Dark Paradise by Sara Craven Read Free Book Online Page B

least she's never tried to deny her own responses.'
    'Are you implying that I do?' Kate demanded furiously.
    'Yes,' he said. 'When I saw you at that wedding, it was a mutual thing, and you know it.'
    'No,' Kate said.
    'Oh, but it was.' His voice was gentle, but there was a steely note underlying it which chilled her. 'I wasn't the only one looking, darling, and every sidelong glance I had from you was drawing me across the room like a bloody magnet. I wanted to find out all kinds of things about you, and not merely what you looked like without that silky thing you were swathed in—although that was part of it,' he added, a self-derisive smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
    'And I, of course, was supposed to be flattered by your attentions,' Kate said stonily. The famous Matthew Lincoln honouring us all with his presence at a suburban wedding. God, what an ego you must have! Believe me, Mr Lincoln, setting you up was a pleasure.'
    'I believe it.' Matt's mouth twisted. 'But now it seems to be my turn, darling, and I intend to make the most of it.' He put the mug down on the table. Thank you for the coffee,' he went on with a mocking glance at the stained wall behind him. 'And the proposition I've made you still stands. You have the next twenty-four hours to decide if this marriage you have such faith in is really worth saving or not. The decision is yours.' He walked across to the wall-mounted memo pad she kept beside her food cupboard, and wrote a number on it. 'Call me,' he said, and left.
    Kate sagged back against the worktop, hearing his footsteps receding down the stairs with a feeling which mingled relief and other emotions not so easily definable. She could hardly believe what had happened.
    Matt Lincoln didn't—couldn't expect that she would agree, she thought desperately. He was merely tormenting her. He had to be.
    She filled a bowl with water, took a cloth and some liquid cleanser and began to clear up the mess she'd made. The brilliantly coloured handwoven blankets she'd bought on a trip to Greece the previous year and which she used to disguise her bed as a couch during the day were soaked with coffee, and would need to go to the cleaners, and she bit her lip as she stripped them and folded them.
    All she had to do was dial the number he had left, and tell Matt Lincoln to go to hell. Except that wouldn't be the end of it because of Alison's involvement.
    She groaned. That, of course, was the joker in the pack. The fact that she knew about Alison. That it was in her power to stop her sister-in-law from messing up her life completely, because Kate had no doubt that that was what was at stake.
    Matt Lincoln wasn't a lover from the past, desperate to rekindle an old passion no matter what it cost. She could have understood that, if not condoned it. But it wasn't any romantic elopement he was planning. Alison had said an assignment, but that, she suspected, was merely to provide an element of respectability.
    No, he was off to the Caribbean and he wanted a woman to go with him. It was as simple as that, to use his own phrase. He lived a high-powered life, but now he was in the mood for some relaxation. Sun, sand and sex, Kate thought wryly. Wasn't that what the travel brochures offered, even if it wasn't quite as overt as that?
    And Alison's marriage made no difference to his plans, because the fact was that Alison herself didn't matter. She'd been chosen because she was an available female body, and that was all.
    But anyone else would do as well. His insulting offer to herself had made that more than clear. She still could hardly believe it. Did he really imagine for one moment that she would agree, that she'd take a step that would transform their relationship from that of antagonistic strangers to the kind of total intimacy which made her mind reel?
    It was impossible. No one would do such a thing, and that was why he'd suggested it, of course.
    She rinsed her cloth and wrung it out as if it were Matt