A Suspicious Proposal. HELEN BROOKS

yes, he definitely had her labelled as the hopeful little blonde starlet, Essie told herself savagely: all hair and breasts and cotton wool where her brain should have been. He’d be saying next he knew a Hollywood producer or something, and maybe she’d like to come out to the back seat of his car to discuss it. But no, not the back seat, she silently corrected herself in the next moment—nothing so tacky for Xavier Grey. It would be a full dinner and hotel room for this man.

      He needed taking down a peg or two. The thought had been there from the first moment she had seen him but now crystallised into firm conviction. And, if he did but know it, he had given her the perfect opportunity to do just that, because, along with the unmistakable condescension, there was something else staring out of the dark male face and she had seen it in too many other men to doubt it. He fancied her. Physically, he fancied her very much, although it was clear he thought her mind was way, way below his notice.

      ‘Hollywood?’ Essie put a coo into her voice that was so hammed up that, for a moment, she thought she had overdone it. But he swallowed it, hook, line and sinker. ‘Little old me?’ She pouted slightly, allowing her full rosebud mouth to send out an invitation as old as time. ‘You’re teasing me.’

      ‘Not at all,’ he responded gallantly. ‘You can do anything you want in life if you’re determined enough.’

      Oh, she was determined, all right—determined to teach Xavier Grey a lesson he would never forget!

      ‘You really think so?’ She let the full sweep of her thick dark lashes cover her eyes for a moment before raising them again to look straight into his face.

      ‘Of course. Look at Christine and Essie,’ Xavier said quietly, sliding into the seat Charlie’s brother had recently vacated when he had gone to sit with his wife and her parents, once the dancing had started. ‘They would have been very much the exception to the rule, even as short a time as a couple of decades ago, but more and more women are becoming veterinary surgeons now. Of course, others are more suited to less…physically demanding careers,’ he added softly, his eyes moving over her delicate loveliness again.

      ‘You think Essie looks the part, is that it?’ Essie asked with determined innocence, opening her eyes very wide. ‘She is quite strong.’

      ‘I’m sure she is.’ Xavier glanced across to where Janice was dancing an energetic foxtrot with one of the guests, her thick-set, strapping frame straining the pale lemon satin to excess. ‘And perfectly suited for her chosen profession, as you are for yours.’

      Oh, you utter, absolute male chauvinist pig, you. Essie had to look down quickly before he saw the blaze of anger in her eyes.

      ‘Would you care to dance?’

      He had clearly taken her action as a form of coquetry—she could read it in the slightly amused, resigned note hidden in the deep voice—and now she raised her eyes again, pushing back the soft curls that had fallen about her face as she said brightly, ‘That would be lovely, thank you.’

      ‘The pleasure will be all mine.’

      The flirting was obvious but circumspect, Essie thought cynically, rising gracefully to her feet after slipping her shoes on. She had to admit that, for all his rugged hardness, he was a smooth devil when he wanted to be.

      She was aware of more than one frankly envious pair of female eyes following her as she made her way to the dance floor with Xavier’s hand in the small of her back, and wondered what all those women would think if they knew what she was about. But they didn’t: and, more importantly, neither did Xavier Grey. Of course, it would only take one person to call her by name for her little ruse to be brought out into the open, but hopefully she could continue it for a little longer. It was going to be so sweet to see the look on his arrogant male face when he realised he’d been taken for a ride.

      And few of the guests knew her. She hugged the thought to her as she turned and allowed him to take her into his arms. When she had met Christine at university, the two of them had become immediate best friends, their delight when they were both accepted for the same veterinary college exuberant. But she had only visited Christine’s family once or twice in the intervening years, due to the fact that she—unlike Christine—did not have well-to-do parents supporting her. She had needed to work every minute she could at weekends and in the holidays to pay the innumerable expenses involved in the training for the career she loved so passionately. So it might be a while yet before her deception was discovered by the big hard man holding her close.

      Too close. She looked up past the massive width of his shoulders and the silver-blue eyes were waiting for her, their expression unfathomable.

      Essie smiled, but coolly this time, easing herself from the large, lean frame as she said, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t think you told me your name?’

      There was a momentary flicker of surprise in the narrowed gaze—which Essie counted as a small triumph; he had clearly assumed everyone knew who the great Xavier Grey was, she thought nastily—before he said, ‘I’m sorry. How remiss of me. I think I must have assumed your aunt and uncle would have told you the names of the new contingent added to Enoch’s family.’ His tone was wry. ‘My name is Xavier Grey and I am totally at your disposal.’

      Far more than he thought, right at this moment. Essie smiled sweetly.

      ‘Hello, Xavier Grey,’ she said with honeyed charm.

      ‘Hello, Janice.’ He was out to seduce, all right. The deep voice was seriously sensual, and Essie could have giggled if it weren’t for the sudden alarms that had gone off all over her body. He was too good at this, that was the trouble, she told herself quickly, and in this particular instance that suggested a great deal of experience. The warm, smoky tone of his voice, the mellowing of that harsh, rugged face and the deliciously tempting smell of his aftershave all spoke of a dedicated wolf in sheep’s clothing. Well, perhaps not his aftershave, she admitted to herself in the next instant; that was probably just part of the man himself. But the rest… It was a definite practised, tried and tested come-on and no doubt had rendered Xavier dividends in the past. But not today, and not with her.

      She nestled back against him, trying to ignore how perfectly her head fitted under his chin and how it felt to be in the arms of a virile, powerful man like him, telling herself she owed it to all the other women in the world to teach him that all cats weren’t grey in the dark. But the touch of sanctimonious self-righteousness was swiftly dispelled by her innate honesty. She was doing this for herself, no one else and he deserved it; he really did.

      ‘How old are you, Janice?’

      There was a note to his voice now she couldn’t quite place and it made her tilt her face to his again. ‘You mean the family grapevine hasn’t dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s?’ she asked lightly. ‘I would have thought you’d have been given the low-down, on both sides, to the last tiny detail.’

      His eyes crinkled and her stomach flipped, and this time it was nothing to do with the crab and prawn cocktail. ‘Family gossip is the worst thing,’ he agreed softly.

      ‘Isn’t it just?’ She dimpled up at him, batting her eyelashes in true Hollywood style. ‘But thorough.’

      ‘You’re twenty years old, unattached, and determined to branch out into the precarious world of entertainment—their opinion, not mine,’ he added hastily.

      ‘That’s what they told you about little old Janice Beaver?’ Essie asked teasingly.

      ‘Uh-huh.’

      ‘Then I guess I can’t argue with it.’

      He nodded slowly. ‘How old do you think I am?’ he asked after a long moment.

      Oh, help. Essie kept her face fixed in its come-hither mode as her mind sought a throwaway line to finish what had become a minefield and came up empty. ‘I don’t know; thirty, thirty-one maybe?’ she suggested with a winsome smile. He looked to be in his late thirties, maybe early forties, but that wouldn’t win her any prizes in this sweepstake.

      ‘You’re