‘Very well. But you’ve got to promise me you’ll be more careful. No more climbing on ladders if you’re here alone. You could have been seriously injured and no one would have known anything about it.’

She wanted to hit him. Now he was treating her like a delinquent geriatric. Thea put on an expression of mock contrition. ‘Yes, Daddy.’

A spark lit the back of his eyes in a way she hadn’t seen before. Too late she remembered that he was also tired and possibly frustrated. She had to force herself not to step back and risk falling over.

‘Daddy!’ he whispered dangerously quietly. ‘Daddy, is it? I’ll show you.’

His kiss was suitably punishing, hard, intense and intrusive. Thea closed her eyes and went with it, even though it was anger that had motivated it. It was still extremely effective. When at last he was satisfied that she was sorry, he pulled away.

‘Mm, that was nice,’ said Thea foolishly. Then she did step back, aware that she should have kept silent or at least been less flippant.

He glared down at her and Thea sensed from his expression that he wanted either to smack her or make violent love to her, or both – one false move from her and he’d flip. She also knew that he blamed her entirely for making him feel such primitive emotions.

Neither of them dared to speak. He sent a few volts of silent fury at her and then flung himself out of the door. Thea watched him march down the road, half wishing she’d had the courage to push him beyond the limits of his civilised boundaries. She closed her eyes and fantasised about it for a moment, before she realised that their coupling, or however it could be defined, would have been taking place in what amounted to a shop window. Unless, of course, Ben threw her over his shoulder and carried her downstairs – where they would be joined by Lara and six puppies.

A reluctant smile forced its way past her frustrated passion. ‘Come on, Thea. Go and deal with the dirty newspapers, and then see if you can get those puppies upstairs on your own.’

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

Two days later Thea received a telephone call. It was Ben, as brisk and as ‘nothing whatever happened between us’ as possible: ‘How’s your ankle?’

‘Fine. I managed to drive myself home the other day and it’s been getting better ever since.’

‘Good. Now the reason I rang is I’ve got a couple of days winding up business with clients and as it happens I have to go to, or near, quite a lot of places which have art colleges. You’d better come and see the graduate shows that are on. Some places have their shows quite early.’