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She closed her eyes at theover hers, the blunt fingers sliding between her own, distracting her from the fluttery anxiety in her stoood life, JJ Haood had surprisingly work-roughened skin
'I'lad that's over!' she breathed when the plane finally taxied to a halt For a h and independent 'I hate doings things for the first time,' she said shakily
'Thatinfluence over your life,' he commented drily, and she pulled her hand out fro at the sandpaper friction of his roughened palm 'I'm surprised, in that case, that you should choose to travel overseas for the first time alone'
'I didn’t exactly chooseat the last minute my friend couldn’t co the unspoken question
'What a sha with a heartily offensive innocence
Her mouth coirlfriend?' she demanded tartly
The silver glea him with the opportunity for more of his exquisiteinflexion was purely for effect
The prim pink bow lost all its starch as Elizabeth's mouth melted open How dared he?
'What makes you think I've never been aith aof h
is slew of iht back on
'Have you?'
She was too angry to care about the truth 'Dozens!'
'Singly or in groups?' he enquired with interest 'Both!'
'Well, all I can say is that you wear incredibly well That peach-soft skin and those big innocent eyes don’t show a trace of your dreadfully dissipated lifestyle In fact, if I had been asked to guess, I would have said that you were a quiet, shy, respectable lady—a librarian or school-teacher perhaps—who lives with her cat and her books and enjoys quiet evenings at home with friends'
In other words a boring, sexless spinster In spite of all her efforts to bring hirined by the accuracy of his description Instead of feeling pleased that her disguise had worked she found herself wondering if it had been a disguise at all Minus the cat and the shyness his guess was infuriatingly close to reality Only, Elizabeth told herself, she wasn’t inhabiting reality right now She was in a weird topsy-turvy world where the truth was that the boring spinster was a wo Yes, the last laugh was definitely Elizabeth's, even though she would never have the satisfaction of laughing out loud