A Passionate Proposition. Susan Napier

boy shrugged, but he wasn’t too strung out to miss that the cynical edge in the gravelly voice wasn’t directed his way.

      ‘How should I know why she invited herself?’ he mumbled quickly, his sluggish tongue tangling in the consonants. ‘It was a party, man…chicks have been coming and going all night.’

      A cold trickle of dismay ran down Anya’s spine when she saw him leaning back out of his uncle’s peripheral sight, smirking maliciously at her.

      ‘All I know is, she followed me into my room and wouldn’t leave me alone. Who’da known she was so hot? Ever made it with a history teacher, Unc’l Scott?’

      The grubby insinuation with its macho, man-to-man overtones had Anya’s eyes snapping back to Scott Tyler’s face, which was suddenly rigidly impassive, wiped clean of all emotion. She guessed it was the expressionless mask he wore into the courtroom, when he didn’t want anyone to know what he was thinking.

      ‘Whatever he’s implying didn’t happen,’ she said tartly. ‘You know very well he’s just telling you what he thinks you want to hear…’

      One thick, dark eyebrow shot up. ‘Is he?’

      He was just playing devil’s advocate, she told herself.

      ‘You know he is. Look out the window if you don’t believe me. The girls I came here to find are down there waiting for me in my car—’

      He sent a fleeting, almost uninterested, glance down towards the turning circle. ‘There’s no smoke without fire,’ he murmured with infuriating blandness.

      ‘What are you—a fireman now?’ she flung at him witheringly, her slender body vibrating with fury. ‘I thought you were supposed to be a hot-shot lawyer. Why don’t you act like one and make Sean tell you the real truth!’

      ‘His version, or yours? When there’s two witnesses, the truth is often a matter of perspective.’

      It was on the tip of Anya’s tongue to tell him that she had another witness, but she didn’t want to involve Cheryl, and thus Eastbrook, unless she could help it.

      ‘Are you saying that you actually believe him!’

      ‘You must admit I’ve ample reason to be suspicious. Don’t tell me you aren’t aware that there’s something inherently erotic about a woman wearing a man’s shirt,’ he said, his eyes sliding down over her silk-wrapped body in a speculative way that made her blood boil, and not entirely with fury. ‘And the little white socks add just the right provocative touch of pseudo-innocence.’

      ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, don’t be ridiculous!’ A piercing thrill of guilty pleasure made Anya lash out, trying to douse the treacherous feelings aroused by his words with a drenching of pure scorn. ‘I suppose you’re going to accuse me of trying to seduce you next!’

      There was a short, electric silence as they stared at each other, and Anya noticed all the things about him she had always tried very hard not to notice: the smooth grain of his olive skin as it stretched over the strong bones of his face; the almost feminine lushness of the thick dark lashes which framed his compelling blue eyes, and the strikingly masculine contrast of that thin, yet sensual mouth, and harshly chiselled jaw.

      The stubbly regrowth of his beard and faint purplish tinge under his sunken eyes—signs of his ‘hellish’ day—made him look rakish rather than merely weary.

      When he spoke again his voice was deeper, softer, and more dangerous than she had ever heard it. Too soft for the boy behind him to hear. And he allowed a flare of male hunger to show in the deep blue gaze.

      ‘You’re welcome to try, but I should point out that I’m a great deal more discerning—and considerably more demanding—than your average randy teenager…’

      The sheer wickedness of the barbed challenge sucked the breath out of her lungs, and Anya opened and closed her mouth several times before she summoned the words to prove that she was wasn’t totally vanquished.

      ‘Oh, you’re impossible! It’s easy to see you’re related—you’re both as bad as each other. Believe what you damned well like; I don’t care!’

      And on that resounding lie Anya swung on her heel and stormed into the bathroom, slamming the door violently enough to cause the mirror to shiver on the wall above the basin and several toiletries to fall over on the vanity top.

      Muttering to herself to bolster her sense of outrage, she ripped off the silk shirt and pulled on her wrinkled clothes, the damp patches practically sizzling as they hit her burning skin. She finished zipping up her ankle boots with a vicious tug that jammed a piece of her sock in the meshing teeth and swore through tight lips as she tried to work it free.

      She had always thought of cotton ankle socks as utilitarian rather than sexy, but now that serene unawareness was gone for ever. She would never be able to put on a pair of white socks again without thinking of him.

      He had viewed them as provocative, for God’s sake! A pair of simple, inexpensive white socks! The man was plainly in need of therapy, she thought as she checked herself out in the mirror, looking in vain for the cool, capable, down-to-earth Miss Adams she was used to recognising in her reflection.

      With her glittering, storm-darkened eyes, flushed cheeks, and the baby-fine wisps of hair escaping from the pins at her nape and drifting forward to curve around her smooth oval jaw, she looked disturbingly young and flustered. Not in control.

      And she had no make-up to repair the damage to her self-image. She did what she could, smoothing back the strands of hair from her glowing forehead and tucking them firmly into place with tremulous fingers. Had her small mouth always looked that rosy and full? She pressed her lips together in a stern line and willed her colour to fade back to normal. She could do nothing about the way her clothes clung where they were wet, but at least they were clingy in fairly non-strategic areas.

      She could hear a low murmur coming from the bedroom and she hesitated for a moment before she squared her shoulders, gathered up her ragged dignity, and reached for the door.

      She was going to walk back out there with her head held high, and if fault should be admitted she was prepared to be graciously forgiving, as befitted her normally kind and compassionate nature.

      But the sight that met her eyes wasn’t promising. Scott Tyler stood beside his seated nephew, his hand resting on Sean’s brawny bare shoulder, whether for reassurance or restraint, she wasn’t sure.

      ‘Well, has he told you what happened?’ she challenged.

      Scott Tyler’s unreadable mask was firmly back in place

      ‘That could take some time in his present condition,’ he said uninformatively, acknowledging the condition of her clothes with barely a flicker of his eyes. His voice flattened into resolute finality. ‘As I said before, it’s late, and if there are issues to be settled they can wait until a more civilised hour…’

      He dropped his hand and moved towards her, obscuring her vision of the boy, imposing himself squarely in the centre of her attention. He was definitely in full protective mode, she decided, and in the split second before his broad chest blocked out her view her heart sank to see that the smirk had returned to the teenager’s face. The obnoxious weasel wasn’t going to accept responsibility for his actions until he was sober enough to appreciate the true consequences of his lies.

      ‘Well, here’s one issue that can be settled right now,’ she announced, pulling at a clammy spot on her cotton shirt where it had moulded transparently to her skin. ‘As you can see for yourself, I’m going to have to get my clothes cleaned. I’ll be sure and send you the bill.’

      His thick lashes veiled his expression as he studied the effect of her makeshift laundering.

      ‘By all means. But don’t expect me to pay it if there’s contributory negligence involved,’ he told her in that same flat, non-negotiable tone. ‘For all I know you could have dunked them just now in the bathroom, to give credence to your