“So you did.”
“Perhaps now, you’ll believe me.”
Masking his reluctance, he let go of her and rolled onto his back. “I never disputed the fact. But neither did I expect you’d fling yourself at me the way you just did.”
“That was a regrettable accident.”
“The way I see it,” he said, glaring at her, “the entire business of your being here at all is regrettable.”
He thought himself well-armed against her, that nothing she might say or do would breach his defenses, but the sudden hurt in her eyes stirred him to dangerous compassion. Damn her for invading his part of the world! Why couldn’t she have stayed where she belonged?
Gritting his teeth, he snapped off the lamp, folded his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling. He’d hoped for utter darkness, something to erase his awareness of the shape of her lying beside him, but a floodlight on top of a pole in the parking area shone directly at the window, spearing the thin fabric of the curtains and filling the room with a dim glow.
A silence descended, oppressive with unspoken tension. Time trickled past—fifteen minutes, half an hour.
She lay ramrod straight, arms by her sides, legs held primly together. Only her breasts moved, rising faintly with her every breath, but she wasn’t sleeping. Slewing his gaze, he caught the gleam of her open eyes in the murky light, and then, to his horror, saw a tear slip down her cheek.
He pretended not to notice. No more anxious to acknowledge her distress than he was, she turned her face away and he thought the danger had passed. But then a faint sniff pierced the silence, followed by a smothered gulp.
Finally he could stand it no longer. “Why are you crying?”
“Because,” she said, after a wrenching pause, “I miss my mother and dad. Just when I think I’ve come to terms with losing them, it hits me all over again. I guess I must be overtired or something, because I seem to be doing a lot of crying lately.”
Was it her referring to her mother’s second husband as “dad” that softened him, or was he just a pushover when it came to women in distress? Whatever the reason, he found himself wanting to comfort her. “I’m sorry if I came across as an unfeeling lout earlier. I know how hard it is to lose a parent,” he admitted. “My father died when I was eight.”
Slowly she wriggled onto her back again. “It hurts, doesn’t it, no matter how old a person is?”
“Yes,” he said, not sure he liked the near-intimacy of skin touching skin the sagging mattress enforced, but not exactly objecting to it, either. “At first, I refused to believe I’d never see him again. I used to look for him in crowds. Every time there was a knock at the door or the phone rang, I’d expect it to be him. I remember the first Christmas without him, the first birthday, the first vacation, and how much I envied those kids who had both parents around to take them places and do things with.”
“Were you an only child?”
“Yes,” he said, and went on to tell her how he’d gradually come to terms with his loss.
After a while, though, it occurred to him that he was the one doing all the talking when he should be taking advantage of such a heaven-sent opportunity to learn more about her. “I gather you were a pretty close-knit family,” he said. “Were you still living at home when you lost your parents?”
He waited for her to reply and when she didn’t, he raised his head a fraction to look at her and saw that she’d fallen asleep with her cheek lightly brushing his shoulder. She looked young and innocent and totally at peace.
He wished he could drift off as easily, but his thoughts were too chaotic. Facts on which he’d based all his assumptions about her suddenly appeared less well-founded and he hated the uncertainty it produced.
Part of him wanted her to be exactly as she appeared: a young woman with nothing in mind but coping with personal tragedy and getting to know the man who’d fathered her. But another, greater part clung to the legal training in which it was so well versed and warned him not to be lulled into a false sense of security.
So she’d shed a tear or two and shown a more vulnerable side. What did that prove except that there was more to her than initially met the eye? Underneath, she was still the same unknown quantity; a woman with a questionable agenda.
I’d love to come and stay with you, she’d told Hugo, latching on to his invitation with unsettling alacrity. There’s nothing to keep me in Vancouver right now, nothing at all. Discovering you couldn’t have come at a better time.
Better for whom, and why? Not for Hugo, who’d been put through enough by her money-grubbing mother, and who’d fought hard for the good life he now enjoyed. No prodigal daughter showing up on the doorstep was going to spoil that, not as long as Sebastian Caine was around to monitor events!
She sighed in her sleep and kicked at the sheet so that it slipped down to expose the top of her thighs and the pale line of the panties she was wearing under her nightshirt.
Carefully he lifted his wrist and pressed the button to illuminate the face of his watch. Not yet eleven o’clock. Another six hours before daylight and the chance to assess the storm’s damage. Another six hours of lying next to her and feeling her perfumed warmth reach out to touch him.
There was a hell, and the devil ruled!
CHAPTER THREE
THEY reached Stentonbridge shortly before lunch the next day. A small town nestled on the banks of a wide river, it boasted quiet residential streets shaded by old maples and lined with elegant nineteenth-century houses. But nothing quite prepared Lily for the opulence of the Preston estate.
Situated on several acres of riverfront property, the house sat in majestic Georgian splendor on a low rise, amid manicured lawns and lush flower beds. “Why, it’s beautiful!” she exclaimed, taking in the spectacle as the car swept up to the front entrance.
“As you very well knew it would be,” Sebastian said dryly. “You received photos, I’m sure.”
“But they didn’t do the place justice. Nothing could. It’s…palatial! It must cost Hugo a fortune to maintain these gardens.” She shook her head ruefully. “I wish I was the one supplying his stock.”
“Try to control the dollar signs dancing in your eyes, Ms. Talbot, and remember why you’re supposed to be here. The welcoming committee will descend any minute now, and I’ll be seriously ticked off if the first words out of your mouth imply the only thing you’re interested in is how much Hugo’s worth.”
She’d woken that morning feeling well rested and optimistic, with the emotional overload of the past night behind her. Foolishly she’d hoped she and Sebastian had reached some sort of truce and his sly insinuations were at an end. But for all that the new day had brought clear skies, from the moment he’d opened his eyes his disposition had been anything but sunny. Perhaps, she’d thought at the time, he just wasn’t a morning person and his mood would eventually improve.
If anything, though, it worsened. When she’d thanked him for his sympathetic understanding of the night before, he’d shrugged her off with a succinctness that bordered on surly.
