A Seductive Revenge. KIM LAWRENCE
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tummy…?’ she suggested tentatively to Josh.
Some people donned dark glasses and wig to escape notice; it seemed Miss Graham donned a different personality—she was behaving like a girl guide! Still, he’d be around when she showed her true colours. At that moment she swept off her hat and he saw the disguise didn’t stop there!
The long, waist-length shimmering mane of silvery blonde hair was gone, replaced by a short feathery cap that followed the elegant shape of her skull. The style might lack the impact of long, swishy blonde tresses, but the gamin cut did make her eyes look bigger, her patrician features more delicate, and emphasised the long, graceful curve of her neck. Let’s face it, with bones like hers the girl could shave off her hair and still look stunning!
Flora lifted her hand to her head and felt an instant’s surprise when her fingers made contact with the short, wavy strands. Just contemplating how much Paul would dislike it made her feel cheerful about her rebellious gesture. Her ex-fiancé had once confided, in one of his rare moments of honesty—did all politicians lie?—that he thought women with short hair were unfeminine, and probably a bit confused about their sexuality.
Now she could see what had been blindingly obvious all the time: he hadn’t been joking; this comment was typical of the man; Paul was a first-class narrow-minded bigot! And I was going to bear his children! She shook her head slightly as she considered her criminal lack of judgement when it came to men.
‘Have you got far to travel, Flora?’ Josh hoped not—another half-hour in the car with Liam and he might go completely gaga. It had afforded him dark amusement when the car following Flora had been so busy trying not to be noticed that the driver had failed to suspect that someone else had the same quarry in mind.
It had made his own task easier, but not that easy. Liam’s low boredom threshold and dislike of car journeys were two things he foolishly hadn’t taken into account when he’d set out to follow Flora Graham out of town.
Flora got a nice warm glow as she watched Josh jiggle the little boy from one narrow hip to the other, absently kissing the toddler’s nose as he did so. He seemed not to notice that the child’s grubby hands had comprehensively mussed up his glossy dark hair. After Paul, who had been almost pathological about neatness—and still was, no doubt—it was quite a contrast.
She was off men permanently, because they were more trouble than they were worth, but she couldn’t help thinking… Her eyes moved covetously over his long, lean frame. This other woman’s husband was so spectacularly delicious, and great with the kiddy. Nice, incredible-looking and oozing daddy appeal—why don’t I ever meet men like that? she wondered indignantly.
He wouldn’t have to be that good-looking. In fact, perhaps it might be better if he wasn’t, she concluded wryly, then hungry single women wouldn’t be lusting after him when my back was turned. Women like me! A guilty flush mounted her cheeks and she replied a little stiltedly.
‘A friend has a holiday cottage not far from here.’ She named the little village. ‘Do you know it?’ The stranger inclined his dark head in confirmation and she blithely chattered on. After being forced by circumstances to be discreet to the point of dumbness in front of strangers, it was something of a relief to talk normally—well, not totally normally, she felt impelled to admit.
The man was just too damned gorgeous to be able to do anything in front of him totally unselfconsciously. She was ruefully aware that a very unsolicitor-like girly giggle—the one she had to repress if she didn’t want him to think she was a brainless bimbo—was only a heartbeat away.
‘That is not far; but far enough to make a change of clothes a must.’ Her nose twitched in an attempt to avoid the sour smell emanating from her person. ‘I need to change. I don’t suppose you could…?’ She stopped mid-request with a self-conscious grimace. ‘No, of course you couldn’t…’
‘It has been known for me to answer for myself.’
She grinned. ‘I bet it has,’ she responded, examining his determined angular jawline; doting dad or not, he looked like the opinionated type to her. ‘Actually I was hoping you could act as lookout for me whilst I change. It could be a bit embarrassing if I’m stripped off down to my undies when some family pulls up complete with picnic basket…’
‘I’d have thought you’d have been more concerned about lone males, but I was forgetting you can handle men…subtly…’
Was there a strand of mockery in his deep voice? Flora felt vaguely uneasy as she watched him put down the child and brush his hands against his strong, muscular thighs. There was nothing remotely sexual about the gesture—the sex, she told herself sternly, was all in her own mind—but that didn’t stop her body temperature hiking up several notches. This entire weird overreaction was probably all part of the winding-down process. After the last few months that wasn’t going to be an overnight thing.
‘Realistically I don’t suppose there’s much chance of anyone coming along here.’ A cooling-off period was urgently required, so she allowed her eyes to drift around the rather bleak landscape before coming to rest once more on his face.
‘I did.’
‘It’s probably lucky for me you did.’ She didn’t think she’d been in any actual physical danger from the journalist, just the sort of unpleasant scene which she would much rather avoid.
Lamb to the slaughter, Josh marvelled as she looked up at him oozing trust and lack of suspicion. He ought to be feeling pretty pleased with how things were going, but somehow her trusting disposition was irritating the hell out of him.
‘I wouldn’t want you to risk indecent exposure charges.’
Flora’s eyes widened, a hard laugh was wrenched from her throat. ‘Wouldn’t they have loved that!’
‘Pardon…?’
Flora gathered her wits. Small wonder he was looking at her blankly. ‘It’s a long story.’
‘And none of my business.’
Flora flushed, aware that at the first hint of the conversation growing remotely personal she had automatically reverted to cool disdain. ‘Actually it’s not something I want to talk about.’
‘And I’m a stranger.’
‘But a very kind one,’ she told him warmly. She couldn’t understand why his handsome face hardened.
‘And if I wasn’t—if I was a dangerous, marauding lone male with evil intentions—you could deal with me…right?’
Flora laughed a little uneasily and tried not to notice the way her stomach lurched when she visualised how it might feel if that horrifying scenario were true.
‘But you’re not alone, you’re with Liam…you’re a father.’
‘And being a father places me above suspicion…and temptation?’ He silently reviewed the lists of world-class baddies who’d been doting dads, but resisted the impulse to point out the obvious flaws in her argument. ‘I must admit I’ve never quite looked at it in that way before. I’m overcome by the confidence you place in me.’
Flora didn’t think he sounded overcome, just irked. Perhaps even happily married men preferred to think they could still be considered dangerous.
‘There’s nothing wrong with being domesticated,’ she told him kindly. Actually she didn’t think half a dozen kids could make this particular specimen appear domesticated. She was a sensible, mature woman—mostly—with her feet firmly on the ground, and even her stomach showed a dangerous tendency to go all squidgy when she looked into those hooded silvery eyes.
‘And it’s nothing to do with paternity as such.’ She frowned earnestly. ‘Don’t you ever just get a gut feeling with some people that you can trust them?’ She closed her mouth with an audible snap…where the hell did that come from?
Squirming with humiliation, she gazed at the dark colour that stained the sharp, high