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Not to my taste? Actually, it was beautiful and probably scarily expensive. ‘It’s too big, I might lose it,’ she babbled, feeling her chest tighten as pure panic gripped her. It would probably have fitted Rowena like a glove—perhaps it had been made for her? This possibility made it even more imperative to rip it off her own finger.
‘The setting’s quite old-fashioned; Tara never wanted it. It was my grandmother’s,’ Niall announced casually.
Under the circumstances, it was perverse to feel as if she was wearing another woman’s cast-offs. It was even more perverse to mind—but she did.
‘I don’t think your Tara is going to swallow this, Niall,’ Holly remarked, staring at the heavy ring as if it were going to jump up and bite her.
‘So long as you can withstand the odd cryptic dig, she’ll believe it. Tara doesn’t have a suspicious bone in her body. I’ve never lied to her before, so she has no reason to believe I’ve begun now.’
Holly toyed with the uncomfortable band on her finger. ‘Never?’ she challenged sceptically.
‘Never,’ he confirmed firmly. ‘If you discount the odd occasion when I’ve said I’d like nothing better than to spend my afternoon sitting in the front row of a catwalk show.’
‘I’m just amazed this perfect, honest marriage ever broke up.’ Holly gave a disgruntled sniff. He was painting a picture of himself as a remarkably devoted husband.
‘It probably broke up when it did because it was so honest.’
For someone who accused her of making cryptic remarks, he produced the odd gem himself. ‘Are you saying marriages stand a better chance of survival with a liberal sprinkling of deceit?’
‘I’m saying I didn’t want to stay married to a woman who was in love with someone else.’
‘Oh!’ His frankness was extremely unsettling. He didn’t sound like a man whose ego had taken a beating, but perhaps that hard exterior was hiding a shattered heart? ‘She’s not in love with someone else now, though, is she?’
‘Your thinking is predictably female.’
‘I am female.’
‘In that dress there was never any question about it, but then that was the object of the exercise wasn’t it?’
‘Pardon…?’ Unfortunately he didn’t seem to find her tone of haughty detachment much of a deterrent—not if his cynical smirk was anything to go by. Looking into those deep blue, knowing eyes made Holly wish she hadn’t let vanity overcome her better judgement and agreed to go along with this silly scheme.
‘The only reason you went along with this was because you wanted to prove to me that age had improved you beyond all recognition.’
Holly went scarlet. How, how could he know? ‘That’s—’
‘Perfectly understandable for a person with an outsize chip on her shoulder.’
Holly gasped. This man got more detestable with each passing second. I must have been totally blind as well as besotted when I was a silly teenager she concluded wrathfully. ‘I have not—’
‘Whatever you say.’ He waved aside her choked denial with languid disinterest. ‘And actually, Tara is still in love with another man—the same man. Tara’s carrying around a burden of guilt about leaving me and Thomas. It’s that guilt that’s stopping her from finding happiness. I care a lot about Tara and I want her to be happy.’
‘Am I supposed to believe you’re some sort of altruistic saint?’
‘Frankly, I don’t give that—’ The pistol-crack of his long fingers indicated the depth of his disinterest ‘—about what you think about me. I’m just asking you to remember you’ve left your broomstick at home tonight.’
Broomstick? The cheek of the man! ‘I’ll be sweet and submissive, just the way you like it,’ Holly agreed, all humble co-operation and saccharine smile. She’d never let a man do the talking for her throughout her entire adult life, and she had no intention of starting now! She swivelled slightly to look directly up at the big man who sat beside her in the taxi.
He was straightening the dark tie set against the brown column of his strong neck. The subdued light emphasised the sharp angles and planes of his intimidatingly handsome face but, after her silly gobsmacked behaviour in the bedroom, Holly wasn’t about to be intimidated by his blue eyes and sexy mouth. She chose to ignore the sudden painful clenching of her disobedient stomach muscles.
Niall stopped what he was doing and slanted her a worryingly ambiguous look. ‘You’ve absolutely no idea about “the way I like it”.’ The sensual gleam in his eyes as they rested on her defiant face caused more damage to her nervous system than an electrical storm.
Stubbornly, she didn’t scuttle to the opposite corner of the taxi and hide her face in her hands like she wanted to. There ought to be a law about any one male wielding this much in-your-face masculine virility, she thought.
‘I’ll be hanging on your every word, darling,’ she promised insincerely, batting her lashes at him.
‘And for God’s sake,’ he warned, taking her provocative sarcasm in his stride, ‘don’t drink too much!’
Holly’s mouth tightened as he threw a ‘that’s all I need’ look in her direction. The righteous feeling of ill use swelled in her chest. He seemed to have conveniently forgotten that she, out of the goodness of her heart, was helping him out of a sticky situation.
‘You’re assuming I’m an indiscreet drunk.’ Did two white wines make her a drunk? The way she recalled it, drinking wine after an exhausting weekend on call had made her extremely sleepy not the life and soul of the party.
‘Well, if your eye is anything to go by, you’re definitely a clumsy drunk.’ He reached out towards her face but didn’t make contact.
Holly closed her eyes, wondering what he was making of her instinctive and embarrassingly dramatic recoil from his extended hand. The shivery hot flesh of her bare shoulder was reacting as though his fingers had made contact.
‘Actually, I didn’t fall over.’
‘Then how did you get it?’
‘I was slow to duck…’ His blank expression indicated Niall was a bit slow too…on the uptake, anyhow, so she casually elaborated. ‘A fist did the damage,’ she recalled ruefully.
He sat very still during the lengthy pause that followed her startling but matter of fact statement.
‘A man did that to you?’ There was icy distaste in his voice.
‘It wasn’t as bad as the last time,’ Holly continued cheerfully, blissfully ignorant in the dim light of the growing shocked revulsion in his eyes.
‘And you went back for more…?’ he asked with hoarse incredulity.
Holly gave a small wry grin. She hadn’t wanted to. Her first impression of emergency medicine had been far from favourable, but in the end she’d rather enjoyed the experience, though not the occasional physical intimidation.
‘Well, I didn’t actually have much choice,’ she began to tell him, only he jumped in, his deep voice vibrating condemnation before she had an opportunity to explain farther.
‘No choice! Good God, woman, you always have a choice not to stay in an abusive relationship,’ he told her contemptuously. ‘At sixteen I put your choice of boyfriend down to inexperience!’ Even amid this bewildering tirade of condemnation, his brief allusion to their last mortifying meeting made her blush. ‘But you obviously get some sort of perverted kick out of being knocked around.’
It finally dawned on a mystified Holly how he had interpreted her words. She opened her mouth to tell him just how wrong he was—it would be nice to see the smug, sanctimonious snake squirm a bit—when she stopped.
She didn’t owe Niall Wesley any explanations! How dare the man even think she was some sort of victim? Willing a cool mask of composure to obliterate the wrath that was almost choking her, she smiled with serene disinterest back up at him.
‘I had no idea that you were so…straight!’ she remarked with wide-eyed wonderment.
‘If by straight—’ grimly, he mimicked her derisive tone ‘—you mean I can’t abide men who consider a casual left hook an acceptable display of their affection, then I am just that. And if you think you can change him—forget it! Men like that don’t change.’ Ironically, in his present mood he looked far more daunting than any brutish drunk she’d ever had to deal with in the line of duty.
Part of Holly wanted to applaud his statement, but another part of her wanted to punish this man for having the temerity to think even for one second…!
‘Why, you old softie you,’ she pouted prettily up at him as she daringly placed an affectionate hand on his thigh.
Niall’s lips curled with distaste as he forcibly removed her gently curling fingers as though she were contagious, but not before she had been able to note that his muscular thighs were rock hard. There was a sickening lurch in the pit of her belly.
‘Don’t wind me up, Holly,’ he warned darkly.
Meeting the warning glimmer in his eyes, Holly felt even dizzier. ‘For a gentle soul,’ she told him, in a voice that emerged disastrously shaky, ‘you have a firm grip.’ She looked pointedly at her fingers crushed in his ruthless grasp. She despised herself for the unmistakable sensations the contact was sending through her tense body.
He released her with a selfconscious grimace. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t worry,’ she told him flexing her fingers to encourage the circulation. ‘I’m yours—why, hell! I’m anybody’s—to crush and maim.’ This time she wasn’t able to hide her simmering anger and he saw it too in the over-bright feverish glint of her dark, spikily fringed eyes.
If she hadn’t known for sure that Niall Wesley was unacquainted with the emotion, she’d have thought that there was a flicker of uncertainty in the blue eyes that skimmed over her face.
‘You seem an intelligent girl…’
‘Why, thank you!’ she gushed insincerely. Did this man practise being patronising?
His lips thinned. ‘I know you’ve got some sort of chip on your shoulder, Holly…’
There he goes again with this chip thing, she fumed silently. He’s got me down as the original inadequate.
‘…and I appreciate that Rowena must be a hard act to follow…’
As if I need it spelled out that I’m never going to be able to hold a candle to Rowena!
‘But your self-esteem must be in a sorry state if you allow…’ He gritted his teeth as disgust threatened to overcome him at the thought of some guy… ‘You like to give the impression you’re something of a free spirit, but can’t you see there’s nothing particularly liberating about letting some bully push you around…?’
Holly inhaled sharply and her slight but shapely bosom inflated with wrath, a circumstance which unexpectedly distracted Niall.
‘Do go on,’ Holly urged him bitterly.
‘I don’t suppose it’s any of my business,’ he announced with the strained air of a man who realised he’d just been speculating how far down the loose bodice of her dress would come with one judicious tug.
The very brief glimpse he’d had of her small, sweet breasts had been a tantalising, persistent presence in the back of his mind ever since he’d walked in on her. Such sensual preoccupation wouldn’t have been so disturbing had the female involved not been pretty obviously screwed up, too young and the kid sister of one of his best friend’s to boot! You’ve got plenty of problems without adding that one, he reminded himself.
‘My word, but you catch on slowly.’ Smiling sourly, she met his brooding stare head on. For a man so firmly against violence, he looked about ready to strangle her.
‘Point taken.’ His voice carried a zero level of conviction but unexpectedly he seemed to want to let the subject drop. ‘We’ll be there in a minute. You are going to behave?’
He looked so suspicious that she couldn’t resist a naughty grin and a sing-song taunt, ‘That’s for me to know and you to—’
He bent forwards so suddenly that she didn’t have time to protest. Mouth closed, he pressed his lips firmly to hers and kissed her hard. Firmly enough to force her head back against the seat. Holly smelt his light cologne and the warm male fragrance that drifted off his body. Her fingers and toes curled tightly as she held herself painfully rigid and inhaled deeply. Somewhere deep down she knew for sure that if she relaxed even fractionally she’d just disintegrate.
Drawing back he murmured. ‘I was out of order.’
Ironically, she knew he wasn’t talking about the kiss; he seemed scarcely to have noticed he’d done it. Certainly his breathing hadn’t altered dramatically like her own and his skin tone wasn’t making any of the dramatic fluctuations hers was. I noticed all right—boy, oh boy, did I notice!
‘Your life is your own—’
‘So are my lips—’ A woman who was seduced by a kiss that said shut up, loud and clear, had serious problems.
He ignored her ironic interjection while he silently called himself all sorts of fool for giving into the stupid juvenile impulse. ‘…to mess up as you choose.’ He held up his hands in culpability as the taxi drew up outside the hotel.
Nice touch, she thought admiringly: I’m sorry, even if you’re wrong anyway. In less fraught circumstances, she might have managed a wry smile, but right at that second she didn’t feel much like smiles, wry or otherwise!
If he hadn’t stopped when he did…I was going to open my mouth…Wasn’t!…Was!…The dizzying squabble of admission and denial was going round and round in her spinning head. The odd achy sensation deep in the pit of her stomach just wouldn’t go away, any more than the distinctive male smell of him lingering in her nostrils would.
‘It would be a good idea if you turned down the aggravation level.’
It would be a better idea if she flung herself from the moving vehicle! ‘Is that an order?’
Without waiting for him to play the gallant—a role very much against his character—she slipped out of the taxi. Fresh air, that would do the trick she decided with more optimism than conviction. She hoped she sounded the sort of cool sophisticated female who didn’t fall to pieces when an amazingly handsome male casually kissed her.
It hadn’t helped her calm levels when she’d found he had been staring, rather obviously, at the silk-covered outline of her nipples which were so painfully engorged it would have taken several layers of arctic insulation, not just a bra—which she wasn’t wearing—to disguise the shameful fact.
‘Only if that’s what you want it to be,’ his voice followed her. ‘Actually, it was a request. Just try to keep in mind we are meant to be deeply in love!’ he added sardonically, as he paid the driver and re-joined her.
Walking into an expensive restaurant beside Niall Wesley had always been one of her more pleasurable fantasies—in retrospect, her fantasies had all been rather innocent. Dream fulfilment was a major let-down, she decided, as with a slightly mocking grin he stood to one side to let her enter the plush foyer before him. Oh, yes, he had nice manners now, after he’d ripped her character to shreds, lectured her and, to cap it all, kissed her in such a manner that left her wanting more. How she loathed Niall Wesley!
‘You’re late!’ The cloud of expensive perfume reached Holly but the shapely arms didn’t—they reached Niall.
Holly watched as Tara threw her arms around her ex-husband’s neck and kissed him warmly on the lips. Her glossy blonde hair was long enough to reach the hand he had automatically placed around her impossibly slender waist. Just looking at the cleavage revealed by her low-cut black sheath dress made Holly feel hopelessly inadequate.
Holly averted her eyes. She didn’t actually want to see if this kiss stayed as chaste as the one she’d received. One thing that had struck her before she’d looked away was that Tara Steel was indisputably more lovely in the flesh than she was on the covers of glossies!
‘You’ve got lipstick on you, darling,’ Tara clucked huskily, dabbing a tissue to the corner of Niall’s mouth. He accepted her ministrations, looking at her warmly from beneath the lazy droop of his heavy-lidded eyes. ‘And it’s not mine.’ This time there was a note of teasing disappointment mingled with the gentle reproach.
‘Hello.’ She looked at Holly with keen interest and then enquiringly at Niall. ‘He’s been so secretive, he didn’t even tell me your name. In fact, I was starting to think you were a figment of his fertile imagination. I’ve never known a man quite as imaginative as Niall.’ She shot Niall an intimate knowing look that made Holly feel quite queasy.
‘And have you known many? Men that is?’ The words were out before Holly could bite them back. Maybe I should let Niall do the talking, she thought.
Tara looked startled and then surprisingly she laughed. Holly wouldn’t have blamed her if she’d stormed off in a huff or thrown something at her. ‘Not half as many as the tabloids would have you believe…’
‘Holly,’ Niall supplied belatedly, in reply to Tara’s questioning look. He bent forwards to pull out a chair for Holly. ‘Don’t worry,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘Jealous is good.’
Holly felt the mortified blush swallow up her normal interesting pallor. ‘I didn’t mean to be…rude.’
‘That’s a first,’ Niall remarked, this time in a dry voice for everyone’s ears. He took his place at the table between the two women.
‘Don’t tease, Niall. No, Holly, you were just reminding me that I’m yesterday’s news which, under the circumstances, is fair enough.’ Holly responded to the dazzling smile and candid admission with a weak smile of her own. ‘You mustn’t mind me, Holly. I’ll always have a soft spot for this man.’
A soft spot at the very least, Holly surmised, startled by the genuine rapport that seemed to exist between the estranged couple. It might have been a trick of the light, but Holly thought she actually saw tears trembling on the end of those preposterously long lashes—they couldn’t be real!
God, I’m a cow, Holly thought, appalled by her mean thought. How on earth could Niall not want Tara back? she wondered. Tara wasn’t just incredibly sexy and lovely, she was nice!
‘If I’d known about you earlier, I’d never have made such a fool of myself trying to rekindle the old flame. But you mustn’t be jealous; from what Niall has told me he’s devoted to you.’
On the receiving end of Niall’s best devoted smile, Holly made an agonised sound in her throat. Fortunately, Tara seemed to interpret her inarticulate protest as a lover-like murmur, and she smiled benignly at the couple. Holly felt nauseous—she just wasn’t equipped to deal with this sort of prolonged deception! She wanted to leap to her feet and shriek, he doesn’t love me! He didn’t even remember my name!
‘Now I’ve seen you I can see why, and he tells me you love children…But then, Niall would never marry anyone who didn’t. Thomas is the centre of his world and I’m so glad he finally has someone to share the responsibility. He’s a marvellous father—which is just as well, as I’m such an awful mother.’
‘You know that’s rubbish,’ Niall denied immediately, his dark, strongly delineated brows drawing together in a straight line of disapproval. ‘Thomas is as proud as hell of his mother and always will be, and you can direct anyone who says different to me.’
