Читать книгу Her Baby Secret - Ким Лоренс, KIM LAWRENCE - Страница 5

AS SHE’D gone over the events in her head that had led to their becoming lovers Rowena had tried time after time to work it out, but she hadn’t been able to pinpoint the exact moment that friendship had become something else.

It had begun before her short stint at the New York office, which the powers that be had deemed essential for someone about to take over the running of the London end of the operation. Rowena had needed an escort for a big charity bash and Quinn, who had just accepted a senior post at a major teaching hospital in the city, had stepped in at the last minute.

It wasn’t as if she hadn’t noticed, but after knowing him for so long Rowena took his spectacular looks for granted. The admiring glances he’d received that night, not to mention the envious comments she’d received from friends and acquaintances, had brought home to her just what a gorgeous creature he was.

It had been a good night—no, better than good—Quinn had a way of making his companion feel very special. He was also a great dancer, and an even better conversation-alist—he had a dry wit and a clever tongue that had had her laughing half the night. She’d laughed so much that several acquaintances had commented on the fact, which had made Rowena wonder—for about two seconds—if she didn’t take things a little too seriously as a rule.

‘You were a big hit,’ she told him when he dropped her off at her flat in the early hours. Head against the back-rest, she yawned and fished around for the shoes she’d slipped off her aching feet when she’d got into Quinn’s Jaguar.

Quinn inclined his dark head. ‘We aim to please.’

‘So now I know how you manage to captivate all those women.’ Quinn worked hard, but he played hard too. He had a taste for fast cars, motorbikes and beautiful women, but no staying power with the latter as far as Rowena could tell—not that she held this against him.

Perhaps like her he was married to his career, or maybe he hadn’t met the right girl yet…The fleeting thought made her feel vaguely dissatisfied.

‘If I didn’t know you so well,’ she teased him, adjusting the strap on her kitten-heeled sling-back, ‘I might even make a pass at you myself.’

For what felt like a long time he looked at her, his expression enigmatic. ‘Is that all that’s stopping you?’

Rowena’s smile didn’t make it past the starting-post—there was no shadow of humour in his face, just a taut, dangerous expression that made the nerve endings deep inside her stomach tortuously flutter with excitement.

She couldn’t remember what she’d said to fill the awkward lingering silence that had followed, but she knew his contribution had been nil. He’d just sat there and let her babble like an idiot.

One thing she did recall, very well indeed as it happened, was how it had felt when his arm had brushed against her breasts as he’d stretched over to open the car door for her. She had been mortified, not to mention confused, when her nipples had responded instantaneously to the brief contact. She had prayed he hadn’t noticed them thrusting brazenly through the thin fabric of her bodice as she’d slid with a hastily mumbled thank-you from the car.

There had been no legitimate reason to refuse the series of invites that had followed—after all they were friends, and there was nothing wrong, she had told herself, with having a meal with a friend, or going to the theatre. As for walking by the river in the rain, what could be a more innocuous way to spend an evening?

Quinn’s behaviour had given her no cause for complaint; there had been no repeat of that electric moment in the car. No, he had acted like the perfect gentleman despite the fact that she, for some perverse reason, had gone out of her way to recreate the moment—maybe it had been just to convince herself it had actually happened…?

Letting her hand linger longer than strictly necessary on his arm or knee, a lot more eye contact than was normal between them, making sure he’d been able to see her very excellent legs when she’d sat opposite him. Nothing too heavy or obvious; at least that was what she’d thought until one night, sitting in her flat after having been out for dinner, Quinn had bluntly demanded an explanation.

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she blustered. ‘I’m not playing at anything.’

He dragged an unsteady hand through his thick hair. ‘Well, whatever that nothing is you’re doing, it’s driving me crazy.’ His green eyes came to rest on her face. ‘You’re driving me crazy.’

‘I am?’ she exclaimed, unable to hide her pleasure. ‘You’d never have known,’ she added with a condemnatory frown.

After a startled moment Quinn began to laugh. It was such a warm, uninhibited sound she couldn’t bring herself to be cross with him.

‘Well, if you must know, I’m quite attracted to you,’ she divulged bluntly. ‘The idea takes some getting used to…’ With a hint of bravado she raised her eyes and saw it was Quinn’s turn to look pleased—and relief rushed through her. It would have been too embarrassing if she’d been reading the wrong messages.

‘I think,’ he replied huskily, ‘that it might be worth the effort.’

Mesmerised by the stark hunger in his darkly lashed eyes, she felt her knees start to tremble. Her heart was battering against her ribcage like a sledgehammer.

He would be an excellent kisser—with a mouth like that how could he not be? she reasoned, allowing her gaze to rest dreamily on that stern, sensual outline. The idea of putting her theory to the test had her literally trembling with anticipation.

‘You don’t think it’s too silly an idea, then,’ she gasped, feeling a bit light-headed with relief—well, maybe relief wasn’t solely responsible for that strange but marvellous floaty feeling.

Quinn took the wilful curve of her jaw in his hand, his fingers stroking the smooth skin of her throat. The touch was so gentle and his strength was so formidable that Rowena found the contrast deeply exciting. ‘Not silly at all,’ he replied.

His deep, husky voice sent tiny shivers up and down her spine. ‘I knew you’d understand—you being not exactly big on the whole commitment thing.’ Rowena was so relieved that she hardly registered the wary expression that flickered into his eyes. ‘I mean, neither of us have the time to lavish on a proper relationship, do we?’ she told him happily. ‘With that whole pet name, flowers, and plans for the future stuff. Most of all the plans for the future,’ she added with a heartfelt shudder. ‘But we all have…needs.’ It was probably ignoring hers that was responsible for her present distracted condition. ‘I think I should be honest with you.’

‘By all means be honest,’ Quinn responded drily.

Rowena nodded, glad they were in accord. Quinn had let go of her chin and she wished he hadn’t. She wondered if it would be quite acceptable for her to take the initiative and touch him…? God, but she wanted to, she thought, her eyes running covetously over his lean frame.

‘Of course I’ve tried sex, but, I’ve got to admit, it wasn’t an unqualified success. To be quite honest,’ she added, the words coming in a rush, ‘I’m terrible at it, but I’m willing to learn.’

She heard the stark sound of his inhalation and wished she’d not been quite so frank, but it was true: sexually she was what was popularly termed frigid. The first time might have been put down to inexperience, but the second time had been a full five years later, and though her lover—an attractive, experienced man she’d liked a lot—had been perfectly polite, she’d been able to tell he’d been in no hurry to repeat the experience, and actually neither had she. Since then she’d been able to channel her energies into her work—until Quinn.

‘Let me get this straight—you want me for sex and nothing else.’

His low, very quiet tone sent a quiver of apprehension up her spine. Anxiously she searched his face but it was impossible to read anything from his enigmatic expression.

‘Well, I wouldn’t put it like that exactly.’

‘Well, I would!’ he yelled suddenly. ‘I’d put it exactly like that. I’ve heard you called callous, Rowena. I’ve heard you called a cold, calculating bitch.’

Rowena flinched. It was a tired old sexist line that she’d heard many times before and it never failed to make her mad as hell—it hadn’t hurt as it did hearing Quinn say it, though. It was nonsense, of course—a man who shared the qualities that made her good at what she did would have been universally admired for his skill, but not her. No, she was female so that automatically made her as hard as nails.

‘And I’ve always stuck up for you, but I’m beginning to see how much you’ve changed since the old days!’ he blazed. ‘Sex isn’t something you schedule like a finance meeting.’

Rowena listened to his diatribe in stunned silence. ‘I didn’t mean…I had no intention of insulting you, I just wanted to be upfront, Quinn.’

‘I’m slow,’ he reflected with a bitter smile, ‘but not that slow. I don’t need a diagram to tell me what you want.’ At some level he was aware that he was overreacting—after all, he’d been propositioned before.

Quinn’s scornful sneer reawakened her temper. ‘I have to tell you, Quinn, I find all this righteous outrage at being treated like a sex object just a tad hypocritical coming from you of all people. I mean, a man with a track record like yours hardly screams commitment, does he? Or don’t you like it when someone turns the table on you? The way you’re going on anyone would think you wanted a serious relationship or something…’ She saw his face and her eyes widened. ‘Good god!’ she gasped, horrified. ‘You didn’t, did you…?’ She laughed in what was pure nervous disbelief, but he could hardly be expected to know that.

‘I’ve been accused of being shallow in my time…’ His voice had dropped to a soft, menacing whisper, but Rowena was in no mood to be intimidated.

‘I can’t imagine why,’ she muttered belligerently.

The glacial flicker of his long-lashed eyes silenced her. ‘But it would seem I’m an amateur compared to you.’

‘The way I hear it you get by,’ she retorted childishly.

‘Then maybe you hear it wrong,’ he cut back in a chilly voice. ‘I may not be able to match your clinical objectivity, but I’m not totally unrealistic. I accept that some relationships are never going to go anywhere, but they’re fun anyway. I’ve been there and done that, but not as often as you seem to think.’

Rowena hardly noticed this dry postscript; she was too busy dwelling on the lurid images drifting around in her head of Quinn having fun. She actually felt quite unwell—she’d had doubts about that lobster.

‘Part of the excitement of entering a relationship is not knowing where it’s going.’

Diverted by this peculiar viewpoint, Rowena forgot momentarily about the sick churning in her stomach. Personally Rowena always liked to know exactly where she was going.

‘The exploration,’ Quinn expanded forcibly. ‘The wondering whether it might lead somewhere, whether she might be the one.’

Rowena’s jaw dropped—it was something of a revelation to learn that Quinn believed there was such a thing as the one. Let alone discover he was actively looking for her. Boy, had she got Quinn wrong—the man was a romantic!

‘With you there would be no wondering, we’d both know exactly where we were going—nowhere!’ he continued.

Rowena’s chin came up. She didn’t much care for that combination of pity and contempt on his face. It was pretty obvious there was no point suggesting they went nowhere together.

‘Let’s call it crossed wires,’ she suggested with an easy-come, easy-go shrug. Rowena had her pride and she didn’t want him to guess how disappointed, mortified and frustrated she was by his rejection.

His own shrug was just as untroubled and dismissive.

Dragging her thoughts kicking and screaming back to the present, Rowena slid a wary, half-defiant look in the direction of her staff.

Their expressions were respectful enough now but Rowena wasn’t fool enough to imagine that this situation would last for two seconds once she was out of the door. She hadn’t gained her hard-nosed, cool-headed reputation by accident and now in two seconds flat she’d blown her cover wide open.

‘Happy? Hardly,’ she snapped venomously, fixing Quinn with a look of loathing. ‘Well, if you’ll excuse us, Quinn was just leaving.’ Clinging to the tattered shreds of her dignity and trying to show she was still in charge, Rowena shoved Quinn’s jacket at him and nodded imperiously in the direction of the door.

‘So soon,’ Quinn bemoaned sarcastically, throwing his jacket casually over his shoulder. ‘We hadn’t even started talking money yet.’ He waved casually to the three watching women as Rowena, seething with exasperation, grabbed him by the arm.

‘That would be right!’ Rowena flared contemptuously—God, why couldn’t she keep her mouth shut? ‘You always did have your eye on the big bucks, Quinn. Why else go in for plastic surgery?’

‘Perhaps I thought I could make a difference,’ he suggested mildly.

Rowena sniffed, unwilling to admit even to herself that her accusation of avarice had been out of line, not to mention totally inaccurate.

Quinn was considered a world expert in facial reconstructive surgery and, though he did make big money from the high-profile clients who sought him out, Rowena knew he didn’t restrict his expertise to those who could pay for it. The vast bulk of his workload was, and always had been, within the NHS, even though he could have made much more by working exclusively in the private sector. Not that money mattered to Quinn, coming as he did from a wealthy, privileged background.

‘Three-thirty in my office, Sylvia!’ Rowena called, putting a bold face on her unorthodox departure.

The three women exchanged glances as the door closed. ‘I knew I recognised his name…’ Anna cried. ‘He did Lexie Lamont’s new nose, so they say, and I saw him on that telly programme last month—the one about that teenager who got hit in the face by a jet ski.’

Sylvia nodded. ‘I saw it; the girl got all choked up every time she talked about him.’

‘Small wonder!’ Anna exclaimed. ‘Did you see the before picture? She mashed just about every bone in her face to pulp—all he had to go on when he rebuilt it were pictures.’

‘There’s no mistake, then, he’s really a doctor. I suppose it’s lucky we didn’t send the others home,’ her assistant reflected.

A naughty grin appeared on Sylvia’s pretty face. ‘Is it just me or do you get the impression boss lady isn’t too keen on sharing…?’

The explosive sound of laughter was clearly audible to Rowena as she stalked, head held high, from the crowded ante-room crowded with leather-clad clones.

‘I hope you’re satisfied now!’ she gritted to Quinn.

‘Don’t fret, Rowena, I’m sure your ice-cold bitch image can survive worse than this.’

‘I hate you!’ If that were true, how it would simplify matters.

‘I can live with that,’ he lied, increasing his pace to keep up with her. ‘It’s being ignored I’m not so comfortable with,’ he concluded grimly.

‘I’ve heard of men who turn to stalking when they get given the push, but I never thought you’d be one of them, Quinn. If only I’d known then what I know now…’ As if it would have made any difference, a self-derisive voice-over in her head insisted on supplementing.

‘I haven’t been given the push.’

Rowena came to an abrupt halt in front of her PA’s desk. Hands planted on her hips, she swung around, causing her silver-blonde hair to bell around her face before settling down into the loosely tendrilled nape-length style she’d recently adopted.

‘Consider yourself pushed, Quinn.’

Quinn smiled. ‘Like hell I will!’ Ignoring her loudly voiced protests, he placed his hand against her chest and thrust her through the open door of her office. ‘Hold all Ms Parrish’s calls,’ he instructed the startled-looking young woman behind the desk.

‘Call Security, Bernice!’ Rebecca yelled shrilly just before Quinn kicked the door closed. ‘I suppose you think this ridiculous caveman act is impressive!’ she jeered, retreating to the other side of her large desk—the symbol of her authority. Unfortunately it didn’t afford her that warm, in-charge feeling it normally did.

‘If you think spending just one night with me entitles you to behave like this you’re sadly mistaken, not to mention living in the wrong century. As for taking off your clothes—I’m not even going to ask!’ she choked, her nose wrinkling in disgust at the thought of Quinn parading half naked in front of the other women. ‘If I hadn’t come in when I did, heaven knows how far you’d have gone!’

‘And you don’t like that idea?’ Quinn didn’t sound as though her disgust displeased him.

It made her feel sick to the stomach. ‘I hate to spoil your pathetic male fantasies of women fighting over you, but I simply don’t like the idea of you wasting my staff’s time. We have deadlines to meet, you know. How would you like it if I smuggled myself into your hospital and tried to pass myself off as a nurse?’

‘Give me a minute here, I’m just picturing you…Does the uniform have one of those cute frilly caps?’ Rowena didn’t have time to respond to this outrageous piece of sexism before his languid air of mockery vanished, revealing the sort of penetrative expression that made her nostalgic for his irritating mockery of seconds before. ‘What the hell have you been doing to yourself, Rowena?’ He sat down on the edge of her desk and stretched his long legs out in front of him.

‘I had my hair cut.’

‘That’s not what I mean. You’ve lost weight.’

‘Thank you.’

Her hips had always been the envy of her more amply endowed friends, but losing almost a stone in weight during the past few weeks meant that the short skirt she was wearing today no longer clung to her hips, but hung loosely.

‘You look terrible.’

In case I hadn’t got the point, she thought caustically.

‘You don’t lose that sort of weight so quickly unless you’re ill or under a lot of pressure,’ he announced authoritatively.

Her glance slid evasively from his. Did morning sickness count as being ill? ‘Well, thanks for the medical assessment, Doctor, but I’m neither. It’s just too many late nights, and no time to eat.’

‘In fact life’s just one long party.’ He didn’t bother hiding his scepticism.

‘Absolutely,’ she maintained defiantly.

‘Which no doubt accounts for you ignoring my e-mails and phone calls—although that isn’t a problem now, is it? Not since you had all your numbers changed and went ex-directory.’ Rowena watched with an irritated frown as he began to mess up the row of pencils laid out symmetrically on her desk. Looking at his long, clever fingers brought a sudden rush of memories, his fingers dark against her pale breasts. His fingers sliding between…

Rowena caught her full lower lip between her teeth. She resented the fact he was making her behave guiltily. ‘That was pure coincidence,’ she announced with stilted defiance.

He lifted his head, and from beneath the sweep of inky dark lashes looked enquiringly across at her. ‘And is it coincidence that had me made persona non grata at your apartment building?’

Rowena had a firm policy of ignoring things she couldn’t deny and she did so now with a careless toss of her fair head. ‘I’ve only just got back, Quinn. New York was hectic.’ She wished straight off she hadn’t mentioned New York.

She thought of New York and, unlike normal people who had spent any time there, she didn’t associate with the vibrant, alive, noisy, scary, exciting place it was. No, Rowena immediately associated it with Quinn, incredible sex and the frightening consequences of the latter…

‘What about the weekend you came home?’

‘You knew about that?’ Startled, she glanced up to see an expression she couldn’t quite place on his face.

‘Wasn’t I meant to?’

‘It was no secret.’ Recovering a little composure, Rowena managed to continue in a persuasively reasonable tone. ‘I’ve just started a new job. I’ve hardly had time to make contact with every casual acquaintance I have.’ She gulped, but the sound was drowned out by the sibilant hiss of his indrawn breath.

Oh, God, that had come out all wrong and then some…!

‘Casual acquaintance,’ he said very softly and deadly silkily. Then, even softer, ‘Casual acquaintance. Tell me, Rowena, how do you say hello to people you know quite well?’

She closed her eyes as an image appeared in her mind’s eye of herself walking down the crowded New York street three months ago, surrounded by a seething mass of humanity. Maybe it had been the mild culture shock of moving to another city where she knew nobody, or maybe it had been the stress of proving herself, but she had never felt so alone in her life.

Then she’d seen him. She hadn’t even needed to get a proper look at that unmistakable profile—his innately elegant, long-legged stride would have been sufficient proof. Two men in the world couldn’t move that way. Without thinking she had barged through the people separating them, breaking every rule of pedestrian etiquette and probably bruising a few shins to get to him.

Waving her bag above her head, she’d shrieked his name like a demented banshee until she’d been hoarse. She’d almost been at his shoulder when he’d finally turned around and Rowena, her face flushed, breathing hard, had come to an abrupt halt.

Shock of recognition in his eyes had morphed into hot desire. An answering desire had shimmered hot and liquid through her.

‘You’re here,’ she said stupidly. ‘I can’t believe it.’

And then he kissed her.

‘Convinced now?’ he asked, when he lifted his head.

Rowena stared dizzily up into his face unable to focus properly—unable to do anything much except stare at him.

The native New Yorkers, a tolerant bunch and not easily surprised, had parted around the embracing couple.

‘I always knew you’d be a good kisser, you’ve got such a beautiful mouth.’ Her hands, pressed flat against the hard surface of his chest, felt his responsive rumble of laughter.

He continued to display his proficiency at kissing in the taxi, then in the lift going up to his hotel room. The kissing didn’t stop once the door had closed behind them but other things started, things she couldn’t even think about without blushing.

Hurtling back into the present, Rowena was still faced with Quinn’s anger at being called a casual acquaintance. ‘You caught me at a weak moment,’ she defended herself.

‘There was no catching involved—the way I recall it you did the running.’ He reached across and touched her chin with his forefinger.

‘And you wonder why I’ve been avoiding you,’ she said, jerking her chin away from his grip.

‘I thought that was all in my mind.’ Quinn spun around on the smooth surface of the desk until his legs were the wrong side of it—her side.

‘I knew it would be like this,’ she muttered, grabbing two handfuls of silvery fair hair and shaking her head from side to side. ‘I thought you understood New York was a mistake, not the start of something.’ Nothing that she had any intention of telling him about just now, anyhow.

‘The only mistake I made was allowing you to persuade me to leave.’

Rowena’s heart dropped as far as her narrow, expensively shod feet. His inflexible tone and grim expression suggested that he was about to compensate for that mistake.

She closed her eyes, incredibly frustrated by his unyielding, downright mule-headed attitude. ‘Talking to you is like…like talking to that wall!’

Which, if things went on like this, she’d be doing in next to no time. She could see it now—crazy fashion editor carted away by the men in white coats. How her enemies would love that…another fast-track hot shot hits the dust!

‘You want me,’ he insisted.

At least this was one subject he didn’t have any doubts about—he couldn’t be in the same room as her without knowing that Rowena craved his touch just as much as he did hers. This knowledge only increased his frustration. Hell, the sizzling, sexually fuelled static between them was nothing short of a fire hazard!

Rowena glared at him for about twenty seconds before her defiance deserted her. ‘That’s as maybe,’ she conceded, concentrating hard on controlling her wildly fluctuating complexion—women in her position did not blush like schoolgirls; neither did they ache inside the way she did.

Quinn’s grin had a worryingly predatory look to it.

‘No maybe about it.’

A small shrug of her slender shoulders conceded his cocky claim. ‘You’ve only yourself to blame—laying down rules and conditions,’ she brooded darkly. ‘Whatever happened to spontaneity and free love?’ She quivered, working herself into a resentful lather as she contemplated her bad luck. She’d found the lover of her dreams—a man not noted for his steadfast devotion—and he had to get all moralistic and possessive on her.

‘Free love?’ Quinn mused. ‘I’m trying to see you as a flower child, but it’s not easy,’ he admitted.

‘You’re nothing but a reformed rake!’ The old-fashioned term seemed to suit him oddly well—he definitely had the legs for tight-fitting Regency breeches as well.

Quinn’s lips quivered at this hot accusation. ‘Just for the record, in my book spontaneity is good, but you get nothing for free. You’ll have to learn to live with the fact I’m not available on a casual, nocturnal basis only. There are people who provide such services, I believe—for a price!’

Her hand flashed out but Quinn’s reflexes were faster. Rowena found her wrist enclosed in a steely grip. Feet braced on the floor, he drew her in between the confines of his iron-hard muscular thighs as he pulled her hand back down to her side, clicking his tongue in mocking disapproval.

‘I want to be part of your life, Rowena—an integral part.’ Rowena stopped struggling, at least physically. Her inner conflict was less easily subdued! Their eyes meshed and she instantly got herself lost in his sea green gaze. ‘I’ve no interest in the sort of hole-in-the-corner affair you were suggesting in New York.’

‘Private is not the same as sordid.’ Most men would have been flattered by the sort of civilised arrangement she had offered him—no complications, no emotional dramas.

‘I’m not good at subterfuge.’

Rowena’s bosom swelled with incredulous indignation. ‘There speaks the man who’d just conned his way into this building!’

‘If you hadn’t been so unreasonable I wouldn’t have needed to resort to less than open tactics.’

‘Dirty tactics, you mean,’ she retorted, pulling her wrist free from his grip and waving an admonitory finger in front of his nose. ‘We both know that when you want something there’s just about nothing you won’t do!’ she snapped furiously.

Quinn gazed levelly back at her, not the least disturbed by her heated indictment. He reached forward and ran a finger slowly down the soft curve of her cheek, his piercing eyes darkening as she flinched back as if burnt.

‘And at the moment I want you…’

Her angry flush faded with dramatic abruptness leaving Rowena marble pale. Her breath emerged as a shaky tremulous gasp. Where was the scornful put-down when she needed one?

‘Is that meant to be some sort of turn-on? Well, I’ve got news for you…’ It worked extremely well. ‘Your problem is you like everyone to know about your trophy girlfriends,’ she jeered hoarsely. ‘It makes you feel the big man to see yourself plastered all over the gossip columns.’

‘I think that’s slight exaggeration, Rowena, I barely rate a couple of lines in Country Life.’

‘Your false modesty makes me sick.’

‘You’ll get used to the idea, you know,’ he promised.

‘What idea?’

‘The idea of being part of a couple.’

‘And if I don’t?’

‘You don’t have any choice, angel.’

‘How do you figure that one?’

‘You need me.’

Rowena gasped. His arrogance was simply unbelievable! ‘Have you always been delusional?’

His expression abruptly softened as he assimilated the torment in her wide-spaced eyes. ‘You need me, about as much as I need you. See, I can do it, and I’ve had as little practice at it as you have. It hardly hurts at all to admit it. I’m going to teach you to say it,’ he promised.

Eyes wide with horror and lips clamped defiantly shut, she shook her head vigorously from side to side.

‘We’ll see, shall we?’

There was no challenge in his statement, just total, complete conviction—whether this conviction stemmed from a misplaced notion that she was female and therefore weak and malleable, or a belief in his own ability to bend anything or anyone to his will, Rowena didn’t know. She did know a challenge would have been much easier to deal with.

Rowena wanted to put him right, but she felt strangely disinclined to do anything, move, speak, breathe even—perhaps it had something to do with the almost narcotic quality of the combination of his level, deep voice and the sexily slumbrous gleam in his eyes.

‘I did knock, Rowena…’ Her PA’s tentative voice made Rowena start.

‘Yes, Bernice?’ she responded, putting as much clear space rapidly between herself and Quinn as was possible. Her mind wasn’t functioning with its usual clarity, but at least she wasn’t staring up at him like a hypnotised rabbit screaming ‘eat me’ any longer.

This was one of the reasons she hadn’t wanted to see him. He walked in a room and her wits flew out the nearest window, which made no sense! Rowena had experienced sexual attraction before and stayed firmly in charge of her feelings at every level—the person involved only knew about it if she wanted him to. With Quinn she didn’t have that luxury, she was clumsy, inarticulate and painfully needy.

‘There’s a call from your sister and she says it’s urgent…’

Rowena frowned. Holly had taken her new fiancé up to Scotland to show him off to their elderly grandparents who lived in a remote part of the country called Wester Ross.

‘Fine, I’ll take it, Bernice,’ Rowena replied to her normally discreet assistant who was shooting surreptitious looks in Quinn’s direction.

The young woman withdrew, blushing, when Quinn smiled at her.

‘Holly, it’s me…do you mind? This is private!’ she hissed, covering the mouthpiece and glaring across at Quinn.

‘Say hello to Holly for me,’ he requested, unperturbed by her hostility as he strolled to the far end of the room and began to read the titles on the spines of the files that filled the shelves there.

‘What? Yes, it is Quinn. No…yes, he is here. It doesn’t matter, I’ll explain later. What’s wro—?’ Rowena grew silent as her sister broke into impetuous speech the other end of the line.

Rowena had her back turned to him, but Quinn could almost feel her distress as the slim, supple line of her back grew tense. Her next faltering exclamation confirmed his suspicions—Holly didn’t have good news.

‘Oh, God, no!’ Rowena raised her hand to her mouth, compressing the quivering line of her lips—not Gran!

The image of Elspeth Frazer floated before her eyes. Five feet nothing with rosy cheeks, startling blue eyes and snow-white hair, she could have come straight from the glossy illustrations in a book of fairy tales. The illusion of a cosy grandmother was shattered the instant Elspeth opened her mouth. The octogenarian had never suffered fools gladly and, not only did she have a bawdy sense of humour, she possessed a will of iron.

Elspeth had been a consultant paediatrician in the early fifties, when women consultants had been very few and far between. Rowena had left Holly to follow in Gran’s footsteps and become a doctor, but nonetheless Elspeth Frazer had been her own inspiration, the person she thought of when the going got tough. Rowena could never understand how a woman like her grandmother, who had fought so hard to get where she wanted, had turned her back on everything and buried herself in general practice in the back of beyond. She’d eventually asked.

‘Why, I saw your grandfather, my dear, and I loved him.’

Perplexed, a much younger Rowena had asked, ‘Well couldn’t he have come to live in the City?’

‘He could, but he’d have been unhappy.’

‘Well, I’d never do that for a man!’

‘We’ll see…’

Rowena heard the familiar soft accent in her head and her eyes filled with tears. She blinked back the moisture and forced herself to ask the thing she didn’t want to.

‘Is she…? Do they think…? Don’t cry, Holly, and don’t get too technical,’ she pleaded as her doctor sister began to go into details about the suspected stroke that their grandmother had suffered that morning.

She wasn’t aware that Quinn was beside her until she felt the warm imprint of his hand on her shoulder. No matter what the state of their personal relationship, she wasn’t about to reject his support. Rowena was proud, but not stupid—Quinn was the sort of man whom people automatically turned to in a crisis.

She made no objection as he slid a chair under her shaky legs and urged her gently down into it.

She held the receiver a little way from her ear. ‘She’s crying again.’ She gulped, raising tear-filled eyes to his face. ‘Holly never cries,’ she added, her own lower lip quivering madly.

‘Let me have it.’

Rowena relinquished the phone without a second thought. For once she didn’t resent Quinn’s air of calm authority.

‘Hello, Holly, sweetheart, it’s Quinn,’ she heard him say warmly to her sister. ‘Yes, I know, but…is Niall there? Good, put him on. Hi, Niall, it’s Quinn.’

Rowena, her head in her hands, could hear the male rumble as Holly’s fiancé responded at length. Quinn didn’t interrupt him. ‘Yes, I get the picture. It’ll be quicker if we fly up. Can you organise some transport from Inverness? Right, I’ll ring when I’ve got more details.’