A Tempting Engagement. BRONWYN JAMESON

her help.

      “Mitch needs someone he trusts, someone Joshua loves. I know he can be a giant pain in the neck, but if anyone can put up with him, it’s you, Emily.”

      For no particular reason—except the sentiment behind those words, the faith, the trust—Emily’s eyes misted with tears. She heard Chantal cluck with sympathy, although she watched with her shrewd lawyer’s eyes as Emily battled for composure.

      “So far—” she continued quietly “—we’ve only talked about what Mitch and Joshua want. What about you, Emily? What do you want?”

      What did she want? Apart from the impossible. “I’m not sure,” she whispered in true, hesitant, Emily Jane Warner style. Oh, how she hated that tremulous voice and the tears that still prickled the back of her throat. How she wished for the courage to either go after what she wanted, or to tell it—him, them—to go take a flying leap off Mount Tibaroo.

      After a long, intense silence Chantal spoke slowly, thoughtfully. “You know what I think? You’ve just lost your job and your home, you’ve been bodily shifted out here and you feel pressured. You’re not seeing a lot of choices.”

      Oh, yes. That pretty much described her life.

      “There’s no need to make a decision right off. You can stay here as long as you like—” She lifted a hand to silence Emily’s attempted objection. “And if you decide you don’t want to work for Mitch—and he’ll kill me if he finds out I’m saying this!—then that’s your choice.”

      Choices. What a tempting notion except— “I can’t stay here indefinitely. I need to work, to find another job.”

      “I know a lot of people.” Chantal hitched a shoulder nonchalantly. “If I ask around, I’m sure I can scare up another nannying job, although it may not be close to Plenty. Does that matter?”

      “Only if they need a nanny who drives.” Her first, tentative flutter of hope took a swan dive. Which parents chose a caregiver who couldn’t ferry their kids to school or kindy or the park? Who couldn’t, in an emergency, get them to a doctor quickly?

      “You didn’t sell your car, did you?” Chantal asked, eyes narrowing with uncanny perception. “Did you crash it while you were in Sydney? That’s it, isn’t it? I recognize a fellow victim when I see one.”

      “But you’re driving again,” Emily said, remembering Chantal’s bad wreck. “Wasn’t that hard, getting back behind the wheel?”

      “It took some discipline and practice, but I conquered my fear.” Chantal reached out again, her touch warm and supportive. “We’ll have you ready for Le Mans before you leave here, Emily.”

      “You’re seven months pregnant.”

      “Quade will do it if I ask nicely.” Chantal winked. “If I ask really nicely, he might let you drive the sports car.”

      The tears returned, this time more a pea-souper fog than a mist. Emily wiped them with the back of her hand, sniffed, smiled shakily. “Thank you. I don’t know why you’re doing all this.”

      Chantal shrugged. “Remnant guilt, maybe.”

      “What?”

      “I wanted your case so badly I encouraged you to fight your grandfather’s will. I didn’t do you any favors, huh?”

      “It was my choice, I wanted to do something proactive for a change. You didn’t influence my decision.” Emily paused, remembering Mitch’s heated challenge on her porch that first night. “Do you think I gave up too easily? That I should have appealed?”

      “That was your choice to make,” Chantal said firmly.

      “Your brother thinks I did.”

      “Thinks what?”

      At that deep-voiced question they both started and turned. Mitch’s height and width filled much of the doorway; his black sweater and dark-stubbled jaw lent him an air of danger, and that awareness swamped Emily in a slow rolling wave.

      Mitch noticed that unguarded response, exactly the same as when she had opened her door Sunday morning, pale hair spilling over her shoulders, all pink-faced surprise and soft-eyed temptation. And Mitch reacted in the exact same way now, with sudden, insistent heat.

      Damn.

      Now wasn’t the time to remember that glimpse of pale skin when her robe gaped, the curve of her full breasts or the knowledge that she slept with satin next to her skin. He needed to concentrate on the purpose of his visit. He leaned over the back of the couch and kissed his sister’s proffered cheek.

      “We were talking about Owen’s estate,” she explained. “Emily says you think she should have appealed.”

      “I think she should fight harder for her rights…in some instances.” He tilted his head toward the kitchen. “Shouldn’t you be making dinner?”

      “Nope. Emily’s cooking.”

      He fixed his sister with a meaningful look and her eyes widened in acknowledgment, her lips forming an okay as she rose to her feet. “I do have to get you a drink, though.”

      “Make it a long one.”

      She winked as she walked by, leaned down to turn on the stereo—so she couldn’t inadvertently eavesdrop—and then left them alone. Sometimes his littlest sister was okay. Although…

      “Marriage hasn’t improved her taste in music,” he said as a popular boy-band crooned from the speakers. He crossed the room and turned the volume down a couple of notches before asking, “Have you heard from Bob Foley?”

      The hotel owner had been taken aback by Mitch’s visit but most helpful. A high-media profile—not to mention a lawyer sister—garnered respect.

      Emily looked up, surprised, then not. “I wondered why he rang.”

      “I assume he rang to apologize.”

      “I now assume he rang because you told him to.” She did not sound happy about his intervention. He didn’t care.

      “I suggested he show a little faith in his staff.”

      She exhaled softly, the breath lifting a loose strand of her white-blond hair. “He apologized rather nicely.”

      “And I didn’t?”

      Hell. Mitch raked a hand through his hair. Two minutes alone and they were on the brink of another clash. He could all but hear the crackle of tension in the air, and he didn’t need to ask if she got his point. The past swirled, dark with shadowy secrets, in her eyes.

      “You had no need to apologize.” Her voice sounded about as tight as her pale-knuckled grip on the empty glass. “I told you nothing happened.”

      “Hell, Emily, you were in my bed, and I can’t remember anything after kissing you. If that’s all that happened—”

      “It is.” She put the glass down with a decisive clunk. “You were drunk and grieving and, yes, you kissed me, and we somehow ended up in your bed. You passed out and that’s all that happened.”

      The rushed telling brought a flush to her face, the same sweet, pink color he’d seen all over her body that next morning. “We also, somehow, ended up naked,” he pointed out.

      The color in her cheeks flared, hotter, darker, but she met his eyes. “You didn’t have a clue what you were doing. Or who with.”

      “I knew who I was with, Emily,” he said emphatically. “Now I need to know what I did.”

      “Nothing, Mitch.” Temper sparked in her eyes, charging Mitch with the same fiery frustration.

      “It’s not ‘nothing’ if it sent you packing and if it’s still preventing you taking your job back. Damn it, Emily, I’ve given you the freedom to name your price and conditions.