by Helen Brooks
One corner of his slightly stern and very sexy mouth twisted. ‘I bet the other girls love you when they’re chomping on lettuce and you’re tucking into the full McCoy and still looking like a model, fast metabolism or not.’
Looking like a model? Was he being sarcastic? She stared at him. He had the sort of face it was impossible to read. Coolly, she said, ‘Hardly.’
‘They don’t mind?’
He was definitely being deliberately obtuse. ‘I meant I hardly look like a model,’ she said even more coolly, taking a bite of cake and hoping he’d take the hint and leave well alone.
He settled back in the comfy armchair that faced the sofa where she sat, arms stretched out along the back of the seat and one leg crossed over the other knee. It was a very masculine pose. He was a very masculine man. The tawny eyes moved over her face. She could feel them even though she was concentrating on the plate on her lap.
‘You look perfect model material to me,’ he said mildly.
Was he teasing her or flirting or what? Whatever, she so wasn’t doing this. Regretting that she’d let him see he’d got to her and wishing she’d just let it go in the first place, Rachel forced a smile. ‘Well, I haven’t been spotted by a talent scout to date and I’m perfectly happy with the day job.’ Even to herself she sounded overly facetious. A little desperately now, she added, ‘What is it you do, by the way?’
He didn’t comment on the clumsy change of conversation. Demolishing half his slice of cake with one bite, he chewed and swallowed at leisure before he said, ‘I work in the family glass-making business back home in Canada. Have done since uni.’
Unexpected. In spite of herself, Rachel was intrigued. ‘Really? That’s a very old industry, isn’t it?’ She’d had him down as a modern whizz-kid, all bells and whistles and something mega in the city.
‘It goes back some,’ he agreed lazily, finishing his cake before he continued, ‘The Canadian side of the family have had their own business for over a century and it’s been handed down through the generations. Most glass-making firms, like other old industries, have been taken over by large manufacturing groups. We’re one of the few family businesses still going, which is the main reason my father moved us to Canada when I was a youth. He’d had a falling out with his father—my grandfather—when he was a young man and left Canada for England. My grandfather had his first heart attack when I was sixteen and my grandmother begged my father to return. There was a kind of a reconciliation and, as my father was their only child, he agreed to return permanently and take over.’
Intrigued, she said, ‘What was the falling out about?’ before blushing violently as she realised how nosy that sounded. ‘I’m sorry,’ she added hastily before he could speak. ‘It’s none of my business. You really don’t have to answer that.’
‘No problem. My father met my mother when she was holidaying in Canada and it was one of those rare instant for-ever things. My grandfather thought my father ought to marry the daughter of some friends of theirs, apparently the two sets of parents had planned it for years. The girl was willing, my father wasn’t. He’d already made his feelings plain before he met my mother, but my grandfather wasn’t used to being thwarted. He’s an irascible old man when he gets the bit between the teeth, as he often does.’
‘He’s still alive?’
‘Very much so. Three heart attacks to date, mainly, so my grandmother insists, because of his temper. Anyway, there were harsh words on both sides and my father followed my mother to England and married her. It was twenty-five years before my grandfather and father spoke again. The Lawson males are a stubborn lot, it’s in the genes.’ He smiled.
She didn’t doubt it. There was something in the square jaw that told her Zac was no different from the rest of them.
It was cosy in the small sitting room, which was still dimly lit. Rain was lashing at the window and the flickering flames from the gas fire cast the hard male face into moving planes and angles. Rachel shivered, though not from cold. There was something infinitely…unsettling about Jennie’s Canadian cousin. Undoubtedly he was very sure of himself, he exuded an arrogance that set her teeth on edge, but it was more than that—quite what, she didn’t know.
‘So you’re over here on business for a while?’ she said when the silence became uncomfortable. On her part at least. Zac appeared perfectly relaxed as he finished his coffee.
‘Uh-huh.’ He smiled, the tawny eyes glittering in the dim light. ‘That cake’s pretty good.’
She took the broad hint and cut him another hefty slice. As she did so his mobile phone rang and he glanced at it before saying, ‘Do you mind if I answer this?’
‘Of course not.’ At least it would delay having to make conversation for a while. As she rose to give him some privacy, he said quickly, ‘No, please stay,’ before speaking into the phone, ‘Hi, Sarah. How are things going there?’
The girlfriend? She muttered something about things to see to in the kitchen and made her escape. Of course, he could be married. He wasn’t wearing a ring but lots of men didn’t.
They were having shepherd’s pie for dinner, which Jennie had prepared the night before, it being her turn on kitchen duty that week, and there was ample for four. Glancing at the clock, Rachel put the pie in the oven and sliced some fresh carrots and broccoli, trying not to strain her ears to catch what was being said in the sitting room. She heard him laugh, a warm, rich sound, and paused for a moment before reaching for the pot of double cream in the fridge and tipping it into a bowl. Once the electric mixer was going, it drowned out any sound from the sitting room, and when the cream peaked she put the finishing touches to the raspberry trifle Jennie had designated for dessert. As she did so, Zac appeared in the doorway.
‘You needn’t have left,’ he said quietly. ‘It was only my secretary reporting on things at the office.’
His secretary? Things had sounded mighty cosy; perhaps he mixed business and pleasure? ‘I needed to see to the dinner,’ she said as she gave herself a mental slap. What business was it of hers if Zac was sleeping with his secretary? Giles had been sleeping with his too but the irony there was that she was his wife—a little fact he’d omitted to mention when he’d met her. And when he’d proposed. She’d only found out he was married when his wife had turned up on her doorstep one evening, having learnt of their relationship through a friend of a friend of a friend.
She didn’t know if it made it better or worse that she wasn’t the only woman he’d fooled about with since his marriage eight years before, but she had believed his wife absolutely when she’d told her the cold facts. She was just amazed Melanie had stuck with him so long. Giles’s wife had been nice, the sort of woman she could have been friends with in different circumstances. Much too nice for a rat like Giles.
‘You OK?’ Zac shifted in the doorway.
Too late she realised her always too-expressive face had given her away. ‘Fine,’ she said with a careless shrug, hoping he’d take himself back to the sitting room. ‘I’ll come and join you in a minute,’ she added pointedly, turning to the dirty breakfast dishes in the sink and filling the washing-up bowl with hot, soapy water. ‘The others should be back soon.’
To her horror he had joined her in the next moment, tea towel in hand. The kitchen wasn’t large as it was, but with his height and breadth dwarfing her it had suddenly got a whole lot smaller. ‘No.’ It came out too sharply, and she modified her tone when she said, ‘You’re a guest. I wouldn’t dream of letting you dry up,’ hoping she didn’t sound as flustered as she felt, although she knew it was a vain hope.
Looking relaxed and slightly amused, he murmured, ‘I’ve no problem with working for my supper.’
‘No, really, I mean it.’ She stood guard over the dishes.
‘So do I.’ He smiled easily but his tone was cooler.
Rachel jutted out her chin like a teenager. This was ridiculous. It was her kitchen. ‘This is too small a room, only one person at a time works in here. We’ve got
a rota…’ That sounded silly. ‘And,’ she said truculently, ‘I’ve got my own way of doing things.’
‘How difficult is it to get it wrong when you dry dishes?’
‘I’ll bring you a glass of wine through in a minute,’ she said, purposely not answering him, ‘and Jennie will be home any moment. She’ll expect you to be sitting watching TV.’
‘I think she’d survive the shock nonetheless.’
It was useless arguing with him but neither was she going to give in. She was blowed if she was going to let another Giles tell her what to do. She stood, straight and stiff and without glancing at him until she heard him leave the kitchen. Then she let her body sag. Damn, damn, damn. Now she felt awful. She was never intentionally rude and he was Jennie’s cousin after all, but why couldn’t he take a hint? Irritating, awkward man.
Without considering what she was going to say, she marched through to the sitting room. He was standing with his back to the room looking out of the window into the dark, stormy night.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said without any preamble. ‘I sounded rude and I didn’t mean to be. It’s just that—’
‘You don’t like me for some reason,’ he finished for her, turning round and pinning her with the golden gaze. ‘Right?’
Lost for words, Rachel shook her head helplessly. ‘I don’t know you,’ she prevaricated at last.
‘No, you’re right, you don’t,’ he said softly, but with an iron edge to his voice that hadn’t been there before. ‘If you did know me and you’d still come to that conclusion, it wouldn’t matter.’ He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. ‘As it is, I guess it still doesn’t matter, but I’d appreciate you trying to be civil this evening for Jennie’s sake, if nothing else.’
Her temper rising, she stared at him. ‘Of course I’ll be civil. I told you, I didn’t mean to be rude.’ Her words were clipped, frosty. How dared he tell her what to do in her own home?
She thought she saw the hard mouth twitch for a moment. ‘That’s very reassuring.’
He was laughing at her again. How dared he? But the hot words quivering on her tongue fortunately never got said. Jennie chose that moment to open the front door of the flat, calling out, ‘Zac? Are you here?’ as she entered the hall.
Rachel saw her friend’s eyes widen when they took in the tall handsome man her cousin had become, and then, in true Jennie style, she’d flung herself into Zac’s arms and planted a smacking kiss on his mouth before he had a chance to object.
Not that he would have objected, Rachel told herself as she left them to it, murmuring something about opening a bottle of wine. Jennie was gorgeous with her black hair and dark brown eyes and the sort of Marilyn Monroe figure that turned men on from schoolboys to geriatrics. And she was between men at the moment, having just dumped her latest boyfriend. They never lasted long with Jennie, she bored easily.
When she re-entered the sitting room Jennie had drawn Zac down beside her on the sofa and was asking about the family, one hand resting on his arm as she gazed up into his face. Rachel knew that look. And when Jennie set her sights on a man they didn’t stand a chance. It normally amused her when Jennie went into her femme fatale role. Tonight, though, she felt rattled and disturbed. She was careful to give no sign of her feelings when she poured the wine, filling the fourth glass on the tray when Susan’s key sounded in the lock.
Susan joined them, slender, beautiful Susan with her white blonde hair and the face of an angel, smiling charmingly and saying all the right things as Jennie introduced her to Zac. And Zac was as charming back. He’d stood up when Susan had entered the room and now displayed the most perfect manners, his conversation witty and amusing as they sipped at their wine.
Rachel sat watching the other three and said little, she didn’t need to. Jennie and Susan and Zac were getting on like a house on fire. She felt a growing sense of déjà vu but she didn’t have to search her mind long for the cause. How often in the past, before she’d escaped the family home for university, had she sat and watched her two older sisters be the life and soul of the proceedings while she’d sat dumbly by? Dozens of times. Hundreds probably. And yet every time had hurt just as much.
After two sweet, girly, blonde little girls, her mother had decided her third child would be a boy to complete their perfect family, and her mother always got what she wanted. Except she’d had another girl. And this girl had been long and skinny with straight brown hair when she’d finally grown hair at the embarrassingly late age of eighteen months. Embarrassing for her mother, that was, Rachel thought grimly. She had been brought up on stories of how mortified her mother had been in producing such an ugly duckling. Or perhaps cuckoo in the nest was a better description. Lisa and Claire, her sisters, with only fifteen months between them, had always been inseparable, and she’d grown up feeling the odd one out in more ways than one. It wasn’t until she’d met Jennie and Susan in the first week of university that she’d come to understand the meaning of true friendship and support from members of her own sex. The three of them had gelled instantly; it was her misfortune the other two were quite stunning.
Her forehead creased as she sipped at her wine, her gaze now inward looking. What would Freud say about her choice of friends? That she was unconsciously trying to right the wrongs of her childhood or that she’d been programmed to purposely seek out friends who would overshadow her? She mentally shook her head at the path her thoughts had taken, suddenly annoyed with herself and the self-psychoanalysis.
She and Jennie and Susan were genuine, rock-solid friends and had been from the first—it was as simple as that.
‘I’d better see to the dinner.’ Jennie jumped up in the next moment, flashing Rachel a smile as she added, ‘Thanks for putting it on, Cinders.’
‘Cinders?’ Zac’s eyes shot to Rachel’s face. ‘Why Cinders?’
As Zac immediately homed in on the nickname, Rachel could have kicked Jennie, who’d already sailed out of the room. It was Susan who said, a little uncomfortably, having seen Rachel’s glare, ‘It’s just a pet name, that’s all.’
‘But Cinders?’ There was a note in his voice that told Rachel he wasn’t going to let this drop.
Silently calling Jennie every name under the sun, Rachel sighed before saying resignedly, ‘I’ve two older sisters, that’s all.’
‘And you don’t get on with them? Or are they ugly?’
Rachel stared hard at Zac and he stared back. She could tell he was trying to keep a straight face in view of her antagonism. ‘I get on with them just fine and they are far from ugly.’ The understatement of the year, she thought wryly. She had been foolish enough to follow her sisters to the same university and within days some wit had dubbed her Cinders, a tongue-in-cheek play on the fairy-tale. Somehow the nickname had stuck and within a couple of weeks everyone had forgotten her real name. Even Jennie and Susan had adopted it, but she knew with them it was said with warm affection. And she didn’t mind. Normally.
The handsome brow wrinkled. ‘Then why—?’
She shrugged as she rose to her feet. ‘Lisa and Claire are outstandingly beautiful; I suppose someone thought it was clever. I’ll just give Jennie a hand with the dinner.’
She left before he could make a comment.
CHAPTER TWO
RACHEL found dinner a trying affair. But not Jennie and Susan. They positively sparkled. In fact, Susan seemed to have completely forgotten she was on the verge of becoming engaged to her long-standing—and extremely patient—boyfriend, Henry. Rachel liked Henry and she didn’t think he’d appreciate Susan’s fluttering eyelashes as she gazed at Zac.
Still, it was none of her business.
She told herself this during Jennie’s delicious shepherd’s pie—that was another thing about Jennie, she was a fabulous cook—and also during dessert, which was equally fabulous. By the coffee and mints stage of the meal, her eyes felt gritty and her head ached. She had never felt so tense in the whole of her life. The trouble was, she was aware of Za
c Lawson in a way she hadn’t experienced before. Even when her eyes weren’t directly on him—and she’d taken care that was the case for most of the time—she found herself registering every slight movement, every turn of his head or quirk of his lips. It was annoying and irritating but her nerves seemed sensitised to a humiliating degree in his presence. And for the life of her she didn’t know why.
She had said very little throughout the meal but the other three had more than made up for her lack of conversation. She didn’t think anyone had noticed her quietness, so it came as a shock when Zac turned to her, coffee cup in hand, and said softly, ‘So, Rachel, I know Jennie’s a fashion buyer and Susan works in a lab—what do you do?’
She tried to get beyond the fact that she felt the golden gaze was drawing her in and answer coherently. ‘I’m in marketing.’
He nodded. ‘Enjoy it?’
‘Very much.’ Her voice emerged in a husky croak and she quickly cleared her throat. ‘I wouldn’t want to do anything else.’ Of course, she might have to if Jeff sacked her and wouldn’t give her a reference after today’s fiasco.
‘What sort of thing are you involved in?’ he asked, as though he really wanted to know and wasn’t just being polite. Then again, he’d been equally interested in Jennie and Susan. He was clearly a man who could make the woman he was with—or in this case talking to—feel she was the only one who mattered. Giles had been the same. That type mostly were, she supposed.
She gave a brief—very brief—outline of her job and then rose to her feet before he could pursue the conversation. ‘I hope you don’t mind but I’ve got a headache,’ she said, her gaze sweeping the three of them, ‘and I think I’ll turn in. It was nice meeting you, Zac.’ She allowed her eyes to rest on him for the merest moment but it was enough to cause a quiver inside as the handsome face surveyed her. ‘I hope your business here goes well and the trip is successful,’ she added politely.
‘Thank you, Rachel.’ His voice was velvet smooth, but his eyes declared he was fully aware of the real reason she was retiring to her room and found it faintly amusing.