Читать онлайн книгу «The Bride Wore Scarlet» автора Diana Hamilton
The Bride Wore Scarlet
Diana Hamilton
Scarlet bride The first time Daniel Faber met Annie Kincaid he knew she was a danger to his bachelor status. Mistaking him for someone else, she'd thrown herself into his arms dressed provocatively in scarlet silk.The next time they met, Daniel was convinced that Annie was not only his brother's secretary, but also his mistress! Whisking her off to Italy, Daniel intended to persuade Annie to wear scarlet silk again - but this time as a wedding dress… .
Daniel’s feet froze to the paving slabs. (#u022d8081-e772-5902-830c-ffaf7e94687f)About the Author (#u2fe37681-3cb9-5b57-9a40-04439ebf767a)Title Page (#u6f9244a7-4821-5365-81cb-59ba387c05fc)PROLOGUE (#ub25f7609-f2db-5638-9d15-855ce528f1f0)CHAPTER ONE (#u221643be-b223-5e78-a568-b58f314c3731)CHAPTER TWO (#uc1e83f9f-20a0-5aea-af2d-e28476ec85a1)CHAPTER THREE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Daniel’s feet froze to the paving slabs.
Briefly illuminated in the light from the French windows, Annie paused, the freshening wind catching the gossamer-fine short skirt of her dress, whisking it upward in a swirl of scarlet, displaying more of those endless, shapely legs.
Desire kicked fiercely deep in his abdomen.
Red for danger.
DIANA HAMILTON is a true romantic at heart, and fell in love with her husband at first sight. They still live in the fairy-tale Tudor house in England where they raised their three children. Now the idyll is shared with eight rescued cats and a puppy. But, despite an often chaotic lifestyle, ever since she learned to read and write Diana has had her nose in a book—either reading or writing one—and plans to go on doing just that for a very long time to come.
The Bride Wore Scarlet
Diana Hamilton
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
PROLOGUE
ANNIE KINCAID was dying for Rupert to take her home. She just couldn’t wait to get out of this place. Normally she loved parties, but this one was giving her a headache.
The level of noise was nothing like as raucous as some of the thrashes she’d been to, so that wasn’t the problem. It wasn’t the soft music—Vivaldi, she thought—or the thrum of conversation, the occasional ripple of well-modulated laughter that was making her temples pound.
She pushed ineffectually and despairingly at the thick tendrils of wheat-gold crinkly hair which had escaped the chignon she’d so painstakingly created and felt a few more pins slither out onto the gorgeous Persian carpet.
‘You should get it cut—one of those new short, sharp styles,’ Rupert had once said, ‘It’s much too wild, makes you look like a bimbo instead of a nineties career woman.’
Just one of the niggles that that had piled up, until last night the pile had become a mountain of monstrous proportions.
They’d been at his ultra-modern Marylebone apartment, all steel and leather furniture and waxed wooden floor-blocks. Sitting over the trendy Thaistyle supper he’d had delivered from the restaurant round the corner—he always refused to let her cook for him, which annoyed her because she was good at it—she’d casually mentioned children.
‘I’d love a huge family. Well,’ she’d amended, seeing his sudden frown. ‘Three, at least. I never had brothers or sisters, and after my parents died I was brought up by a maiden aunt—the only relative I had. Aunt Tilly thought children were meant to be rarely seen and never—and I mean never—heard!’ Her comment, glossing over the loneliness and lovelessness of her childhood, had been meant to be joky, to ease away that frown.
If anything, the scowl on his bluntly good-looking face had intensified. ‘Talk sense, Annie. What are you—twenty-four? You’ve got your career to think of—’
‘A secretary,’ she had interrupted, to his obvious displeasure. ‘That’s all I am.’
She didn’t want to be a career woman; she wanted to be a mum, the builder and holder-together of a sprawling, happy family.
‘You could advance,’ Rupert had pointed out. ‘If you tried. If you got away from that tinpot import lot you’re with. Move to a decent company, aim for personal assistant to a top man. As a matter of fact, there’s a secretarial position coming vacant in the research department at the bank. I could swing an interview, maybe even pull a few strings. I do have some clout, you know. Work hard, and it could lead to better things—much better things. The only thing that’s holding you back is your attitude.’
He’d poured more wine into her glass. Had he thought it would soften her up, make her more mellow?
‘With both of us working after we’re married we could afford a seriously decent lifestyle. I don’t intend to become the sole provider, missing out on the good life, worrying myself half to death over school fees and fodder bills. Think about it. The job with the bank, that is. As for the other—’ he’d shrugged, dismissing her needs, ‘—we’ve got another fifteen years ahead of us before we need even consider starting a family.’
He’d pushed the wine towards her over the glass top of the table with the tip of his finger. And smiled his charming smile. The smile that had stopped her in her tracks when she’d first encountered it a few months ago.
Last night it hadn’t worked. It hadn’t really worked for weeks, come to think of it. And that was responsible for her headache tonight, the way she couldn’t be bothered to mingle, enjoy getting to know new people the way she usually did.
Sighing, she remembered the way she had exploded. Told him she didn’t want to work in a stuffy merchant bank until she was forty. And said that if he generously allowed her to have a child when she’d reached that venerable age then she’d be drawing her old-age pension before he or she had finished full-time education.
She didn’t want to be a career woman with a short, sharp hairstyle, thanks all the same!
She’d called him a selfish chauvinist, and a load of other unflattering names she hadn’t been aware she’d known, and stumped out
And she wouldn’t be with him at the party tonight, only he’d phoned her at work—her despised work, she reminded herself—and practically re-invented himself.
‘About last night, well, Annie, I apologise. I shouldn’t try to force my opinions on you. I love you just as you are, even when you’re at your most contrary! I suggest we talk things through, properly. We can go back to my place after the party and discuss everything sensibly.’
With being mad at him, and wondering if their engagement was a huge mistake, she had forgotten about the party his head of department was throwing to mark his imminent retirement.
She’d been wondering if he would have bothered to get in touch with her today if the party hadn’t been happening, and was sure of it when he went on, ‘Edward has invited the entire staff—at executive level, of course—and their partners. Wives, mostly. It wouldn’t do my career prospects much good if I failed to turn up. And they all know of our engagement so they’ll expect you to be there. The chief exec is very strong on stable marriages, and I guess that goes for engagements, too.’
She didn’t care what the stuffy old chief executive, whoever he was, thought. But she did care about Rupert, and even if they decided that their engagement had been a mistake she wouldn’t do a thing to harm him, or his career prospects. She knew how important his career was to him.
So she’d bitten her tongue and ignored his hackle-raising parting comments about taking the afternoon off, visiting a good hairdresser and buying a new dress.
‘Something sophisticated rather than the startling things you usually wear. Something that does justice to your figure, of course, but without being blatant’
So, for his sake, she’d agreed to be ready at eight, when he would call for her at the flat in Earl’s Court she shared with her best friend Cathy, and now she was wishing she had never come. Or at least that Rupert would collect her now, right this minute, and take her home.
Nobody was talking to her and most of the guests looked decidedly stuffy, and some of the women were giving her disapproving looks. She wanted to sit down with Rupert and discuss their future in privacy.
Disorientated by her moments of introspection, she absent-mindedly took another glass of white wine from one of the circulating white-coated waiters. Rupert had abandoned her shortly after their arrival, obviously preferring to talk shop with his colleagues rather than circulate with her.
Or perhaps it had something to do with the dress she was wearing? The choice had been a small rebellion, but important to her. She’d already had her coat on when he’d picked her up, and he had probably been too flattered by her unusual punctuality, thinking she was being careful not to annoy him, to ask if she was wearing something he considered suitable.
Was her stubborn determination to wear what pleased her and not what he wanted her to wear responsible for the way he was ignoring her?
She enjoyed wearing the scarlet silk; it was her favourite. Usually it gave her bags of self-confidence. The halter top dipped low between her full breasts, without exposing too much naked flesh but giving the impression that at any moment it might, and the short, full skirt gave her a feeling of freedom that the svelte little black sheaths all the other women seemed to be wearing like a uniform never could.
And the deep shade of scarlet flattered her unusual colouring, the rich gold hair and her contrasting purply-coloured eyes framed by entirely natural dark lashes and brows.
Besides, to give herself her due, she had struggled for hours to tame her hair. Cut it she would not, not for Rupert or anyone else, and now it was intent on escaping the battery of pins she and—eventually—Cathy had fenced it in with.
Rare melancholy tugged her spirits down. She drank her fresh wine, partly for something to do and partly to console herself. It went straight to her head, reminding her that she’d had nothing to eat since a light salad lunch.
Where in the world had Rupert got to?
She scanned the crowd that filled the impressively large living room of the Hampstead home of the retiring head of department for Rupert’s tall, wideshouldered figure. Most of the men looked alike, in dark dinner jackets, some fatter, some shorter, but none taller.
It was difficult to see, anyway—the smoke-filled atmosphere, the tight knots of guests who broke away from each other, dispersing only to form another knot somewhere else with other people—and her eyes didn’t seem to be functioning too well. Everything seemed suddenly out of focus, which didn’t help locate her lost fiancé.
Either she needed to see an optician, or the lights were too dim, or the glasses of wine she had so heedlessly swallowed had been too strong. Whatever, she suddenly desperately wanted to find him, make it up—wanted to recapture that sense of joy in being really needed by someone which she’d experienced when he’d asked her to marry him.
And then she saw him. The back view of his tall, elegantly made figure slipping out through the French windows that someone must have opened for overdue ventilation.
She put her empty glass down on the small table she seemed to have spent the whole evening with and began to weave her way through the crowded room, accidentally bumping into a pin-thin woman wearing black silk crepe, pearls and a frosty expression.
Annie, smiling seraphically, apologised profusely and wove on her way, only one thing on her mind; to find Rupert and say sorry for the vile names she’d called him last night. He surely didn’t mean to try to change her, turn her into someone alien—hadn’t he said he loved her just as she was?
Perhaps if she could persuade him that his constant fault-finding was ruining their relationship they could get comfortably back on track again. Annie liked the feeling of being loved and wanted; she’d had precious little of it during her growing-up years.
It was past time, she thought as she slid through the French windows, that they tried to recapture what they seemed to have lost in their relationship just lately.
There was a paved terrace. He was standing at the far end; she could just make out his darker outline against the dark December night. It was cold, starless—too cold to stand around suddenly, unexpectedly assailed by second thoughts.
She drew in a deep breath and, scarlet skirts flying, ran across the terrace and flung herself into his arms.
Daniel Faber slipped through the open French windows, stuffed his hands into the pockets of his narrow-fitting trousers and walked to the far end of the terrace.
He needed out of that room. Elegant as it undoubtedly was, it was also stuffy and overcrowded. The sharp December night air was just what he needed.
He drew a litre or two into his grateful lungs and flexed his wide shoulders beneath the smooth silk and alpaca of his superbly tailored dinner jacket. He felt himself begin to relax.
Besides, with him out of the way the others might start to have fun. It couldn’t be easy to relax when their chief executive was around. Especially when opinions and betting odds couldn’t be openly bandied around in his presence. Everyone was eager to know who would be promoted to the vacant position of Head of Futures when Edward Ker finally retired early in the New Year.
The only two viable contenders were Rupert Glover and Andrew Makepeace. Glover, he felt, had the surer instinct, and an impeccable track record within the bank. Makepeace, though, was steadier, committed to his work and, just as importantly, committed to that pleasant, round-faced wife of his and their two small children. Committed family men made sound employees.
Glover was a horse of a different colour. Until fairly recently he’d been known as a womaniser—an endless procession of empty-headed bimbos going through his bedroom, apparently.
But a few months ago he’d announced his engagement, surprising everyone. Daniel’s PA had passed the information on—Daniel insisted on keeping abreast of internal gossip, keeping his finger on the collective pulse of his staff.
He’d taken his PA’s comments on board—the addendum that the token of an engagement ring was probably the only way the bank’s Lothario could get the woman in question between the sheets and that the engagement would be lucky to last the week out
But it had lasted three months. It looked as if Glover had finally decided he’d sown enough wild oats. And, seeing the fiancée in question tonight, Daniel could understand why.
Glover hadn’t introduced her, but Daniel had asked around and discovered that the startlingly gorgeous figure in red—standing out like a vibrant oriental poppy amidst the svelte and understated sober colours of the other women—was the fabled fiancée. He could understand why the younger man had kept her under wraps.
That glorious hair—a pity she’d tried, unsuccessfully as it happened, to squash it flat against her shapely head—those pouting scarlet lips and come-to-bed pansy-purple eyes, the voluptuous figure flaunted by that outrageously sexy dress. A combination tailor-made to make any red-blooded male think of steamy nights of passion and a nursery full of babies.
He grinned ruefully at his own lusting thoughts, strong, even teeth gleaming in the darkness. With such a woman for a wife Glover would keep to the straight and narrow, his nose rammed tight against the grindstone. So the odds on his promotion were growing shorter.
And maybe it was time Daniel followed his own rules, settled down to raise a family. He was thirty-six already—time, perhaps. It would certainly make his parents happy. Trouble was, he’d yet to meet the woman he could bear to spend the rest of his life with.
The cold air was seeping through his clothing, cooling his skin. He’d give Ker’s thrash another twenty minutes then take his leave. And if he could get to the fabled fiancée without being waylaid by sycophants, he’d introduce himself, discover if her voice was as sultry and exciting as her appearance.
He turned to head back in, then his feet froze to the paving slabs. Talk of the devil!
Briefly illuminated in the light from the French windows the Fabled Fiancée paused, the freshening wind catching the gossamer-fine short skirt of her dress, whisking it upwards in a swirl of scarlet, displaying more of those endless, shapely legs, a tantalisingly brief glimpse of scarlet panties.
Desire kicked fiercely deep in his abdomen. He controlled it. High time he settled down, he mocked himself, if he got horny at the sight of a pair of nicely rounded thighs separated by an intriguing scarlet triangle.
Red for danger.
Just how dangerous he was to discover, as flying feet on impossibly high heels propelled that curvy body right up to him and into his arms.
His nemesis exploded from the dark night in a rusde of silk, a cloud of some heady, musky perfume, a halo of wild tumbling golden hair and a sweetly soft body pressed close to his—a delightful, insistent closeness that rocked him back on his heels, making his arms go out to fold tightly about her, making his head spin, his senses reel.
He could feel the pulsing beat of her heart beneath the seductive, pouting breasts that were so voluptuously pressed against the unyielding rock-hardness of his chest, could feel the warmth of her belly as she wriggled against his pelvis, feel himself harden with startling immediacy, feel his control do a runner as her arms curled up around his neck, pulling his head down to hers.
He didn’t need any urging. As his mouth homed in unerringly on the moist pout of her lips instinct slammed the door of his mind on the harsh reminder that this was Glover’s woman.
The kiss—the fevered stroke and counter-stroke, the delving, subtle exploration, the moist, receptive sweetness of her, the small slender hands curving now to shape his skull, his own hands moving instinctively to take what he craved; the glorious weight and urgent softness of the breasts that literally peaked into the seeking palms of his hands—made his mind explode in wild psychedelic patterns of light.
This was elemental, untamed woman. And he wanted her—wanted her here, now, again and again.
The sinuous movement of her body against his made him shake with the fiery desperation of his need. Then the small cry she gave, almost of shock, handed him back enough control to still the caressing movements of his hands, to control the urgency of his need to uncover those desire-swollen globes and suckle her.
The small hands were pushing determinedly at his chest, and a slow gleam of brightness as the moon broke through the cloud cover showed him wide dark eyes drenched with shocked understanding.
For a moment her body quivered in his arms, and then she turned and sped away as quickly as she’d come to him, leaving him to spend the next ten minutes getting himself back in control, castigating himself bitterly for being such a goddammed fool.
Thirty-six years old and he’d reacted to her initial embrace like a sixteen-year-old adolescent overdosed on testosterone. Wryly, he guessed his body was trying to tell him something—like it was high time he entered a long-term relationship, preferably marriage?
And far from envying young Glover his choice of a future wife, he pitied him now. What the hell had she thought she was doing? Offering him partial use of her admittedly gorgeous body in the hope that having had a taster he’d promote her fiancé to head of department in the confident expectation of getting payment in full on delivery?
The unmistakable look of shock in those lovely eyes must have been brought on by the knowledge that they were both reaching the point of no return. That she’d been good and ready for him he had no doubt. His experience wasn’t vast, but deep enough to know the signs. Had Rupert Glover’s future wife been afraid she might deliver the goods before he’d been teased enough, been driven wild enough by contemplating the pay-off to promote her future husband over his rival?
He felt sorry for the poor devil!
CHAPTER ONE
UNTIL they left the motorway at Swindon, heading roughly north-west for Herefordshire, Annie had been feeling fine, enjoying the trip, the early warmth of the summer sun.
Mark Redway, her boss, drove the open-top MG Sports superlatively well, and he’d picked her up from her flat almost at the crack of dawn to beat the inevitable build-up of traffic at the start of the Bank Holiday weekend.
She loved the feel of the breeze in her hair, tossing it into a crinkly mane, loved the warm touch of the late-August sun on her arms and face.
But.
‘I’m beginning to get cold feet.’
‘You? Never!’ Mark smiled his very white smile, gave her a glancing look from dancing hazel eyes. ‘Anyway, you agreed. And they’re all expecting you and looking forward to meeting you.’
“That’s not true, for a start,’ she objected, wondering what madness had induced her to go along with his hare-brained plan. ‘The looking forward to meeting me bit. Your poor parents will be dreading having to put up with me for the best part of three days and will hate me on sight—see me as a threat to their plans to get you to walk up to the altar with poor Enid. And she, poor girl, will feel absolutely gutted.’
‘And don’t forget my big brother in your list of all the “poor” people who will get mental indigestion at the sight of your gorgeous self!’ He was openly laughing at her now. ‘It is the object of the exercise, don’t forget.’
As if she could! Trouble was, Mark was too persuasive for her own good! ‘Pack plenty of stunning clothes,’ he’d said. So she had. She adored lovely clothes, and could wear what she wanted to now, because Rupert was no longer around to wither her with his disapproval.
For the journey she’d chosen a nifty pair of peacock-blue silk very short shorts, with a matching sleeveless shirt arrowing down to her deep cleavage and tied in a knot just beneath her breasts. And she loved her new high-wedge sandals and big owly sunglasses...
She sighed, sounding stricken, and Mark pulled onto the forecourt of an old, ivy-covered roadside inn and stated, ‘Breakfast. It will help calm you down. And then, if you’ve still got cold feet, I’ll drive you straight back to London.’
He looked as if he really meant it. She followed him over the cobbled approach feeling awful, because she had promised, hadn’t she? She hated letting people down, and never did, if she could help it. But she couldn’t help feeling sorry for Enid, who was in love with him, and his parents who were so anxious to see him settle down.
Annie hadn’t expected to be able to eat a thing. But after relishing the delicious crispy bacon and scrambled eggs she knew that not even a guilty conscience could curb her healthy appetite.
And the coffee was good, very good, and as Mark poured a second cup for them both he said, ‘Look at it from my point of view. I didn’t ask Enid to fall in love with me, or to “Save herself” for me, as Mum so archly puts it. She’s your age and never had a boy-friend—and I guess that makes me feel guilty. But, dammit all, I shouldn’t have to!’
He looked so grim. Annie couldn’t help but sympathise. Only a week ago, after a particularly hectic day at the Threadneedle Street head office of his import/export business, he had invited her to his parents’ home for the August Bank Holiday weekend. It coincided with his mother’s birthday, and, as with any family gathering, he’d told her resignedly, Enid Mayhew would be there, gazing at him with adoring eyes and following him around as if tied to him with invisible string.
The daughter of a near neighbour, she’d had a crush on him since she wore gymslips and pigtails and braces on her teeth, and his entire family—including his rather terrifying-sounding big brother—thought Enid eminently suited for the part of tying him down, putting a curb on his wilder schemes and generally domesticating him.
‘If you appear as my guest—five-four of gorgeous curves, dressed to knock their eyes out—they might all get the message,’ he’d said. ‘Let me alone to get on with my life. I love them all to pieces, but I want them off my case. I’m sick of them throwing Enid at my head!’
It hadn’t seemed too much to ask then, but now, cradling her cup in her hands, savouring the strong dark brew and watching his gloomy expression with sympathy, she asked, ‘And what do you feel about Enid—as a person?’
At first he looked as if he didn’t understand the question. Then he shrugged. ‘She’s fine. I’m very fond of her. She can be good company when she forgets to moon over me, and there isn’t a mean bone in her body. But—’ he set his coffee cup down with a clatter ‘—that doesn’t mean I want her tethered to me like a whopping great anchor. I want to fly high.’
He already had, Annie thought, but wisely held her tongue. His business wasn’t the tinpot affair Rupert had scathingly called it. Business was booming and, ironically, two months after she’d broken her engagement, Mark’s assistant had left to set up a PR consultancy and she had been chosen to take his position at a hugely increased salary.
So it seemed that without even trying she had become what Rupert had wanted her to be. A career woman. Certainly she had put all her fond ideas of marriage and a family on hold.
She wouldn’t let another man into her life until she was sure his aims were the same as her own.
She wouldn’t let another man get close to her until she could find one who could make her senses sing to sweet wild music, just as...
But she was not going to think about that, because whenever she did embarrassment sent her into a state resembling shock, all bound up with a decidedly uncomfortable riot of clamouring hormones.
Discovering that the stranger she’d leapt on had been none other than the chief executive of the bank, Daniel Faber, had given her screaming inner hysterics, and Rupert’s slagging off as he’d driven her home on that dreadful December night—on the unsuitability of her dress, her untidy hair, the way she’d skulked in a corner, then practically dragged him away—had been just what she’d needed to tell him to get lost, to get out of her life and stay out
So she could understand why Mark wanted to get his family off his back. Nobody liked the feeling of being forced into a mould they didn’t fit.
‘I guess I should have said I couldn’t make it,’ Mark said gloomily. ‘Invented some excuse. But Mum would hate Dan or me to miss her birthday. I’m too fond of the old meddler to fob her off with a lie and a bouquet of flowers by Interflora.’
Any man who was good to his mother had Annie’s vote. And she knew how awful it was when people tried to turn you into something you could never be.
Annie stood up from the table, smoothing the soft silky shorts over her curvy hips, settling her big round sunglasses back on the end of her neat nose. ‘I’m on. Crisis over. So lead the way and tell me something about your home county. All I know about Herefordshire is that it’s crammed with black and white Tudor houses...’
Mark’s family home wasn’t one of the timber-frame houses the county boasted but a mellow stone rambling affair, surrounded by trees in heavy, late summer leaf. Hot sunlight beamed down from a cloudless sky and a pack of dogs of all shapes and sizes streamed from the open door in welcome.
Mark, retrieving their luggage, said, ‘If you want to get Dad on side, admire his roses. Since he retired, the garden’s given him a new lease of life. And if you praise Mum’s cooking and clear your plate she’ll forgive you anything.’
Anything? Even stealing her beloved younger son away from the so-suitable Enid? Mark had promised Annie he wouldn’t go so far as to say they were an item, or make advances—public or otherwise. He’d stated that her presence as his guest would be enough because of the way she looked, and because he hadn’t taken a girl home since his college days—the type of woman he socialised with in London wasn’t the type to take home to meet the family. Nevertheless, she was getting cold feet all over again, agonising over whether her shorts were too skimpy, her top too revealing.
Bending down, she greeted the tide of dogs to hide her misgivings, wishing she were back in her Earl’s Court flat, listening to Cathy rave about her latest boyfriend or discuss the merits of the newest fad diet.
‘Annie, I’d like you to meet my parents.’ Mark’s voice, laid-back as ever, had her shooting upright. Hopefully they’d relate the flush she could feel creeping all over her skin—every exposed inch of it—to the enthusiastic licking the dogs had bestowed on her.
Mr and Mrs Redway were both somewhere in their sixties, his mother comfortably plump, his father tallish, sparish, very much an older version of Mark himself, his curly nut-brown hair greying, his hazel eyes hinting at a smile that had gone into hiding at the moment.
The greeting she received was nothing if not polite. Too polite, Annie thought, cringing.
Then, ‘Take your things up, Mark. I’ll show Miss Kincaid to her room. And Father, fetch Enid from the kitchen; we have time for a drink before lunch.’ Mark’s mother turned to her son, her smile wistful. ‘The dear girl’s making preparations for the buffet this evening. She refuses to let me do a thing. So thoughtful—as always.’
Maternal frost enveloped Annie as she followed her reluctant hostess up the twisty stairs, along one corridor then down another—as far from Mark’s room as she could possibly get, she guessed.
Annie felt like turning tail and running, but when the older woman paused, pushed open an ancient oak-board door and said, ‘Your room, Miss Kincaid. I do hope you’ll be comfortable,’ she grabbed her slipping courage by the edges, decided to be herself and not the threatening femme fatale that her boss thought his family would see her as, smiled warmly and insisted, ‘Call me Annie. It’s awkward, isn’t it, when strangers descend on you? I was brought up by an elderly aunt who had to have a week’s notice, preferably in writing, before anyone dropped by for afternoon tea! And by the way, many happy returns of the day.’
‘Oh—Mark must have told you!’ The blue eyes crinkled with pleasure and Annie nodded, her smile widening.
‘Of course he did. He wouldn’t have missed your birthday for the world. You know,’ she added confidingly, ‘although he likes to fly high and far, the homing instinct’s very strong. He’ll always come home to roost.
‘I was going to bring you flowers, but he said they’d have wilted long before we got here.’ She walked further into the room—pretty and airy, rosy sprigged wallpaper, its delicate pattern repeated on the curtains and bedspread. ‘I don’t know your tastes, but I remembered Mark once mentioning your weakness for Belgian chocolates.’ She bent and opened her weekend case, scrabbling around for the gift-wrapped box, uncomfortably aware of the brevity of her vividly coloured shorts.
But when she turned and extended the beribboned package there wasn’t a hint of disapproval on her companion’s comfy face.
‘How kind, Annie.’ She took the gift. Then, after a tiny pause, asked, ‘Have you been seeing my son for long?’
Annie wasn’t going to lie to this patently nice woman. ‘I work for him. We’re friends. Nothing more than that.’
If he could hear her, Mark would probably fire her on the spot—or reduce her salary by half. But Annie wasn’t into subterfuge and there wasn’t much she could do about it. Whether his mother believed her or not was another thing. But at least the older woman did seem more relaxed.
‘Come down as soon as you’ve freshened up. There’s a bathroom right opposite. We’ll all have drinks out in the garden—out of the front door, turn right and you’ll find us. Dan should be home any time now, and then we can have lunch.’
‘Dan’ would be big brother, Annie thought, the confidence engendered by being her natural self seeping out of her as soon as she found herself alone.
Meeting the lovelorn Enid would be the next hurdle. She’d rather not jump it, would rather skulk in her room.
She wondered whether to change and decided against it. Whatever she put on she’d still be noticeable. Unpacking took five minutes, washing and renewing her make-up—sunblock and her usual scarlet lipstick—took another five, while brushing the tangles out of her windblown mane took ten.
Irritated with the whole situation now, she dropped her brush down in the clutter she’d already created on the pretty Victorian dressing table and headed for the door. Only another forty-eight hours or so to get through, so she’d just have to grin and bear it—and remind herself to harden the mush that passed for her heart if her boss ever asked her to do him a favour again!
Halfway down the twisty stairs, feeling sick, still trying to remind herself of exactly why she had agreed to come here as Mark’s weekend guest, she felt very ill indeed when she recognised the austerely handsome face and power-packed frame of Daniel Faber as he suddenly rounded one of the quirky bends in the sixteenth-century staircase.
‘I’ve come to bring you down. Everyone thought you’d probably got lost. This house is something of a warren!’
But Annie had already subsided in a heap, sitting down on the nearest tread because her legs had given way, muscle and bone turning to water.
Perhaps he wouldn’t recognise her. It had been dark out on that terrace. They hadn’t been introduced at the party, either. And she and Rupert had left before he’d come back into the room. She’d made sure of that! And the embarrassing happening had been more than eight months ago...
‘Just what the hell are you doing here?’
Annie gave a faint groan. As soon as he’d had a proper look at her, he’d recognised her all right—and the quietly rasping tone told her he didn’t remember their brief encounter with any pleasure whatsoever!
But then, neither did she, she reminded herself bracingly, gingerly hauling herself back to her feet, hanging onto the banister. And even though it had been she who had hurled herself at him, he hadn’t passed up on the opportunity to kiss her back—he’d done more than that, too, she recalled, righteous anger momentarily quelling severely intense embarrassment.
‘I’m here as Mark’s guest, as I guess you must already know. Surely you were told who to fetch.’
Proud of her cool tone, she made the mistake of raking her eyes over him, slowly, from top to toe. And once she’d started the appraisal she couldn’t seem to stop.
How she could ever have mistaken him for Rupert, even in pitch-darkness, she would never know. Long legs encased in cool cotton chinos, topped by a body-hugging black T-shirt—his superb physique owed nothing whatsoever to expensive tailoring.
At six feet, Rupert was tall, but Daniel Faber could give him a good three inches. Plus, he was far wider in the chest and shoulder region and narrower in the hip. But she had known the difference hadn’t she? her ever-active conscience reminded her, bringing hot colour to her face.
As soon as his mouth had covered hers she’d known. And hadn’t been able to resist the startling effect of what the intimacy of his lips and hands had done to her.
His dark-browed frown made a deep cleft between the smoke grey eyes as he returned her minute scrutiny, as if mentally stripping away the silky shorts and top was something he had to do but didn’t want to.
‘I’ve only just arrived,’ he said through the slow build-up of sizzling tension. ‘Dad took me aside and told me Mark had brought a woman guest, that you’d been put in the rose room. He didn’t tell me who you were. I took it on myself to fetch you. I wanted to judge for myself how serious Mark might be about you. None of us are entirely happy about the situation. Now I know who you are, I’m furious.’
He looked it, too. Quietly and coldly furious. So he was the adoring Enid’s champion, too. Mark had implied as much. Yet her brow furrowed. ‘How can you be brothers?’
‘Half-brothers,’ he corrected impatiently. ‘My mother remarried after my father died, and a year later Mark arrived. At the time of the marriage I was eight years old. Old enough to know I wanted to keep my own father’s name.’
So he’d been a self-opinionated little boy, too. That figured. Her body was still tingling almost painfully where his eyes had wandered, and she’d had more than enough of this pointless and potentially embarrassing conversation.
She said, ‘Shall we join the others before they send the dogs to find us?’ and watched his wickedly sensual mouth curve cynically as the steely eyes stabbed her, reaching right into her soul and hurting it.
‘And we wouldn’t want anyone—Mark especially—to think we were doing anything we shouldn’t, would we?’
Flinching at the taunt, Annie willed her legs to stop shaking, held her golden head high and pushed past him. The weekend had barely begun and it had already turned into a nightmare. She had hoped she would never come face to face with Daniel Faber again, telling herself that even if she did, he wouldn’t recognise her.
Now the worst had happened. Face to face with him and not only had he recognised her, he was rubbing her face in her indiscretion. Would he tell his family? Make a joke of it? Or would he make something darker out of a simple mistake?
Only it hadn’t been a mistake. Not after his arms had closed around her, his lips making demanding love to her mouth.
Just thinking about it made her face go hot, and a gasp of shock, charged with wicked excitement, burst from her as he caught her hair with one hand, twisting the length of it round his wrist, forcing her to turn back, face him.
‘I can’t stop you being a menace to the male sex. But don’t mess with my family, Annie Kincaid.’ Another slight twist of his wrist and she was closer to that tough male body. The harsh, handsome face bent over hers, his breath sweet and clean. So close she could feel his body heat, his power, his contempt See that contempt in the dark grey eyes.
The contempt withered her; she fought against it, a battle twinned with the crazy desire to get closer still, to touch and be touched, to feel the long, hard length of him against her soft, receptive female curves.
She wanted to tell him he was mistaken, too. She was no man-eater. But that would be giving his jaundiced view of her a credibility it didn’t deserve. Desperately trying to clear her head of the accumulated muddle he had created, she narrowed her eyes at him.
‘You’re overreacting, Mr Faber. If what happened that night—and it was only a kiss, remember—affected you so strangely, then I’m sorry. But that’s your problem. There’s nothing I can do about it.’
The moment the words were past her lips she knew she’d said the wrong thing. The sudden hiss of his indrawn breath, the dark glitter of his eyes, told her that her piece of bravado had been taken as a challenge.
Too late to retract now, though. The damage was done. And more was to come as that sensual mouth came down on hers, his tongue diving deep between her parted lips with instinctive, bred-in-the-bone male possession.
And just as suddenly, just as she recovered from the stunned shock of engulfing excitement, her blood fizzing dizzily through her veins as she began a feverish response, he put her away, his hand sliding through her hair, right through the thick and crinkly golden length of it to where it tapered to a curling point in the small of her back.
‘Nothing you can do about it? How about carrying on where we left off? When I feel like it,’ he drawled. ‘For now, though, go on down to lunch. And remember, I’ll be watching you. There isn’t a corner you can hide in without my eyes finding you.’
Lunch? An impossibility. How could she swallow a thing? She pretended to, though, because to do otherwise would let him see he’d won, ruined her appetite, made her needle-sharp-aware of every inflection of his voice, every flicker of those enigmatically veiled eyes—those watching eyes.
The table in front of the birthday girl had been piled with gift-wrapped packages. Molly Redway indeed looked like an excited girl as she tore through paper and sent satin ribbon bows flying to cries of, ‘Just what I wanted! Oh, how lovely!’ and, ‘How did you know I yearned for new driving gloves?’ She laid the supple kid leather against her flushed cheek and Daniel said, affectionate amusement curling through his voice, ‘You hinted often enough, Ma! Glad you’re happy with them, though.’
And her husband reached across the table and squeezed her hand. ‘We made notes of all the hints, jotted them down, and then decided who should make you a gift of what!’
Annie slumped gratefully back in her seat, thankful for the distraction. At least Daniel Faber’s carefully guarded eyes had something else to focus on right now. And Enid Mayhew had been a revelation.
She was lovely. Slender, with cool, aristocratically beautiful features, her dark hair cut short, soft tendrils framing her face and curling against her long white neck.
Surely any man would be bowled over if such a gorgeous creature professed herself in love with him? So what was wrong with Mark?
Covering her untouched salmon mousse with her vast paper napkin, Annie thought she knew why Mark backed off and hid when most men would jump through hoops of fire to gain the interest of such a beauty. Enid made her adoration far too obvious—had been doing so, apparently, since she was at school.
Unlike his half-brother—who would greedily take whatever offer presented itself, as witness the way he had responded to her mistaken embrace on that dark December night, and then vilify the woman in question—Mark was a hunter. He would want to pursue, make the woman he wanted want him back, not hand him everything on a plate.
It was all there in her beautiful expressive eyes, in the way those same eyes had misted, the soft lips trembling, when they’d been first introduced, in the way the girl had avoided looking at her ever since.
Annie ached to tell her that she was going about everything in exactly the wrong way. That she, Annie, wasn’t what Mark wanted her to seem. But how? When? Since she’d joined the others for pre-lunch drinks on the terrace Mark hadn’t left her side, and Daniel had done what he’d said he would. Watched her. Watched her until her skin prickled and her nerve-ends screamed. There seemed little hope. of snatching a few private moments with the other girl.
‘You’ve done something to your hair,’ Mark commented, one brow quirked to where Enid sat at the far end of the table.
He was sitting far too close to her, and his voice made Annie jump. She’d be fainting at the sight of her shadow next, she thought weakly, wide eyes taking in the other girl’s pretty blush.
‘I—I had it cut.’ She flicked the end of her tongue over her lips. ‘I—it was too long and heavy. Hot.’
So she got practically speechless whenever the love of her life bothered to notice her, did she? Annie thought, then saw everyone—except Mark—looking at her own heavy, riotously curling mane and felt herself blush, too. Though not so prettily, she was sure.
‘Suits you.’ Mark sounded vaguely surprised, and Enid shot to her feet, her mouth quivering.
‘I’ll clear away.’
‘You’ll do no such thing!’ Molly Redway was adamant. ‘You spent all day yesterday and most of this morning in the kitchen. Father, why don’t you take everyone on a tour of the garden while I stack the dishwasher? Mrs Potts is due to arrive soon. She’s broken her rule of never working at weekends because of this evening’s party...’ Still chattering, she shooed everyone out of the cool, elegant dining room, through the French windows and into the late August heatwave.
The gardens drowsed in the sun, the trees, heavy and sleepy, casting islands of welcome dark green shade, the harsh light bleaching the rose blooms of colour. Conversation was desultory, movements slow in the summer heat.
A normal family taking mild exercise after lunch. Only this wasn’t normal. There were muddles and undercurrents swirling just beneath the surface—fore-runners of change. Annie had the feeling that she was some kind of catalyst, and hated it.
At her side, Mark took her hand and Annie, her miserable thoughts on another plane entirely, didn’t really notice until his fingers tightened, hurting her. Annoyed with him, she tugged away.
He’d promised there’d be no touching, no lying, that her presence alone would be enough to convince them all that there was no chance at all of him suddenly doing what everyone thought was right for him—settling down to married life with Enid.
Seeing his brother take Annie Kincaid’s hand, right in front of Enid’s distressed eyes, Daniel decided something had to be done.
He’d been a fool to think a warning would be enough. ‘Don’t mess with my family,’ he’d said, and meant it. But women like Annie Kincaid didn’t heed warnings. They used their sexuality to get what they wanted out of life.
She was here with Mark, and yet after only the slightest hesitation she’d responded to that kiss of punishment on the stairs. If he’d carried on, instead of putting her away, he could have taken her back to her bedroom, stripped off the tantalising wisps that were supposed to pass as clothing, stripped her down to her luscious, willing flesh and taken her, possessed her.
And she would have revelled in it.
Disturbed by the way his thoughts were beginning to affect his body, he fell in step beside Enid and began to talk horses, which was her other passion, his mind only half on the conversation.
The poor kid had been in and out of the house since her early teens, had become like one of the family. Mark was a fool if he couldn’t see that Enid was worth a thousand Annie Kincaids—cheap baggages with their big and beautiful eyes on the main chance brought nothing but trouble and grief. He wouldn’t want his brother hurt in that particular fire.
Normally he would have said that Mark was old enough, smart enough, to look out for himself. But instinct told him that once Annie Kincaid got a man in her clutches she would twist him around her pretty fingers until he bled. Then toss the besotted wretch aside if a better prospect appeared on the horizon.
He’d seen it happen with Rupert Glover. He was not going to stand around and wait for it to happen to Mark.
It was going to be up to him to do something about it.
The opportunity to have a heart-to-heart with Enid came far more easily than Annie could have hoped for.
After taking Mark on one side—hustling him out of sight after a strained afternoon tea on the terrace—she’d pointed out that getting physical hadn’t been part of their agreement—she didn’t like touching, not even something relatively innocuous like holding hands, if she wasn’t serious and committed.
Mark thought she was mad, and she could have slapped him for the scornful derision on his face. Slapped herself, too, because who the heck did she think she was kidding?
The arrogant, bloody-minded Daniel Faber only had to touch her to make her want to do whatever he wanted her to do.
And the only thing she was serious about as far as he was concerned was the fierce and futile wish that they had never met. And committed? As if!
She and Mark had sat grumbling at each other on a bench behind a potting shed at the far end of the garden for much longer than either had realised.
‘Good Lord!’ Mark shot to his feet. ‘We’re meant to be changing for this evening’s bash.’ He grabbed her hand and tugged her upright, then dropped it. ‘Forgot. Look but don’t touch! Though I presume I’ll be allowed to dance with you later tonight? It would look a bit odd if we didn’t.’
‘Dance?’ She had to trot to keep up with his headlong pace. ‘Isn’t that a bit over the top for a family birthday party?’
‘You don’t know Ma’s parties! She’s a gregarious creature and is best friend to everyone in a ten-mile radius! And they’re all invited to celebrate her birthday. Hence the buffet. And the early start so those with young families can join the fun. After they go—around nine—it all begins to swing. At least we’ll have tomorrow to recover!’
Annie had already made up her mind to head back to London tomorrow. She’d phone for a taxi to ferry her to the nearest train station and Mark would be the last to know. She’d invent some pressing and urgent reason for not staying on, so as not to give offence to the Redways.
She really couldn’t endure another day pinned down beneath the insufferable censure of Daniel Faber’s smouldering eyes, she thought, hurrying along the corridor to her room, meeting Enid as she emerged from the bathroom opposite her doorway.
‘Oh.’ Enid did her best to smile, but Annie saw the lovely face go pale, heard her voice wobble as she said, ‘We all thought you and Mark had got lost. You were missing for so long.’
‘Just talking,’ Annie said breezily, knowing the other girl didn’t believe it, knowing that the other members of the family wouldn’t, either.
‘Oh.’ Again the wobbly attempt at a smile. ‘I’m sharing your bathroom. I hope you don’t mind. Staying overnight. Molly’s parties go on and on.’
This was the golden opportunity, and Annie meant to make full use of it. ‘It’s time we talked,’ she said soothingly. ‘My room, or yours?’
Hours later, Annie wondered if anyone would miss her if she slipped away from the increasingly noisy party and went to bed.
After her talk with Enid, when she’d seen comprehension and complicity suddenly gleam in the beautiful blue eyes, she had felt strangely elated, divorced from it all. Let them sort themselves out.
Mark had had no right to ask for her involvement, and she’d had no right to agree. But, one way or another, she’d be out of here tomorrow.
And the advice she’d given seemed to be working. Enid, bewitching in soft jade-green silk, had been dancing with the hunky son of one of the local farmers ever since the first tape had been slipped into the deck. She ignored Mark completely, giving every impression that she was having the time of her life.
‘Excuse me, Annie.’ As the tempo of the music changed into slow and smoochy, Mark released her from his half-hearted clasp and strode across the floor to claim the woman who was no longer showing the slightest interest in him and far too much in a younger, better-looking guy.
Annie inched towards the open double doors that led to the comparatively quiet hallway. She’d dressed as down as she could, given the stuff she’d brought with her, teaming a float white cotton skirt with a sleeveless black top which had a modest neckline—well, reasonably modest, she amended as she slipped over the parquet of the hall, heading for the staircase.
Mission accomplished, as far as Enid was concerned, and only a few more hours to go before she could make her excuses and leave. Thankfully, Daniel hadn’t asked her to dance. Being held close to that hard, sexy body, knowing that for some reason or other he held her in contempt, would have been purgatory.
He’d been watching her, though. Leaning against an open windowframe at one end of the buffet. His brooding eyes had never left her. It had given her the shakes.
Although the night was warm, she shivered. She wouldn’t be able to relax until she was back in her own small home where she could hole up and forget her second encounter with Daniel Faber. It had had a traumatic effect on her. Which was crazy.
‘Annie—I want a word with you.’ An inescapable hand clamped around her arm. The touch burnt her skin. She didn’t have to turn to know who it was.
Air rushed out of her lungs, making her heart pound, and she had to fight to breathe it back in again.
‘Loose me,’ she commanded thickly, wondering what it was about this one man that could have such an effect on her.
Daniel’s fingers tightened. ‘You know you don’t mean that.’
He swung her round to face him and he was smiling. He frightened her—or, to be more precise about it, she frightened herself. Her whole body ached to be held close to his, for him to lower that fabulously sensual mouth and kiss her again...
‘But that can wait. You and I need to talk.’
Wait until when? What did he mean? Annie’s eyes cast desperately around. She was in some kind of a trap and there was no one to let her out The remaining guests were in the huge drawing room, cleared of furniture for this evening, dancing or standing in groups talking, eating and drinking. Even if she screamed her lungs out no one would hear her above the music.
‘Annie?’ A gentle shake, his fingers soft on her flesh now, had her fiercely deriding herself for being such a fool. She’d accused him of overreacting before and now she was doing the same.
‘Well?’ She couldn’t say more. Her tongue felt thick.
‘Not here. The noise coming from that room is enough to shake the whole house.’
He slipped a gentle arm around her, and that was her undoing. The smile in his eyes, in his voice, the unexpected gentleness made her whole body quiver as he walked her towards the open main door.
She couldn’t think straight, so how could she walk straight? She leant against his body, sighing as his arm tightened around her waist, his strength supporting her, feeling like a thief because she was stealing a few moments of heaven that he had no idea he was giving...
CHAPTER TWO
THE night air was close and sticky as they walked out of the main door and onto the floodlit drive. A sudden gust of hot wind lifted the flirty hems of Annie’s skirt around her knees and pressed the fine cotton against her tummy. There seemed no respite from the heat, even outdoors. And the way Daniel’s presence made her blood scorch through her veins wasn’t helping.
Annie struggled ineffectually with her flyaway skirts and moments later the first few heavy drops of rain fell.
‘The wind makes a habit of wrapping your skirts around your waist to tease the male sex—what did you barter to get the elements on side?’ Daniel murmured with throaty amusement as another gust lifted the floaty fabric towards the heavens.
Uncalled for. Annie rooted her feet in the gravel, hoping the shadows would hide her furious blush, and Daniel said, ‘We’re in for a storm. My car’s around somewhere in this lot.’
He took her hand in his warm grasp, long fingers wrapping around hers, and tugged her through the guests’ parked vehicles until he located his Jaguar, the silver paintwork gleaming under the security lights.
They were tucked inside just a fraction of a second before the heavens opened. ‘Right,’ Daniel said, and fired the ignition.
‘What are you doing?’ She turned to look at him, big, bemused eyes dominating her face, then relaxed back against the leather upholstery, reassured by the flicker of a smile caught in the lights from the dashboard.
‘Moving to where we won’t be disturbed. Fasten your seatbelt.’
Just for a few yards? Annie shrugged and complied. She supposed it did make sense. The ferocity of the rainstorm made visibility almost nil, the wipers barely coping with the sudden deluge. And of course he would want to move his car out of the way of those of the guests who would soon be departing—and it would be a good idea to talk.
Maybe he’d come to his senses and decided his treatment of her had been way over the top. And she would be able to tell him exactly why she’d mistaken him for Rupert at that other party eight months ago.
Clearly there had been some misunderstanding—a misreading of the situation. No man in his right mind could take so decisively and implacably against a woman merely because she’d flung herself at him, kissing him wildly before realising her mistake and taking to her heels! And there was nothing whatsoever wrong with Daniel Faber’s mind!
So this would be a good opportunity to sort it all out, wouldn’t it?
She would dearly love the antagonism between them to be over. But would all the stinging tension that made the air fizz around them whenever they were near each other disappear, too?
With the departure of antagonism would there be nothing left? Or would whatever it was that made the atmosphere sizzle still be there, to be built upon?
Suddenly she wanted to be able to build something with this man. She felt it like a keen ache, deep inside her. Which only went to show what a fool she was.
Daniel Faber could have his pick. And the type of woman he would choose would be elegant, quite certainly beautiful, and more than likely out of the top social drawer.
He wouldn’t choose a nobody like her, not in a thousand years. A nobody with nothing going for her but a bunch of wild hair and a liking for loud clothes.
She sighed and focused her eyes on the rhythmic sweep of the windscreen wipers, then shot him a frowning glance. She’d been so deeply entrenched in her thoughts she hadn’t stopped to wonder why it was taking him so long to find a place to park up.
The car was climbing up a steep, narrow lane, the headlights carving a path through the heavy rain. ‘Where on earth are we going?’ she demanded as he negotiated a sharp bend carefully, then turned the car onto an even narrower, steeper track, where the hedgerows were so high and heavy with water they hung down, scraping the sides of the vehicle with dark, leafy fingers.
‘Relax. Almost there.’
That didn’t answer her question. She slewed round in her seat, trying to read something from his face. He was concentrating, his features very controlled. ‘You said you wanted to talk,’ she pointed out warily. ‘What’s wrong with now? So far you’ve said nothing.’
He stopped the car. The powerful headlights illuminated a small stone cottage in a raggedy patch of garden, separated from the unmade track by a crooked gate. And then he switched off lights and ignition and there was just the darkness and the beating rain and the rapid thud of sudden anxiety as it pulsed chaotically through her veins.
It got worse as he produced a torch from somewhere and flicked it on. ‘Sorry about the weather. We’ll have to make a run for it. I’ll be right behind you with the torch, so you’ll be OK if you watch your step.’
‘Make a run for what?’ Annie folded her arms across her chest. She was going nowhere. She was stopping exactly where she was.
‘For the cottage, of course.’ Impatience tinged his voice. ‘I don’t intend spending the night in the car.’
The night? The whole night?
‘You have to be joking!’ Distrust made her voice sharp and a current of something—fear or manic excitement, she didn’t know which—shot through her veins, making her stomach clench. ‘Either that or I’ve missed the point entirely.’
‘No joke, Annie,’ he drawled, reaching into the rear of the car for a holdall. ‘We’ve fallen madly in lust and have sloped away to spend the night in my private bolt-hole—that’s the point of the exercise.’
‘You can’t mean it!’ Annie wailed in shocked outrage. What type of woman did he think she was? Had he marked her unhidden response to both of the times they’d kissed? Given her ten out of ten for effort and decided he was on a winner?
The whole idea terrified her. To her endless shame she just knew that if he’d decided to seduce her, her reckless body would aid and abet him in any way it could!
She wasn’t into one-night stands!
‘Of course not,’ Daniel stated. ‘It’s the impression that counts. Mark won’t be able to believe we spent the night together making polite conversation.’ He pocketed the ignition keys. ‘Coming? Or do I have to carry you?’
He was out of the car and opening the door at her side before she got her head straight. Mark had persuaded her to be his guest to give the impression they were an item. Daniel had abducted her to give Mark the impression she was anybody’s!
She slid out of the car, into the sluicing rain, her body on automatic pilot. She’d go with him because he wasn’t a threat. He didn’t lust after her, he’d said as much.
‘You can’t make Mark marry Enid,’ she muttered, the rainwater cooling her overheated brain. ‘You can’t abduct every girl he brings home. You can’t run his life for him.’
‘He doesn’t bring his women home; he keeps them discreetly under wraps.’ He unlocked the cottage door and after a moment’s hesitation she walked in, drenched by the downpour, dripping onto the coir matting that covered the floor of the small room revealed as he flicked on the overhead light. ‘The fact that he brought you home indicates that it’s more serious than his usual short-lived affairs. I don’t want to see Mark get romantically involved with someone like you.’
Someone like her! Hateful, snobbish wretch! ‘He isn’t!’ she defended hotly, but he wasn’t listening, had turned his back on her while he pulled a mobile phone from a side pocket and keyed in numbers. His voice was smooth, laid-back when it was eventually answered.
‘It’s me, Ma. Annie and I decided we wanted to get to know each other better. So we’re spending the night at the cottage—tomorrow and Monday, too. I’ll drive her back to town when I go in on Tuesday morning. Let Mark know what’s happening, will you? And Ma? Tell him sorry, will you? Tell him it’s just one of those things; it just happened.’
Annie stared at his wide shoulders, the hard muscle and bone clearly delineated beneath the clinging wet fabric of his shirt. How dared he give those nice people—his parents—such a bad impression of her? She wanted to leap on him, tear the phone away and tell his mother there wasn’t an atom of truth in what the wretch was saying, beg her to ask Mark to come and rescue her!
But, as if reading her intention, he turned, the coldness of his raking glance effectively freezing her to the spot. ‘Really?’ One dark brow slid upwards now, meeting the damp black hair that fell over his brow. He was obviously surprised by what his mother was telling him. ‘Well, it’s about time he opened his eyes, I guess.’
He was grinning as he cut the connection and repocketed the instrument. ‘Mark and Enid were last seen escaping the party, creeping into the privacy of the library, hand in hand. He must have discovered that he prefers quality over quantity.’ His grin was slowly wiped away as his eyes made a slow, insulting inventory of her voluptuous curves. Her wet clothes were cocking a defiant snook at modesty, and his eyes were hooded, his face all hard lines.
Annie shook with temper, deep misery and a hateful frisson of sexual awareness. He did lust after her, despite what he’d said. She could see it in the shadowed smouldering eyes, the lines that suddenly bracketed that long, sensual mouth, the jerk of a muscle at the side of his hard jaw.
But his latest vile insults armoured her, didn’t they? Involuntarily, her teeth chattered, and his mouth curled in slow, mocking response. ‘Tough luck, Annie. Still, some you lose, some you win.’ He shrugged impressive shoulders. ‘You’re on the loose again, but don’t try to get your claws into me. The way you responded in my arms earlier told me you wouldn’t be averse to ditching Mark and moving on and up the ladder of financial security.’
Daniel turned and tugged the sage-green heavy linen curtains over the window, shutting out the stormy night. For some reason he was unable to look at her pale, bewildered face. Annie Kincaid was surely in the wrong profession. Her acting ability—quite apart from the way she looked—would have taken her far.
He mentally squashed the unwelcome desire to take her in his arms, soothe the look of hurt from those alluring pansy-purple eyes, putting the urge down to twelve months of celibacy. He had no intention on following up, taking what this sexy little gold-digger would doubtless offer, given half an opportunity.
At one time, after he’d learned that she’d dumped Glover, he’d been severely tempted to find her—if only to stop the regularly occurring dreams he’d had. Tormenting dreams of her naked body in his arms, writhing beneath him as they took their aborted wild encounter of that December night to its natural conclusion.
Dreams that had left him edgy, tense, strangely aware for the very first time of an emptiness in his life.
Fortunately, common sense had ruled his hormones. He hadn’t known, then, that she’d been working for Mark, had bewitched him, too. Obviously she’d seen Mark as the better prospect, had dropped Rupert Glover flat. That he, Daniel Faber, had failed to follow up on her unspoken yet explicit invitation would have been written off with a shrug of those pretty shoulders.
Annie watched him, too wet and miserable to try to change his opinion of her. It didn’t really matter what he thought of her. But would Mark believe her when she tried to explain what Daniel had misguidedly done? Or would he believe what his brother had deliberately set out to make him believe?
‘How can I face Mark after this?’ she asked thinly, and saw him turn back to her, his face blank. ‘Embarrassing won’t begin to cover it. He is my boss—’
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Diana Hamilton
Scarlet bride The first time Daniel Faber met Annie Kincaid he knew she was a danger to his bachelor status. Mistaking him for someone else, she'd thrown herself into his arms dressed provocatively in scarlet silk.The next time they met, Daniel was convinced that Annie was not only his brother's secretary, but also his mistress! Whisking her off to Italy, Daniel intended to persuade Annie to wear scarlet silk again - but this time as a wedding dress… .
Daniel’s feet froze to the paving slabs. (#u022d8081-e772-5902-830c-ffaf7e94687f)About the Author (#u2fe37681-3cb9-5b57-9a40-04439ebf767a)Title Page (#u6f9244a7-4821-5365-81cb-59ba387c05fc)PROLOGUE (#ub25f7609-f2db-5638-9d15-855ce528f1f0)CHAPTER ONE (#u221643be-b223-5e78-a568-b58f314c3731)CHAPTER TWO (#uc1e83f9f-20a0-5aea-af2d-e28476ec85a1)CHAPTER THREE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Daniel’s feet froze to the paving slabs.
Briefly illuminated in the light from the French windows, Annie paused, the freshening wind catching the gossamer-fine short skirt of her dress, whisking it upward in a swirl of scarlet, displaying more of those endless, shapely legs.
Desire kicked fiercely deep in his abdomen.
Red for danger.
DIANA HAMILTON is a true romantic at heart, and fell in love with her husband at first sight. They still live in the fairy-tale Tudor house in England where they raised their three children. Now the idyll is shared with eight rescued cats and a puppy. But, despite an often chaotic lifestyle, ever since she learned to read and write Diana has had her nose in a book—either reading or writing one—and plans to go on doing just that for a very long time to come.
The Bride Wore Scarlet
Diana Hamilton
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
PROLOGUE
ANNIE KINCAID was dying for Rupert to take her home. She just couldn’t wait to get out of this place. Normally she loved parties, but this one was giving her a headache.
The level of noise was nothing like as raucous as some of the thrashes she’d been to, so that wasn’t the problem. It wasn’t the soft music—Vivaldi, she thought—or the thrum of conversation, the occasional ripple of well-modulated laughter that was making her temples pound.
She pushed ineffectually and despairingly at the thick tendrils of wheat-gold crinkly hair which had escaped the chignon she’d so painstakingly created and felt a few more pins slither out onto the gorgeous Persian carpet.
‘You should get it cut—one of those new short, sharp styles,’ Rupert had once said, ‘It’s much too wild, makes you look like a bimbo instead of a nineties career woman.’
Just one of the niggles that that had piled up, until last night the pile had become a mountain of monstrous proportions.
They’d been at his ultra-modern Marylebone apartment, all steel and leather furniture and waxed wooden floor-blocks. Sitting over the trendy Thaistyle supper he’d had delivered from the restaurant round the corner—he always refused to let her cook for him, which annoyed her because she was good at it—she’d casually mentioned children.
‘I’d love a huge family. Well,’ she’d amended, seeing his sudden frown. ‘Three, at least. I never had brothers or sisters, and after my parents died I was brought up by a maiden aunt—the only relative I had. Aunt Tilly thought children were meant to be rarely seen and never—and I mean never—heard!’ Her comment, glossing over the loneliness and lovelessness of her childhood, had been meant to be joky, to ease away that frown.
If anything, the scowl on his bluntly good-looking face had intensified. ‘Talk sense, Annie. What are you—twenty-four? You’ve got your career to think of—’
‘A secretary,’ she had interrupted, to his obvious displeasure. ‘That’s all I am.’
She didn’t want to be a career woman; she wanted to be a mum, the builder and holder-together of a sprawling, happy family.
‘You could advance,’ Rupert had pointed out. ‘If you tried. If you got away from that tinpot import lot you’re with. Move to a decent company, aim for personal assistant to a top man. As a matter of fact, there’s a secretarial position coming vacant in the research department at the bank. I could swing an interview, maybe even pull a few strings. I do have some clout, you know. Work hard, and it could lead to better things—much better things. The only thing that’s holding you back is your attitude.’
He’d poured more wine into her glass. Had he thought it would soften her up, make her more mellow?
‘With both of us working after we’re married we could afford a seriously decent lifestyle. I don’t intend to become the sole provider, missing out on the good life, worrying myself half to death over school fees and fodder bills. Think about it. The job with the bank, that is. As for the other—’ he’d shrugged, dismissing her needs, ‘—we’ve got another fifteen years ahead of us before we need even consider starting a family.’
He’d pushed the wine towards her over the glass top of the table with the tip of his finger. And smiled his charming smile. The smile that had stopped her in her tracks when she’d first encountered it a few months ago.
Last night it hadn’t worked. It hadn’t really worked for weeks, come to think of it. And that was responsible for her headache tonight, the way she couldn’t be bothered to mingle, enjoy getting to know new people the way she usually did.
Sighing, she remembered the way she had exploded. Told him she didn’t want to work in a stuffy merchant bank until she was forty. And said that if he generously allowed her to have a child when she’d reached that venerable age then she’d be drawing her old-age pension before he or she had finished full-time education.
She didn’t want to be a career woman with a short, sharp hairstyle, thanks all the same!
She’d called him a selfish chauvinist, and a load of other unflattering names she hadn’t been aware she’d known, and stumped out
And she wouldn’t be with him at the party tonight, only he’d phoned her at work—her despised work, she reminded herself—and practically re-invented himself.
‘About last night, well, Annie, I apologise. I shouldn’t try to force my opinions on you. I love you just as you are, even when you’re at your most contrary! I suggest we talk things through, properly. We can go back to my place after the party and discuss everything sensibly.’
With being mad at him, and wondering if their engagement was a huge mistake, she had forgotten about the party his head of department was throwing to mark his imminent retirement.
She’d been wondering if he would have bothered to get in touch with her today if the party hadn’t been happening, and was sure of it when he went on, ‘Edward has invited the entire staff—at executive level, of course—and their partners. Wives, mostly. It wouldn’t do my career prospects much good if I failed to turn up. And they all know of our engagement so they’ll expect you to be there. The chief exec is very strong on stable marriages, and I guess that goes for engagements, too.’
She didn’t care what the stuffy old chief executive, whoever he was, thought. But she did care about Rupert, and even if they decided that their engagement had been a mistake she wouldn’t do a thing to harm him, or his career prospects. She knew how important his career was to him.
So she’d bitten her tongue and ignored his hackle-raising parting comments about taking the afternoon off, visiting a good hairdresser and buying a new dress.
‘Something sophisticated rather than the startling things you usually wear. Something that does justice to your figure, of course, but without being blatant’
So, for his sake, she’d agreed to be ready at eight, when he would call for her at the flat in Earl’s Court she shared with her best friend Cathy, and now she was wishing she had never come. Or at least that Rupert would collect her now, right this minute, and take her home.
Nobody was talking to her and most of the guests looked decidedly stuffy, and some of the women were giving her disapproving looks. She wanted to sit down with Rupert and discuss their future in privacy.
Disorientated by her moments of introspection, she absent-mindedly took another glass of white wine from one of the circulating white-coated waiters. Rupert had abandoned her shortly after their arrival, obviously preferring to talk shop with his colleagues rather than circulate with her.
Or perhaps it had something to do with the dress she was wearing? The choice had been a small rebellion, but important to her. She’d already had her coat on when he’d picked her up, and he had probably been too flattered by her unusual punctuality, thinking she was being careful not to annoy him, to ask if she was wearing something he considered suitable.
Was her stubborn determination to wear what pleased her and not what he wanted her to wear responsible for the way he was ignoring her?
She enjoyed wearing the scarlet silk; it was her favourite. Usually it gave her bags of self-confidence. The halter top dipped low between her full breasts, without exposing too much naked flesh but giving the impression that at any moment it might, and the short, full skirt gave her a feeling of freedom that the svelte little black sheaths all the other women seemed to be wearing like a uniform never could.
And the deep shade of scarlet flattered her unusual colouring, the rich gold hair and her contrasting purply-coloured eyes framed by entirely natural dark lashes and brows.
Besides, to give herself her due, she had struggled for hours to tame her hair. Cut it she would not, not for Rupert or anyone else, and now it was intent on escaping the battery of pins she and—eventually—Cathy had fenced it in with.
Rare melancholy tugged her spirits down. She drank her fresh wine, partly for something to do and partly to console herself. It went straight to her head, reminding her that she’d had nothing to eat since a light salad lunch.
Where in the world had Rupert got to?
She scanned the crowd that filled the impressively large living room of the Hampstead home of the retiring head of department for Rupert’s tall, wideshouldered figure. Most of the men looked alike, in dark dinner jackets, some fatter, some shorter, but none taller.
It was difficult to see, anyway—the smoke-filled atmosphere, the tight knots of guests who broke away from each other, dispersing only to form another knot somewhere else with other people—and her eyes didn’t seem to be functioning too well. Everything seemed suddenly out of focus, which didn’t help locate her lost fiancé.
Either she needed to see an optician, or the lights were too dim, or the glasses of wine she had so heedlessly swallowed had been too strong. Whatever, she suddenly desperately wanted to find him, make it up—wanted to recapture that sense of joy in being really needed by someone which she’d experienced when he’d asked her to marry him.
And then she saw him. The back view of his tall, elegantly made figure slipping out through the French windows that someone must have opened for overdue ventilation.
She put her empty glass down on the small table she seemed to have spent the whole evening with and began to weave her way through the crowded room, accidentally bumping into a pin-thin woman wearing black silk crepe, pearls and a frosty expression.
Annie, smiling seraphically, apologised profusely and wove on her way, only one thing on her mind; to find Rupert and say sorry for the vile names she’d called him last night. He surely didn’t mean to try to change her, turn her into someone alien—hadn’t he said he loved her just as she was?
Perhaps if she could persuade him that his constant fault-finding was ruining their relationship they could get comfortably back on track again. Annie liked the feeling of being loved and wanted; she’d had precious little of it during her growing-up years.
It was past time, she thought as she slid through the French windows, that they tried to recapture what they seemed to have lost in their relationship just lately.
There was a paved terrace. He was standing at the far end; she could just make out his darker outline against the dark December night. It was cold, starless—too cold to stand around suddenly, unexpectedly assailed by second thoughts.
She drew in a deep breath and, scarlet skirts flying, ran across the terrace and flung herself into his arms.
Daniel Faber slipped through the open French windows, stuffed his hands into the pockets of his narrow-fitting trousers and walked to the far end of the terrace.
He needed out of that room. Elegant as it undoubtedly was, it was also stuffy and overcrowded. The sharp December night air was just what he needed.
He drew a litre or two into his grateful lungs and flexed his wide shoulders beneath the smooth silk and alpaca of his superbly tailored dinner jacket. He felt himself begin to relax.
Besides, with him out of the way the others might start to have fun. It couldn’t be easy to relax when their chief executive was around. Especially when opinions and betting odds couldn’t be openly bandied around in his presence. Everyone was eager to know who would be promoted to the vacant position of Head of Futures when Edward Ker finally retired early in the New Year.
The only two viable contenders were Rupert Glover and Andrew Makepeace. Glover, he felt, had the surer instinct, and an impeccable track record within the bank. Makepeace, though, was steadier, committed to his work and, just as importantly, committed to that pleasant, round-faced wife of his and their two small children. Committed family men made sound employees.
Glover was a horse of a different colour. Until fairly recently he’d been known as a womaniser—an endless procession of empty-headed bimbos going through his bedroom, apparently.
But a few months ago he’d announced his engagement, surprising everyone. Daniel’s PA had passed the information on—Daniel insisted on keeping abreast of internal gossip, keeping his finger on the collective pulse of his staff.
He’d taken his PA’s comments on board—the addendum that the token of an engagement ring was probably the only way the bank’s Lothario could get the woman in question between the sheets and that the engagement would be lucky to last the week out
But it had lasted three months. It looked as if Glover had finally decided he’d sown enough wild oats. And, seeing the fiancée in question tonight, Daniel could understand why.
Glover hadn’t introduced her, but Daniel had asked around and discovered that the startlingly gorgeous figure in red—standing out like a vibrant oriental poppy amidst the svelte and understated sober colours of the other women—was the fabled fiancée. He could understand why the younger man had kept her under wraps.
That glorious hair—a pity she’d tried, unsuccessfully as it happened, to squash it flat against her shapely head—those pouting scarlet lips and come-to-bed pansy-purple eyes, the voluptuous figure flaunted by that outrageously sexy dress. A combination tailor-made to make any red-blooded male think of steamy nights of passion and a nursery full of babies.
He grinned ruefully at his own lusting thoughts, strong, even teeth gleaming in the darkness. With such a woman for a wife Glover would keep to the straight and narrow, his nose rammed tight against the grindstone. So the odds on his promotion were growing shorter.
And maybe it was time Daniel followed his own rules, settled down to raise a family. He was thirty-six already—time, perhaps. It would certainly make his parents happy. Trouble was, he’d yet to meet the woman he could bear to spend the rest of his life with.
The cold air was seeping through his clothing, cooling his skin. He’d give Ker’s thrash another twenty minutes then take his leave. And if he could get to the fabled fiancée without being waylaid by sycophants, he’d introduce himself, discover if her voice was as sultry and exciting as her appearance.
He turned to head back in, then his feet froze to the paving slabs. Talk of the devil!
Briefly illuminated in the light from the French windows the Fabled Fiancée paused, the freshening wind catching the gossamer-fine short skirt of her dress, whisking it upwards in a swirl of scarlet, displaying more of those endless, shapely legs, a tantalisingly brief glimpse of scarlet panties.
Desire kicked fiercely deep in his abdomen. He controlled it. High time he settled down, he mocked himself, if he got horny at the sight of a pair of nicely rounded thighs separated by an intriguing scarlet triangle.
Red for danger.
Just how dangerous he was to discover, as flying feet on impossibly high heels propelled that curvy body right up to him and into his arms.
His nemesis exploded from the dark night in a rusde of silk, a cloud of some heady, musky perfume, a halo of wild tumbling golden hair and a sweetly soft body pressed close to his—a delightful, insistent closeness that rocked him back on his heels, making his arms go out to fold tightly about her, making his head spin, his senses reel.
He could feel the pulsing beat of her heart beneath the seductive, pouting breasts that were so voluptuously pressed against the unyielding rock-hardness of his chest, could feel the warmth of her belly as she wriggled against his pelvis, feel himself harden with startling immediacy, feel his control do a runner as her arms curled up around his neck, pulling his head down to hers.
He didn’t need any urging. As his mouth homed in unerringly on the moist pout of her lips instinct slammed the door of his mind on the harsh reminder that this was Glover’s woman.
The kiss—the fevered stroke and counter-stroke, the delving, subtle exploration, the moist, receptive sweetness of her, the small slender hands curving now to shape his skull, his own hands moving instinctively to take what he craved; the glorious weight and urgent softness of the breasts that literally peaked into the seeking palms of his hands—made his mind explode in wild psychedelic patterns of light.
This was elemental, untamed woman. And he wanted her—wanted her here, now, again and again.
The sinuous movement of her body against his made him shake with the fiery desperation of his need. Then the small cry she gave, almost of shock, handed him back enough control to still the caressing movements of his hands, to control the urgency of his need to uncover those desire-swollen globes and suckle her.
The small hands were pushing determinedly at his chest, and a slow gleam of brightness as the moon broke through the cloud cover showed him wide dark eyes drenched with shocked understanding.
For a moment her body quivered in his arms, and then she turned and sped away as quickly as she’d come to him, leaving him to spend the next ten minutes getting himself back in control, castigating himself bitterly for being such a goddammed fool.
Thirty-six years old and he’d reacted to her initial embrace like a sixteen-year-old adolescent overdosed on testosterone. Wryly, he guessed his body was trying to tell him something—like it was high time he entered a long-term relationship, preferably marriage?
And far from envying young Glover his choice of a future wife, he pitied him now. What the hell had she thought she was doing? Offering him partial use of her admittedly gorgeous body in the hope that having had a taster he’d promote her fiancé to head of department in the confident expectation of getting payment in full on delivery?
The unmistakable look of shock in those lovely eyes must have been brought on by the knowledge that they were both reaching the point of no return. That she’d been good and ready for him he had no doubt. His experience wasn’t vast, but deep enough to know the signs. Had Rupert Glover’s future wife been afraid she might deliver the goods before he’d been teased enough, been driven wild enough by contemplating the pay-off to promote her future husband over his rival?
He felt sorry for the poor devil!
CHAPTER ONE
UNTIL they left the motorway at Swindon, heading roughly north-west for Herefordshire, Annie had been feeling fine, enjoying the trip, the early warmth of the summer sun.
Mark Redway, her boss, drove the open-top MG Sports superlatively well, and he’d picked her up from her flat almost at the crack of dawn to beat the inevitable build-up of traffic at the start of the Bank Holiday weekend.
She loved the feel of the breeze in her hair, tossing it into a crinkly mane, loved the warm touch of the late-August sun on her arms and face.
But.
‘I’m beginning to get cold feet.’
‘You? Never!’ Mark smiled his very white smile, gave her a glancing look from dancing hazel eyes. ‘Anyway, you agreed. And they’re all expecting you and looking forward to meeting you.’
“That’s not true, for a start,’ she objected, wondering what madness had induced her to go along with his hare-brained plan. ‘The looking forward to meeting me bit. Your poor parents will be dreading having to put up with me for the best part of three days and will hate me on sight—see me as a threat to their plans to get you to walk up to the altar with poor Enid. And she, poor girl, will feel absolutely gutted.’
‘And don’t forget my big brother in your list of all the “poor” people who will get mental indigestion at the sight of your gorgeous self!’ He was openly laughing at her now. ‘It is the object of the exercise, don’t forget.’
As if she could! Trouble was, Mark was too persuasive for her own good! ‘Pack plenty of stunning clothes,’ he’d said. So she had. She adored lovely clothes, and could wear what she wanted to now, because Rupert was no longer around to wither her with his disapproval.
For the journey she’d chosen a nifty pair of peacock-blue silk very short shorts, with a matching sleeveless shirt arrowing down to her deep cleavage and tied in a knot just beneath her breasts. And she loved her new high-wedge sandals and big owly sunglasses...
She sighed, sounding stricken, and Mark pulled onto the forecourt of an old, ivy-covered roadside inn and stated, ‘Breakfast. It will help calm you down. And then, if you’ve still got cold feet, I’ll drive you straight back to London.’
He looked as if he really meant it. She followed him over the cobbled approach feeling awful, because she had promised, hadn’t she? She hated letting people down, and never did, if she could help it. But she couldn’t help feeling sorry for Enid, who was in love with him, and his parents who were so anxious to see him settle down.
Annie hadn’t expected to be able to eat a thing. But after relishing the delicious crispy bacon and scrambled eggs she knew that not even a guilty conscience could curb her healthy appetite.
And the coffee was good, very good, and as Mark poured a second cup for them both he said, ‘Look at it from my point of view. I didn’t ask Enid to fall in love with me, or to “Save herself” for me, as Mum so archly puts it. She’s your age and never had a boy-friend—and I guess that makes me feel guilty. But, dammit all, I shouldn’t have to!’
He looked so grim. Annie couldn’t help but sympathise. Only a week ago, after a particularly hectic day at the Threadneedle Street head office of his import/export business, he had invited her to his parents’ home for the August Bank Holiday weekend. It coincided with his mother’s birthday, and, as with any family gathering, he’d told her resignedly, Enid Mayhew would be there, gazing at him with adoring eyes and following him around as if tied to him with invisible string.
The daughter of a near neighbour, she’d had a crush on him since she wore gymslips and pigtails and braces on her teeth, and his entire family—including his rather terrifying-sounding big brother—thought Enid eminently suited for the part of tying him down, putting a curb on his wilder schemes and generally domesticating him.
‘If you appear as my guest—five-four of gorgeous curves, dressed to knock their eyes out—they might all get the message,’ he’d said. ‘Let me alone to get on with my life. I love them all to pieces, but I want them off my case. I’m sick of them throwing Enid at my head!’
It hadn’t seemed too much to ask then, but now, cradling her cup in her hands, savouring the strong dark brew and watching his gloomy expression with sympathy, she asked, ‘And what do you feel about Enid—as a person?’
At first he looked as if he didn’t understand the question. Then he shrugged. ‘She’s fine. I’m very fond of her. She can be good company when she forgets to moon over me, and there isn’t a mean bone in her body. But—’ he set his coffee cup down with a clatter ‘—that doesn’t mean I want her tethered to me like a whopping great anchor. I want to fly high.’
He already had, Annie thought, but wisely held her tongue. His business wasn’t the tinpot affair Rupert had scathingly called it. Business was booming and, ironically, two months after she’d broken her engagement, Mark’s assistant had left to set up a PR consultancy and she had been chosen to take his position at a hugely increased salary.
So it seemed that without even trying she had become what Rupert had wanted her to be. A career woman. Certainly she had put all her fond ideas of marriage and a family on hold.
She wouldn’t let another man into her life until she was sure his aims were the same as her own.
She wouldn’t let another man get close to her until she could find one who could make her senses sing to sweet wild music, just as...
But she was not going to think about that, because whenever she did embarrassment sent her into a state resembling shock, all bound up with a decidedly uncomfortable riot of clamouring hormones.
Discovering that the stranger she’d leapt on had been none other than the chief executive of the bank, Daniel Faber, had given her screaming inner hysterics, and Rupert’s slagging off as he’d driven her home on that dreadful December night—on the unsuitability of her dress, her untidy hair, the way she’d skulked in a corner, then practically dragged him away—had been just what she’d needed to tell him to get lost, to get out of her life and stay out
So she could understand why Mark wanted to get his family off his back. Nobody liked the feeling of being forced into a mould they didn’t fit.
‘I guess I should have said I couldn’t make it,’ Mark said gloomily. ‘Invented some excuse. But Mum would hate Dan or me to miss her birthday. I’m too fond of the old meddler to fob her off with a lie and a bouquet of flowers by Interflora.’
Any man who was good to his mother had Annie’s vote. And she knew how awful it was when people tried to turn you into something you could never be.
Annie stood up from the table, smoothing the soft silky shorts over her curvy hips, settling her big round sunglasses back on the end of her neat nose. ‘I’m on. Crisis over. So lead the way and tell me something about your home county. All I know about Herefordshire is that it’s crammed with black and white Tudor houses...’
Mark’s family home wasn’t one of the timber-frame houses the county boasted but a mellow stone rambling affair, surrounded by trees in heavy, late summer leaf. Hot sunlight beamed down from a cloudless sky and a pack of dogs of all shapes and sizes streamed from the open door in welcome.
Mark, retrieving their luggage, said, ‘If you want to get Dad on side, admire his roses. Since he retired, the garden’s given him a new lease of life. And if you praise Mum’s cooking and clear your plate she’ll forgive you anything.’
Anything? Even stealing her beloved younger son away from the so-suitable Enid? Mark had promised Annie he wouldn’t go so far as to say they were an item, or make advances—public or otherwise. He’d stated that her presence as his guest would be enough because of the way she looked, and because he hadn’t taken a girl home since his college days—the type of woman he socialised with in London wasn’t the type to take home to meet the family. Nevertheless, she was getting cold feet all over again, agonising over whether her shorts were too skimpy, her top too revealing.
Bending down, she greeted the tide of dogs to hide her misgivings, wishing she were back in her Earl’s Court flat, listening to Cathy rave about her latest boyfriend or discuss the merits of the newest fad diet.
‘Annie, I’d like you to meet my parents.’ Mark’s voice, laid-back as ever, had her shooting upright. Hopefully they’d relate the flush she could feel creeping all over her skin—every exposed inch of it—to the enthusiastic licking the dogs had bestowed on her.
Mr and Mrs Redway were both somewhere in their sixties, his mother comfortably plump, his father tallish, sparish, very much an older version of Mark himself, his curly nut-brown hair greying, his hazel eyes hinting at a smile that had gone into hiding at the moment.
The greeting she received was nothing if not polite. Too polite, Annie thought, cringing.
Then, ‘Take your things up, Mark. I’ll show Miss Kincaid to her room. And Father, fetch Enid from the kitchen; we have time for a drink before lunch.’ Mark’s mother turned to her son, her smile wistful. ‘The dear girl’s making preparations for the buffet this evening. She refuses to let me do a thing. So thoughtful—as always.’
Maternal frost enveloped Annie as she followed her reluctant hostess up the twisty stairs, along one corridor then down another—as far from Mark’s room as she could possibly get, she guessed.
Annie felt like turning tail and running, but when the older woman paused, pushed open an ancient oak-board door and said, ‘Your room, Miss Kincaid. I do hope you’ll be comfortable,’ she grabbed her slipping courage by the edges, decided to be herself and not the threatening femme fatale that her boss thought his family would see her as, smiled warmly and insisted, ‘Call me Annie. It’s awkward, isn’t it, when strangers descend on you? I was brought up by an elderly aunt who had to have a week’s notice, preferably in writing, before anyone dropped by for afternoon tea! And by the way, many happy returns of the day.’
‘Oh—Mark must have told you!’ The blue eyes crinkled with pleasure and Annie nodded, her smile widening.
‘Of course he did. He wouldn’t have missed your birthday for the world. You know,’ she added confidingly, ‘although he likes to fly high and far, the homing instinct’s very strong. He’ll always come home to roost.
‘I was going to bring you flowers, but he said they’d have wilted long before we got here.’ She walked further into the room—pretty and airy, rosy sprigged wallpaper, its delicate pattern repeated on the curtains and bedspread. ‘I don’t know your tastes, but I remembered Mark once mentioning your weakness for Belgian chocolates.’ She bent and opened her weekend case, scrabbling around for the gift-wrapped box, uncomfortably aware of the brevity of her vividly coloured shorts.
But when she turned and extended the beribboned package there wasn’t a hint of disapproval on her companion’s comfy face.
‘How kind, Annie.’ She took the gift. Then, after a tiny pause, asked, ‘Have you been seeing my son for long?’
Annie wasn’t going to lie to this patently nice woman. ‘I work for him. We’re friends. Nothing more than that.’
If he could hear her, Mark would probably fire her on the spot—or reduce her salary by half. But Annie wasn’t into subterfuge and there wasn’t much she could do about it. Whether his mother believed her or not was another thing. But at least the older woman did seem more relaxed.
‘Come down as soon as you’ve freshened up. There’s a bathroom right opposite. We’ll all have drinks out in the garden—out of the front door, turn right and you’ll find us. Dan should be home any time now, and then we can have lunch.’
‘Dan’ would be big brother, Annie thought, the confidence engendered by being her natural self seeping out of her as soon as she found herself alone.
Meeting the lovelorn Enid would be the next hurdle. She’d rather not jump it, would rather skulk in her room.
She wondered whether to change and decided against it. Whatever she put on she’d still be noticeable. Unpacking took five minutes, washing and renewing her make-up—sunblock and her usual scarlet lipstick—took another five, while brushing the tangles out of her windblown mane took ten.
Irritated with the whole situation now, she dropped her brush down in the clutter she’d already created on the pretty Victorian dressing table and headed for the door. Only another forty-eight hours or so to get through, so she’d just have to grin and bear it—and remind herself to harden the mush that passed for her heart if her boss ever asked her to do him a favour again!
Halfway down the twisty stairs, feeling sick, still trying to remind herself of exactly why she had agreed to come here as Mark’s weekend guest, she felt very ill indeed when she recognised the austerely handsome face and power-packed frame of Daniel Faber as he suddenly rounded one of the quirky bends in the sixteenth-century staircase.
‘I’ve come to bring you down. Everyone thought you’d probably got lost. This house is something of a warren!’
But Annie had already subsided in a heap, sitting down on the nearest tread because her legs had given way, muscle and bone turning to water.
Perhaps he wouldn’t recognise her. It had been dark out on that terrace. They hadn’t been introduced at the party, either. And she and Rupert had left before he’d come back into the room. She’d made sure of that! And the embarrassing happening had been more than eight months ago...
‘Just what the hell are you doing here?’
Annie gave a faint groan. As soon as he’d had a proper look at her, he’d recognised her all right—and the quietly rasping tone told her he didn’t remember their brief encounter with any pleasure whatsoever!
But then, neither did she, she reminded herself bracingly, gingerly hauling herself back to her feet, hanging onto the banister. And even though it had been she who had hurled herself at him, he hadn’t passed up on the opportunity to kiss her back—he’d done more than that, too, she recalled, righteous anger momentarily quelling severely intense embarrassment.
‘I’m here as Mark’s guest, as I guess you must already know. Surely you were told who to fetch.’
Proud of her cool tone, she made the mistake of raking her eyes over him, slowly, from top to toe. And once she’d started the appraisal she couldn’t seem to stop.
How she could ever have mistaken him for Rupert, even in pitch-darkness, she would never know. Long legs encased in cool cotton chinos, topped by a body-hugging black T-shirt—his superb physique owed nothing whatsoever to expensive tailoring.
At six feet, Rupert was tall, but Daniel Faber could give him a good three inches. Plus, he was far wider in the chest and shoulder region and narrower in the hip. But she had known the difference hadn’t she? her ever-active conscience reminded her, bringing hot colour to her face.
As soon as his mouth had covered hers she’d known. And hadn’t been able to resist the startling effect of what the intimacy of his lips and hands had done to her.
His dark-browed frown made a deep cleft between the smoke grey eyes as he returned her minute scrutiny, as if mentally stripping away the silky shorts and top was something he had to do but didn’t want to.
‘I’ve only just arrived,’ he said through the slow build-up of sizzling tension. ‘Dad took me aside and told me Mark had brought a woman guest, that you’d been put in the rose room. He didn’t tell me who you were. I took it on myself to fetch you. I wanted to judge for myself how serious Mark might be about you. None of us are entirely happy about the situation. Now I know who you are, I’m furious.’
He looked it, too. Quietly and coldly furious. So he was the adoring Enid’s champion, too. Mark had implied as much. Yet her brow furrowed. ‘How can you be brothers?’
‘Half-brothers,’ he corrected impatiently. ‘My mother remarried after my father died, and a year later Mark arrived. At the time of the marriage I was eight years old. Old enough to know I wanted to keep my own father’s name.’
So he’d been a self-opinionated little boy, too. That figured. Her body was still tingling almost painfully where his eyes had wandered, and she’d had more than enough of this pointless and potentially embarrassing conversation.
She said, ‘Shall we join the others before they send the dogs to find us?’ and watched his wickedly sensual mouth curve cynically as the steely eyes stabbed her, reaching right into her soul and hurting it.
‘And we wouldn’t want anyone—Mark especially—to think we were doing anything we shouldn’t, would we?’
Flinching at the taunt, Annie willed her legs to stop shaking, held her golden head high and pushed past him. The weekend had barely begun and it had already turned into a nightmare. She had hoped she would never come face to face with Daniel Faber again, telling herself that even if she did, he wouldn’t recognise her.
Now the worst had happened. Face to face with him and not only had he recognised her, he was rubbing her face in her indiscretion. Would he tell his family? Make a joke of it? Or would he make something darker out of a simple mistake?
Only it hadn’t been a mistake. Not after his arms had closed around her, his lips making demanding love to her mouth.
Just thinking about it made her face go hot, and a gasp of shock, charged with wicked excitement, burst from her as he caught her hair with one hand, twisting the length of it round his wrist, forcing her to turn back, face him.
‘I can’t stop you being a menace to the male sex. But don’t mess with my family, Annie Kincaid.’ Another slight twist of his wrist and she was closer to that tough male body. The harsh, handsome face bent over hers, his breath sweet and clean. So close she could feel his body heat, his power, his contempt See that contempt in the dark grey eyes.
The contempt withered her; she fought against it, a battle twinned with the crazy desire to get closer still, to touch and be touched, to feel the long, hard length of him against her soft, receptive female curves.
She wanted to tell him he was mistaken, too. She was no man-eater. But that would be giving his jaundiced view of her a credibility it didn’t deserve. Desperately trying to clear her head of the accumulated muddle he had created, she narrowed her eyes at him.
‘You’re overreacting, Mr Faber. If what happened that night—and it was only a kiss, remember—affected you so strangely, then I’m sorry. But that’s your problem. There’s nothing I can do about it.’
The moment the words were past her lips she knew she’d said the wrong thing. The sudden hiss of his indrawn breath, the dark glitter of his eyes, told her that her piece of bravado had been taken as a challenge.
Too late to retract now, though. The damage was done. And more was to come as that sensual mouth came down on hers, his tongue diving deep between her parted lips with instinctive, bred-in-the-bone male possession.
And just as suddenly, just as she recovered from the stunned shock of engulfing excitement, her blood fizzing dizzily through her veins as she began a feverish response, he put her away, his hand sliding through her hair, right through the thick and crinkly golden length of it to where it tapered to a curling point in the small of her back.
‘Nothing you can do about it? How about carrying on where we left off? When I feel like it,’ he drawled. ‘For now, though, go on down to lunch. And remember, I’ll be watching you. There isn’t a corner you can hide in without my eyes finding you.’
Lunch? An impossibility. How could she swallow a thing? She pretended to, though, because to do otherwise would let him see he’d won, ruined her appetite, made her needle-sharp-aware of every inflection of his voice, every flicker of those enigmatically veiled eyes—those watching eyes.
The table in front of the birthday girl had been piled with gift-wrapped packages. Molly Redway indeed looked like an excited girl as she tore through paper and sent satin ribbon bows flying to cries of, ‘Just what I wanted! Oh, how lovely!’ and, ‘How did you know I yearned for new driving gloves?’ She laid the supple kid leather against her flushed cheek and Daniel said, affectionate amusement curling through his voice, ‘You hinted often enough, Ma! Glad you’re happy with them, though.’
And her husband reached across the table and squeezed her hand. ‘We made notes of all the hints, jotted them down, and then decided who should make you a gift of what!’
Annie slumped gratefully back in her seat, thankful for the distraction. At least Daniel Faber’s carefully guarded eyes had something else to focus on right now. And Enid Mayhew had been a revelation.
She was lovely. Slender, with cool, aristocratically beautiful features, her dark hair cut short, soft tendrils framing her face and curling against her long white neck.
Surely any man would be bowled over if such a gorgeous creature professed herself in love with him? So what was wrong with Mark?
Covering her untouched salmon mousse with her vast paper napkin, Annie thought she knew why Mark backed off and hid when most men would jump through hoops of fire to gain the interest of such a beauty. Enid made her adoration far too obvious—had been doing so, apparently, since she was at school.
Unlike his half-brother—who would greedily take whatever offer presented itself, as witness the way he had responded to her mistaken embrace on that dark December night, and then vilify the woman in question—Mark was a hunter. He would want to pursue, make the woman he wanted want him back, not hand him everything on a plate.
It was all there in her beautiful expressive eyes, in the way those same eyes had misted, the soft lips trembling, when they’d been first introduced, in the way the girl had avoided looking at her ever since.
Annie ached to tell her that she was going about everything in exactly the wrong way. That she, Annie, wasn’t what Mark wanted her to seem. But how? When? Since she’d joined the others for pre-lunch drinks on the terrace Mark hadn’t left her side, and Daniel had done what he’d said he would. Watched her. Watched her until her skin prickled and her nerve-ends screamed. There seemed little hope. of snatching a few private moments with the other girl.
‘You’ve done something to your hair,’ Mark commented, one brow quirked to where Enid sat at the far end of the table.
He was sitting far too close to her, and his voice made Annie jump. She’d be fainting at the sight of her shadow next, she thought weakly, wide eyes taking in the other girl’s pretty blush.
‘I—I had it cut.’ She flicked the end of her tongue over her lips. ‘I—it was too long and heavy. Hot.’
So she got practically speechless whenever the love of her life bothered to notice her, did she? Annie thought, then saw everyone—except Mark—looking at her own heavy, riotously curling mane and felt herself blush, too. Though not so prettily, she was sure.
‘Suits you.’ Mark sounded vaguely surprised, and Enid shot to her feet, her mouth quivering.
‘I’ll clear away.’
‘You’ll do no such thing!’ Molly Redway was adamant. ‘You spent all day yesterday and most of this morning in the kitchen. Father, why don’t you take everyone on a tour of the garden while I stack the dishwasher? Mrs Potts is due to arrive soon. She’s broken her rule of never working at weekends because of this evening’s party...’ Still chattering, she shooed everyone out of the cool, elegant dining room, through the French windows and into the late August heatwave.
The gardens drowsed in the sun, the trees, heavy and sleepy, casting islands of welcome dark green shade, the harsh light bleaching the rose blooms of colour. Conversation was desultory, movements slow in the summer heat.
A normal family taking mild exercise after lunch. Only this wasn’t normal. There were muddles and undercurrents swirling just beneath the surface—fore-runners of change. Annie had the feeling that she was some kind of catalyst, and hated it.
At her side, Mark took her hand and Annie, her miserable thoughts on another plane entirely, didn’t really notice until his fingers tightened, hurting her. Annoyed with him, she tugged away.
He’d promised there’d be no touching, no lying, that her presence alone would be enough to convince them all that there was no chance at all of him suddenly doing what everyone thought was right for him—settling down to married life with Enid.
Seeing his brother take Annie Kincaid’s hand, right in front of Enid’s distressed eyes, Daniel decided something had to be done.
He’d been a fool to think a warning would be enough. ‘Don’t mess with my family,’ he’d said, and meant it. But women like Annie Kincaid didn’t heed warnings. They used their sexuality to get what they wanted out of life.
She was here with Mark, and yet after only the slightest hesitation she’d responded to that kiss of punishment on the stairs. If he’d carried on, instead of putting her away, he could have taken her back to her bedroom, stripped off the tantalising wisps that were supposed to pass as clothing, stripped her down to her luscious, willing flesh and taken her, possessed her.
And she would have revelled in it.
Disturbed by the way his thoughts were beginning to affect his body, he fell in step beside Enid and began to talk horses, which was her other passion, his mind only half on the conversation.
The poor kid had been in and out of the house since her early teens, had become like one of the family. Mark was a fool if he couldn’t see that Enid was worth a thousand Annie Kincaids—cheap baggages with their big and beautiful eyes on the main chance brought nothing but trouble and grief. He wouldn’t want his brother hurt in that particular fire.
Normally he would have said that Mark was old enough, smart enough, to look out for himself. But instinct told him that once Annie Kincaid got a man in her clutches she would twist him around her pretty fingers until he bled. Then toss the besotted wretch aside if a better prospect appeared on the horizon.
He’d seen it happen with Rupert Glover. He was not going to stand around and wait for it to happen to Mark.
It was going to be up to him to do something about it.
The opportunity to have a heart-to-heart with Enid came far more easily than Annie could have hoped for.
After taking Mark on one side—hustling him out of sight after a strained afternoon tea on the terrace—she’d pointed out that getting physical hadn’t been part of their agreement—she didn’t like touching, not even something relatively innocuous like holding hands, if she wasn’t serious and committed.
Mark thought she was mad, and she could have slapped him for the scornful derision on his face. Slapped herself, too, because who the heck did she think she was kidding?
The arrogant, bloody-minded Daniel Faber only had to touch her to make her want to do whatever he wanted her to do.
And the only thing she was serious about as far as he was concerned was the fierce and futile wish that they had never met. And committed? As if!
She and Mark had sat grumbling at each other on a bench behind a potting shed at the far end of the garden for much longer than either had realised.
‘Good Lord!’ Mark shot to his feet. ‘We’re meant to be changing for this evening’s bash.’ He grabbed her hand and tugged her upright, then dropped it. ‘Forgot. Look but don’t touch! Though I presume I’ll be allowed to dance with you later tonight? It would look a bit odd if we didn’t.’
‘Dance?’ She had to trot to keep up with his headlong pace. ‘Isn’t that a bit over the top for a family birthday party?’
‘You don’t know Ma’s parties! She’s a gregarious creature and is best friend to everyone in a ten-mile radius! And they’re all invited to celebrate her birthday. Hence the buffet. And the early start so those with young families can join the fun. After they go—around nine—it all begins to swing. At least we’ll have tomorrow to recover!’
Annie had already made up her mind to head back to London tomorrow. She’d phone for a taxi to ferry her to the nearest train station and Mark would be the last to know. She’d invent some pressing and urgent reason for not staying on, so as not to give offence to the Redways.
She really couldn’t endure another day pinned down beneath the insufferable censure of Daniel Faber’s smouldering eyes, she thought, hurrying along the corridor to her room, meeting Enid as she emerged from the bathroom opposite her doorway.
‘Oh.’ Enid did her best to smile, but Annie saw the lovely face go pale, heard her voice wobble as she said, ‘We all thought you and Mark had got lost. You were missing for so long.’
‘Just talking,’ Annie said breezily, knowing the other girl didn’t believe it, knowing that the other members of the family wouldn’t, either.
‘Oh.’ Again the wobbly attempt at a smile. ‘I’m sharing your bathroom. I hope you don’t mind. Staying overnight. Molly’s parties go on and on.’
This was the golden opportunity, and Annie meant to make full use of it. ‘It’s time we talked,’ she said soothingly. ‘My room, or yours?’
Hours later, Annie wondered if anyone would miss her if she slipped away from the increasingly noisy party and went to bed.
After her talk with Enid, when she’d seen comprehension and complicity suddenly gleam in the beautiful blue eyes, she had felt strangely elated, divorced from it all. Let them sort themselves out.
Mark had had no right to ask for her involvement, and she’d had no right to agree. But, one way or another, she’d be out of here tomorrow.
And the advice she’d given seemed to be working. Enid, bewitching in soft jade-green silk, had been dancing with the hunky son of one of the local farmers ever since the first tape had been slipped into the deck. She ignored Mark completely, giving every impression that she was having the time of her life.
‘Excuse me, Annie.’ As the tempo of the music changed into slow and smoochy, Mark released her from his half-hearted clasp and strode across the floor to claim the woman who was no longer showing the slightest interest in him and far too much in a younger, better-looking guy.
Annie inched towards the open double doors that led to the comparatively quiet hallway. She’d dressed as down as she could, given the stuff she’d brought with her, teaming a float white cotton skirt with a sleeveless black top which had a modest neckline—well, reasonably modest, she amended as she slipped over the parquet of the hall, heading for the staircase.
Mission accomplished, as far as Enid was concerned, and only a few more hours to go before she could make her excuses and leave. Thankfully, Daniel hadn’t asked her to dance. Being held close to that hard, sexy body, knowing that for some reason or other he held her in contempt, would have been purgatory.
He’d been watching her, though. Leaning against an open windowframe at one end of the buffet. His brooding eyes had never left her. It had given her the shakes.
Although the night was warm, she shivered. She wouldn’t be able to relax until she was back in her own small home where she could hole up and forget her second encounter with Daniel Faber. It had had a traumatic effect on her. Which was crazy.
‘Annie—I want a word with you.’ An inescapable hand clamped around her arm. The touch burnt her skin. She didn’t have to turn to know who it was.
Air rushed out of her lungs, making her heart pound, and she had to fight to breathe it back in again.
‘Loose me,’ she commanded thickly, wondering what it was about this one man that could have such an effect on her.
Daniel’s fingers tightened. ‘You know you don’t mean that.’
He swung her round to face him and he was smiling. He frightened her—or, to be more precise about it, she frightened herself. Her whole body ached to be held close to his, for him to lower that fabulously sensual mouth and kiss her again...
‘But that can wait. You and I need to talk.’
Wait until when? What did he mean? Annie’s eyes cast desperately around. She was in some kind of a trap and there was no one to let her out The remaining guests were in the huge drawing room, cleared of furniture for this evening, dancing or standing in groups talking, eating and drinking. Even if she screamed her lungs out no one would hear her above the music.
‘Annie?’ A gentle shake, his fingers soft on her flesh now, had her fiercely deriding herself for being such a fool. She’d accused him of overreacting before and now she was doing the same.
‘Well?’ She couldn’t say more. Her tongue felt thick.
‘Not here. The noise coming from that room is enough to shake the whole house.’
He slipped a gentle arm around her, and that was her undoing. The smile in his eyes, in his voice, the unexpected gentleness made her whole body quiver as he walked her towards the open main door.
She couldn’t think straight, so how could she walk straight? She leant against his body, sighing as his arm tightened around her waist, his strength supporting her, feeling like a thief because she was stealing a few moments of heaven that he had no idea he was giving...
CHAPTER TWO
THE night air was close and sticky as they walked out of the main door and onto the floodlit drive. A sudden gust of hot wind lifted the flirty hems of Annie’s skirt around her knees and pressed the fine cotton against her tummy. There seemed no respite from the heat, even outdoors. And the way Daniel’s presence made her blood scorch through her veins wasn’t helping.
Annie struggled ineffectually with her flyaway skirts and moments later the first few heavy drops of rain fell.
‘The wind makes a habit of wrapping your skirts around your waist to tease the male sex—what did you barter to get the elements on side?’ Daniel murmured with throaty amusement as another gust lifted the floaty fabric towards the heavens.
Uncalled for. Annie rooted her feet in the gravel, hoping the shadows would hide her furious blush, and Daniel said, ‘We’re in for a storm. My car’s around somewhere in this lot.’
He took her hand in his warm grasp, long fingers wrapping around hers, and tugged her through the guests’ parked vehicles until he located his Jaguar, the silver paintwork gleaming under the security lights.
They were tucked inside just a fraction of a second before the heavens opened. ‘Right,’ Daniel said, and fired the ignition.
‘What are you doing?’ She turned to look at him, big, bemused eyes dominating her face, then relaxed back against the leather upholstery, reassured by the flicker of a smile caught in the lights from the dashboard.
‘Moving to where we won’t be disturbed. Fasten your seatbelt.’
Just for a few yards? Annie shrugged and complied. She supposed it did make sense. The ferocity of the rainstorm made visibility almost nil, the wipers barely coping with the sudden deluge. And of course he would want to move his car out of the way of those of the guests who would soon be departing—and it would be a good idea to talk.
Maybe he’d come to his senses and decided his treatment of her had been way over the top. And she would be able to tell him exactly why she’d mistaken him for Rupert at that other party eight months ago.
Clearly there had been some misunderstanding—a misreading of the situation. No man in his right mind could take so decisively and implacably against a woman merely because she’d flung herself at him, kissing him wildly before realising her mistake and taking to her heels! And there was nothing whatsoever wrong with Daniel Faber’s mind!
So this would be a good opportunity to sort it all out, wouldn’t it?
She would dearly love the antagonism between them to be over. But would all the stinging tension that made the air fizz around them whenever they were near each other disappear, too?
With the departure of antagonism would there be nothing left? Or would whatever it was that made the atmosphere sizzle still be there, to be built upon?
Suddenly she wanted to be able to build something with this man. She felt it like a keen ache, deep inside her. Which only went to show what a fool she was.
Daniel Faber could have his pick. And the type of woman he would choose would be elegant, quite certainly beautiful, and more than likely out of the top social drawer.
He wouldn’t choose a nobody like her, not in a thousand years. A nobody with nothing going for her but a bunch of wild hair and a liking for loud clothes.
She sighed and focused her eyes on the rhythmic sweep of the windscreen wipers, then shot him a frowning glance. She’d been so deeply entrenched in her thoughts she hadn’t stopped to wonder why it was taking him so long to find a place to park up.
The car was climbing up a steep, narrow lane, the headlights carving a path through the heavy rain. ‘Where on earth are we going?’ she demanded as he negotiated a sharp bend carefully, then turned the car onto an even narrower, steeper track, where the hedgerows were so high and heavy with water they hung down, scraping the sides of the vehicle with dark, leafy fingers.
‘Relax. Almost there.’
That didn’t answer her question. She slewed round in her seat, trying to read something from his face. He was concentrating, his features very controlled. ‘You said you wanted to talk,’ she pointed out warily. ‘What’s wrong with now? So far you’ve said nothing.’
He stopped the car. The powerful headlights illuminated a small stone cottage in a raggedy patch of garden, separated from the unmade track by a crooked gate. And then he switched off lights and ignition and there was just the darkness and the beating rain and the rapid thud of sudden anxiety as it pulsed chaotically through her veins.
It got worse as he produced a torch from somewhere and flicked it on. ‘Sorry about the weather. We’ll have to make a run for it. I’ll be right behind you with the torch, so you’ll be OK if you watch your step.’
‘Make a run for what?’ Annie folded her arms across her chest. She was going nowhere. She was stopping exactly where she was.
‘For the cottage, of course.’ Impatience tinged his voice. ‘I don’t intend spending the night in the car.’
The night? The whole night?
‘You have to be joking!’ Distrust made her voice sharp and a current of something—fear or manic excitement, she didn’t know which—shot through her veins, making her stomach clench. ‘Either that or I’ve missed the point entirely.’
‘No joke, Annie,’ he drawled, reaching into the rear of the car for a holdall. ‘We’ve fallen madly in lust and have sloped away to spend the night in my private bolt-hole—that’s the point of the exercise.’
‘You can’t mean it!’ Annie wailed in shocked outrage. What type of woman did he think she was? Had he marked her unhidden response to both of the times they’d kissed? Given her ten out of ten for effort and decided he was on a winner?
The whole idea terrified her. To her endless shame she just knew that if he’d decided to seduce her, her reckless body would aid and abet him in any way it could!
She wasn’t into one-night stands!
‘Of course not,’ Daniel stated. ‘It’s the impression that counts. Mark won’t be able to believe we spent the night together making polite conversation.’ He pocketed the ignition keys. ‘Coming? Or do I have to carry you?’
He was out of the car and opening the door at her side before she got her head straight. Mark had persuaded her to be his guest to give the impression they were an item. Daniel had abducted her to give Mark the impression she was anybody’s!
She slid out of the car, into the sluicing rain, her body on automatic pilot. She’d go with him because he wasn’t a threat. He didn’t lust after her, he’d said as much.
‘You can’t make Mark marry Enid,’ she muttered, the rainwater cooling her overheated brain. ‘You can’t abduct every girl he brings home. You can’t run his life for him.’
‘He doesn’t bring his women home; he keeps them discreetly under wraps.’ He unlocked the cottage door and after a moment’s hesitation she walked in, drenched by the downpour, dripping onto the coir matting that covered the floor of the small room revealed as he flicked on the overhead light. ‘The fact that he brought you home indicates that it’s more serious than his usual short-lived affairs. I don’t want to see Mark get romantically involved with someone like you.’
Someone like her! Hateful, snobbish wretch! ‘He isn’t!’ she defended hotly, but he wasn’t listening, had turned his back on her while he pulled a mobile phone from a side pocket and keyed in numbers. His voice was smooth, laid-back when it was eventually answered.
‘It’s me, Ma. Annie and I decided we wanted to get to know each other better. So we’re spending the night at the cottage—tomorrow and Monday, too. I’ll drive her back to town when I go in on Tuesday morning. Let Mark know what’s happening, will you? And Ma? Tell him sorry, will you? Tell him it’s just one of those things; it just happened.’
Annie stared at his wide shoulders, the hard muscle and bone clearly delineated beneath the clinging wet fabric of his shirt. How dared he give those nice people—his parents—such a bad impression of her? She wanted to leap on him, tear the phone away and tell his mother there wasn’t an atom of truth in what the wretch was saying, beg her to ask Mark to come and rescue her!
But, as if reading her intention, he turned, the coldness of his raking glance effectively freezing her to the spot. ‘Really?’ One dark brow slid upwards now, meeting the damp black hair that fell over his brow. He was obviously surprised by what his mother was telling him. ‘Well, it’s about time he opened his eyes, I guess.’
He was grinning as he cut the connection and repocketed the instrument. ‘Mark and Enid were last seen escaping the party, creeping into the privacy of the library, hand in hand. He must have discovered that he prefers quality over quantity.’ His grin was slowly wiped away as his eyes made a slow, insulting inventory of her voluptuous curves. Her wet clothes were cocking a defiant snook at modesty, and his eyes were hooded, his face all hard lines.
Annie shook with temper, deep misery and a hateful frisson of sexual awareness. He did lust after her, despite what he’d said. She could see it in the shadowed smouldering eyes, the lines that suddenly bracketed that long, sensual mouth, the jerk of a muscle at the side of his hard jaw.
But his latest vile insults armoured her, didn’t they? Involuntarily, her teeth chattered, and his mouth curled in slow, mocking response. ‘Tough luck, Annie. Still, some you lose, some you win.’ He shrugged impressive shoulders. ‘You’re on the loose again, but don’t try to get your claws into me. The way you responded in my arms earlier told me you wouldn’t be averse to ditching Mark and moving on and up the ladder of financial security.’
Daniel turned and tugged the sage-green heavy linen curtains over the window, shutting out the stormy night. For some reason he was unable to look at her pale, bewildered face. Annie Kincaid was surely in the wrong profession. Her acting ability—quite apart from the way she looked—would have taken her far.
He mentally squashed the unwelcome desire to take her in his arms, soothe the look of hurt from those alluring pansy-purple eyes, putting the urge down to twelve months of celibacy. He had no intention on following up, taking what this sexy little gold-digger would doubtless offer, given half an opportunity.
At one time, after he’d learned that she’d dumped Glover, he’d been severely tempted to find her—if only to stop the regularly occurring dreams he’d had. Tormenting dreams of her naked body in his arms, writhing beneath him as they took their aborted wild encounter of that December night to its natural conclusion.
Dreams that had left him edgy, tense, strangely aware for the very first time of an emptiness in his life.
Fortunately, common sense had ruled his hormones. He hadn’t known, then, that she’d been working for Mark, had bewitched him, too. Obviously she’d seen Mark as the better prospect, had dropped Rupert Glover flat. That he, Daniel Faber, had failed to follow up on her unspoken yet explicit invitation would have been written off with a shrug of those pretty shoulders.
Annie watched him, too wet and miserable to try to change his opinion of her. It didn’t really matter what he thought of her. But would Mark believe her when she tried to explain what Daniel had misguidedly done? Or would he believe what his brother had deliberately set out to make him believe?
‘How can I face Mark after this?’ she asked thinly, and saw him turn back to her, his face blank. ‘Embarrassing won’t begin to cover it. He is my boss—’
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