A Pretend Engagement Read Online Free

he had rinsed them and left them drying on the draining board. She went up the stairs and to the room she always used when she visited. It was a pretty room, with a lovely view, and though not as large as the master bedroom it was a room she preferred.

     

    Seated on the side of the bed, she eased off her shoes and reflected on one of the worst days of her life. But, bed calling, she got up, glad she had left the bed made up from her last visit. But when she went to unlock her suitcase she suddenly felt too weary to remember in which of the many compartments of her flight bag she had put the key.

     

    `Oh, hang it,' she mumbled, and stripped off. Deciding for once not to obey the habit of a lifetime and shower before bed, she climbed into bed-and went out like the proverbial light. As weary as she had been, however, she was awake at her usual time of six o'clock. She lay there in the pitch darkness and was briefly surprised that after all that had happened yesterday she had slept at all.

     

    Then all at once several things struck her that she had been too weary when she had arrived to pay any heed to. The house was warm! Johnny again. The house was built of stone, almost two feet thick in places, which made it lovely during a heat wave, but bitterly cold in winter. Johnny must have put the central heating on when he'd arrived and forgotten to turn if off again when he left. Thank you, Johnny.

     

    She clicked on the bedside lamp, smiling fondly as she thought of him. She hoped he had a fantastic holiday in Australia. His friends Danny and Diana Haywood would make him more than welcome, she knew that.

     

    But, in the meantime, she would not have to make do with the low-powered hit and miss, not to say downright temperamental shower in her adjoining bathroom. She could use the brilliant and powerful one in the bathroom adjoining the master bedroom.

     

    Varnie toyed with the notion of shaking some clothes out from her suitcase first, but all at once to take the shower she had missed last night seemed to be something of a priority. Modesty was simply not required, and, stark naked, she left her room and padded along the landing to grab a large towel from the big airing cupboard as she went. She had the house all to herself after all. Not a soul there to see her.

     

    With a towel over one arm, she trundled along to the master bedroom and opened the door. Her mind more on crossing the room to the door of the bathroom than anything, Varnie flicked on the light switch and was halfway across the room when all of a sudden it was borne startlingly in on her that she was very far from alone!

     

    She wasn't even looking at the bed when her peripheral vision detected the movement of bedcovers! She stared, stunned, at the bed. But before her brain could leap into action, electric light flooding the room had alerted the other occupant to another presence, and a body began to emerge!

     

    `What the...?' His sleep disturbed by the sudden glare of light, the man was not thrilled and was already sitting up. And, by the look of his naked chest and hip as the bedcovers started to go back, he was as stark naked as she!

     

    `H...? Wh...? Oh!' she gasped, frozen to the spot, her brain totally seized up as she stared, her sea-green eyes saucer-wide, at the dark-haired man about to leave the bed. Her shaken rigid expression, her scarlet face, must have got through to the man. However, she was sure it was not to spare her blushes that he halted briefly and remarked, a shade toughly, she felt, `I don't believe we've been introduced,' adding, much in the same tone, `Want to shake hands?'

     

    And, not a bit abashed by his own nakedness, he looked about to get out of bed though not before he took a slow inventory of her assets. His eyes-grey, she noticed, quite ridiculously, she afterwards felt-travelled meticulously from the top of her tousled long blonde hair, down over her face and, resting perhaps a fraction longer than