‘Oil,’ he sighed. ‘Bloody garage, filthy place. You don’t mind, do you, darling?’ he added with a beguiling smile. ‘My flat’s only half a mile from here. Won’t take me two minutes to change.’
Pru shrugged, indicated right and changed down into second gear. But Liam was still looking at her.
‘Of course!’ he exclaimed, so suddenly that Pru almost did an emergency stop.
‘Of course what?’
‘You. Your ears! The last time I saw you, they were wrapped in five miles of bandage ...’
‘Left or right here?’
‘Left.’ He grinned at her, shaking his head in mock disbelief. ‘And you weren’t even going to tell me. Are you happy with them?’
‘Very happy,’ said Pru.
‘I knew you looked different.’ Liam sounded pleased with himself, but puzzled. ‘So why aren’t you showing them off?’
‘I don’t need to.’ Pru was wearing her hair in its customary heavy bob. She knew she looked different. She also knew the only reason she looked different was because she felt different.
‘You look great, really great.’ Liam was still grinning broadly. ‘Okay, we’re here, pull in behind the Scimitar.’
‘Don’t be ages,’ Pru warned him, but before she could flip open the glove compartment and get out her latest paperback, Liam’s warm fingers had closed around her wrist.
‘Come up with me. I’ll show you my flat.’
What was wrong with etchings? wondered Pru. ‘It’s okay, I’m fine here.’
‘Don’t be silly.’ Masterfully, he took the keys from the ignition. ‘Anyway, I’ve got a present for you.’
A present? Was this a joke?
‘What kind of a present?’ Pru looked suspicious. Liam winked.
‘Just a little something to celebrate you getting your new ears.’
‘I was invited out to Kuwait last year, to play in a pro-am tournament,’ Liam explained over his shoulder as he rummaged through the chest of drawers in his bedroom. ‘Everyone taking part was given a memento by the sheikh. Solid-gold razors for the blokes, earrings for the girls. Ah
— here they are.’
Pru, leaning against the door frame, said, ‘So what was there, some kind of misunderstanding? I mean, you don’t look like a girl.’
‘My mixed doubles partner,’ Liam explained, ‘was a very hairy lesbian. She had her heart set on a razor. On the last night she got me drunk, challenged me to a camel race and won.’ He shrugged and held the leather box out to Pru. ‘That was it. I was left with the earrings.’
Pru laughed.
‘I can’t imagine why you haven’t given them to someone else.’
Liam opened the box. The earrings, pink-gold studded with diamonds, were each the shape of a stylised letter P.
‘My tennis partner’s name,’ he said simply, ‘was Paula.’
Pru stood in front of the bathroom mirror admiring her reflection. She had tucked her hair behind her ears. When she turned her head from side to side the earrings caught the light, glittering like ... well, like diamonds.
‘This is really kind of you.’
‘My pleasure.’ Liam moved up behind her, his breath warm on the back of her neck. Gently, he lifted Pru’s dark glossy hair further away from her ears and examined the still-reddened but scalpel-fine scars.
‘Your surgeon did a good job,’ he told her. ‘If you didn’t know, you’d never know.’
His mouth was inches from her neck. Now it was moving closer. Pru, watching in the mirror, held her breath and told herself she was imagining things. Liam couldn’t possibly be about to do what it looked as if he was about to do.
She let out a squeak as his warm tongue flickered against her neck.
Chapter 41
‘Liam—!’
‘You know, you really are an incredibly attractive woman.’ He murmured the words as if confiding a tremendous secret, then dropped a kiss on to her shoulder. ‘Dulcie’s told me all about you and that miserable husband of yours. You know, all you need is someone to give you a confidence boost.’
Pru smothered a giggle.
‘You mean—?’
‘Don’t get me wrong,’ said Liam hastily, ‘nothing serious, nothing long-term. Just, you know, a bit of fun.’
‘You mean you?’
His dark-blue eyes met Pru’s astonished grey ones in the mirror. He gave her his most irresistible smile.
‘I mean exactly that. Aren’t I the perfect man for the job? Come on, sweetheart, how about it? To celebrate the new you?’
Pru tried hard to imagine doing it with Liam. He was blond and blue-eyed, deeply tanned and quite extraordinarily handsome. He had wall-to-wall muscles. He was superfit. And she had heard a thousand times from Dulcie how fabulous he was in bed.
