by Kim Lawrence
Not, of course, that she gave a damn if he fancied the redhead—after all, that hardly placed him in a unique category. Hilary was the sort of woman who demanded and got male attention. No, Megan’s legitimate grouch was the fact he wasn’t fulfilling his end of the bargain. Her acting as an introduction agent for him, a fact she had every intention of pointing out, was not part of the deal.
For a moment her angry eyes met his before her lashes swept downwards and she turned and backed away.
‘Calm down, chérie’ He laughed, catching her arm and swinging her back.
Her shrill, ‘I am calm!’ made him laugh again.
‘Not so as you’d notice.’ The first time he’d seen her he’d wondered what she would look like without her upper-crust reserve intact and he had had ample opportunity to find out today. ‘Unreasonable and ratty is actually not a bad look for you.’
Something in his voice brought Megan’s eyes back to his face. ‘I am neither unreasonable nor ratty!’ She regarded him with simmering dislike. ‘I just don’t like wasting my time,’ she enunciated clearly.
‘I haven’t been wasting anything.’
His patronising tone made her teeth clench. ‘Certainly no opportunity to chat up anything in a low-cut top.’ And if he thought that cleavage was natural he was in for a nasty shock.
‘What we’ve established tonight is that you mind me showing an interest in another woman.’
His smugness made Megan want to scream.
‘Your reaction was perfect,’ he commended calmly.
‘I didn’t react,’ she told him frigidly. Actually, now that she reviewed her behaviour during the interminable dinner, she had to concede that maybe her conduct hadn’t been quite as adult as it might have been, but, in her defence, she had had a lot of provocation.
‘God, and to think I thought you had no sense of humour. Everyone there was aware of the friction.’
Megan inhaled deeply. ‘Friction…?’ she parroted.
Her cheeks turned a deeper pink as she looked significantly at the long brown fingers still curled over her bare upper arm. The fingers stayed where they were. God, but he had to be the most insensitive, thick-skinned man she had ever had the misfortune to encounter! The idea of respecting personal space was obviously a foreign concept to him.
Megan decided to bravely rise above it all. Rather than participate in an unseemly struggle, she forced herself to stand there passively even though his fingers felt like a white-hot brand against her skin.
‘You would have said black if I had said white. In fact I’m not sure you didn’t!’ he added wryly. ‘But don’t worry—like I said, that’s no problem. We’re going to have a turbulent relationship—a classic case of opposites attracting. I predict a lot of really epic rows in public and some epic making up too.’
‘If you try to make up with me you’ll end up in traction,’ she promised. ‘And actually opposites don’t attract, they end up making each other miserable. And just for the record,’ she added grimly, ‘I realise that you think you’re God’s gift, but, trust me—the only thing I minded tonight was not being given value for money.’
‘Well, let me remind you, chérie, that you haven’t bought me.’ His narrowed gaze suddenly turned molten silver as he scanned her angry upturned features. ‘You’re giving me something I want and I’m giving you something you want…or I could if you let me.’
The suggestive drawl in his deep, musical voice sent a surge of heat through Megan’s rigid frame.
‘That remains to be seen,’ she gulped. Unable to bear the contact for another moment without crawling clear out of her skin, she tugged her arm free of his clasp. ‘And don’t keep calling me chérie! I am not your darling and I have a name,’ she said, standing there rubbing the invisible imprint of his fingers on her flesh.
‘And claws…’ he observed in a soft, sibilant voice that made the invisible downy hairs on her skin stand erect.
Luc’s silvered glance touched her small hands, which now hung tensely at her sides, balled tightly into fists. Her incredible eyes, shadowed in the fading light, were fixed on his face and her body language screamed hostility.
Against all the odds he experienced a surge of protective warmth. The reaction was inexplicable, but amazingly strong.
‘Chemistry, like ours, usually produces a few sparks…a lot if you’re lucky,’ he added as an amused afterthought.
‘Not for me it doesn’t,’ Megan rebutted firmly. She frowned. She hoped he wasn’t forgetting this was all make believe. It would be very embarrassing if she had to remind him.
Her frown deepened.
‘You don’t like sparks…?’
She didn’t smile in response to his teasing tone, but looking at him standing there, so incredibly gorgeous, made her more conscious of the curious little ache, actually not so little, inside her. If she was honest not so curious considering he was just about just about the most attractive man on the planet.
‘I’m not a combustible person,’ she told him before consulting the slim watch on her wrist. She had no intention of apologising just because she wasn’t some sort of smouldering sex bomb like Hilary. ‘We ought to be heading back, people will be wondering where we’ve got to.’
He smiled thinly. ‘They’re meant to wonder what we’re up to. It’s all part of my master plan.’
‘Don’t you think under the circumstances you ought to consult me about your master plan?’ she queried tartly.
‘What, and lose the advantage of surprise?’
‘Surprise?’ she repeated, a groove appearing above the bridge of her nose as she worriedly pondered his meaning.
‘You’re really not a very good actress.’
‘That’s because deceit doesn’t come as easily to me as it does to you,’ she retorted. ‘And,’ she added, ‘I don’t think I want to be surprised…actually, I know I don’t want to be surprised, especially by you.’ Fortunately Luc didn’t appear to have registered her unwise addition.
‘Don’t worry, I can think on my feet. I’m actually thought to be quite good at improvising.’
‘It’s the thought of you improvising that worries me.’
He slanted her an amused look. Megan pursed her lips and glared back coldly. She couldn’t share his light-hearted approach; this fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants thing just wasn’t her. Unlike him she wasn’t the type of person who got a buzz from living close to the edge. The constant fear of being caught out didn’t give her an adrenaline rush, just a sick feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach.
‘There is one thing I wouldn’t mind knowing…’ he admitted with a frown.
The corners of his sensually sculpted lips twitched as his glance dropped. ‘You’re not a bad-looking woman…’ came the verdict after several uncomfortable moments.
Megan batted her eyelashes. ‘Wow, thanks!’
Underneath the gushing insincerity she was badly spooked by the way her body instantly reacted to his slow, insolent perusal. Could you class the strength leaving your shaking lower limbs and the ignition of a hot burning flame deep in your belly as spooked? Or was it something more serious? She was thinking terminal blind lust here…
The acid interjection brought an answering flicker of humour to his deep-set eyes but didn’t deflect him from his purpose.
‘So I’m assuming that there are men in your life.’
Megan was continually amazed and increasingly aggravated by his apparent belief that being a co-conspirator gave him the right to delve into all personal aspects of her life. She watched his expression grow reflective as he focused his thoughts on the subject of her love life.
‘Men compose half the population; it would be hard to avoid them even if I wanted to.’
Luc acted as though she hadn’t spoken—something she had noticed he had a habit of doing—as he continued. ‘But you don’t bring them home to meet Mummy. Now I wonder why…?’ One dark brow elevated he turned his speculative gaze upon her face. ‘Married…?’
Luc silently studied her rigid chalk white features for a moment before shrugging. ‘Apparently not,’ he observed drily. ‘I’ve got a mate…your classic commitment phobic who only dates married women. I thought that might be your problem.’
‘That you have that sort of mate does not surprise me.’
‘He’s a reformed character since he met the love of his life. So if they’re not married…what’s the problem? Not the right social class? Don’t they know which fork to use?’
The amazing thing was he didn’t even seem to be aware he’d insulted her!
Megan fixed him with a look of seething dislike. If she still had some of the power that the ancestors he despised had enjoyed and, she was the first to admit, abused, she would have wielded them in this instance.
Contemplating having him shipped off to some distant colony, preferably one infested by insects that would bite his smooth, sleek hide, brought a grim smile to her lips. As she contemplated the vee of smooth olive-toned skin visible at the base of his throat her smile wobbled.
For some reason she found herself thinking about an infamous female ancestor of hers. The scandalous Lady Edith who was reputed to have enjoyed the services of several lusty local lads, one of whom was said to have fathered her son who had inherited the estate. Edith, with her shameless appetites, would have had different methods of taming a stroppy male. She would have undoubtedly considered the banishment of Luc, with his sleek, dark and incredibly sexy looks, a waste.
Edith would have found a place for him in her bed.
‘Does a bit of rough do it for you?’
The disturbing mental image of Luc tumbling amongst silk sheets with the sloe-eyed lady who looked down haughtily from a painting in the library vanished in a flash. Megan released a long sibilant hiss of fury.
‘Go jump in the lake,’ she urged pleasantly.
Luc grinned at her venom. ‘It’s a reasonable question,’ he protested.
‘My personal life is none of your business,’ she told him frigidly.
‘It is if you have a secret boyfriend hovering in the background somewhere,’ Luc retorted. ‘If someone is likely to try and knock my lights out I’d like to know about it.’
She gave a disdainful laugh. ‘So this is about you being scared, is it? I should have known,’ she sneered scornfully.
He sighed. ‘My secret is out.’
‘Well, you can relax. Your pretty profile is not in any danger.’ Actually he looked, in stark contrast to herself, totally relaxed, especially considering the barrage of abuse she was aiming at his dark head.
‘No jealous boyfriend lurking…?’
She half turned then with a hard laugh flung over her shoulder.
‘No boyfriend full stop. And before you progress to the painfully predictable male, you-must-be-a-lesbian line…I’m not.’ She stopped dead and frowned. ‘I’ve not the faintest idea why I’m explaining myself to you,’ she admitted angrily.
His shoulders lifted. ‘Don’t look at me, but go on—I’m finding it educational.’
Megan fixed him with a narrowed resentful glare. It was actually good advice—looking at him,…even hearing his deep drawl, was a recipe for stress and mental disintegration.
‘I have no time for a boyfriend. As I have already told you, at this point in my life I want to concentrate all my energies on my career.’ It made Megan so furious, if she had been a man her decision would not have caused any raised eyebrows.
‘And…’ he prompted when she stayed silent.
‘There is no and,’ she told him crossly.
‘A love life or a career is not generally considered an either-or decision.’
‘For me they are.’
‘Aren’t women meant to be big on multitasking?’
‘That rumour was undoubtedly started by a man who was more than happy for his partner to run herself ragged trying to do all the things he didn’t have time for.’
Luc looked amused. ‘You could be right, but you were engaged so you couldn’t always have felt that way.’
Unconsciously Megan’s hand went to her cheek.
‘How did you know about Brian?’
‘Your mother told me; she was pretty gutted that you chucked him.’
‘She got over it.’ Frankly she didn’t care if he thought she was a cold, heartless bitch.
‘No job is a substitute for sex.’
The way Brian did it, it was. ‘Did I say I was celibate?’
His brows lifted sardonically. ‘Your mother thinks you are.’
Megan flushed. ‘This is the twenty-first century, Luc,’ she told him, injecting scorn into her voice. ‘Does everything have to be about sex?’ When did I start panting? Megan pressed a hand to her throat and made a concerted effort to slow the shallow, rapid character of her breathing.
Knuckles pressed to the slight indent in his chin, Luc pretended to consider the matter. ‘Yes.’ Eyes that seemed scarily knowing zeroed in on her face.
Now she wasn’t just panting as if she’d been running a marathon, she was sweating too. Did everybody find his mouth as fascinating as she did? Megan wondered as she watched one corner drop in a cynical smirk.
‘Few things in life are constant, but sex is,’ he contended in a throaty purr that ought in a fair world to have been preceded by a ‘there are flashing lights in this film’ type warning for the susceptible.
Megan was definitely susceptible! The moisture between her aching thighs was ample evidence of that.
‘It doesn’t really matter what decade or, for that matter, what century; it doesn’t change. Scratch the surface of the most sophisticated male and you’ll find a man who is thinking about sex. Take me, for instance…’
This smooth suggestion wrenched an instinctive croak of protest from Megan’s throat. He angled a questioning brow at her flushed, uncomfortable face.
‘I don’t think I will, if it’s all the same to you. You may be right about men, they probably haven’t evolved beyond the Neanderthal, but women—of course, I can only speak personally—can rise above their hormones. We’ve learnt how to work the system like men have been doing for years. A man doesn’t date a woman with the primary intention of settling down and starting a family. Why should it be different for a woman?’
‘So you’re telling me that any sexual needs you have are satisfied by no-strings one-night stands.’
Megan wasn’t, she had been blustering, but she was quite prepared to take the credit for this idea. In reality the idea of emotionless sex was not something she warmed to, but he didn’t need to know that.
‘You have a problem with that?’ she gritted belligerently.
‘Men and women are driven by very different biological needs. A man has the basic urge to impregnate a woman, to nurture.’
‘That’s remarkably sexist…’ But sadly probably essentially true…is that me talking or my conditioning? In the end does it really matter? I am, and I don’t do casual sex.
‘No, that’s a biological fact,’ he stated bluntly. ‘I’d say if you try to act like a man you stand every chance of being badly hurt.’
‘On the contrary it’s women who fall in love with men and idolise them who get hurt when they…’ Aware that her comment had awakened a speculative gleam in his eyes she checked her emotional flow abruptly and began to examine her linked fingers.
‘Who did you idolise?’
‘We were all young and stupid once.’
The silence between them lengthened.
‘What’s through there?’
Relieved that he had dropped the subject, she turned and saw him lifting the latch on a tall wrought-iron gate half hidden in the ivy-covered wall.
‘It’s an entrance to the workshops,’ she replied absently, ‘but this isn’t the way back to the house. Where are you going now?’
‘What’s the hurry?’ he asked,
skimming her a questioning look before pushing the gate open to reveal a courtyard.
CHAPTER SIX
MEGAN followed Luc into the attractive flower-bedecked courtyard, her heels clicking loudly on the wet cobbled surface. ‘It used to be the old stables.’
‘And now it’s…?’
‘A bit of a tourist attraction.’ She saw him lift his hand to his eyes to peer into the darkened window of the forge. ‘That’s Sam’s studio.’
‘Sam…?’
‘He was a bus driver, now he makes terrific wrought-iron stuff to order.’
A local potter had approached her father ten years earlier with a view to him renting her workspace. The idea had snowballed…
‘And the others…?’ Luc’s expansive gesture took in the rest of the quadrangle.
‘There are about ten workshops here now all used by local artists and craftsmen,’ she told him proudly. ‘They double as workspace and a shop front. There’s a really marvellous community feel about the place. People can come and watch them work and, if they like it, buy what they see. There are also occasional workshops where you can learn to throw a pot, that sort of thing. Local schools frequently come. It’s proved rather successful.’
So much so that the planning authorities were considering an application to extend the operation into the adjoining granary providing tearooms and an art gallery.
‘Very enterprising.’
‘It’s a non-profit-making operation,’ she added defensively. Wanting to gain his approval just a little too much. ‘We charge a nominal rent and—’
‘Hold up,’ he interrupted. ‘I may think the aristocracy is an anachronism in this day and age, but that doesn’t mean I assume that they are all out to subjugate the masses.
‘That’s remarkably open-minded of you, L…’
‘Luc,’ he prompted, watching with a glimmer of a smile in his deep-set eyes as she bit her lip. ‘It is my name.’