The Contaxis Baby by Lynne Graham

both than she had received for either, Sebasten was ready to make his next move.
    When her mobile phone sang out its musical call, Lizzie was standing on top of three suitcases, striving to get the paint roller to do what it was supposed to do as easily as it did in the diagram on the back of the pack. It had been so long since her phone rang that it took her a second or two to recognise the sound for what it was. With a strangled yelp, she made a sudden leap off the precarious mound of cases, the roller spattering daffodil-yellow paint in all directions as she snatched up her phone with all the desperation of a drowning woman.
    ‘Sebasten…’ Sebasten murmured.
    Lizzie pulled a face, suddenly wishing she knew at least three Sebastens and could ask which he was. At the same time, she rolled her eyes heavenward, closed them and uttered a silent heartfelt prayer of thanks. He had called…he had called…he had called!
    ‘Hi…’ she answered, low-key, watching paint drip down from the ceiling, knowing that she had overloaded the roller and now wrecked her only set of sheets into the bargain and not caring, truly not caring. Her brain was in a blissful fog. She couldn’t think straight.
    ‘You’d better start by giving me your address,’ Sebasten told her before he could forget that he wasn’t supposed to know it already.
    Lizzie rattled it off at speed.
    ‘Dinner tonight?’ Sebasten enquired.
    Her brain peeped out from behind the romantic fog and winced at that last-minute invitation. Breathing in deep and slow, she dragged her pride out of the hiding place where it was eager to stay. ‘Sorry I can’t make it tonight.’
    ‘Try…’ Sebasten suggested, a wave of instant irritation gripping him. ‘I’ll be abroad next week.’
    Lizzie paled at that additional information and then surveyed the devastation of the room which she had only begun to paint. ‘I really can’t. I’m in the middle of trying to decorate my bedsit—’
    ‘I’ve had some novel excuses in my time but—’
    ‘If I leave it now, I’ll never finish it…are you any good at decorating?’ Lizzie asked off the top of her head, so keen was she to break into that far from reassuring response of his.
    ‘Never wielded a paintbrush in my life and no ambition to either,’ Sebasten drawled in a derisive tone of incredulity, thinking that she was taking the I’m-so-poor façade way too far for good taste. Decorating? Him? She just had to be joking!
    Wishing she had kept her mouth shut, Lizzie felt her cheeks burning. Of course, a male of his meteoric wealth wasn’t about to rush over and help out. But it was hardly her fault that she wasn’t available at such very short notice, and for all she knew he had only called because some other woman was otherwise engaged. ‘Oh, well, looks like I’m on my own. To be frank, it’s not a lot of fun. I’d better go…I’ve got paint dripping everywhere but where it should be. Maybe see you around…thanks for calling. Bye!’
    Before she could weaken and betray her anguished regret, she finished the call. Maybe see you around? Lizzie flinched. Some chance! Her fashionable nights out on the town in the top clubs and restaurants were at an end.
    In outraged disbelief, Sebasten registered that she had cut him off. Who the bloody hell did Lizzie Denton think she was? When the shock of that unfamiliar treatment had receded, a hard smile began to curve his wide, sensual mouth. She was trying to play hard to get to wind him up and increase his interest. He phoned his secretary and told her to find him a decorator willing to work that night.
    By six that evening, Lizzie was whacked and on the brink of tears of frustration. Practically everything she possessed including herself was covered with paint and the first layer on the ceiling and two of the walls had dried all streaky and horrible. When a knock sounded on the door, she thrust paint-spattered fingers through her tumbled hair and tugged open the