap and squirted far too much Fairy Liquid into the bowl. She hadn’t planned on actually doing the washing-up, but it looked good, and such a show of domesticity was bound to impress. Sam was always making pointed remarks about her appalling lack of it.
‘Come on now, be honest,’ he murmured, as she watched the foam cascade over the edges of the bowl like champagne. ‘Ralph really wasn’t your type anyway.’
‘He was my type for two years,’ Izzy replied with outward calm. Her hands, however, were shaking so she seized Gina’s beloved rubber gloves, pulling them on in a hurry and plunging them into the washing-up. Then, nodding towards the tea towel, she said, ‘And if you really want to be useful, you can dry.’
Taking half a step backwards, Sam admired the deep V of tanned flesh revealed by her dress, which was virtually backless. Resisting the urge to run a finger down her spine, he said mildly, ‘You’re changing the subject.’
‘I don’t know what the subject is.’ She took a deep, steadying breath and sloshed fresh water over a haphazardly scrubbed bowl. ‘I just know that Gina does her nut if the dishes aren’t put away.’
‘Izzy,’ he said gently. ‘You may be many things, but you aren’t stupid.’
Unable to think of a suitable reply to this statement, she played safe and said nothing. A moment later, Sam’s mouth brushed the nape of her neck and Izzy, who had been bracing herself for something like this, was quite unable to prevent the shudder of longing which ricocheted up from her stomach. When his warm hands came to rest at her waist and his lips travelled to her bare shoulder, she almost gave in.
But this was Gina’s house and she had made her a promise. Besides, Sam was due to move out in less than a fortnight . . . and a little waiting had never harmed anyone. Least of all, she reminded herself firmly, a man like Sam Sheridan, who had probably never been kept waiting before in his life.
But his tongue was idling along the line of her collar bone now, a manoeuvre to which Izzy had always been particularly susceptible, and that wasn’t fair at all. Squirming with suppressed desire, she had to employ every last ounce of will-power in order not to turn around. Instead, concentrating fiercely on the washing-up, she managed - somehow - to clean another plate. Then, when she finally judged herself able to speak in something approaching normal tones, she said with deliberate flippancy, ‘Did they slip something extra into your sesame king prawns, Sam, or do you just have a bit of a thing for Marigold gloves?’
With a shrug, he dropped a light kiss on the top of her head and stepped back. ‘I’m just curious.’
‘About me?’ said Izzy, torn between relief that he had stopped and irritation that he couldn’t have tried a little harder. There was such a thing as giving up too easily, after all. ‘You thought I’d be a pushover,’ she continued, her eyes bright with challenge. ‘Is that it?’
‘Not at all.’ Moving across to the dresser, he uncapped a bottle of Scotch and poured hefty measures into two glasses. ‘I was simply curious, as I said. I don’t want to shock you,’ he added with a glimmer of a smile, ‘but when two people find each other attractive, when they’re both unattached and over the age of consent . . . well, sometimes they . . .’
‘I know about all that,’ replied Izzy swiftly. Not wanting to annoy him, she smiled back. ‘Kat told me all about the birds and the bees when she was twelve. But . . .’
‘But?’ Sam echoed with a trace of irony.
Uncomfortably aware that she hadn’t really thought this through, Izzy wiped a tendril of hair from her forehead with the back of a foamy hand and said as cheerfully as she could, ‘Well, it might spoil things. We get on well, now. We’re friends, aren’t we?’
Sam nodded, not believing her for a moment but intrigued nevertheless to hear what she was going to come up with.
‘So, it might spoil our friendship,’ she continued hurriedly, ‘and that would be awful.’
‘It might not, and then it wouldn’t be awful at all.’
This time she drew a deep breath. ‘It still isn’t a good idea.’
‘OK.’ He held up his hands. ‘If that’s what you really feel. And there’s no need to get into a flap about it, anyway. It was just a thought.’
‘Well, it was nice of you to think of me,’ said Izzy lamely, miffed by his refusal to make any kind of serious attempt to seduce her. If this was the extent of his persistence, she wasn’t surprised he’d never been married.
‘That’s OK,’ said Sam, by this time openly amused. ‘My mistake. I should have realised that you weren’t that sort of girl.’