one of the guest speakers.’ She eyed him mockingly as he scowled. ‘Thinking about having the conference facilities ripped out?’
‘Thinking about it,’ he acknowledged grimly.
‘I shouldn’t,’ she patted his hand. ‘They’ve met now. So what you’re really afraid of is that their love for each other won’t last?’ she returned to their previous conversation without any loss of the intensity of the subject.
‘What I’m really afraid of is that I seem to have lost control of this conversation,’ scowled Hawk. ‘I get the distinct feeling I’m being manoeuvred—and I don’t like it.’
She could see that, she realised he was a man who liked to be in control at all times. It was only that she wanted to make things right for Laura and Hal, and this man had it in his power to destroy the beauty of their love. ‘I wouldn’t do that, Hawk,’ she told him truthfully. ‘I’m just trying to come up with a compromise that will make everyone happy.’
‘I’d be happy if Hal never saw your sister again,’ he drawled.
‘No, you wouldn’t,’ Leonie shook her head confidently. ‘Hal could make life very uncomfortable for you if he chose to do so.’
‘I thought we’d already established that I don’t like threats.’ His eyes were narrowed.
‘Just as we established that I don’t make threats,’ she nodded. ‘I was just going to point out that Hal would naturally be unhappy—–’
‘And he would make my life hell,’ Hawk acknowledged ruefully. Even as a kid Hal had been able to make his displeasure felt. And he was definitely no longer a child. If he had been this situation would never have arisen!
If only this little witchchild would get her hands off his thighs he might be able to think straight!
The jolt his body had received when she first touched him had had very little to do with surprise, more like shock, an electric shock that had momentarily rendered him helpless. And now that his equilibrium was returning he shifted uncomfortably, his denims suddenly uncomfortably tight. He didn’t enjoy having to hide his arousal, because the woman he had been aroused by was the last one who should have evoked such a reaction within him!
Was she doing it on purpose, this little witchchild? The absolute candour in her sparkling green eyes seemed to say no.
Her fingers were lightly kneading his flesh now, and she seemed completely unaware of the turmoil she was causing inside him!
He stood up impatiently, feeling regretful as she overbalanced slightly at the abruptness of his movement, but leaving her to straighten without his assistance, knowing that he daren’t touch her right now, that to do so could be his downfall.
Instead he attacked. ‘How the hell many more cats are going to walk through here?’ The incongruousness of the question struck him as much as it must her, but he knew he just had to talk about something that would take his mind off the throbbing ache in his thighs.
Leonie sat back on her heels, eyeing him curiously. ‘How many have you seen?’
‘Three—no, four,’ Hawk corrected as he remembered the grey tabby he had seen stretched out in the hallway when he arrived.
She nodded. ‘Then there are just two more. That’s probably Daffodil and Pansy.’
‘Who the hell has six cats?’ he derided impatiently.
‘I do,’ she shrugged. ‘Daffodil, Daisy, Tulip, Pansy, Rose, and Pop. That’s short for Poppy,’ she explained. ‘I only found out after I’d named him that he was a boy.’
‘You named all your cats after flowers?’ He looked at her disbelievingly.
Her eyes widened. ‘Why not?’
Why not indeed? Someone in a professional capacity could probably give him a lucid answer to that, but it was obvious there wasn’t going to be one from this woman! Being in her company for too long was a little like being in a room with a bomb, unsure if it were active or not! She was strange with a capital S.
Then why did she intrigue him more than any other woman had for a very long time? If her sister was anything like her no wonder Hal was so enthralled with her; predictable this woman certainly was not! Boredom was always a problem with him with the women in his life; he doubted any man would have time to be bored with Leonie Brandon.
‘They’re all inside today, except Daffodil and Pansy, because of the rain.’ Leonie took his silence to mean he wanted to hear more about the cats.
And damn it, she had piqued his curiosity! ‘Why aren’t—Pansy and Daffodil in too?’ What stupid names to give those haughty creatures!
She shrugged. ‘Because they like the rain.’
A stupid question deserved an equally stupid answer. Hell, he had better things to talk about than six oddly-named cats! Or their intriguing owner, he told himself sternly. Her twin couldn’t be that innocent if she had enticed a nineteen-year-old boy into her net, but the woman in front of him, with her childlike body and guileless green eyes—how had he ever thought she could be the one involved with Hal?—was decidedly no match for the passion he would demand of her. She was probably still a virgin, and they were one breed he definitely avoided.
But an image of her kept flashing in and out of his mind, of her slender legs entwined with his, those pert little breasts crushed against his chest, the nipples nuzzling against him, her face flushed with ecstasy.
‘We were talking about Hal and your sister,’ he prompted harshly, his self-contempt at his thoughts chilling his eyes.
Leonie nodded, her bright red hair moving silkily against her cheek as she got gracefully to her feet. ‘What if they leave it three more months before coming to any decision about marriage?’
‘A year,’ he insisted instantly.
‘Six months appears to be the middle line.’ She gave him one of those guileless smiles, her eyes wide and innocent.
He had been out-classed, out-manoeuvred, at a game at which he had always been considered an expert. And all because of a pair of wide green eyes—and a taut little bottom beneath tight denims, he acknowledged self-derisively. You are getting senile, Sinclair, he berated himself, when the mere movement of a woman’s body against her clothes can distract you from your purpose!
He straightened. ‘I told you, I don’t want a gold-digger in my family,’ he snapped insultingly. ‘Six years wouldn’t be long enough for me to accept that!’
‘You may have to,’ she told him heavily. ‘Laura might be willing to accept any terms you care to make, but Hal has definite plans of his own, and he’s the one you’ll have to convince that you’re only doing this for his own good.’
She was right, this little witchchild. Hal was his son all right, and there was no way he would have stood by and meekly accepted his father’s interference in his life in this way, at any age. But he wasn’t about to let Leonie Brandon know that he realised they might all have to compromise, him most of all!
‘I’ll deal with my son, Miss Brandon,’
