A Christmas Seduction. AMANDA BROWNING
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wryly, brushing droplets of rain off her coat before stepping into the building.
At this time of night the foyer was quiet, and she headed for the bank of elevators to the echoing sound of her own footsteps. She stepped into the nearest and pressed the button for the third floor. The system was old and cranky and progress was slow, and Laura used the time to take a quick glance at her reflection in the mirror, to check for any damage the rain might have caused. There was very little.
Her blonde hair curled under in a shining bob to just below her ears. It made her heart-shaped face appear all the more fragile. Her grey eyes, with their long lashes, stared back at her doe-like, whilst her surprisingly full mouth was curved in a faint smile. Beneath her woollen coat, the soft curves of her body and the length of her legs were shown to perfection by the lines of her black cocktail dress and stiletto shoes.
She looked good for a twenty-eight-year-old interior designer, she decided, and instantly pulled a wry face. As she had overheard one doyenne of society say only recently, what woman wouldn’t, given a fortune to spend in only the best stores?
It was a pretty universal assumption. Any money she had must have come from her ‘liaison’. Society matrons ignored the fact that she and her friend Anya Kovacs ran a successful interior design business, which they patronised. In the beginning Laura had feared the worst for their combined welfare but, far from slumping through the supposed scandal, business had boomed. The reason had soon become clear; everyone had hoped to be able to glean some titbit of gossip from her. They had been unlucky. Laura had gritted her teeth and refused to utter a word. Some custom had eventually fallen off, but not to the extent she had expected. What clientele remained was loyal because they produced good work.
The elevator came to a stop and, stepping out of it, she turned left towards Jonathan’s office. Light glowed beneath the door and she sighed. He was brilliant at his job but, when he was working on a case, he had a head like a sieve about more mundane things. For instance, tonight he was supposed to have picked her up an hour ago for the opening of a new art exhibition, and then they were to have gone on to dinner. She really should have phoned him earlier, but she had assumed he would remember. More fool her.
Pushing open the door, she discovered Jonathan exactly where she expected, bent over his desk, lost in the depths of a file. His brown hair was endearingly tousled, as if he had raked it constantly, and a cup of cold coffee sat by his elbow with a dehydrated jelly doughnut.
‘I thought I’d find you here!’ Laura exclaimed wryly, and he looked up with a start.
‘Laura? What on earth.?’ Jonathan gasped in surprise, then his eyes made a quick inspection of her and she saw light Dawn. Clapping a hand to his head, he rose to his feet and came round the desk to her, his expression ruefully apologetic. ‘Oh, Lord, I’m sorry. We were supposed to be going to the opening, weren’t we?’ He kissed her cheek and Laura sighed.
‘We were,’ she confirmed as she raised her hand to brush his hair off his forehead. ‘Honestly, you’re hopeless. What happened this time?’
‘I’m afraid I happened.’ A strange voice, rich and slightly husky, broke into their conversation, and it was her turn to jump. She turned towards the voice, but its owner stood in the doorway of Jonathan’s private washroom, and the light coming from behind made him little more than a large silhouette.
‘Who are you?’ she asked more sharply than she intended, and behind her Jonathan shifted uneasily.
‘Oh, hell, it had to happen some time, I guess,’ he said heavily, and made the introduction. ‘This is Quinn.’
Laura went absolutely still, ‘Did you say Quinn?’ she asked, though she had heard well enough.
‘Uh-huh’
Laura had heard a great deal about Alexander’s godson, Quinn Mannion. Mentally she recapped what she knew. He was thirty-six years old, a former investigative journalist who now wrote political thrillers which had put him on the top of the best-seller list countless times, and earned him millions of dollars. In the best tradition of novelists he lived in splendid isolation, somewhere on the coast of Maine. Over the years his name had been linked romantically with several women, but he had resisted the ties of marriage. She was curious to know what he looked like, and waited with bated breath as he stepped forward into the light of the desk lamp.
Laura’s eyes widened. This was Quinn Mannion?
She saw a tall, dark-haired man, broad-shouldered and lean-hipped, wearing a leather jacket over an Aran sweater and jeans he must have been poured into, they hugged his thighs so lovingly. He carried himself with an assurance and self-belief which was almost palpable. Her gaze skittered over his face. He was breathtakingly handsome, although there was nothing soft in it. In fact, the only feature to break the strong lines was a surprisingly sensual mouth. At least, that was what she thought until her eyes met a pair of intense blue ones and somehow got locked there.
They had to be the bluest eyes she had ever seen. The sort of eyes you could dive into and drown in with the greatest pleasure. Rimmed with long dark lashes, they should have been feminine, but weren’t. Everything simply made him look even more heart-stoppingly masculine. Quinn Mannion was pretty potent stuff, and deep inside her something elemental stirred. She became, in an instant, so supremely aware of him that every single nerve in her body came to life, tingling in a state of intense receptivity. She knew she would know he was in the same room as her even if she were blindfolded.
It was a disturbingly unfamiliar sensation for her. Whilst she had always appreciated an attractive man, she had never before been made quite so aware of another human being. Her heart gave a sudden lurch and sprinted away as she recognised what was happening; female recognising the male. This was sexual attraction at its rawest, and the strength of it caused her to breathe in sharply as her stomach clenched on a primitive wave of desire.
More than a little stunned, she remained transfixed, like a rabbit caught in the headlights of a car, as Quinn Mannion advanced on her with a darkling glint in his eye. He came to a halt mere feet away and stared down at her.
‘Well, well. As I live and breathe, Laura Maclane in the flesh. The newspaper pictures hardly do you justice,’ he drawled disdainfully.
It was a voice which, despite its unfriendliness, conjured up visions of rich dark chocolate. Sinful, luscious and infinitely addictive. Laura fought down a shiver of pure reaction to it.
‘Tell me, Laura. Are you enjoying the fruits of your labour?’
The unexpected question set her back on her heels momentarily. She had been prepared to offer a polite greeting for, in a roundabout way, this man was connected to her, but it took only those few words to make her realise there was to be no pretence of pleasantries from him. It wounded her, as all injustice did, but it angered her too. So that was how it was to be, she thought. Well, she could handle anything he cared to throw at her. For instance, that question wasn’t an idle one and, though she suspected she wouldn’t like the answer, she wasn’t about to avoid asking for clarification. She needed to know exactly where she stood with him.
‘Labour?’
Quinn’s eyes dropped to her mouth and traced the line of her lips with blatant suggestion, so that she had a pretty good idea of what he was going to say before he said it. “The hard work you put in between the sheets with a man old enough to be your father,’ he explained dispassionately, which made the remark all the more insulting.
‘Quinn!’ Jonathan stepped in warningly, frowning heavily at his friend, but Laura held up her hand. She didn’t need protecting, although the words stung. He had no idea how close to the truth he was.
‘It’s OK, Jonathan. Mr Mannion is saying no more than has been said behind my back. In fact, I give him credit for saying it to my face. The answer to your question is yes. I do enjoy the fruits of my labour,’ she confirmed with an unrepentant tilt to her head. Though he didn’t know it, she was referring to her business, not her supposed relationship with his godfather.
He did not care for her response. ‘I never expected you to be so