help to see Lee’s grin when she glanced round.
‘Don’t mind me,’ he said. ‘I’d have probably come out with something a whole lot stronger in similar circumstances.’
Kerry took care to keep her tone easy. ‘Except that you’re unlikely to find yourself in similar circumstances, of course.’
‘Oh, I’m not beyond making myself a cup of coffee. I even cook a meal on occasion.’
She looked at him in surprise. ‘When would you need to?’
‘Mrs Ralston has all day Sunday off. Since Mother came to stay I’ve sometimes cooked for us both. She’s far from being the domesticated type.’ The last without rancour. ‘Men make the best chefs, anyway.’
Kerry took that statement no more seriously than she was sure it was meant to be taken. ‘Of course they do!’
Lee quirked an eyebrow. ‘It makes a change to have you humouring me.’
‘Just so long as you don’t expect it all the time,’ she came back lightly.
‘I wouldn’t be so presumptuous.’ He paused, viewing her reflectively. ‘Have we said a final goodbye to the antagonism?’
Green eyes met grey, riveted by the sheer mesmeric quality of his gaze. Kerry felt her pulse quicken, her heart start thudding against her ribcage.
‘It depends on whether or not you arouse it again,’ she murmured.
‘I’ve still to work out just what it was that aroused it originally.’ He held up a hand as she made to speak. ‘Don’t give me that “what you’ve read and heard” story. You’re too intelligent to take gossip column reports on trust.’
‘Perhaps you’re giving me too much credit,’ she said.
‘Or perhaps it’s because I remind you of someone else?’ he suggested.
Kerry reached for the boiling kettle, concentrating on pouring the water without slopping it over the rim of the cups. ‘Like the man who supposedly let me down, for instance?’
‘It might explain your attitude.’
She could explain her attitude by bringing in a single name, but that would finish the game too soon, she told herself.
‘If I’ve reacted differently today it’s because you’ve been different, too,’ she prevaricated, leaving him to draw his own conclusions.
‘In what way?’
‘Less arrogant, for one thing.’
‘Arrogant?’ The intonation was humorous. ‘Is that how I come across?’
‘Normally, yes. You’re too used to dishing out the orders.’
‘If you’re referring to that taxi business I was simply being solicitous.’
‘For my own good, you mean?’
‘Something like that. You are going to take advantage of the arrangement, I hope?’
‘I’d be a fool not to.’ She softened her voice with deliberation to add, ‘And I’m sorry for being such a boor about it.’
‘Apology accepted.’ He moved to take the tray from her as she lifted it. ‘I’ll carry this through. You just bring yourself.’
As she followed him Kerry found herself assessing the breadth of his shoulders again, visualising the rippling muscularity. No woman with normal reflexes could fail to be stirred by his sheer physical attraction, she acknowledged, but that was as far as it went. What he lacked, along with so much more, was integrity—in his personal affairs, at any rate. Business-wise, he appeared to be above board. At least, nothing untoward had ever been publicised.
It would look a little too pointed if she moved her wrap and handbag from the nearby chair in order to avoid joining him on the sofa, she decided on reaching the sitting room, although she wasn’t entirely convinced by his earlier declaration.
‘You have a good memory,’ Lee commented as he took his cup of the black, sugarless liquid.
‘Easy when you like it the same way I do,’ she claimed without haste. ‘Mrs Ralston’s tastes better, of course. I shouldn’t imagine she’d give house room to anything but the genuine article.’
‘She might not. I certainly do. I’m all for the easy option.’
‘I doubt that.’
Head back against the cushion and feet comfortably crossed, he gave her a deceptively lazy look. ‘You don’t really know me.’
‘I don’t know you at all,’ she returned. ‘Only, as you keep telling me, what others say about you.’ She infused a tinge of regret into both voice and expression. ‘Perhaps it’s not all that fair to judge anyone on that basis alone, I admit.’
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