A Seductive Revenge

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‘Pay!’ she echoed in a startled voice.

‘You didn’t expect me to do it for free, did you?’

Her lips tightened at the sarcasm; he really did have a knack of making her feel embarrassed and just ever so slightly stupid. If anything, she normally played down her intellect in front of men; for some reason this one made her feel positively inadequate!

‘Of course I didn’t. I just hadn’t thought…’ God, what happened to detached and businesslike? I sound like a real pea brain! She cleared her throat and tried to retrieve the situation. ‘What’s the going rate?’ she enquired briskly.

He named a figure and she nodded sagely.

‘That sounds fair,’ she agreed gravely. She didn’t know what she was talking about and she suspected he knew it. If he was trying to rip her off she’d have to make up the excess from her own pocket; she couldn’t make Claire suffer financially because she wasn’t prepared to admit her ignorance in front of this man.

‘That’s a deal, then.’ He approached her, hand extended.

Flora stared at the strong hand as if it were a snake. As she tentatively placed her own in his the scent of his warm body reached her nostrils. She tried not breathing but the faint musky smell still made her stomach muscles twang like the entire string section of an orchestra. The unseasonally hot day wasn’t entirely responsible for the sweat that trickled slowly down between her breasts.

He didn’t shake her hand, instead he raised it to his lips in a gesture that should have been absurd, only she felt no desire to laugh at all…melt, well, yes…that was another thing entirely!

He lifted his head and looked directly into her eyes; the expression in those silvery depths was explicitly sensual. It was at that second that she knew exactly how big a mistake she’d made in virtually inviting the man into her home!

Calm down, Flora, she told herself firmly as her heart-rate rocketed. Think worst scenario: you bump into him—not literally, of course—occasionally. She stubbornly worked around images that wouldn’t quite clear from her head of several interesting varieties of collisions she could have with Josh Prentice. She bit back a horrified whimper.

Cope, of course she could cope! She hadn’t reached her advanced years without being able to survive mentally and emotionally intact the odd bit of sexual craving. She could cope with anything. She was going to fill her lungs with gallons of fresh country air! Wholesome, emotionally untaxing pursuits like walking the hills and talking to the odd sheep were going to fill her days, not steamy daydreams.

‘If you have other commitments,’ she began hopefully, putting her tingling hand behind her back and rubbing it against the soft wool of her sweater. ‘It might be more convenient for you to decorate the nursery after I’ve left.’

‘And when would that be?’

‘I’m not entirely sure yet.’ Dad didn’t want her to visit while he was in the programme.

‘You must have very understanding bosses.’

Flora smiled vaguely and didn’t explain that since she’d been made a partner last year she was one of the bosses. Actually her colleagues had been incredibly supportive throughout the ordeal of the trial.

‘There’s actually no hurry or anything.’

‘It’s very considerate of you to worry about my welfare.’

Flora didn’t feel considerate, she felt cornered!

‘But I’m quite adept at juggling more than one task.’

This boast drew a small, wry grin from Flora. ‘Not like any men I’ve met, then,’ she snorted.

‘No,’ he mused with an arrogantly confident smile. ‘I think you’ll find I’m actually not like any other man you’ve met.’ His voice flowed over her like warm, rich molasses.

Flora swallowed nervously and dabbed the tiny pinpricks of sweat that beaded her upper lip with the tip of her tongue.

His grey eyes zoomed in on the nervous gesture; his nostrils flared. ‘Besides,’ he continued hoarsely, ‘we won’t be here long.’

‘You mean you and Liam don’t live here? I assumed… Do you move around a lot?’

‘A man has to go where the work is.’

His hard, emotionless statement confirmed her initial suspicions concerning his finances and she was glad she’d been able to put some work his way, even though he was a very hard man to relax around.

‘That must be hard with a child,’ she sympathised softly.

‘You disapprove.’ His lip lifted in a faint sneer as he pounced on this evidence of her judgemental nature with relish.

‘I’m no judge of such things—’ and never would be if her track record so far was anything to go by, she thought gloomily ‘—but Liam looked a pretty happy, well-adjusted child to me.’

‘You’ll find out when you have one of your own that all kids have a little bit of the Jekyll and Hyde in them.’

The idea of having a child of her own brought about an odd, achy sensation—had her biological clock swung into action early? she wondered. At twenty-seven she’d always considered she had plenty of time to think about children.

‘That presupposes I want some of my own.’

‘And you don’t.’ His expression seemed to suggest he wasn’t surprised.

‘I didn’t say that,’ she countered crossly. ‘I just don’t like it when people make assumptions. Besides, call me an old-fashioned girl, but I think it sensible to think about babies after I find a suitable father for them.’

‘Paul the prat wasn’t keen on kids, then,’ he sympathised.

‘Paul,’ she felt goaded into rashly revealing, ‘requires all the proper accessories in his life.’ Her lips acquired a cynical twist as she considered Paul’s priorities. He’d probably have expected her to time the pregnancies to coincide with election years; a baby or a pregnant wife must be good for the odd vote or two.

‘It sounds like the perfect match to me. You look like an accessory sort of lady yourself.’ He was looking appraisingly at her very expensive clothes.

‘You do insults amazingly well, Mr Prentice.’ Flora’s nostrils flared. ‘Strangely, I don’t feel inclined to discuss my shallowness just now.’

‘You remembered my name…eventually, and it’s Josh.’

Truth be told, she remembered everything about him including the expert way he kissed. ‘Your name, but not how offensive you are, obviously,’ she hissed, ‘or I wouldn’t have offered you the job.’

‘I wondered how long the “I’m not the boss just the agent” line would last,’ he fired back with a cynical sneer. ‘I suppose you’re going to be watching everything I do, stifling my artistic freedom…’

The sheer bloody-minded silliness of this accusation ought to have made her laugh, but it didn’t. Did he take his shirt off indoors too? Perspiration prickled over her entire body as for the duration of a single heartbeat she contemplated what watching this man at work would do to her indiscriminate hormones. It made her bones ache just thinking about it.

‘Nothing,’ she told him, her voice shaking with sincerity, ‘could be further from the truth and you can let your artistic inclinations run wild,’ she promised recklessly.

‘Every man has his price,’ he admitted solemnly. ‘That sounded suspiciously like an offer I can’t refuse.’

He made it sound as though she’d been begging for his professional services. ‘That’s…that’s marvellous,’ she responded weakly.

‘I’ll make a start tomorrow.’

‘That soon!’

Her spontaneous dismay made his lips twitch. ‘Before you change your mind.’

‘I wouldn’t go back on a deal, despite provocation…’ she told him, angrily defending her integrity. The man somehow managed to twist everything she said to his own advantage. With that marketable ability combined with his indisputable physical attributes—which, sad though it was, did make a difference—she was amazed he hadn’t found a lucrative niche somewhere. ‘I think you’re in the wrong job,’ she reflected drily.

‘You’re not alone there.’ He grinned wryly, recalling how horrified his family had been when he’d turned his back on the academic avenues open to him and announced his intention of becoming an artist. They’d come around now, of course; success made a lot of things acceptable.

‘You should use your natural talents.’

He looked struck by the idea. ‘Like kissing, you mean,’ he suggested with a hungry-tiger smirk.

‘Why,’ she ejaculated, ‘do you keep bringing that up?’ Her teeth hurt as she ground them yet again.

‘Because it’s on your mind, not to mention mine…? Yes,’ he confirmed, giving the subject some thought, ‘that’s it. I keep thinking about kissing you.’ His jaw tightened. It was true and unforgivable: when he ought to be concentrating on other more vital issues his mind kept returning to that single brief, unsatisfactory kiss.

His resentful glare suggested it was all her fault—the cheek of the man—and typical of men, full stop!

‘Why? Do I look like your wife? Do I remind you of her or something?’

Flora was so shocked to hear the words leave her lips she gave a horrified gasp and pressed a belated silencing hand over her mouth. True, this question had been nagging away at her since yesterday, but, assuming she’d never see him again, she hadn’t thought she’d ever have the opportunity to ask him, or for that matter the lack of judgement to do so!

Josh had gone very still. Flora started when he slowly began to move towards her. Her attention was riveted by the graceful, lithe way he moved, beautiful but almost menacing. His blank expression told her zero about his intentions, but as he came closer she could see the slashing angle of his chiselled cheekbones seemed more pronounced and a solitary muscle pumped in his lean cheek.

He stopped just in front of her and, reaching out, took her chin in one hand and swept it upwards. His eyes swept dispassionately over her beautiful oval face; he seemed to be unmoved by what he saw.

Flora didn’t move; she couldn’t. Sexual anticipation mingled with mind-numbing apprehension inside her, creating sheer havoc. Wide-eyed, she watched as he slowly shook his dark head firmly from side to side, never for one instant releasing her from the merciless grip of his gaze. Despite the relentless intensity of that stare she couldn’t shake the conviction that he somehow wasn’t actually seeing her, perhaps it was the face of his lost love, little Liam’s mother, he saw.

‘No, you’re nothing like her.’ His voice was harsh. ‘Nothing!’ he added as if he couldn’t emphasise this point too much.

Flora felt a shaft of relief quiver through her. It mattered, she wasn’t quite sure why, but his reply had mattered a lot to her.

‘She wasn’t a blonde.’ His eyes touched the silver strands clustered around her face. ‘But then who’s to say you are?’

‘I think I’m the definitive expert on that subject.’

His hand dropped away and a sudden devilish grin abruptly banished the brooding shadows from his expression. ‘You have no idea how tempted I am to say prove it,’ he suddenly confessed.

‘Restrain yourself!’ She sniffed, wondering how she ought to go about distracting him from this ticklish subject.

‘If I kissed you now would it constitute a sacking offence?’

Flora’s heart turned over in the confined space of her tight chest. As shock seeped steadily through her she caught her breath raggedly and her hot colour faded of its own accord, leaving her pale.

The expression perfectly pale flitted through Josh’s head as he feasted his eyes on the delicate symmetry of her clear-cut features, resting the longest on the full curve of her softly sumptuous lips. His bold, sensual survey made the blood pound noisily in her ears.

Some dim memory of self-preservation told Flora she ought to summon some cutting witticism that would cool his ardour and cut him down to size. After all, didn’t she have enough in her repertoire to suit any occasion?

As she met the smouldering intensity of his speculative gaze the memory flickered and died. Truth told, there was nothing in the world she wanted more than to be kissed by and kiss Josh Prentice. The admission cost her what little sense of what was appropriate she had left. Honesty, even with yourself, especially with yourself, wasn’t always the best policy!