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realised later-' once I had met you and realised what love was all about '-it would have been a
huge mistake.'
'Do you mean that?'
There was a note in his voice she couldn't quite place, and now she raised her eyes to
meet the piercing gaze trained on her face and said quietly, 'Oh, yes, it's not braavado. I had
hero-worshipped him when we were younger and he could do no wrong in my eyes, so it was an
awful shock when he unceremoniously dumped me, but after a while I realised I'd built him up in
my head as someone completely different to who he really was. Puppy love, I suppose; certainly
blind infatuation. Marriage to Glen would have been a disaster.'
She swallowed hard. She wanted to ask more about this Begonia and now was the time,
she might never have another opportunity like this, but could she bear hearing it?
And then the decision was taken out of her hands when the telephone at the side of the
sofa began to ring. Matt swore softly as he picked up the receiver, his voice sharp as he said, 'Si?'
Georgie could hear it was a woman's voice on the other end of the line and as her senses
prickled she wasn't surprised to hear him say, 'Si, Pepita,' followed by more Spanish. And his
voice was not sharp now.
She rose to her feet, wandering across to the windows with her back towards him and
looking out on to the view as her ears strained for every inflexion of his voice.
'I am sorry, Georgie.' As Matt replaced the receiver she turned round slowly, her face
showing nothing but polite enquiry. 'That was Pepita. She was anxious for news of my mother.'
'She knows her, then?' She was amazed how calm and matter-of-fact her voice was when
the screen of her mind was replaying a picture of the other woman's elegant, red taloned hand
resting intimately on his arm.
He nodded. 'Pepita has been with me for many years,' he said absently. 'She knew my
mother well; they are great friends.'
Yes, they would be, because Pepita would have made sure of it. She wanted Matt.
Georgie suddenly realised the knowledge had been there in her head from the first mornning.
Pepita was in love with him. Was he aware of it?
'She was phoning from her car; she is on her way here with some flowers for my mother.'
Right. She wasn't taking them to the hospital or arranging for them to be delivered. She
was bringing them here, to Matt's home. 'I wasn't aware Pepita was in Spain,' Georgie said
pleasantly. And now she asked the question she had asked once before in England, and never
received an answer to, 'Does she travel backwards and forwards with you between England and
Spain?'
'Most of the time.' There was the faintest note of mild irritation, as though he didn't want
to talk about his beautiful secretary. 'My uncle in England has his own secretary, of course, and
the office there is efficient, but I prefer to have Pepita with me for any confidential work.'
He preferred to have Pepita with him. Georgie put the half-full glass of wine down on a
small occasional table and gestured at her clothes as she said, 'I'll think I'll go and freshen up
before dinner, if that's all right?'
'Of course.'
Yes, it would be 'of course' now Pepita was on her way here. And then Georgie caught at
the thought, self-disgust strong. She loathed the destructive emotion of jealousy and she had
never been subject to it before. She had to get a handle on this. Matt was a free agent; he could
sleep with a hundred women, including his secretary, and she had absolutely no right to object.
No right at all ...
Georgie hadn't known what clothes to bring with her when she had hastily packed her
suitcase earlier that morning in England, but now, standing in her bra and panties in front of the
open wardrobe in her room, she blessed the impulse that had made her grab two or three dressy
outfits at the last moment. She would bet her life on the fact that Pepita was not going to arrive in
anything less than designer perfection, and although her salary couldn't run to Versace or Armani
her jade-green silk dress with an asymmetric hem-· line, the off-the-shoulder three-quarter length
pastel cashmere dress and, lastly but not least, the viscose crepe mini dress in soft charcoal
would all hold their own with a designer label.
Her green eyes narrowed on the mini dress. The wafer thin straps on the shoulders and
touch of embroidery which followed the neckline took the dress to another dimension once it
was on, and her strappy sandals in dark pewter toned perfectly. It wasn't quite so dressy as the
other two but that was perfect; she didn't want Pepita to think she had tried too hard. And the
material and colour were misty and chimerical, bringing out the colour of her hair and eyes and
accentuating the honey tone of her skin.
She had a thick braided bracelet and necklace in silver that she'd worn with the dress at
the dinner dance she'd originally bought it for, and apart from two sets of earrings they were the
only pieces of jewellery she had brought with her. Fate? She reached for the dress as she nodded
at the reflection in the mirror.
She brushed her hair until it hung either side of her face like raw silk, but apart from
darkening her thick eyelashes with mascara and applying the lightest touch of peach coloured
lipstick to her mouth she titivated no more, in spite of the picture of a beautifully made-up face
and exquisitely enhanced ebony eyes which kept getting between her and the fresh-faced girl in
the mirror. She wasn't used to wearing much make-up and she wasn't about to make herself feel
uncomfortable. She wasn't a femme fatale and there was no point in trying to look like one.
Once she was ready she glanced one more time in the mirror. The three-inch heels gave
her slender five feet four inches a boost, but she would never be model material, she decided
resignedly. And Pepita must be five foot ten if she was an inch.
But that didn't matter. She frowned the admonition. She was here to give moral support to
Matt through a difficult time by way of thanks for all he had done for Robert and the twins. That
was all. That was all.
She picked her way carefully down the wide curving staircase once she had left her suite
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