yet,’ he answered. ‘Look, why don’t you come back inside with me? It’s bitter out here. We can have some coffee in the Library and talk. They’ve got a great fire burning in the fireplace.’
‘If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather just be left alone.’
‘To freeze out here, and be miserable thinking about what may or may not happen tomorrow when Nick arrives?’
‘That’s up to me, isn’t it?’
‘Nick said you could be stubborn.’
‘What?’ Resentment burned like corrosive acid in Brenna’s gut. The idea that she’d been discussed as if she were some tiresome little schoolgirl made her feel raw and enraged. The glance she gave Fin was stony.
‘I don’t think he—’
‘Nicholas Balcon can go to hell and you can join him! Don’t make the mistake of assuming you know anything about me just because you’ve heard some banal little sound-bites from that man. You people think you can just play with people’s lives because you have money and influence. Well, trust me I am not the compliant little pushover you might have expected. And I’m not going to make it easy for Nick to get what he wants … in this case my daughter!’
Her eyes brimming with fury, she swept past Fin only to find her arm irrevocably captured. She was unceremoniously hauled backwards with a strong steely hand and his face – lean and hard – hovered bare inches from her own. Shock made her silent as she watched his lips – tempered steel overlaid in satin – move in speech.
‘You’ll only hurt yourself even more if you keep this up. You’re letting your imagination run wild, Brenna. Nick’s not the heartless ogre you keep on trying to paint him as. Can you blame the man for wanting to get to know his one and only child? So he didn’t get to know her from the beginning, but people make mistakes. We all make mistakes. Time and circumstances can change people. Nick’s had plenty of both to reflect on what he let go. Just talk to him. I have every faith that you guys can work it out like civilized human beings.’
‘Did he pay you to say that?’ Brenna asked bitterly.
The strongly aligned features before her reflected his disappointment and perhaps even exasperation.
‘He’s not paying me for anything. I told you, I’m here as a friend.’ Fin hadn’t been sure of the reception he would receive from Nick’s ex-girlfriend but what he expressly hadn’t been expecting was a woman with looks that could grace a centrefold, and a temper as hot as Hades to match. Not that he couldn’t understand why she was so angry at not hearing from Nick in five long years then suddenly receiving a command from him out of the blue telling her he wanted to discuss their child at last.
But surely any woman with an iota of common sense would see that in the interests of that child there had to be certain advantages in letting her wealthy father make contact? It must have been tough for Brenna trying to manage all these years on her own without help. If she could just calm down for a few seconds she might – just might – start to see things in a more positive light.
‘Let me go.’
‘What?’
‘My arm. You’re hurting me.’
Fin dropped the slender limb like a hot potato, a hint of crimson reddening his jaw.
‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured. ‘Sometimes I don’t know my own strength.’
Brenna could believe it. She rubbed her arm where the impression of his hand left her smarting but tingling too. It was the tingling that disturbed her the most.
‘Lucky for Nick he has such a “trouper” on his side.’
‘And what about you? Do you have a champion on your side, Brenna?’
Her upper lip wobbled a little.
‘I fight my own battles … always have done and always will. So you see, Mr Malone, I really don’t need you or anyone else to look out for me.’
‘Lucky for you, then, that you’re so utterly self-sufficient.’ Not missing a beat, Fin came back at her, privately rattled that she continued to profess not to need him when his sense of it was that she could definitely use some help. ‘Ever heard the expression “no man is an island”? Presumably it applies to women, too.’
His comment completely threw her. The truth was that Brenna was weary of fighting all her battles on her own. It would be wonderful to have someone to share her fears and concerns with besides her poor over-worked mother. But never again would she make herself vulnerable to a man. She’d walk across hot molten lava in her bare feet first.
‘You’re wasting your time trying to win me round. All I want to do is see Nick and tell him to leave me and Nancy alone. As soon as I’ve done that then I’m going home. I’m sorry that he put you to all the trouble of having to come out here. I’m sure you’d much rather be at home in sunny California or wherever it is you’re from, and I can’t say I blame you. God knows, the winter here has little to commend it. Not unless you love it like I do.’
Digging her gloved hands into her pockets, Brenna was suddenly aware that her fingers were almost rendered frozen from the icy breeze that was blowing across the landscape. A weary sense of acute desolation made her heart feel like it was cracking.
‘I can see how you might feel like that. It definitely has a certain kind of charm,’ Fin commented.
Was he being facetious? Right then Brenna was too mentally drained even to try to analyse the remark.
‘Yes, it does,’ she softly agreed. ‘And I’m eccentric enough not to mind the cold. As long as I’m wrapped up warm it doesn’t really bother me. And the landscape …’ Her dark eyes misted over as she absorbed the view of the soft green hills that stretched as far as the eye could see. ‘The landscape just seeps into your soul.’ Her voice drifted away as self-consciousness uncomfortably gripped her.
‘Come and have a coffee with me,’ her companion suggested, his voice turning unwittingly smoky.
‘I’ve already said I—’
‘A person’s allowed to change their mind.’ Grinning, Fin’s appreciative gaze absorbed the wild windswept black tresses, the passionate soulful brown eyes and the sultry naked mouth. Truth to tell, right now the woman in front of him was all the landscape he cared to look at and admire. Windswept verdant vistas and rain-soaked flowerbeds were just no competition – no matter how lovely. ‘I promise if you let your guard down just a little and talk to me, I won’t try to take advantage.’
Brenna’s eyes instantly registered alarm. ‘You can be sure I won’t be letting my guard down – even a little – any time soon, Mr Malone. I would never make such a dangerous slip like that.’
Telling himself to be patient in the face of her continued defensiveness Fin sighed, his warm breath creating a puff of steam in the sharp cold air. ‘Message received loud and clear.’
‘And anyway,’ she surprisingly relented, ‘I prefer tea.’
‘Tea it is, then. And drop the “Mr Malone”, will you? Call me Fin. All my friends do.’
