Fiancee By Mistake. Kate Walker

had gripped them and twisted them hard. Was she imagining things, or had Sean’s words been laced with a dark element of threat?

      Certainly his declaration that ‘You’re not going to get away that easily’ had sounded ominous. But when she’d queried it he had dismissed her concern with an easy answer and an even easier smile. Though that smile had failed to convince, she admitted, drawing in a sharp, uncomfortable breath.

      ‘You don’t look very impressed.’

      The lightness of his tone made a nonsense of her feelings.

      ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ With an effort she forced herself to focus on the house before her, or at least on the little she could see through the thickly whirling snow. ‘It’s just it’s not exactly what I was expecting.’

      That much was true at least. Small and square, with its grey stone blending in with the wintry surroundings to give it an almost ethereal quality, the cottage was far more basic, more workmanlike than she had anticipated.

      ‘It’s not very Sean Gallagher, is it?’ her nervousness pushed her to ask.

      Immediately all the light vanished from his face, his smile fading and his lips compressing to a cold, thin slash in his face.

      ‘You shouldn’t equate the publicity I get with the reality,’ he declared, each word cold and clipped, and in a sudden rush of inspiration she suddenly realised just what was wrong.

      ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that you were like the part you play.’

      A dismissive shrug lifted the powerful shoulders under the fine wool of his jacket.

      ‘It’s a common mistake. People see me in a role every week and they tend to assume that role is me.’

      And he didn’t like that assumption one little bit. It was stamped into every line on his face. Which was why he had seemed so prickly, so downright hostile at moments during their journey.

      She had made it plain that she had recognised him from the first; she had been in no state to hide anything from him. And, being used to people reacting to his screen persona rather than the real one, he had written her off as one of his lovesick fans who would do anything for a single glance from their idol’s brilliant blue eyes.

      But while her blood seemed to curdle in her veins at the thought of being so carelessly pigeonholed, a part of Leah’s mind recognised that this fact could actually be her salvation. If Sean saw her simply as an empty-headed worshipper, he would assume that her actions earlier had been the result of excitement at coming face to face with him so unexpectedly.

      So, while she couldn’t explain, even to herself, just what had possessed her to kiss him, perhaps it was better that way. She couldn’t face the prospect of him probing deeper into matters that had already severely rocked her sense of mental balance.

      ‘Well, are we going to make a move, or do you intend to sit here all night until we end up deep-frozen? Here’s the key…’

      He tossed it at her as she gathered up her handbag, already pushing his own door open.

      ‘Leave the door open. I’ll be right behind you when I’ve got your case.’

      The freezing blast of icy air in her face was enough to put wings on Leah’s feet. Slipping and sliding, she dashed for the cottage porch, grateful for even the minimal shelter it provided.

      Ramming the key into the lock, she turned it with frantic haste, pushing open the door and stumbling into the stone-flagged hallway with a sigh of relief.

      True to his word, Sean was close behind her. Dumping her case on the floor, he slammed the door shut behind him as soon as he was over the threshold.

      Like Leah, he had already acquired a fine coating of snow on his head and shoulders, the white flakes brilliant and delicate against the darkness. They even, with hearts-topping effect, clung to the thick black lashes that framed his stunning sapphire eyes.

      ‘The kitchen’s through there…’

      He waved a hand towards the end of the hall as he stamped his feet to clear the snow from his shoes, shaking himself like some large, powerful animal, spattering her with the cold drops of moisture that spun from his hair.

      ‘The stove will still be banked down, so it should be warm, and you’ll need…’

      The words trailed off into silence as his eyes met her widened gaze, caught and held.

      Why couldn’t she move? Leah berated herself. She must look so foolish—and so disgustingly vulnerable—staring at him like this. Why couldn’t she just pull off her coat and head in the direction he had indicated?

      But it seemed as if her feet were rooted to the spot. She felt as if every cell in her body, every nerve-ending, was sharply attuned to some elemental magnetism that emanated from the man at her side. Any awareness of the rest of her surroundings seemed to have blurred and faded from her sight, so that there was only him and that potent tug of need which had formed in the deepest, most primitive part of her being.

      If he had looked big and strong outside, in the space of the countryside, then now he appeared impossibly so—dark and powerful, the confines of the small hallway dominated by the height and breadth of him. His lean, strong body seemed too vital, too forceful to be restricted by its narrow space, its cosy domesticity.

      He was more at one with the wild elements outside, as untamed as the wind that buffeted the stone walls of the cottage and came howling down the chimneys.

      Because her attention was so firmly fixed on him, she knew the exact moment that the change began. She saw how his long body stiffened, freezing in the act of shrugging out of his coat. She saw the sudden darkening of his eyes, the burning black obliterating the rich blue. With her hearing made acute by heightened sensitivity, she caught the change in his breathing, the faint sound as he swallowed deeply.

      ‘This is the first time I’ve seen you in the light,’ he said, and his voice was strangely husky, raw-edged, as if it had not been used for some time. ‘Your eyes—they’re almost purple, the colour of pansies.’

      ‘They’re like Elizabeth Taylor’s, everyone always says,’ Leah responded, hearing the words and yet feeling unaware of having actually produced them. ‘But of course I don’t really look like her. My hair isn’t black, for one thing.’

      Her lips felt disturbingly dry, and she wet them nervously with the tip of her tongue, then froze as she saw his dark gaze drop to follow the tiny, betraying movement. The intensity of his stare made her heart kick in her chest. Suddenly she saw the gesture from his point of view, realising the unconscious provocation it had offered.

      ‘I prefer your hair colour,’ he murmured. ‘That sort of sable-brown is much softer. Though right now it’s dark enough to pass for black.’

      His hand came out to stroke one of the sodden strands that lay over her shoulder. His touch was very gentle, but with every cell in her body hypersensitive to the pull of his physical appeal Leah had to fight the instinctive reaction that almost had her jumping away like a nervous cat.

      ‘Liz Taylor is regarded as one of the world’s greatest beauties.’

      ‘Fishing for compliments?’

      A slow smile, its sensual appeal lethal to her composure, curled the corners of that beautiful mouth.

      ‘Believe me, you don’t need to. You must know that you are an exceptionally lovely woman, the sort any man would be proud to have on his arm. Or…’ the smooth voice deepened deliberately ‘…in his bed.’

      Those vivid eyes held Leah’s hypnotically, sapphire locked with violet in spellbound isolation from which she was totally unable to break free. She no longer saw the flawed beauty of the damaged side of his face, the raw, red marks that marred the sculpted line of his bones, the plane of his cheek. She was aware only of the glossy darkness of his hair, the unexpected softness of his mouth—and, above and beyond anything else, the burning,