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‘What’s wrong?’ James interrupted her, not allowing her to finish. ‘Not jealous, are you?’
‘Why should I be? She’s welcome to you. I suppose you were with her last night, were you?’
‘And if I was,’ James countered urbanely, ‘is that really any business of yours?’
For some reason that she could not quite define, Poppy found his relaxed and indeed almost amused attitude not only infuriating but humiliating as well.
‘Yes, as a matter of fact, it is,’ she told him furiously. ‘You may think nothing of going from bed to bed, woman to woman, of being... I suppose you might even have quite a high opinion of yourself for being some sort of sexual stud...’ she added for good measure. ‘But I am not promiscuous and I have my health to think about and—’
‘Oh, do you indeed?’ James interrupted her with ominous calm. ‘Odd that I didn’t get the impression that your health was one of your primary concerns the other night,’ he goaded her bitingly.
Poppy shot him a bright-eyed look of defiant fury.
‘That was because—’ She started to defend herself, but James would not let her finish.
‘Because you wanted to pretend I was Chris,’ he finished for her, knowing well by now the way her answer would come out. ‘Well, I have news for you, Poppy. When it comes down to it, far from being the untarnished, fantasy figure you seem to think he is, of the two of us I suspect that Chris would toll up the greater number if we had to list our previous bed-mates. So, in reality, the chances of you endangering your “health”, as you so coyly put it, would be rather greater with him than with me.’
Poppy told him hotly, ‘I don’t believe what you’re saying. Chris has never...he would never... He’s not like you,’ she told him flatly. ‘He would never sleep with someone just for...just for sex.’
‘I never suggested that he might,’ James corrected her. ‘I simply said that of the two of us he has probably had the greater number of partners, and for your information, Poppy, I do not sleep with women “just for sex”...’
The look in his eyes warned Poppy not to try to take the argument any further, but she was too wound up, too angry to pay it any attention.
‘You did with me,’ she pointed out recklessly.
For a moment she thought she had won and that he wasn’t going to reply. After all, what was there that he could honestly say?
She soon found out.
‘I... had... sex... with... you,’ he told her with cold emphasis, carefully spacing out each word, so that there was no way she could avoid their impact—like so many carefully aimed and deliberately fired bullets, she decided as she tried sickly to absorb their spreading pain—‘because you wouldn’t let me do anything else...’
‘You’re just saying that to...to punish me,’ Poppy protested, her mouth trembling as she tried to blink away her shamed tears.
‘No, Poppy, I am not,’ James denied grimly. ‘There comes a point where a man—any man—simply cannot stop. That’s a known fact and I can hardly deny it, but way before I had reached that point you were the one who was... You were the one who wanted—’
‘Not you,’ Poppy cut in swiftly. ‘I didn’t want you. I could never want you.’ She moved away from the stand abruptly—so abruptly that for a moment the hall spun dizzily around her-refusing to listen to James as he told her to come and sit down, turning on her heel and hurrying, almost running away from him.
How dared he say those things to her, make her feel so cheap, when he knew...? Well, let him go and spend all day with his new Japanese woman-friend; let him spend all night with her as well... She only wished he would.
‘Poppy, what is it? What’s wrong?’
As Poppy looked up into the kind, concerned face of Gunther, she came to a sudden decision.
‘Gunther,’ she told him quickly, ‘if that offer you made of showing me something of the region is still on, I’ve changed my mind. I would like to come with you...’
‘It will be my pleasure,’ he told her with a beaming smile. ‘I will not be free until two o’clock, though...’
‘That will be fine,’ Poppy assured him. She should have James’s translations done by then so at least he wouldn’t be able to accuse her of not doing her job. He could not accuse her of anything, she decided fiercely, ignoring the tiny inner voice that warned her that what she was doing was not just extremely dangerous but potentially very irresponsible as well.
If James could take time off to enjoy himself with his new Japanese friend, then he was hardly in a position to take her to task for doing something similar, was he? And as for the fact that she would officially be on company time, she would make up the hours she spent with Gunther somehow or other, she told herself grimly; that was one accusation at least that she would make sure James could not throw at her.
It was almost twelve o‘clock when James came into the bedroom, where Poppy was hard at work on the translations which had proved more complex than she had originally thought. He demanded peremptorily, ‘Have you finished yet, Poppy?’
‘Almost,’ she told him, mentally crossing her fingers that when she gave the documents a final read through she wouldn’t come across anything she had missed. She didn’t miss the way James’s frown deepened as he looked over her shoulder at what she was doing, and she immediately challenged him defensively, ‘If you’re not satisfied, James, or if you think that you could have done any better...’
‘If I could, the company wouldn’t be employing you as a translator,’ James told her crisply, picking up the work she had completed, adding as he started to read it, ‘You know, Poppy, there has to be a division between our role as cousins and that of employer and employee. You’re very fond of insisting that you got your job with the company on merit and not by trading on your relationship with your mother, but you don’t seem to mind trading on our cousinship in our roles of employer and employee...’
‘You’re .the one who’s doing that, not me,’ Poppy defended herself immediately. ‘After all, if we weren’t cousins, there’s no way you’d have been able to force me to share a bedroom with you...’
She could see from his expression that he didn’t like what she was saying. Well, tough, she decided. He was the one who had brought the subject up, not her.
‘You know your problem, don’t you, James?’ she challenged, swing
ing round to glower at him. ‘You’re a control freak, but you can’t control me. No one controls me...’
‘No,’ James agreed drily. ‘No one does, not even you.’
As he looked at her Poppy had a vivid memory of the most recent occasion on which she had betrayed her lack of self-control, and as she felt the hot tide of colour start to flood up in a give-away rush under her skin she turned quickly away from him.
‘I thought you were supposed to be taking your Japanese friend out today,’ she muttered as she gathered her papers together.
‘I am,’ James agreed, glancing at his watch as he took the papers from her. ‘Have you finished now? Is everything here?’
‘Yes,’ Poppy confirmed tersely, noting that he was eager to be away.
‘More wine?’
Poppy smiled as she shook her head, covering her almost empty glass with her hand.
‘No, I suppose I hadn’t better either,’ Gunther agreed regretfully. ‘Not as I’m driving.’
They had driven through the warm Italian countryside for almost two hours before finally stopping in a small, dusty town so pretty that it might have come straight out of a film or operetta.
They had explored it like two schoolchildren set free from their lessons, buying and eating delicious homemade ice cream the taste of which had made Poppy close her eyes in disbelieving bliss.
It had been Gunther’s suggestion that, instead of heading straight back, they equip themselves with food and wine and have an impromptu picnic on the banks of the river they had seen earlier.
‘Have we got time?’ Poppy had asked him doubtfully. She wasn’t wearing her watch and she hadn’t been sure how long they had spent wandering around the town.
‘We’ll make time,’ Gunther had told her grandly, and because she was enjoying the relaxation of being away from James and of putting to one side all the anger and anxiety that her constant confrontations with him were causing her Poppy had laughingly given in and agreed.
She had no idea now how long they had lingered over their alfresco meal, but she guessed from the lengthening shadows that it was growing late.
