The Complete Red-Hot And Historical Collection. Kelly Hunter

of apprehension she was carrying around like a stone in her chest for the entire journey.

      It was utterly still; the air was heavy and stickily oppressive. For the last mile or so they had driven through what seemed to be a pine forest, and warm air carried the green smell of the trees.

      She got out her mobile and texted goodnight to her brother.

      ‘I imagine he is much as he was the past ten times you texted him.’ While Seb was exploiting the sisterly devotion, her inability to see that she was being used by her brother was really beginning to irritate him. So was her frigid, tight-lipped silence.

      She had not said anything the entire journey; not to him anyway—she had been charm itself to the steward on the flight. The boy had been positively salivating. ‘And you’ve proved your point. Some women can keep quiet.’

      He had hardly said a word the entire way, so now he broke his moody silence to criticise her!

      ‘If you’d spoken to me I’d have replied. And texting my brother, that’s called caring,’ she snapped back, choosing not to inform him that the texting exercise had been pretty one-sided.

      He turned his head briefly to scan her profile in the darkness. ‘Would he be grateful if he knew what you’ve done for him?’

      ‘You’re the one who is paying for his treatment. This was my choice.’

      ‘So why didn’t you tell him?’

      ‘Mark has got enough on his plate without feeling responsible... What’s that meant to mean?’ she asked in response to his harsh laugh.

      ‘Is it a happy place, this little fantasy world you inhabit?’

      Mari shot a look of simmering dislike at his patrician profile. ‘I wouldn’t expect you to understand.’

      ‘Try me.’

      Taken unawares by the unexpected offer, Mari found herself answering, ‘I love him. He’s my brother.’ She could have left it there but for some reason she heard herself say, ‘I know he’s not perfect but he’s not had an easy life, rejected by his mother.’

      ‘Is that the way you feel about it—rejected?’

      Too close to the truth. She ignored his interruption.

      ‘Two foster homes that didn’t work out, and the children’s home—’

      ‘Weren’t you in those same places?’

      She shook her head. ‘You don’t understand—he was there because of me. He would have been adopted straight away when we were babies if they had allowed us to be split up, but they didn’t.’

      ‘Why him and not you?’

      ‘People want pretty babies. Mark had blond curls and dimples—he was adorable. I was not an attractive baby.’ It was a matter-of-fact statement with no self-pity he could detect, and all the more poignant because of it.

      ‘Aren’t all babies pretty?’

      ‘Not me. I was allergic to pretty much everything. I had asthma, that wasn’t so bad, but my skin was awful—eczema. It took hours every day putting on and washing off my treatments...and when it flared up...’ She gave a little shudder at the memory. ‘People do not want to push around a scabby baby, and not many want the responsibility of looking after a kid with a chronic skin condition.

      ‘Mark got left on the shelf with me, and when we did get fostered my red-headed temper—well, you’ve seen that—got us sent back both times. So, you see, without me Mark could have had a very different life.’

      ‘Is that how you think of yourself—left on the shelf...?’

      ‘Actually it was a doorstep.’ To abandon your own babies that way you had to be pretty desperate...but maybe if there had only been one...?

      She heard him swear and then, anxious that he didn’t think she was playing for the sympathy vote, added quickly, ‘It wasn’t all doom and gloom, though, in our teens. We got fostered by Sukie and Jack, and they are the most inspirational couple you can imagine,’ she enthused, her voice filling with warmth.

      ‘Are you coming?’

      He knew it was irrational of him to be angry with her for not being a person he could despise. It was a lot easier to take advantage of someone when you could say they were asking for it, they deserved it, than someone who literally didn’t ask for anything, and as far as he could see had never been given anything either! Mari had worked hard and...ah, hell, she was an adult. If she wanted to spend her life paying an imagined debt, that was her business, he told himself. The story changed nothing.

      Mari began to follow and stopped. He didn’t even bother to turn around and see if she’d responded, just assumed she would.

      And why wouldn’t he? She’d been responding like some meek little lamb from the moment she’d allowed herself to be bundled onto the private jet and, yes, there had been a certain amount of novelty value in the unaccustomed luxury, but it had worn off and now... What the hell are you doing, Mari?

      Mari Rey-Defoe.

      Mrs Rey-Defoe.

      She pressed a hand to her lips but the giggle slipped past. She was married. She used both hands this time to muffle the hysteria that was locked in her throat.

      From where he was standing, Seb, who had walked halfway across the gravel, heard it. There was irritation written in the lines of his lean face when he turned and saw her still standing near the car. All he could make out was the shadowy outline of her slim figure, then the moon came out from behind the heavy cloud cover.

      He swore softly under his breath. Nothing, he thought savagely, was easy with this woman. She had set out to make his life as tough as possible, and when she couldn’t stage something large and dramatic she made do with little niggling details that added up to a massive and frustrating whole.

      The logical thing to do would have been to put her out of his life and erect six walls to keep her out, and yet here he was dragging her in and effectively building walls to keep her there for eighteen long months. Eighteen excruciating months without sex, spent with a woman who could make a sneeze erotic.

      At what point had this seemed like a logical next step?

      It was a means to an end, he reminded himself. This was about saving several thousand jobs and a partnership that in the future could generate a lot more—a means to an end.

      Sure it is, the voice in his head mocked, the end being your bed.

      The illicit thought came with the accompanying image; he had undressed her in his head over the past few days so often that he felt he knew exactly what she would look like.

      He ignored the voice and the desire that twisted inside him, and reminded himself this was a business deal. You let business get personal and it never ended well.

      ‘Come on.’ The idea of a shower and bed was appealing; the idea of a bed with Mari in it... He saw red hair spread out against the white sheet framing a face that... He clenched his jaw against the thought, but not before his body hardened. ‘It’s this way. Watch your step.’ He jerked his head towards the house.

      Ignoring the gesture—did the man think she was some sort of puppy dog to be brought to heel?—Mari shook her head and struggled to maintain her defiant attitude as he crossed the gravel towards her, his long-legged stride bringing him there in seconds.

      The resentful words exploded from her before the testosterone he was oozing made her tongue stick to the roof of her mouth, a situation she been experiencing all day.

      ‘You’ve been pushing me around all day.’

      Not in the literal sense. It had almost seemed at times as though he had gone out of his way to avoid touching her. Even at the joke of a marriage ceremony when the registrar had said he could kiss the bride, Seb had barely even brushed his