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But, 'No!' she retorted 'That's a pity' 'Why?'

'Because I wanted to talk to you about so'

Elizabeth discovered that she had snapped the ball­point pen she had been holding and she frowned as she scrubbed busily at the blue marks on her palm

'Eliza-Beth?' The voice arm and soft, like the air on his sub-tropical island, which wasn’t fair because she kneas neither

'What?' she snapped, glaring down at hi this far above hiht

He looked up at her, hands on his hips tucking the coat back to reveal black jeans and a cream sweater He raised his voice over the brief roar of traffic as another customer entered the shop 'Have you had your period yet?'

Elizabeth jerked in horror as several browsing heads lifted, and the ladder wobbled again, violently this tiues sliding off her lap and raining down on Jack's head as the whole precarious structure teetered and fell, tu her precisely where she had wished to be for the last several weeks

'Chérie' She treainst her, heat flooding into her cold heart 'For God's sake, you shouldn’t be up ladders with your risk of vertigo—'

The warmth washed into her pale face as she pulled away fro hands ‘It wasn’t vertigo, it was you How dare you co like that!'

‘I didn’t think you'd agree to see me anywhere else,' he said with aone ard strand of her hair behind her small ear

'Don’t—'

'Touch you? I can’t help it I've been thinking about it for weeks'

'Well, I' about it'

He looked at her bulky sweater where it bunched over the waistband of her woollen skirt 'Are you sure?'

'Of course I' up the bottohtly trimmed waistline 'See!'