Making love to Flora Graham wasn’t something Josh was supposed to want to do….

It was supposed to be a means to an end, a close-your-eyes-and-think-of-revenge sort of situation!

The sexual chemistry was a bonus to be exploited, he told himself. She was vulnerable—seduction would be a walk in the park.

It was easy to exploit someone who didn’t have a heart or feelings…but Flora could not keep hers disguised….

There are times in a man’s life…

When only seduction will settle old scores!

Pick up our exciting new series of revenge-filled romances—they’re recommended and red-hot!

Coming soon

The Determined Husband

by Lee Wilkinson

Harlequin Presents

#2183

A Seductive Revenge
Kim Lawrence

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER ONE

JOSH PRENTICE lifted his head and looked blankly at his agent. ‘I’ve changed my mind.’ He accompanied his bombshell with a languid smile that made Alec Jordan want to tear out what little hair he had left.

Josh wasn’t just his most successful client, he was also his friend, and Alec knew he didn’t have a languid bone in his well-built body. The older man regarded his friend’s long-limbed, athletically built frame for a moment with wistful resentment.

‘I’ve got a TV interview lined up for tomorrow night,’ he explained for the third time with tight-lipped patience. ‘The timing is perfect; your exhibition opens next week. The last interview you did after that art festival went down really well—apparently they love your cute French accent.’ He gritted his teeth as his lavish flattery failed to make any impact on the younger man. ‘I’ve already rescheduled once because of Liam’s birthday party.’ He was unable to keep the sense of misuse from his voice. This was all the thanks he got for busting his butt rearranging things for an infuriatingly dedicated single parent!

‘Thanks for the gift; Liam loved it.’

Alec sighed, seeing no hint of concession in those hard grey eyes, eyes which rarely softened these days for anyone other than his son. He allowed his thoughts to drift longingly in the direction of hungry artists starving in attics—how much more malleable, he mused wistfully, they must be than the likes of Josh, who, to add insult to injury didn’t even have to rely on the healthy income from his chosen career—it went against nature for an artist to also have business acumen.

‘The flight to Paris is booked,’ he persisted stubbornly.

‘Then unbook it.’ Josh remained unmoved as, with a deep, agonised groan, his agent slumped theatrically into the opposite chair, his head in his hands.

‘Would it be too much to ask where you’re going if it’s not to Paris?’ Alec enquired in a muffled voice. ‘And don’t give me any guff about artistic temperament because we both know you don’t have any!’

Josh’s lips quivered faintly at this hoarse accusation. ‘Actually I’m not entirely sure yet…’ He got to his feet and absent-mindedly tugged at the zip on his jacket, pulling the cloth taut across an impressive chest. He moved restlessly around the room before meeting Alec’s interrogative stare.

His friend barely repressed the shudder that crawled up his spine at the detached, bone-chilling expression in those half-closed pale grey depths. Volcanic emotions, intense and fierce, were there simmering just below the surface. He hadn’t seen Josh look like this since just after Bridie’s death—during those bleak black days Josh had been totally consumed by a deep, smouldering rage and the only person brave or foolish enough to voluntarily expose himself to all that raw emotion had been his twin brother, Jake.

‘It depends…I’m following someone.’ Josh’s firm, wide, unmistakably sensual lips compressed into a grim line as he contemplated the task ahead.

‘Did you say f…following…?’

‘A woman…’ Josh tersely supplied, bringing to an abrupt halt his friend’s incredulous stuttering.

‘A woman!’ A slow, relieved smile spread across Alec’s face. At last—to hell with Paris, he decided magnanimously, this really was great news! ‘About time too,’ he boomed approvingly. It just wasn’t natural, a man like Josh living like a monk. If he had half as many offers…! It wasn’t as if anyone had expected the man to jump into bed with the first female who came along…but three years and he hadn’t even looked… ‘Why didn’t you say? Who is she?’

‘Flora Graham.’

Alec gasped, his florid complexion growing pale. ‘You don’t mean the Flora Graham. The daughter of…the one who…?’

Josh gave a wintry smile. ‘The one who killed my wife?’ He ignored Alec’s agonised clucking sounds of denial, and wondered why everyone seemed so anxious to make excuses for David Graham—everybody but him, that was. ‘The very same,’ he confirmed calmly.

Alec, who’d half expected Josh to launch into a furious tirade at his own ill-advised protest, relaxed slightly. As unlikely pairings went, this one had him reeling.

It had taken Josh a long time to come to terms with the fact the young wife he’d adored had died during childbirth. The wounds had been dramatically reopened when it had come to light earlier that year that the much-respected doctor, Sir David Graham, who had been Bridie’s obstetrician, was facing drug charges.

Actually the more lurid charges, which, it transpired, had been instigated by evidence supplied by a disgruntled employer who had tried to blackmail the surgeon into supplying her and her shady friends with drugs, had eventually been dropped. This hadn’t stopped the media interest; the case had really caught their imagination.

The response from the legal community to Josh’s accusations remained sympathetic but firm: their exhaustive enquiries hadn’t revealed proof that any of his patients had ever suffered because of Sir David’s problem. This attitude had exacerbated Josh’s burning feelings of injustice and fuelled his desire for revenge.

Given Josh’s feelings, Alec had been surprised at his lack of response when the details of the Graham court case had recently been plastered across every tabloid and broad-sheet. Of course, if he’d fallen for the daughter that would explain…

‘Stunning girl, of course.’ The ice-cold blonde wasn’t someone he’d personally like to spend a cosy evening with, but each to his own. Women like that could make him feel inadequate with one look; fortunately feelings of inadequacy were not something that kept Josh awake nights. ‘Very…very…blonde,’ he managed lamely. ‘Had no idea you even knew her! How did you meet?’

‘We haven’t—yet—that’s why I’m following her,’ Josh explained patiently.

Alec suddenly had a cold premonition in the pit of his belly. ‘What are you going to do when you do meet her?’ he enquired, suddenly fearful of the reply.

On several occasions Flora Graham had had the opportunity to publicly condemn her father but she’d steadfastly refused to do so. Josh could still hear the beautifully modulated voice, which fairly shrieked of privilege, defending her parent as she’d responded with clinical precision to her public interrogations; his smile deepened. The father might be out of circulation, having chosen to spend time in a rehabilitation centre rather than serve an equally derisory prison sentence, but the daughter was still around, and, according to his sources, about to leave town.

The drug-dealing doctor whom weeks before the tabloids had hated had suddenly, with the typical fickleness of the popular press, become a pitiful figure, a victim, who’d harmed nobody but himself and had actually acted honourably when it had counted. It was the final straw! Normally Josh was extremely tolerant of weaknesses—at least in others—but this case was a notable exception.

The heavy eyelids drooped over his silver-shot eyes. ‘The details are a bit hazy as yet, but making her deeply unhappy is the general theme I’m aiming for.’ And if that meant sleeping with her, so be it.

It was over an hour after she’d left the motorway before Flora knew for sure she was being followed—as scummy rats went, this one was quite efficient. She glared at the image of the red coupé in the rear-view mirror and something inside snapped. The voracious media had made her life a misery for the past months…wasn’t it enough that she was reduced to sneaking out of town like some sort of criminal?

Enough was definitely enough! She braked sharply as the lay-by, half hidden from the winding road by a copse of trees, came into view. She wasn’t exactly overcome with surprise when the flashy red car, its wheels sending up a flurry of loose chippings, pulled in a little way in front of her.

Knuckles white on the steering wheel, she took a deep, steadying breath—it was about time she stopped acting like a victim and gave them a taste of their own medicine! To hell with reticence and diplomacy! Her heels beat out a sharp tattoo as she marched purposefully towards the car. She made no attempt to confront the driver, instead she knelt beside the rear wheel and, after a moment’s adjustment, heard the satisfying hiss of air escaping from the tyre.

Revenge might just have something to recommend it, she decided with a smile. She was rubbing her hands together in satisfaction when the driver of the vehicle emerged.

‘What the hell?’

She recognised the thickset figure as one of the most persistent amongst the pack of journalists who had camped on her doorstep for days on end. It was the sheer incredulity in his face as he stared at the slowly deflating tyre that made Flora laugh, though in retrospect she swiftly acknowledged that the laugh probably hadn’t been such a good idea—he was a big man and in a very ugly mood.

Why hadn’t she sensibly driven to the nearest police station to get rid of her unwanted companion? What she’d been too angry to take into account earlier now struck her with sickening force—this was a very lonely road in a fairly remote area. At that moment, as if to emphasise the sinister implications of the situation, the wind gave an extra strong gust causing the tall trees to whisper menacingly overhead. She could almost hear them snigger, Talk yourself out of this one, Flora.

‘You little cow!’ The driver seemed to have recovered from his catatonic state and he was walking slowly towards her.

Flora found her feet stupidly wouldn’t move from the spot as the big bulky figure approached her.

‘That’s criminal damage.’ The words sounded so much like those of a sulky, thwarted child that Flora’s moment of panic vanished.

‘So is going through someone’s dustbins,’ she corrected with some feeling, ‘and if it isn’t it should be! Take your hands off me!’ She gasped in outrage as the big ape wrapped one beefy paw around her forearm; his grip didn’t loosen when she pulled angrily away and the stylish felt cloche she wore on her head slipped over one eye.

He wasn’t going to hurt her, but it gave Tom Channing a sharp thrill of satisfaction to know that under that haughty façade Miss Ice Cool might be scared. All those weeks under the cruel light of public scrutiny and her composure hadn’t cracked—not even once! People in her situation were meant to feel out of control and vulnerable but somehow this stuck-up little cow managed to act as if she didn’t notice the flashing bulbs wherever she went—it just wasn’t natural!

To add insult to injury even her friends had turned out to be untraditionally tight-lipped and stubbornly loyal. They’d closed ranks and to a man had refused to dish the dirt! She’d grown to represent everything about her class he detested. In a brief moment of rare honesty he realised that the fact probably had a lot to do with his reluctance to let the story die a natural death even though public interest in the scandal had waned. This was a crusade of a deeply personal nature now.

‘What you going to do about it if I don’t, Miss Graham?’ he taunted, revelling in the heady feeling of being in control.

‘Is there a problem here?’

The man holding her turned around with a frustrated snarl on his face. If Flora had been looking at her stalker she might have appreciated the comical speed with which his combative glare became a weak, conciliatory grin. Only Flora wasn’t looking at him, she was looking—well, actually, to be strictly honest, which she tried at all times to be—she was staring. Staring at the owner of the rich deep voice, riveting long-lashed slate-grey eyes, and sinfully sexy mouth.

There was quite a lot of him to stare at—he must be six-four or six-five, she estimated, paying silent, stunned homage to the sheer perfection of this athletically built specimen. His shoulders wouldn’t have looked out of place competitively employed in an Olympic swimming pool and she could almost see those sprinter’s legs eating up the track…everything in between looked just about perfect too. He broadcast raw sex appeal on a frequency every female with a pulse would have picked up at fifty yards. On second thoughts, maybe there wasn’t a safe distance from this man!

Flora let out a tiny grunt of shock as her breath escaped gustily past her slightly parted lips. She wasn’t the sort of girl who made a habit of mentally undressing men, especially a married man as this one obviously was—the cute little boy beside him was too much of a carbon copy not to be his son, and then there was the little matter of the wide gold band on his left hand!

Fantasising about married men was not a pastime Flora indulged in—in fact, considering that she’d been very publicly dumped by her ever-loving fiancé, she ought not to be capable of anything so frivolous! I’m probably just a disgustingly shallow person, she concluded, reviewing her worryingly resilient heart critically.

‘Just a little misunderstanding…’ Her stalker saw the direction of those narrowed grey eyes and his hand dropped self-consciously away from Flora’s arm. Although the tall guy was smiling—the curve of his mouth didn’t soften those chiselled features or spookily pale eyes an iota—and he had a grubby-faced toddler glued to his leg, didn’t lessen the fact he looked a dangerously tough customer. There was something vaguely familiar about him too…

Flora fastidiously gave a disbelieving snort and flicked her fingers against the invisibly soiled area of her sleeve. Angrily she straightened the drunken angle of her hat. Next he’d be saying he’d accidentally followed her.

She bit back the scathing retort on the tip of her tongue—once you started acting spontaneously it was hard to stop—and summoned a tight smile. More detailed explanations would inevitably mean the handsome stranger getting a potted version of the whole sordid saga. It struck her as perverse that she suddenly felt so squeamish about such a small-scale exposure after what she’d managed to survive.

‘I might take issue with the “little”—’ her deep blue eyes swept scornfully over the persistent journalist’s face ‘—but I’m fine, thank you.’

Happily the stranger, despite his unconvinced expression, didn’t take issue with her lie. He turned to the hack who was nudging his flat tyre with the tip of his boot.

‘Flat…?’

The journalist jerked his head in response and shot Flora a murderous glare. ‘I’m not carrying a spare,’ he realised with a groan.

‘Bad luck,’ Josh responded blandly. His natural inclination was to assume that anyone giving Flora Graham and her family a hard time couldn’t be all bad, but in this case he was prepared to modify his views; he had disliked the guy on sight—a real sleaze bag!

As he turned his head he caught Flora’s violet-blue eyes and winked. Dazed by the blast of charm aimed in her direction, she helplessly grinned back at him.

Josh froze and didn’t catch what his son said in his urgent infant treble. He was mega unprepared for the transformation from cold goddess to warm, vibrant woman. The faint wrinkles around her suddenly warm blue eyes and the conspiratorial crooked little smile were bad enough, but it was the slight indentation in her porcelain-smooth left cheek that was the real clincher. A dimple! He found he really objected deeply to the fact Flora Graham had a dimple; neither the glimpses he’d had of her outside the courtroom or the image of her impassively enduring television interviews had even suggested such a thing.

Flora was accustomed, even before her face had been plastered across the front page of several tabloids, to men looking at her—this definitely wasn’t that sort of look! Which was a relief because the pleasure of being admired for something as superficial as the neat arrangement of her regular, and to her mind somewhat insipidly pretty, features, or the tautness of her slim, athletic figure had palled years ago. She knew to her cost that none of these would-be admirers gave a damn about what sort of woman lay beneath the attractive window-dressing.

Whilst she didn’t mind this hunk not being bowled over by her beauty—a small ironic grimace flickered across her features at the notion—something about that stare did trouble her. A small frown puckered her smooth forehead, and distant warning bells sounded in her head. She closed her mouth and surreptitiously explored with her tongue the possibility she had some unsightly remnant of her lunch stuck in her teeth.

‘My phone’s not working, mate. Have you…?’ The journalist tentatively approached the silent couple.

‘No reception up here…probably the mountains,’ Josh elaborated, gesturing with a strong, shapely hand towards the breathtaking but forbidding scenery. ‘I seem to recall there was a garage about half a mile back…’

Flora had followed the direction of his hand, registering automatically the strong, shapely part, and she found herself comparing this stranger with the landscape—more rugged and dangerous than pastoral. She dismissed the instinct of moments before that had suggested something wasn’t quite right; after all, if her instinct was so reliable what had she been doing engaged to Paul, the ratbag?

‘I don’t suppose there’s any chance of a lift…?’ The sardonic quirk of one dark brow brought a rush of colour; it was clearly visible even through Tom Channing’s carefully nurtured designer stubble, which was meant to underline, along with the single gold ring in one ear and the scuffed shoes, his hard-man street credibility. It narked him no end that this big guy had buckets of the stuff and he didn’t even try. ‘That’s a no, I take it,’ he concluded bitterly.

Flora had to bite her lip to prevent herself from grinning as she watched the burly figure flounce off to his car muttering—carefully not loud enough for her companion to hear—under his breath.

‘I think you hurt his feelings.’ It was hard not to gloat so she gave up trying; she was due a bit of gloating. ‘You’re not meant to drive with a flat tyre, are you?’ she added innocently as the red car bumpily drew away.

‘No.’

‘I thought not.’ Flora gave a contented sigh.

‘Daddy!’

This time the urgent tugging at his trouser leg got Josh’s attention.

‘What is it, champ?’

‘I think I’m going to be sick!’

Stunned at the speed with which this prediction came true, Flora stared in fascinated horror down at the unpleasant mess congealing over her pale biscuit trousers and favourite soft, handmade loafers.

‘I feel better now.’ Liam sighed and looked up happily at his father.

Josh smiled back, silently congratulating his son on his unerring aim. He produced a tissue to wipe the toddler’s mouth and glanced surreptitiously towards the tall, willowy blonde, fully expecting her to be close to a state of complete collapse by now.

In his experience women like her, the sort who never ventured out into public without the full works—make-up, smooth, impossibly shiny hair and the season’s latest in designer gear—had a problem with the less picturesque aspects of life. And a kid throwing up fell safely into that category! He had to concede that a kid throwing up so comprehensively over you would have been enough to throw even those women of his acquaintance not totally preoccupied with their own appearance.

‘I’m glad you feel better. I must say I feel rather yucky!’

Josh gave a disgruntled frown. There was a rueful twinkle in Flora’s eyes as she smiled sweetly at his son. Damn woman, he didn’t much like having to throw his script out of the window.

‘You smell,’ Liam told her frankly.

Flora’s nose wrinkled. ‘I’d noticed that too,’ she admitted drily.

‘You need a bath. Doesn’t she, Daddy?’

Josh gave a noncommittal grunt. He suddenly had a very clear picture in his head of water sliding over satiny skin, gliding slowly down the slim, supple line of a naked female back. Her buttocks would be high and tight, you could tell by the way—his head snapped up so sharply a jarring pain shot all the way down his stiff spine. Hell! What a time for his libido to come out of hibernation.

But it wasn’t the content of his lustful thoughts that made his guts tighten with a guilty repugnance, it was the person responsible for inciting those lustful thoughts. The whole situation suggested to him that someone up there had one twisted sense of humour!

A warm bubble of humour escaped from Flora’s throat. ‘Or, failing that, a change of clothes,’ she agreed solemnly. She shifted her weight and her shoes squelched rather disgustingly. ‘Also I have a pack of Wet Wipes—a large pack.’

Josh scooped his talkative son up into his arms. ‘I’m sorry about this, Miss…?’

He fixed on his best guileless-stroke-helpless smile. It was the one that had females of all ages stampeding to help him with his son and he wasn’t above using it if the occasion warranted it. He’d gone past the period when he’d needed to prove he could cope alone; now he wasn’t so averse to making life easier.

She sighed—blessed anonymity! ‘Flora,’ she supplied, meeting the tall stranger’s eyes and feeling inexplicably shy.

‘I’m Josh, Josh Prentice, and this is Liam who, as you have probably gathered, isn’t the world’s best traveller.’ He held out his hand towards her. ‘You must bill me for the clothes.’

Flora grimaced and wriggled her less-than-clean fingers a safe distance away. ‘For your safety I think we should pass on that one. As for the clothes, I’d say we’re even.’ She gave a sigh as she contemplated the sticky situation he’d rescued her from. ‘When I’m around creeps like that I really wish I were a man. Don’t get me wrong,’ she added swiftly, just in case he imagined she was a bit of a wimp, ‘I can handle men like that. You just have to be more subtle,’ she explained to her rather startled-looking audience.

She’d learnt early on that men could be intimidated by the combination of cut-glass beauty and brains, and sometimes that combination allied with a cutting tongue was the only weapon she had or needed—usually.

Friends who knew she was a bit of a softy thought it a hoot when they saw her turn on the ‘deep freeze’ but this ability had come in really handy recently when, traumatised deeply by the unkind public scrutiny, not to mention the fact the father she’d worshipped all her life had been exposed as a drug addict—life really was stranger than fiction—she’d retreated behind a mask of aloof disdain.

Firmly repressing the troublesome urge to continue to stare up at him, she transferred her gaze to a far less complex pair of grey eyes fringed by lashes just as preposterously long as in the older version.

‘Ever tried ginger biscuits for travel sickness, Liam?’ The kiddy looked predictably interested at the mention of food. ‘They work for me. In fact, I’ve probably got some in my car. They might help settle his tummy…?’ she suggested tentatively to Josh.

Some people donned dark glasses and wig to escape notice; it seemed Miss Graham donned a different personality—she was behaving like a girl guide! Still, he’d be around when she showed her true colours. At that moment she swept off her hat and he saw the disguise didn’t stop there!

The long, waist-length shimmering mane of silvery blonde hair was gone, replaced by a short feathery cap that followed the elegant shape of her skull. The style might lack the impact of long, swishy blonde tresses, but the gamin cut did make her eyes look bigger, her patrician features more delicate, and emphasised the long, graceful curve of her neck. Let’s face it, with bones like hers the girl could shave off her hair and still look stunning!

Flora lifted her hand to her head and felt an instant’s surprise when her fingers made contact with the short, wavy strands. Just contemplating how much Paul would dislike it made her feel cheerful about her rebellious gesture. Her ex-fiancé had once confided, in one of his rare moments of honesty—did all politicians lie?—that he thought women with short hair were unfeminine, and probably a bit confused about their sexuality.

Now she could see what had been blindingly obvious all the time: he hadn’t been joking; this comment was typical of the man; Paul was a first-class narrow-minded bigot! And I was going to bear his children! She shook her head slightly as she considered her criminal lack of judgement when it came to men.

‘Have you got far to travel, Flora?’ Josh hoped not—another half-hour in the car with Liam and he might go completely gaga. It had afforded him dark amusement when the car following Flora had been so busy trying not to be noticed that the driver had failed to suspect that someone else had the same quarry in mind.

It had made his own task easier, but not that easy. Liam’s low boredom threshold and dislike of car journeys were two things he foolishly hadn’t taken into account when he’d set out to follow Flora Graham out of town.

Flora got a nice warm glow as she watched Josh jiggle the little boy from one narrow hip to the other, absently kissing the toddler’s nose as he did so. He seemed not to notice that the child’s grubby hands had comprehensively mussed up his glossy dark hair. After Paul, who had been almost pathological about neatness—and still was, no doubt—it was quite a contrast.

She was off men permanently, because they were more trouble than they were worth, but she couldn’t help thinking… Her eyes moved covetously over his long, lean frame. This other woman’s husband was so spectacularly delicious, and great with the kiddy. Nice, incredible-looking and oozing daddy appeal—why don’t I ever meet men like that? she wondered indignantly.

He wouldn’t have to be that good-looking. In fact, perhaps it might be better if he wasn’t, she concluded wryly, then hungry single women wouldn’t be lusting after him when my back was turned. Women like me! A guilty flush mounted her cheeks and she replied a little stiltedly.

‘A friend has a holiday cottage not far from here.’ She named the little village. ‘Do you know it?’ The stranger inclined his dark head in confirmation and she blithely chattered on. After being forced by circumstances to be discreet to the point of dumbness in front of strangers, it was something of a relief to talk normally—well, not totally normally, she felt impelled to admit.

The man was just too damned gorgeous to be able to do anything in front of him totally unselfconsciously. She was ruefully aware that a very unsolicitor-like girly giggle—the one she had to repress if she didn’t want him to think she was a brainless bimbo—was only a heartbeat away.

‘That is not far; but far enough to make a change of clothes a must.’ Her nose twitched in an attempt to avoid the sour smell emanating from her person. ‘I need to change. I don’t suppose you could…?’ She stopped mid-request with a self-conscious grimace. ‘No, of course you couldn’t…’

‘It has been known for me to answer for myself.’

She grinned. ‘I bet it has,’ she responded, examining his determined angular jawline; doting dad or not, he looked like the opinionated type to her. ‘Actually I was hoping you could act as lookout for me whilst I change. It could be a bit embarrassing if I’m stripped off down to my undies when some family pulls up complete with picnic basket…’

‘I’d have thought you’d have been more concerned about lone males, but I was forgetting you can handle men…subtly…’

Was there a strand of mockery in his deep voice? Flora felt vaguely uneasy as she watched him put down the child and brush his hands against his strong, muscular thighs. There was nothing remotely sexual about the gesture—the sex, she told herself sternly, was all in her own mind—but that didn’t stop her body temperature hiking up several notches. This entire weird overreaction was probably all part of the winding-down process. After the last few months that wasn’t going to be an overnight thing.

‘Realistically I don’t suppose there’s much chance of anyone coming along here.’ A cooling-off period was urgently required, so she allowed her eyes to drift around the rather bleak landscape before coming to rest once more on his face.

‘I did.’

‘It’s probably lucky for me you did.’ She didn’t think she’d been in any actual physical danger from the journalist, just the sort of unpleasant scene which she would much rather avoid.

Lamb to the slaughter, Josh marvelled as she looked up at him oozing trust and lack of suspicion. He ought to be feeling pretty pleased with how things were going, but somehow her trusting disposition was irritating the hell out of him.

‘I wouldn’t want you to risk indecent exposure charges.’

Flora’s eyes widened, a hard laugh was wrenched from her throat. ‘Wouldn’t they have loved that!’

‘Pardon…?’

Flora gathered her wits. Small wonder he was looking at her blankly. ‘It’s a long story.’

‘And none of my business.’

Flora flushed, aware that at the first hint of the conversation growing remotely personal she had automatically reverted to cool disdain. ‘Actually it’s not something I want to talk about.’

‘And I’m a stranger.’

‘But a very kind one,’ she told him warmly. She couldn’t understand why his handsome face hardened.

‘And if I wasn’t—if I was a dangerous, marauding lone male with evil intentions—you could deal with me…right?’

Flora laughed a little uneasily and tried not to notice the way her stomach lurched when she visualised how it might feel if that horrifying scenario were true.

‘But you’re not alone, you’re with Liam…you’re a father.’

‘And being a father places me above suspicion…and temptation?’ He silently reviewed the lists of world-class baddies who’d been doting dads, but resisted the impulse to point out the obvious flaws in her argument. ‘I must admit I’ve never quite looked at it in that way before. I’m overcome by the confidence you place in me.’

Flora didn’t think he sounded overcome, just irked. Perhaps even happily married men preferred to think they could still be considered dangerous.

‘There’s nothing wrong with being domesticated,’ she told him kindly. Actually she didn’t think half a dozen kids could make this particular specimen appear domesticated. She was a sensible, mature woman—mostly—with her feet firmly on the ground, and even her stomach showed a dangerous tendency to go all squidgy when she looked into those hooded silvery eyes.

‘And it’s nothing to do with paternity as such.’ She frowned earnestly. ‘Don’t you ever just get a gut feeling with some people that you can trust them?’ She closed her mouth with an audible snap…where the hell did that come from?

Squirming with humiliation, she gazed at the dark colour that stained the sharp, high angle of his achingly perfect cheekbones. Now I’ve embarrassed him—small wonder! You don’t go around telling total strangers you have gut feelings about them—gut feelings suggest a degree of intimacy! He probably thinks I’m making a pass at him or something. It was true about the gut feeling, though…

Josh broke the awkward silence. ‘Liam’s been cramped in the car all morning; he needs a chance to stretch his legs.’ To her relief he was acting as if she’d said nothing out of the ordinary. ‘If you want to change I’ll keep an eye out for coach parties.’

‘Well, if you’re…thanks…’

Josh kept one eye on his son who was building a tower with the stray rocks he’d gathered and the other on the wing mirror of his four-wheel drive, which kept him up to date with the state of play of Flora’s contortions in the back seat of her small car.

Now wasn’t the time to be worrying about the general scumminess of such behaviour. He couldn’t afford the luxury of scruples if he was going to make Graham pay. He was going to hit him where it hurt and Graham’s Achilles’ heel was his daughter—he adored her. The moment Josh had seen the interview of the two of them together he’d known that this was the way to make him pay. As for the girl, she hadn’t even been willing to admit her father had done anything wrong. As always when he needed reminding of why he was doing this, he brought the picture of Bridie’s sweet, laughing face to mind—or he would have if what was going on in the car hadn’t distracted him.

Any travellers seeking a respite from their journey at that moment wouldn’t have been treated to the sight of Flora’s underwear. She wasn’t wearing any—at least not from the waist up, which was the bit he could see. Her breasts were fairly small, pointed and high. They bounced energetically as she stretched upwards, pulling a thin cashmere polo shirt over her head. With a muffled curse of self-disgust Josh tore his eyes away.

Who was he kidding? This had nothing to do with revenge; it was pure voyeurism. That was bad, but not so bad if all he’d wanted to do was look!

He heard the sound of her feet on the rough ground but didn’t turn around. He watched as Liam carefully selected a stick and knocked down the tower of rocks he’d so lovingly constructed.

‘I worry about his aggressive instincts sometimes.’

‘I wouldn’t, it’s perfectly normal,’ Flora comforted. She smiled as the youngster laughed out loud before he started to rebuild his destroyed creation. ‘I’m sure you did the same.’

‘No, my brother Jake built them and I knocked them down, then he knocked me down. These days people pay him a lot of money to build things and nobody knocks them down.’

‘He’s a builder?’

‘No, an architect.’

‘And what do you do?’ She bit her lip. ‘You don’t have to answer that—once I get into interrogation mode there’s no stopping me,’ she babbled in embarrassment.

‘So what does that make you?’ He responded to Liam’s pouting plea by producing a sweet from his pocket. ‘Only one,’ he warned before handing it over. ‘A police woman…?’ he suggested, straightening up from his crouched pose and brushing his hands against the seat of his well-worn denims.

‘No, a solicitor.’

‘Pity…’

She looked enquiringly at him.

‘I’ve always had a soft spot for a girl in uniform.’

His smile and the way her heart started to beat wildly filled her with panic. ‘Is Liam an only child?’ A swift diplomatic change of subject was urgently required.

Josh didn’t reply straight away; when he did his grey eyes held a shadowy expression that disturbed her. Was she imagining the tenseness in his greyhound-lean body?

‘Yes, he is.’

He was young, maybe thirty; he and his wife could produce a lot more children all as enchanting as Liam. Flora, who had never been aware of any strong maternal instincts, felt a surge of envy and a deepening sense of dissatisfaction with where her life was going.

‘So am I.’

A nerve throbbed in Josh’s lean cheek. ‘That must make you all the more precious to your parents.’ His eyes were curiously intent on her face.

‘Father; my mum died five years ago.’

He touched her hand—hardly even a touch, more a brushing of her skin; the gesture seemed unpremeditated. Flora didn’t move. She continued to stare at the busy, happy child, aware all the time of an invisible web of nerve-endings she hadn’t even known existed surge to zinging life all over her body. Her skin felt so alive it hurt—pleasure bordering on pain. She found herself completely unprepared for this raw, sensual awakening.

The symptoms dissipated but didn’t vanish when his hand fell away. Way out of proportion or what? Her puffily exhaled breath turned white in the chill of the lengthening autumnal afternoon.

‘I better be going,’ she said, swallowing hard and stirring the loose ground with the toe of her casual flat shoe.

Josh noticed the replacement was just as expensive and exclusive as the one she’d worn earlier. Daddy’s indulged little girl…it didn’t work; his rage only responded sluggishly to the prod.

‘Thank you,’ she began with a frank, open smile. ‘For everything.’ If she drew this out much longer he was going to realise she felt reluctant to leave…it was quite absurd.

His mental preparations hadn’t prepared him for this. Making love to Flora Graham wasn’t something he was supposed to want to do. It was supposed to be a means to an end, a ‘close your eyes and think of revenge’ sort of situation! It was easy to exploit someone who obviously didn’t have a heart or feelings. This stupid woman didn’t only have them, she didn’t even keep them decently disguised.

This could be so easy; she’d been shaking like a nervous thoroughbred when he’d touched her. The sexual chemistry was a bonus to be exploited, he told himself. She trusted him, her father had just been publicly disgraced, her fiancé had dumped her, she was vulnerable, seduction would be a walk in the park. Telling her the truth would be a pleasure. All he had to do was go gently…

Nobody had ever accused Josh Prentice of taking the easy option!

He had a mouth which knew exactly what to do to reduce his victim to a state of helpless and humiliating cooperation. The searing onslaught of his clever tongue and lips went beyond the physical.

Flora staggered backwards when the pressure ceased and the big hands that had held her face fell away. She continued to stagger until her spine made contact with a convenient tree; the rough surface abraded her back through the thin, hooded top she now wore over a polo shirt. Breathing shallow and fast, she reached behind her to clutch the comforting solidity of the bark in what had become an almost surreal world.

‘Why,’ she asked in a voice which hovered on the brink of tremulous, ‘did you do that?’ Good, her voice was beginning to get back to normal.

Kissing her didn’t seem to have put him in a mellow frame of mind, although at the time it had seemed to her he’d been enjoying himself! She was humiliatingly aware of the ache in her taut, peaking breasts.

‘I had to see for myself if you were as stupid as you look!’ he snapped cuttingly.

The outrage on his voice made her blink. ‘And am I?’ she enquired in a dazed voice.

‘With bells on, woman!’ he raged. ‘Don’t you have any sense of self-preservation? I could have been anyone and you come out with all that airy-fairy crap about trust. Trust!’ He choked. ‘I could be Jack the bloody Ripper for all you know and all you can do is look at me as if I…’ With a snort of disgust he broke off. ‘Just because you like the way someone looks, it doesn’t make them all the things you want them to be.’ He was warning her, you couldn’t get fairer than that. Or more stupid, a quiet inner voice sighed.

Two spots of dark colour stained the soft contours of her pale cheeks. Was I really that obvious?

‘What makes you think,’ she snapped with cold precision, ‘that I like the way you look?’

He threw back his head and laughed; it was a bitter sound. ‘Like you don’t like the way I kiss?’ One dark, strongly delineated brow shot satirically upwards. ‘I noticed the way you hated that.’

Flora’s face was burning with mortification at his soft, derisive jibe—so what if she might have co-operated for a split second? ‘Most men wouldn’t be complaining,’ she said, glaring up at his hatefully handsome face. She bit her lips as she realised it was too late now to dispute the claim she’d in any way enjoyed being kissed by him. ‘But then you only kissed me out of the goodness of your heart to show me how foolishly trusting I was being…teach me a lesson…’

There was more than a grain of truth in her sarcastic jibe, but it wasn’t the entire story. He ran an exasperated hand through his dark hair. ‘I kissed you,’ he hissed in a driven voice, ‘because I wanted to.’ Abruptly he turned away from his contemplation of the trees; his deep-set eyes burned into her.

The air whooshed out of her lungs. ‘Oh!’ Her eyes searched his face. Given the circumstances, it wasn’t very flattering that he looked as if he were trying to digest something particularly bitter and unappetising.

She smiled distractedly at Liam, who opened his grubby little hand to offer her a smooth black stone. ‘Black,’ he explained patiently.

‘It’s his favourite colour,’ his father elaborated tersely.

‘Lovely, Liam.’ She smiled, pocketing the gift. ‘Thank you.’

She stiffened. Am I slow or what? How could I have forgotten a minor detail like the ring on his finger, especially when the physical proof of the wretched man’s unavailability is playing around my feet? What is wrong with me? I’ve had better kisses than that and not ended up with mush for a brain. It was a mistake to think about the kiss…stop hyperventilating, Flora.

‘Does your wife know you go around doing things because you want to?’ she enquired with icy derision. Her cold pose slipped. ‘I think you’re the most disgusting man I’ve ever met!’ she told him in a quivering voice.

The pain that swept across his face made Flora’s voice fade dramatically away. It occurred to her that she could never despise him half as much as he did himself.

‘My wife’s dead.’ His voice sounded the same way.

Flora didn’t know how to respond and he didn’t appear to expect her to.

‘I haven’t wanted to kiss a woman since…’ The harsh explanation emerged involuntarily.

Flora closed her eyes against a sudden rush of hot, emotional tears and wished he hadn’t told her that. She’d come out here to regain a bit of inner peace, not get mixed up with some moody, brooding type who was way too good-looking. He’d got a kid, and—hell!—even more unresolved angst than she had. He was the one that introduced the subject of self-preservation.

Flora’s heart ached as she watched them go, but she made no move to prevent them. She had troubles enough of her own without courting the extra ones a man like this one represented.

CHAPTER TWO

‘NIA didn’t say you were coming.’ Megan Jones handed her husband, who was sitting with his heavily plastered leg propped up on a footstool, a fresh cup of tea.

‘No.’ Josh helped himself to another slice of his brother’s mother-in-law’s excellent bara brith. ‘It was a spur of the moment thing.’

Megan Jones nodded understandingly. ‘You need a break; Nia says you work far too hard.’

‘Does she…?’ He suspected his sister-in-law said far too much entirely. The next statement from one of her brothers confirmed this suspicion.

The kitchen door swung open. ‘Nia says you need a woman, Josh. Like the haircut,’ he added. ‘Not so girly, makes you look nearly respectable.’

‘Geraint!’ his mother exclaimed, slapping her large, burly son’s hand as he filched a slice of cake and crammed it whole into his mouth. ‘Josh is respectable!’ She flashed Josh a worried look and was relieved to see her guest didn’t look offended by the slur. ‘And look what your boots are doing to my nice clean floor,’ she scolded her big son half-heartedly.

‘I’ll be back from Betws before milking, Mam,’ her grinning son promised unrepentantly. He winked at Josh and ruffled Liam’s hair before he departed just as speedily as he’d arrived.

‘Now there’s someone who is definitely working too hard,’ his mother announced with a worried frown.

‘I’ve told you I’d take on another man if we could afford it.’ Geraint’s father gritted his teeth in frustration. ‘You’d think with five sons there’d be more than one around the place when you need them,’ he complained.

‘Yes, well, I’m sure Josh doesn’t want to hear us grumbling,’ Megan said, pinning a bright smile on her face.

No wonder Megan was looking strained; Josh suspected that energetic Huw Jones was not an easy patient.

‘I don’t suppose there’s ever a good time to break your leg, Huw…?’

‘But some times are worse than others,’ Huw rumbled, ‘you’ve got it right there, boy.’

‘Where are you staying, Josh?’

‘I was hoping you could recommend somewhere nearby.’

‘You couldn’t do much better than The Panton,’ Huw responded. ‘Though it’ll cost you an arm and leg.’

‘The Panton, Huw, really!’ Megan chided indignantly. ‘Josh and Liam will stay with us, of course. Just like they always do. I miss having a child about the place.’ She smiled fondly at Liam.

Since Jake had married Nia, Josh, a keen climber, had joined his brother here at Bryn Goleu for several weekend climbing expeditions in the rugged Snowdonian mountains. Megan Jones’s hospitality was as warm as her smile.

‘I think you’ve got your hands full without extra guests right now, Megan. We wouldn’t dream of imposing.’ Josh saw his hostess looked inclined to press the issue and a workable compromise occurred to him. ‘I will stay, on one condition: you let me work for our board. I don’t know a cow from a sheep,’ he warned them with a grin, ‘but I’m a willing pair of hands.’ He held out his hands to demonstrate their willingness.

‘We wouldn’t dream…’ Megan began politely.

Huw put aside his newspaper. ‘What do you mean, woman? Of course we’d dream. Beside, a bit of honest sweat’ll do the boy a world of good, build up a bit of muscle.’

Josh took the scornful inference he was some sort of seven-stone weakling in his stride.

‘If you let him talk much longer, Josh, he’ll convince you you ought to be paying him for the privilege of letting you break your back!’ Megan threw her husband a withering glance, but Josh could see she felt just as relieved as the reluctant invalid. Their gratitude made him feel guilty because his offer of help wasn’t entirely altruistic. He hadn’t been able to believe his luck when Flora had named the village she was staying in as one a mere mile from the Jones farm—it suited him very well to stay for a while at Bryn Goleu.

Flora’s walking boots had never actually seen a puddle before; the country experience was proving a baptism by fire for her and them both. The boots seemed to be coping better with water than she had with the mouse in the house last night. Fortunately the village store stocked mousetraps, but Flora wasn’t sure which horrified her most: the idea of coming face to face with a live mouse or a dead one.

She consulted the map in her pocket; if she was reading it correctly this footpath would cut her return journey by half. It seemed to go directly through a farmyard. Right on cue a farmyard came into view around the bend. She’d heard tales that suggested all farmers weren’t exactly welcoming to ramblers; she hoped these natives, if she came across any, were friendly. Still, she reasoned, they couldn’t possibly be as bad as tabloid journalists.

She did see one—it was hard to miss him—a large, shirtless specimen wheeling a barrow piled with fencing posts out of one of the stone outbuildings. His back was turned to her; it suggested he would make short work of driving those heavy wooden posts into the ground. She tried not to stare too obviously at the sculpted power of those rippling, tightly packed muscles; she had limited success.

She cleared her throat to let him know she was there. ‘Good morning,’ she called out politely. The figure turned slowly.

‘Bore da, Flora.’ Josh exhausted the limit of his Welsh.

She must have walked into the shop and bought it all up, he decided, giving her a quick once-over from her sunlit hair to her shiny new boots. All the stylish, squeaky new clothes were top-of-the-range mountain gear which showed off her lovely long length of leg and neat, incredibly small waist. A light crop of freckles had emerged across the bridge of her nose and her cheeks were healthily flushed, whether from exertion or from the shock of seeing him he wasn’t quite sure…but he had his suspicions.

‘You!’ Flora, who had forgotten to breathe for several stupefied moments, took a deep noisy gulp to compensate.

‘It’s enough to make a man believe in coincidence,’ he drawled, lifting a hand to shade his eyes from the sun.

She nodded in a dazed sort of way. Looking at her with a clear-eyed sardonic grey gaze, he was displaying none of the awkwardness she, because of the way they’d parted, felt—he didn’t even seem surprised to see her. Willing her eyes not to make any detours over his naked torso, she kept them firmly trained on his face.

‘Or fate.’ Now why, she wondered with a silent groan, did I say that?

‘And do you?’ he enquired, unexpectedly expanding on the theme. ‘Believe in fate?’ He speared a pitchfork into the ground and leaned on it to casually watch her. Flora found the unblinking scrutiny uncomfortable.

Her curiosity reached boiling point and she succumbed to growing temptation and risked a quick, surreptitious peek at his leanly muscled chest and flat belly. Her stomach muscles did uncomfortable and worrying things. The earthy image hadn’t done anything to soothe her jangled nerves or hot cheeks.

It was the little details like the line of hair that disappeared like a directional arrow beneath the waistband of the worn blue jeans he wore that got her especially hot under the collar. She wondered what he’d make of it if she picked up the discarded plaid shirt she’d spotted and begged him to put it on—too much is what he’d make of it, she told herself derisively.

‘Fate!’ she hooted robustly. ‘Of course not.’ Her tone was laced with a shade of indignation. What sort of silly woman did he think she was? ‘You live here, then?’ She recalled he never had got around to telling her what he did for a living. He didn’t look much like her idea of a farmer, but then what did she, the ultimate townie, know?

‘No, just helping out for a few weeks.’

A casual farm labourer! This possibility seemed even more unlikely than the first option. She’d had him pegged as someone who, even if he didn’t give orders, definitely didn’t take them off anyone. To her there seemed something of the maverick about him.

Her own father had always been proud of his humble beginnings as the son of a coalminer and it struck her forcibly that he’d be ashamed if he knew his own daughter nurtured snobbish preconceptions about manual labourers. Just because a man used his muscles to earn a crust didn’t mean he didn’t have a brain, and if she needed proof she only had to look as far as this man. Those extraordinary eyes of his held a biting degree of intelligence.

If her friend’s reports were anything to go by, babies were expensive creatures, and most of those households who were frequently pleading poverty brought in two hefty professional salaries. This man had a child to bring up alone and, it seemed, no professional qualifications. Under the circumstances he couldn’t afford to be picky about work. It must be hard worrying about money and coping with parenthood, she reflected. He faced problems every day she couldn’t begin to understand; her soft heart swelled with empathy. It made her feel guilty when she considered her own comparative embarrassment of worldly riches.

‘Helping! Is that what you call it?’ A large young man with a lilting accent and a head of shocking red hair jeered as he came up behind Josh and thumped him good-naturedly on the back. ‘Slacking more like, man.’ He laughed. He looked with interest at Flora, his bold eyes admiring. ‘Fast worker, aren’t you?’ he added slyly to Josh in a soft voice.

Flora fell back on her frozen routine, but frustratingly neither man appeared to notice. Josh gave a tolerant, unembarrassed smile.

‘Geraint, this is Flora.’ He casually performed the introductions. ‘She’s staying in the village. Flora, this big bull is Geraint Jones.’

‘The heir apparent,’ Geraint told her, swaggering in an inoffensive way. ‘You going to actually do any work today, Josh?’ he added sarcastically, jumping into a tractor and revving up the engine. ‘See you later, cariad,’ he called to Flora. ‘And remember, if you want any real work done I’m your man,’ he boasted. ‘Now, if you want a bit of sissy painting…’ he taunted, driving noisily off.

It was similar to an encounter with a bulldozer. ‘Is he always so…?’

‘Always, but a bit more so when a beautiful woman is around.’

She’d been called beautiful so often it didn’t even register now, so why were her lower limbs suddenly afflicted by a debilitating weakness?

‘You paint? I mean, that’s your real trade?’ An idea, probably not a good one, was occurring to her. It would be foolish to blurt anything out before she’d considered the implications of her inspiration.

‘You could say that,’ Josh confirmed a shade cautiously.

Flora was so excited by the brilliance of her idea that she decided that she’d throw caution to the winds.

‘Well, I don’t know what your schedule’s like at the moment…?’

‘Flexible,’ he responded honestly.

‘Well, I might be able to put some work your way. My friend Claire,’ she explained hurriedly, ‘the one who is letting me use her cottage—she asked me to find someone to redecorate the small bedroom in the cottage while I’m here. It’s really dark and poky and she’s just had a baby…Emily…’ On anyone else Josh would have called that soft, fleeting little smile sentimental. ‘And she wants the room redone before she comes up at Christmas. If you’re interested…’

‘You’re offering me a job?’ He was looking at her oddly.

‘You wouldn’t be working for me,’ she informed him, anxious to make this point quite clear from the outset. ‘I’m only acting as an agent for Claire.’

‘Decorating a bedroom? You want me to decorate a bedroom?’

Flora glared. Was it such a revolutionary notion? Hadn’t he decorated a bedroom before? Anyone would think she’d said something funny. She hadn’t expected or wanted gratitude but he looked as though he was about to fall about laughing.

Maybe it was a male pride thing, she pondered. He might not like people, especially a woman, to know he was strapped for cash. She tried to see it from his point of view and had to concede it was possible she was coming over a bit lady bountiful.

‘If you’re too busy…’

‘Aren’t you afraid I’ll kiss you again?’

She didn’t see the question coming until it hit her dead centre; it completely threw her off balance. Aren’t you more afraid he won’t? the sly inner voice silkily suggested.

Taking a deep breath, she made emergency repairs on her shattered poise. Her slender shoulders lifted casually. ‘I hardly think that’s likely,’ she scoffed laughingly. ‘I’m aware it was just a…’

One dark brow quirked enquiringly as she searched for words. Flora flushed.

‘A momentary impulse,’ she choked resentfully.

‘Aberration, even,’ he agreed soothingly.

She frowned at him with irritation; she knew deliberate provocation when she heard it. She needed to knock this kissing thing on the head once and for all.

‘For your information, I’ve just broken up with my fiancé kissing isn’t on my agenda.’

‘Why did you do that?’

Flora looked at him blankly.

‘Break up with your fiancé, that is.’

Flora glared at him. ‘None of your damned business,’ she declared hotly.

‘Sorry,’ he sympathised with a patently false sincerity that set her teeth on edge. ‘Sensitive subject.’

‘Not at all sensitive!’ she snapped immediately. ‘Paul asked me to make a choice and I didn’t make the one he expected.’ Paul had been astonished when she had failed to see how imperative it was for her to distance herself from her disgraced father. His astonishment had eventually turned to anger at what he perceived as her selfishness. ‘Also,’ she added with feeling, ‘he was a prize prat!’

‘In fact,’ Josh drawled, his eyes on her mutinous, flushed face, ‘it was a normal, mutually amicable parting.’

‘I’m just trying to explain why kissing isn’t high on my agenda just now, so you can rest easy,’ she told him, regretting her outburst.

She couldn’t help recalling that kissing her had not exactly made him happy the first time, so he probably wouldn’t want to again. She remembered the bleak expression in his eyes as he’d made that extraordinary statement. If he really hadn’t kissed anyone for some time that meant he had a whole lot of sexual frustration to get rid of. She didn’t want to be his therapy. Although, she conceded, letting her eyes roam at will for one self-indulgent moment over his sleekly powerful body, there would be fringe benefits! It was almost enough to make a girl sorry she wasn’t into shallow and superficial relationships.

‘Ah, you’re afraid of the rebound thing…?’

Her teeth clenched. Was he jumping to all the wrong conclusions deliberately? She met his eyes—you bet he was, she concluded instantly. There was no mistaking the fact he was enjoying her discomfiture. He’d probably taken delight in depriving flies of their wings when he was a little boy.

‘There’s absolutely no prospect of me rebounding in your direction!’

‘You mean you don’t encourage the hired help to take liberties. This isn’t actually about being off men in general, just a particular category of men, for which read those without the fancy cars, fancy clothes and fancy salaries to match.’ His voice was coldly derisive.

He made her feel so guiltily defensive that she almost began searching her conscience until she realised that, whatever other faults she had, she had never judged people by their bank balances, although she knew plenty of people that did.

‘Are you implying I’m a snob?’

He considered the heated accusation. ‘I don’t know you well enough to imply anything—yet,’ he qualified.

Flora didn’t like that little contemplative smile that accompanied the qualification one little bit. For starters it made her pulse-rate do slightly scary things.

‘Do you want the job?’ she snapped, already regretting her silly altruism. The man had got by before she’d come along; it wasn’t as though he looked malnourished or anything—far from it!

Josh looped his thumbs in the loops of his waistband and looked thoughtful. ‘What’s it pay?’

‘Pay!’ she echoed in a startled voice.

‘You didn’t expect me to do it for free, did you?’

Her lips tightened at the sarcasm; he really did have a knack of making her feel embarrassed and just ever so slightly stupid. If anything, she normally played down her intellect in front of men; for some reason this one made her feel positively inadequate!

‘Of course I didn’t. I just hadn’t thought…’ God, what happened to detached and businesslike? I sound like a real pea brain! She cleared her throat and tried to retrieve the situation. ‘What’s the going rate?’ she enquired briskly.

He named a figure and she nodded sagely.

‘That sounds fair,’ she agreed gravely. She didn’t know what she was talking about and she suspected he knew it. If he was trying to rip her off she’d have to make up the excess from her own pocket; she couldn’t make Claire suffer financially because she wasn’t prepared to admit her ignorance in front of this man.

‘That’s a deal, then.’ He approached her, hand extended.

Flora stared at the strong hand as if it were a snake. As she tentatively placed her own in his the scent of his warm body reached her nostrils. She tried not breathing but the faint musky smell still made her stomach muscles twang like the entire string section of an orchestra. The unseasonally hot day wasn’t entirely responsible for the sweat that trickled slowly down between her breasts.

He didn’t shake her hand, instead he raised it to his lips in a gesture that should have been absurd, only she felt no desire to laugh at all…melt, well, yes…that was another thing entirely!

He lifted his head and looked directly into her eyes; the expression in those silvery depths was explicitly sensual. It was at that second that she knew exactly how big a mistake she’d made in virtually inviting the man into her home!

Calm down, Flora, she told herself firmly as her heart-rate rocketed. Think worst scenario: you bump into him—not literally, of course—occasionally. She stubbornly worked around images that wouldn’t quite clear from her head of several interesting varieties of collisions she could have with Josh Prentice. She bit back a horrified whimper.

Cope, of course she could cope! She hadn’t reached her advanced years without being able to survive mentally and emotionally intact the odd bit of sexual craving. She could cope with anything. She was going to fill her lungs with gallons of fresh country air! Wholesome, emotionally untaxing pursuits like walking the hills and talking to the odd sheep were going to fill her days, not steamy daydreams.

‘If you have other commitments,’ she began hopefully, putting her tingling hand behind her back and rubbing it against the soft wool of her sweater. ‘It might be more convenient for you to decorate the nursery after I’ve left.’

‘And when would that be?’

‘I’m not entirely sure yet.’ Dad didn’t want her to visit while he was in the programme.

‘You must have very understanding bosses.’

Flora smiled vaguely and didn’t explain that since she’d been made a partner last year she was one of the bosses. Actually her colleagues had been incredibly supportive throughout the ordeal of the trial.

‘There’s actually no hurry or anything.’

‘It’s very considerate of you to worry about my welfare.’

Flora didn’t feel considerate, she felt cornered!

‘But I’m quite adept at juggling more than one task.’

This boast drew a small, wry grin from Flora. ‘Not like any men I’ve met, then,’ she snorted.

‘No,’ he mused with an arrogantly confident smile. ‘I think you’ll find I’m actually not like any other man you’ve met.’ His voice flowed over her like warm, rich molasses.

Flora swallowed nervously and dabbed the tiny pinpricks of sweat that beaded her upper lip with the tip of her tongue.

His grey eyes zoomed in on the nervous gesture; his nostrils flared. ‘Besides,’ he continued hoarsely, ‘we won’t be here long.’

‘You mean you and Liam don’t live here? I assumed… Do you move around a lot?’

‘A man has to go where the work is.’

His hard, emotionless statement confirmed her initial suspicions concerning his finances and she was glad she’d been able to put some work his way, even though he was a very hard man to relax around.

‘That must be hard with a child,’ she sympathised softly.

‘You disapprove.’ His lip lifted in a faint sneer as he pounced on this evidence of her judgemental nature with relish.

‘I’m no judge of such things—’ and never would be if her track record so far was anything to go by, she thought gloomily ‘—but Liam looked a pretty happy, well-adjusted child to me.’

‘You’ll find out when you have one of your own that all kids have a little bit of the Jekyll and Hyde in them.’

The idea of having a child of her own brought about an odd, achy sensation—had her biological clock swung into action early? she wondered. At twenty-seven she’d always considered she had plenty of time to think about children.

‘That presupposes I want some of my own.’

‘And you don’t.’ His expression seemed to suggest he wasn’t surprised.

‘I didn’t say that,’ she countered crossly. ‘I just don’t like it when people make assumptions. Besides, call me an old-fashioned girl, but I think it sensible to think about babies after I find a suitable father for them.’

‘Paul the prat wasn’t keen on kids, then,’ he sympathised.

‘Paul,’ she felt goaded into rashly revealing, ‘requires all the proper accessories in his life.’ Her lips acquired a cynical twist as she considered Paul’s priorities. He’d probably have expected her to time the pregnancies to coincide with election years; a baby or a pregnant wife must be good for the odd vote or two.

‘It sounds like the perfect match to me. You look like an accessory sort of lady yourself.’ He was looking appraisingly at her very expensive clothes.

‘You do insults amazingly well, Mr Prentice.’ Flora’s nostrils flared. ‘Strangely, I don’t feel inclined to discuss my shallowness just now.’

‘You remembered my name…eventually, and it’s Josh.’

Truth be told, she remembered everything about him including the expert way he kissed. ‘Your name, but not how offensive you are, obviously,’ she hissed, ‘or I wouldn’t have offered you the job.’

‘I wondered how long the “I’m not the boss just the agent” line would last,’ he fired back with a cynical sneer. ‘I suppose you’re going to be watching everything I do, stifling my artistic freedom…’

The sheer bloody-minded silliness of this accusation ought to have made her laugh, but it didn’t. Did he take his shirt off indoors too? Perspiration prickled over her entire body as for the duration of a single heartbeat she contemplated what watching this man at work would do to her indiscriminate hormones. It made her bones ache just thinking about it.

‘Nothing,’ she told him, her voice shaking with sincerity, ‘could be further from the truth and you can let your artistic inclinations run wild,’ she promised recklessly.

‘Every man has his price,’ he admitted solemnly. ‘That sounded suspiciously like an offer I can’t refuse.’

He made it sound as though she’d been begging for his professional services. ‘That’s…that’s marvellous,’ she responded weakly.

‘I’ll make a start tomorrow.’

‘That soon!’

Her spontaneous dismay made his lips twitch. ‘Before you change your mind.’

‘I wouldn’t go back on a deal, despite provocation…’ she told him, angrily defending her integrity. The man somehow managed to twist everything she said to his own advantage. With that marketable ability combined with his indisputable physical attributes—which, sad though it was, did make a difference—she was amazed he hadn’t found a lucrative niche somewhere. ‘I think you’re in the wrong job,’ she reflected drily.

‘You’re not alone there.’ He grinned wryly, recalling how horrified his family had been when he’d turned his back on the academic avenues open to him and announced his intention of becoming an artist. They’d come around now, of course; success made a lot of things acceptable.

‘You should use your natural talents.’

He looked struck by the idea. ‘Like kissing, you mean,’ he suggested with a hungry-tiger smirk.

‘Why,’ she ejaculated, ‘do you keep bringing that up?’ Her teeth hurt as she ground them yet again.

‘Because it’s on your mind, not to mention mine…? Yes,’ he confirmed, giving the subject some thought, ‘that’s it. I keep thinking about kissing you.’ His jaw tightened. It was true and unforgivable: when he ought to be concentrating on other more vital issues his mind kept returning to that single brief, unsatisfactory kiss.

His resentful glare suggested it was all her fault—the cheek of the man—and typical of men, full stop!

‘Why? Do I look like your wife? Do I remind you of her or something?’

Flora was so shocked to hear the words leave her lips she gave a horrified gasp and pressed a belated silencing hand over her mouth. True, this question had been nagging away at her since yesterday, but, assuming she’d never see him again, she hadn’t thought she’d ever have the opportunity to ask him, or for that matter the lack of judgement to do so!

Josh had gone very still. Flora started when he slowly began to move towards her. Her attention was riveted by the graceful, lithe way he moved, beautiful but almost menacing. His blank expression told her zero about his intentions, but as he came closer she could see the slashing angle of his chiselled cheekbones seemed more pronounced and a solitary muscle pumped in his lean cheek.

He stopped just in front of her and, reaching out, took her chin in one hand and swept it upwards. His eyes swept dispassionately over her beautiful oval face; he seemed to be unmoved by what he saw.

Flora didn’t move; she couldn’t. Sexual anticipation mingled with mind-numbing apprehension inside her, creating sheer havoc. Wide-eyed, she watched as he slowly shook his dark head firmly from side to side, never for one instant releasing her from the merciless grip of his gaze. Despite the relentless intensity of that stare she couldn’t shake the conviction that he somehow wasn’t actually seeing her, perhaps it was the face of his lost love, little Liam’s mother, he saw.

‘No, you’re nothing like her.’ His voice was harsh. ‘Nothing!’ he added as if he couldn’t emphasise this point too much.

Flora felt a shaft of relief quiver through her. It mattered, she wasn’t quite sure why, but his reply had mattered a lot to her.

‘She wasn’t a blonde.’ His eyes touched the silver strands clustered around her face. ‘But then who’s to say you are?’

‘I think I’m the definitive expert on that subject.’

His hand dropped away and a sudden devilish grin abruptly banished the brooding shadows from his expression. ‘You have no idea how tempted I am to say prove it,’ he suddenly confessed.

‘Restrain yourself!’ She sniffed, wondering how she ought to go about distracting him from this ticklish subject.

‘If I kissed you now would it constitute a sacking offence?’

Flora’s heart turned over in the confined space of her tight chest. As shock seeped steadily through her she caught her breath raggedly and her hot colour faded of its own accord, leaving her pale.

The expression perfectly pale flitted through Josh’s head as he feasted his eyes on the delicate symmetry of her clear-cut features, resting the longest on the full curve of her softly sumptuous lips. His bold, sensual survey made the blood pound noisily in her ears.

Some dim memory of self-preservation told Flora she ought to summon some cutting witticism that would cool his ardour and cut him down to size. After all, didn’t she have enough in her repertoire to suit any occasion?

As she met the smouldering intensity of his speculative gaze the memory flickered and died. Truth told, there was nothing in the world she wanted more than to be kissed by and kiss Josh Prentice. The admission cost her what little sense of what was appropriate she had left. Honesty, even with yourself, especially with yourself, wasn’t always the best policy!

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