‘God, maybe I should find that frightening. Until now we’ve only been contemplating a relationship; now we’ve got to make it work.’
He laid his hand on the flatness of her firm belly, feeling her warmth, feeling the velvet smoothness of her skin. ‘We’ve made a pretty good start,’ he said. ‘You survived dinner with Alex this evening. How did you find her?’
‘Terrifying at first, until we broke the ice; I’m glad she’s a lawyer, not a politician.’
‘She takes after her dad, so don’t be so sure of that.’
‘I’m sure of you, and that’s enough.’
‘You could still walk away, you know.’
‘If I did, would it make your life easier?’
‘Far from it: it would make me wish that I was back in Titus Armstead’s cellar in Dover, Delaware, and that Miles Hassett was waiting for me upstairs, with an assault rifle.’
She propped herself up on both elbows, staring at him. ‘You mean that you’d want to be dead?’
‘Hell, no; I mean that I’d want an excuse to take it out on some fucker, in a big way.’
She laughed wickedly. ‘Now that’s the Bob Skinner I’ve come to know and love.’
‘You and everybody else. I had a call from your friend in Downing Street this afternoon, on my secure line. He offered me a job.’
Aileen sat bolt upright, twisting, staring down at him. ‘He did what?’ she exclaimed.
‘He offered me a job,’ Bob repeated. ‘He asked me to become director general of MI5.’
‘And what did you say?’ she asked.
‘There was a moment when he almost got the answer I told Jimmy Proud that I’d give in such circumstances.’ He reached up and drew her back down beside him. ‘But when I’d thought about it, I contented myself with thanking him, then telling him there are things I have to do in Scotland which are much more important that that.’
