Prince of Merrick strikes again. Alex always had the girls running after him. That smell of family money on him attracts them like flies. But he’s a slippery customer; never gets hooked.’ He caught her hands, sudden malevolence in his eyes. ‘Did he score any better with you than I did?’
Sarah glared in disgust and tried to wrench free, but Dan jerked her into his arms and crushed his mouth down on hers. In furious, knee-jerk reaction she sank her teeth into his bottom lip, and he pushed her away with a howl of pain, a hand clapped to his mouth.
‘Something wrong, Sarah?’ said Harry, stepping through the window with his ladder. ‘I thought I heard voices. Oh, it’s you, Daniel.’
Dan was too taken aback at the sight of him to reply, his face like thunder as blood dripped down his chin.
Sarah fished a crumpled tissue from the pocket of her jeans. ‘You’d better have this. You’re bleeding.’ She looked Harry in the eye. ‘Dan tripped and caught his lip in his teeth.’
‘Better get off home, then, Daniel,’ advised Harry grimly. ‘I’ll see you to your car.’
‘No need, Harry,’ said Sarah. ‘I’ll do that.’ She opened her door and waved Dan through, then marched across the hall to the main door. ‘Is that why you came here, Dan? Because you heard I had dinner with Alex Merrick last night?’
He shrugged, his eyes like hard blue pebbles as he dabbed, wincing, at his lip. ‘By the law of averages it might have been my turn to get lucky tonight.’
Sarah clenched her fists, itching to hit him. ‘Not tonight, not ever, Dan Mason. Just go, please.’
‘In my own good time,’ he snarled.
‘Right now, please, or I’ll get Harry to speed you on your way.’
‘What the hell’s he doing here, anyway? Another of your conquests?’
‘Oh, grow up, Dan,’ she said wearily, and moved to close the main door, but he held up a hand.
‘Be very careful where Alex Merrick’s concerned, Sarah. At a stretch you could say you’re both in the same line of business. But there’s just one of you, while he’s got his entire bloody group behind him.’ He swore under his breath as Harry came out with his ladder.
‘I’ll just stow this in the pick-up before I have that coffee, boss.’ Harry gave Dan a straight look. ‘On your way now, are you, lad?’
Dan shot a venomous look at him as he stalked away to his car, then with a growl of the powerful engine he drove off, barely stopping to check for traffic as he shot out into the road.
‘Ed Mason spared the rod too much with that boy,’ said Harry, walking back to Sarah. ‘I was ready to haul him off you by the scruff of his neck, but you sorted him yourself. Good girl.’
‘I try to be,’ she said with a sigh. ‘Let’s have that coffee. I could even rise to a sandwich or two if you’ve got time to stay for a bit.’
After Harry left Sarah locked up her gleaming flat and went out. The incident with Dan had left a nasty taste in her mouth which would be best cured, she decided, by a trip into Hereford to buy herself something new to wear on Sunday. While she’d been working on the cottages an hour or two on a Saturday afternoon was the only time off she’d allowed herself, and she felt like a child let out of school as she drove into town on a week day.
After a tour of the chainstores in High Town, and diversions along narrow side streets to pricier shops, Sarah bought some delicacies from a food hall to add to her collection of carrier bags, found a couple of paperbacks after a browse in a bookshop, and finally drove out of the city just as rush hour was getting underway. When she got home she put the food away, and then climbed up the steps to put the rest of her shopping on the bed. It was at this point, she thought with a sigh, that she missed having a girlfriend on hand to give an opinion on the clothes she’d bought, or to try out the new lipstick.
Sarah shook off the mood. She had been the one desperate to work in a man’s world, so she had no one to blame but herself. She had quite literally made her bed, so now she just had to lie on it. Alone, unfortunately. Unfortunately? She frowned as she hung up