down to conceal his eyes. After a cautious sniff, he took a sip of the tea and then he shrugged his shoulders, a ripple of bone and sinew and flesh that she tried not to see, not to think about. ‘That’s all.’
‘I’m glad it’s tolerable. And…ah…I’ve just realised I’ve forgotten one part of my—’ care package ‘—um…of what I meant to bring in. Drink the tea and wait right here.’ She hurried down the hallway and returned a moment later with a heart-shaped cushion. ‘My sister Chrissy swore by one of these during her pregnancy. I think it will be perfect for your ankle at night.’
‘I really don’t want a bright fluffy cushion.’ He cast a look of distaste towards the offending article.
Soph almost relaxed in the face of that look. It was the usual grumpy Grey. Except that his gaze, when he returned it to meet hers, was not truly grumpy, but deep and green and reluctantly but insistently interested. In her. Not in a cushion.
‘You should leave—’
‘Ah, well, I’ll just—’
They both stopped.
Soph lifted the covers to slip the cushion under his foot. Her hands barely trembled at all and she managed a fair simulation of calm cheerfulness when she pointed out, ‘The cushion isn’t fluffy, anyway. Although I concede it is quite a bright yellow. I bought it to match my car, you see.’
‘Yes, I think I do see. You are, though, fluffy and bright.’ He placed the half empty teacup on his bedside table next to the incense burner. The scent of forest wafted around them. ‘Fluffy jumpers, bright hair, a megawatt smile that makes a man want—’
He didn’t end the thought. Instead, his gaze narrowed. He gestured beyond her, to the laptop computer propped against the wall. ‘You should go to bed, get some rest. You’re so young. The long day has probably exhausted you. If you wouldn’t mind, now I’m settled here…’
‘I don’t mind at all.’ Soph knew what he wanted—his laptop so that he could continue to work into the night.
He also wanted her out of the room because he didn’t desire her—not really, not rationally. She wanted all this distraction over with as much as he did. She did! And he’d just told her she was a baby. Her eyes narrowed.
She stifled the urge to repudiate his statement, though, because he didn’t look at her as though he found her immature.
Not a particularly helpful observation, Soph!
She rose from the bed and reached for the laptop. ‘The candle will burn out after about an hour, so you don’t need to worry about it starting a fire in the house or anything. I’ll be busy downstairs for a while but if you have any urgent needs just yell and I’ll come to you straight away.’
She took the empty tray in one hand and his laptop computer in the other and moved to the door quickly enough that he didn’t have time to realise her intention until it was too late.
With one finger she flipped off his light and then stepped through the door. ‘I’ll leave the laptop downstairs for you so it’ll be there first thing in the morning. No trouble at all—I’m glad you thought of it and asked me. Peaceful dreams to you.’
Soph closed the door and high-tailed it downstairs, telling herself to be relieved to be away from a temptation named Grey Barlow.
Once he got over her taking his laptop away Soph would return to her room. She would sneak a certain rabbit in with her, but Grey had finished work for the night, whether he liked the fact or not. If he followed her downstairs to try to get his laptop back, she would tell him so.
Was Soph finished being attracted to him?
She should be, but she couldn’t say she was. She would have to work on that, get her defences raised properly, and how hard could it be, even though it had proved difficult just now? She’d never had this problem before!
* * *
Grey had fallen asleep as he’d waited for Sophia to return up the staircase so he could demand his laptop computer back. Sassy piece of work—and he wasn’t referring to the laptop. He’d wanted Sophia to stay, sit on the edge of his bed and talk to him.
That wasn’t all he had wanted, though. They had both known that and so he had called her a child, even though she wasn’t and his body had been insisting he take her in his arms and treat her in a very womanly way indeed.
He had told her to leave and for her own reasons she had also decided to go. It had been best.
Grey didn’t want to know those reasons so he could demolish them. She seemed to sense that he wasn’t the right kind of match for her anyway. Clever girl.
No, clever woman, because even if young and sweet and perhaps a little naïve in her determination to care for him, no matter what he wanted, she was all woman.
He muttered a growl. He had slept, too. All the way through, for the first time since he’d lost his footing at the rain-washed construction site and tumbled and tumbled to fall in an ignominious heap and be carted off in a blasted ambulance despite his protestations.
Perhaps her incense and yellow cushion hadn’t been so silly. But there were limits. He must control Sophia Gable so she gave him the assistance he had in mind, not her brand of it. And he would oust the stubborn attraction to her that didn’t want to die.
He would oust this temporary stress level nonsense, too. He swilled down the blood pressure pills with a grimace and swore he’d be off them again in no time. They were an overreaction on the doctor’s part anyway.
The doctor would test his levels again at his checkup, see the readings had been anomalous, probably due to the accident itself, and declare Grey fit again.
With a decisive nod, he moved out of his en suite bathroom and headed downstairs, ankle brace in hand. He’d heard Sophia open the back door of the house earlier, so he knew she was up.
Despite himself, a sense of anticipation rose as he approached the kitchen. What interesting food might she have concocted for their breakfast? What might she be wearing today? Last night’s curry had been death-defying, quite exhilarating, actually, and very, very tasty once he’d got over the initial burn and the unusualness of it and had suppressed the urge to cough until he was red in the face and gasping.
‘You’re getting bored, old man. Some might even say pathetic.’ He muttered the words in disgust. Infatuated with what his assistant cooked and wore? Her food would probably give him ulcers or, at the least, permanent tastebud damage, and her clothing was so bright he needed sunglasses to look at her.
Maybe he was simply infatuated, full stop.
Grey cast that thought aside. He didn’t do infatuation. He made choices in favour of carefully thought out short-term liaisons with no emotions involved.
Yes. On that thought he stomp-hobbled into the kitchen. He would grump his interest in her to a quick death. She might dislike him for it, but that was a small price to pay to make them both forget any attraction they might have felt. He blithely ignored the fact that he had been grumpy since Sophia had arrived and it hadn’t seemed to put her off all that much.
‘You confiscated my laptop
