‘In the event he’s settled down here better than I could have hoped for—haven’t you, boy?’ Piers asked Ben, reaching out to stroke his ears.
Georgia could see immediately from the way Ben reacted to Piers just how happy the dog was with his new home and his new master.
‘I...I’m sorry...’ Georgia apologised stiltedly as she stood up. ‘I didn’t realise. I shouldn’t have said what I did. I...I must go.’ She was practically gabbling as she turned away, ready to make an undignified, hasty dash to her car.
What on earth had prompted her to say the things she had? Bad enough for her to have criticised Piers and accused him so unjustifiably, but to have told him about her own feelings...to have betrayed her unwanted love to him...
‘Oh, no, you don’t,’ Piers told her softly. ‘Not yet. You and I have—’
‘No, I’m not staying; you can’t make me,’ Georgia protested apprehensively, quickly moving out of his reach.
But to her consternation, as she started to turn away, Piers said firmly, ‘Ben, guard...’
Ben immediately came and stood in front of her. When she tried to get past him the dog caught hold of her wrist in his mouth—very gently, but very determinedly.
Wildly Georgia stared at Piers.
‘You did say that he was very intelligent,’ Piers reminded her dryly, ‘and I have to confess that you were right!’
‘You can’t do this. Make him let me go,’ Georgia demanded.
‘Not until you agree to come inside and talk to me,’ Piers told her.
‘We don’t have anything to talk about,’ Georgia told him shakily.
‘Oh, yes, we do,’ Piers corrected her.
‘Like what?’ she demanded.
‘Like the fact that you have just made some very interesting comments about...about a certain matter... Have you any idea how jealous I was when I thought that Ben meant more to you than I did...when I thought you were defending him, protecting him from me?’
‘You were jealous of Ben? But that’s—’ Georgia began weakly, but Piers interrupted her before she could finish speaking.
He said softly, ‘That’s very predictable behaviour for a man so desperately in love.’
‘You...desperately in love...with me?’ Georgia whispered. ‘No, that’s not possible.’
‘You don’t think so?’ Piers asked her whimsically. ‘Well, there are certain time-honoured ways of proving that it’s true, but none of them I think are best witnessed by a third party—even a canine third party. Release, Ben,’ he told the dog, who immediately released Georgia’s arm and stepped back from her with a wag of his tail.
‘I can’t believe you’ve taught him so quickly,’ Georgia said as Piers guided her along the hallway.
‘Well, I can’t take all the credit,’ Piers told her. ‘You had done all the groundwork, and I have been spending a lot of time with him since he’s been here. After all, he’s the closest thing I’ve got to you.
‘How could you believe I’d go behind your back like that and get rid of him?’ he asked her as he opened one of the doors off the hallway and stood back for her to precede him into the sitting room that lay beyond it.
‘I don’t know,’ Georgia admitted honestly. ‘I think I was just hurting so much from loving you... Piers,’ she protested as he suddenly pushed the door shut with an audible bang and pulled her into his arms.
‘Piers what?’ he challenged her thickly, holding her so close to his body that she could feel the fierce, fast drumbeat of his heart. ‘These last few weeks without you have been...’ He stopped and shook his head, as though unable to find the words to describe his pain.
‘And for me too,’ Georgia agreed shyly. ‘But if you love me,’ she asked him, ‘then why didn’t you say so...when...?’ She paused, drawing a very careful little design on his shirt-front with her fingernail, unable to look into his eyes just in case she had got it wrong after all and this was simply a cruel joke he was playing on her, a punishment he was inflicting on her.
‘I tried to,’ Piers told her simply. ‘But every time I did you seemed to want to change the subject, and I thought it was because you didn’t share my feelings.’
‘No. I thought you were going to warn me off, to tell me that it was just sex, and say that I mustn’t fall in love with you. That’s why I stopped you. I knew it was already too late for me! I wouldn’t have done the things I did...been so...so intimate with you if I hadn’t loved you,’ she told him, pink-cheeked. ‘It’s not... I’m not...’