have happened?’
‘Something like that,’ she murmured sheepishly, finishing her juice.
‘Too late, my sweet. It did.’ He sounded fatalistic as he removed the empty glass from her hand. ‘Not once—but twice—’ his mouth was pulling sensually ‘—if I remember correctly. So what excuse are you going to give me for virtually ripping off my shirt and then nearly driving me out of my mind with your wicked ways?’
The dark intensity of his eyes was making her throb in every intimate part of her that he had made his own, which meant that her ‘wicked ways’, as he’d called them, still weren’t satisfied. Because she still craved him, and even more so as she remembered every tender caress of his skilled and wonderful hands and the burning heat of his mouth on the most secret places of her body.
In a voice tremulous with desire she said, ‘I didn’t rip off your shirt.’ And because this whole scenario was too embarrassing for her she said, ‘I think I should go.’
‘Go?’ He frowned. ‘Go where? To the bathroom? Or home?’ he enquired flippantly.
‘Home, of course,’ she responded seriously. ‘It’s much too embarrassing to stay here now that Mitch knows who I am.’
‘Is that the only reason?’ he purred with sensuality curling his fantastic mouth again and, before she could answer, too ashamed to know how to respond, he said, ‘He’s expressly requested that you stay. So do I. In fact, I insist upon it.’
‘Insist?’ Rayne echoed with her rebellious nature surfacing through her unquenchable desire.
‘All right, then. I invite you to stay,’ he amended.
‘Why?’
‘Because I think you must be feeling a little overwrought and probably much too tired after … last night,’ he reminded her with his irises darkening, although he was still smiling, ‘to be in any fit state to go anywhere.’
‘I’m surprised, after all you called me yesterday—deceitful, lying, naïve—’ she took a warped pleasure in reminding him equally ‘—that you should even care.’
‘Of course I care.’
A glimmer of something deep inside her responded too eagerly to that heavily breathed statement. A throwback to her teenage years. That was all it was, she told herself chaotically.
‘You’re under my roof,’ he went on, surprising her because she’d thought it was Mitch’s house. ‘I wouldn’t want to be responsible for driving you out.’
‘Your roof?’ she enquired obliquely, while reluctantly processing the fact of his merely feeling responsible for her.
‘Does that surprise you?’
‘No.’ Nothing about him surprised her.
‘My roof. My house …’ her breath caught sharply as the mattress suddenly depressed beneath his weight ‘… and my bed.’
His voice was arousing in itself, even without the things he was saying, and she thought of those couple of lovelorn weeks she had spent in his office, listening to his voice from behind that glass partition, wondering what it would be like to hear it roughened by desire.
‘If Hélène’s getting breakfast, we don’t have time,’ she said breathlessly because he was already turning back the sheet, making her whole body scream in anticipation.
He laughed softly. ‘Oh, yes,’ he said, pressing his lips against her forehead, and his voice was so soft she had to close her eyes because she couldn’t deal with the depth of feeling it aroused in her, ‘I think we do.’
RAYNE decided she had to go and visit Mitch at the clinic as soon as possible, since it had all come out now, who she was and why she was there.
She didn’t feel like seeing a man who had used the terms of a signed agreement as a payback to ruin his ex-partner because, no matter how bad or naïve a businessman Grant Hardwicke had been, that was what Mitch had effectively done. But although she was still in shock over the things King had told her about her father, she still felt she owed it to Grant Hardwicke to hear the facts first-hand from Mitch himself.
At King’s insistence, Rayne allowed him to drive her to the hospital, where a handful of reporters who had learned of Mitch’s condition leaped on them like locusts as soon as they arrived at the main doors.
‘Is it true, Mr Clayborne, that this health scare of your father’s is more serious than the clinic is saying?’
‘Is there any improvement in his condition?’
‘Does this mean Clayborne shares in all areas are set to rise further with the expectation of your taking outright control?’
Questions came thick and fast, with microphones being thrust towards them, so that Rayne realised just how influential and newsworthy the Clayborne name was.
‘You’ve heard the clinic spokesman’s statement. My father’s condition is stable,’ King answered, pressing forward unperturbed, taking it in his stride. ‘I’ve nothing more to add.’
‘Mr Clayborne!’ a female journalist shouted over the jostling heads. ‘Can we deduce from your arriving here accompanied this morning …’ her gossip-hungry gaze fell pointedly on Rayne ‘… that your relationship with super-model Sophie Ringwood is well and truly over?’
Rayne gave a small gasp as a flashbulb suddenly went off in her face.
‘No comment,’ King said, his arm coming instinctively around her.
Rayne was glad of his shielding strength, turning her head into the immaculate pale jacket covering his shoulder as the camera flashed again before he hustled her inside the building.
‘I’m sorry about that.’ His face was grim as they came into the bright modern efficiency of the airy clinic. ‘It comes with the territory, I’m afraid.’
‘Naturally,’ Rayne returned, breathless from all the commotion, feeling the sudden loss of his arm around her shoulders. She didn’t think she could ever get used to living life in the spotlight as he obviously had, she thought, trying not to dwell on what that reporter had said about his super-model girlfriend as he guided her towards a waiting lift.
‘Remember he’s ill,’ King warned when she refused his offer to accompany her into Mitch’s room as they were stepping out of the lift, insisting on going in alone. ‘And it won’t do either of you any good to get into a stew.’
‘As if I would!’ she breathed. ‘Unlike your father, I do have ethics,’ she added under her breath as a passing nurse, looking interestedly at King, gave Rayne the remainder of her smile.
The stark reminder of just how attractive he was to the opposite sex, coupled with nerves over how she was going to broach the subject with Mitch, made her look flushed and uneasy as she steeled herself to enter the man’s room.
It
