Back in the Lion's Den. Elizabeth Power
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face, Daisy giggled and asked, ‘Why are you wearing that funny hat?’
Sienna bit the inside of her lip, expecting the pale lips to tighten as she had seen them do so often in the past. But instead they were curving in a soft smile. ‘To keep the sun off my head. It doesn’t look all that pretty, does it? But it does its job.’
Sienna watched Daisy digest this for a moment. ‘Are you really going to be my grandmother?’ she enquired. ‘I’ve always wanted two. My friend Zoe has two. Are you going to take me to the beach like my Aunty Nanny?’
Sienna could have sworn there were tears in the shaded eyes that had suddenly turned her way.
‘It’s what she calls Mum,’ she explained simply with a little shrug. At forty-eight, Faith Swann considered herself far too young to be called a grandmother.
‘And you, Sienna …?’ A bony hand was stroking the soft tumble of Daisy’s curls, those tired eyes continually returning to the child’s face as though they couldn’t get enough of what they were seeing. A shaft of pain sliced viciously through Sienna as she wondered if her mother-in-law had noticed Daisy’s likeness to her lost son. ‘How have you been?’
Sienna’s response was tentative. ‘I’m fine.’ This was hardly the same woman who had made her constantly aware that she wasn’t good enough for Niall—who had ultimately blamed her for what had happened to her younger son.
‘I think we should leave them for a little while, don’t you?’ Sienna stiffened at the firm, masculine hand around her elbow, and caught Conan’s reprimand, low and lethally soft against her ear.
‘You can’t possibly object?’
She couldn’t tell him that her reluctance sprang from spending any more time than she had to alone with him.
‘No,’ she said tensely. ‘I don’t object.’
‘Good.’ The eyes that roamed speculatively across her face told her that the small inflexion in her voice hadn’t escaped him. He gestured for her to precede him through the pergola along the pale stonework of a shrub-bordered, sun-baked path.
‘I didn’t realise your mother was so … unwell,’ she said hesitantly, concerned. ‘Unwell’ seemed far too moderate a word to describe Avril Ryder’s appearance. ‘Is she going to be all right?’
‘I sincerely hope so.’ The skin was drawn tightly over Conan’s hard-boned cheeks and Sienna realised he was far more worried than he was letting on.
‘Perhaps having Daisy here will help?’ she offered, feeling that same tug of remorse over having denied Niall’s family the right to see his daughter.
‘Yes.’ The single syllable seemed dragged through Conan’s clenched teeth. It was clear he was thinking along the same lines, she thought, feeling chastened. ‘And you, Sienna. What have you been doing for the past three years?’
A slim shoulder lifted slightly beneath her floral print sundress—a cool blend of white and soft blues and greens, teamed that morning with a green lacy cropped bolero, which she had discarded as soon as they had stepped off the plane.
‘This and that. Training for my diplomas and the rest of my gym qualifications. Visiting Mum and Dad.’
‘In Spain.’
It wasn’t a question, she was quick to realise. He had obviously been informed. It was just another black mark against her in the Ryder family’s eyes, she’d always felt. That she was the daughter of a mere carpenter, who had sold up everything he had to go and run a wine bar for British ex-patriots with his wife on the Costa del Sol!
‘And what about the man whose flat you were sharing the night your husband died?’ His tone had turned as hard as the earth they were skirting on either side of the path, where an endless profusion of white roses made her almost heady with their fragrance. ‘How long did he stay in the picture?’
‘I’d rather not discuss it, if you don’t mind,’ she responded, turning away.
Her profile, he noticed, was proud and challenging, yet insufferably alluring. He felt that stirring in his blood, that primal desire he had always recognised for his late brother’s wife, and always violently rejected with every bone in his body.
‘I bet you wouldn’t!’
Sienna’s expression as she looked his way again was almost careless, her pink creamy lips set in a sexy pout. He had the almost unbearable urge to crush them beneath his, to feel her body stir as his was stirring—and the evidence would be apparent if he carried on thinking like this! he thought censoriously.
She gave a little shrug, nonchalant and dismissive, as though her actions in the past were of no consequence whatsoever. That action caused the strap of her dress suddenly to slip off her shoulder. Its bareness was provocative, like pale silk begging for his touch.
Sienna reached for the fallen strap, sucking in her breath as Conan did the same, getting to it before she could and slipping it back on her shoulder.
‘Thank you,’ she murmured, breathless from the shocking electrical impulses zinging through her at the merest touch of his hand.
‘When did you have that done?’ He meant her tattoo, and his voice was cool, composed, holding none of the turmoil that was going on inside her.
‘On my eighteenth birthday.’
Something tugged at his mouth. ‘Before you knew better.’
She ignored that statement, because that’s what it was. Her tattoo was just another thing he didn’t like about her, she realised, telling herself quite adamantly that she didn’t care.
‘Daisy has a lot of energy,’ she expressed, wanting to get away from him and his flower-filled garden, finding both disturbing with her troubling awareness of his far too unsettling proximity. ‘Do you think that leaving her with Avril for too long is a good idea?’
They had stopped on the path. ‘For my mother’s welfare?’ From beneath his dark lashes he regarded her with a contemplative amusement. ‘Or for yours, Sienna?’
Her throat going dry, she swallowed. Goodness! The man was perceptive!
‘Why should I be concerned for my welfare?’ she bluffed, her heart rate quickening, pretending not to understand as she sent a glance seawards to where a flotilla of sailboats sported their jaunty colours as they skirted the peninsula.
‘Why are you always so jittery when you’re alone with me?’
‘I’m not jittery.’ Who was she kidding? ‘Why should it make me jittery being alone with you?’
‘You tell me.’
The warmth of the sun on her skin was a sensuality she could well have done without, and the hum of Mediterranean insects only emphasised the pregnant silence between them.
‘Is it because I’m the only one who knows your secret, Sienna?’
She looked at him quickly, her eyes hooded and wary. ‘My secret?’
Her tone, Conan noted, was tinged with alarm. What else had she been hiding for those two and a half years she’d been married to his brother?
‘The only one who knows the kind of girl you really are,’ he elaborated.
‘You think you know. Knew,’ she corrected emphatically.
He laughed softly. ‘Whose so-called “shopping trips” to London and all those wanderings around museums were just a smokescreen for an illicit affair.’
About to deny it strongly, she felt the significance of what he’d meant when he said he was the only one who knew suddenly dawn on her, so that unthinkingly she asked, ‘You didn’t tell your mother about your suspicions?’ She found that amazing. ‘You surprise me, Conan.’ She would have thought he wouldn’t miss