The Complete Red-Hot Collection. Kelly Hunter
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‘I suppose that’s your driver?’ her mother said sarcastically. ‘He’s a little impatient.’
‘No, he’s just letting me know that he’s here.’
‘Maybe you’ll see your way to staying for the entire meal next month. If I even bother to continue with these dinners.’
‘Your call, Mother.’ Rowan glanced towards her father, who’d sat uncharacteristically silent throughout the exchange. ‘Are you displeased with me as well?’
Her father said nothing. Ever the diplomat.
‘You know, Mother … both of you, come to think of it … just once you might want to try being proud of me and the position I hold instead of continually criticising my choices. Just once. Maybe then I’d give you the time of day you so clearly expect.’
And that, thought Rowan grimly, was the end of Sunday dinner with her parents.
Her grandfather stood, always the gentleman, and accompanied her into the hall and to the front door while her parents stayed behind. It wasn’t his house—it was her mother’s immaculate mausoleum—but it would never occur to her to afford her daughter the same kind of courtesy she’d spent a lifetime offering to others.
Her mother had been a well-respected foreign ambassador, for heaven’s sake. Marissa Farringdon-Stuart knew how to honour others.
‘Don’t mind her,’ Rowan’s grandfather said gently.
‘She’s getting worse.’
‘She’s losing her grip on what’s acceptable behaviour and what’s not. Early onset dementia.’
‘Nice try, old man, but I know what dementia is and what it’s not.’
What her mother dispensed had nothing to do with dementia—it was carefully calculated vitriol.
‘She’s jealous, and some of that’s my doing,’ her grandfather said gruffly. ‘I never had time for her. I learned from that mistake and made sure I had time for you. Plus, you’ve done extremely well in your chosen profession. Your mother’s competitive. That irks her too.’
‘And my father? What’s his beef with me?’
‘Who’d know?’ There was no love lost between her grandfather and the man his daughter had chosen to marry. ‘He’s an idiot. Too much noble blood and not enough brain cells.’
‘I’ll call you tomorrow,’ she murmured.
‘You look beautiful this evening,’ her grandfather told her gruffly.
‘Flatterer.’
Rowan tried to look her best for Sunday dinner—her mother expected it—but there was no escaping the fact that her eyes were unfashionably slanted, her mouth was too wide and her ears stuck out rather a lot, no matter what she did with her hair. In the end she’d cut her hair pixie-short and to hell with her ears.
She could look ‘interesting’, at a pinch.
Give her half an hour and the right kind of make-up and she could even look arresting.
But she would never be beautiful.
‘Take the apple cobbler home with you when you go. Ask for it. She’ll only toss it the first chance she gets, and I had Maddy make it especially for you. Extra cinnamon.’
‘I’ll save you some.’
‘I’ll hold you to it.’ Rowan embraced her increasingly fragile grandfather. ‘See you Wednesday?’
He nodded. ‘And bring me carnage, politics or intrigue.’
Rowan stepped from the house and headed towards the waiting vehicle. ‘You can be sure of that.’
HE’D MISSED BIRTHDAYS, two Christmases and two New Year’s Eves, but he hadn’t missed his sister’s wedding. That had to count for something.
So he’d been slightly late and utterly filthy? His sister Lena had still slotted him into her wedding party without a moment’s hesitation, before turning back to the celebrant and marrying his best friend, Trig—Adrian Sinclair.
That had been several hours ago now. The wedding dinner plates had long since been cleared away and the dancing was now in full flow beside the lazy snake of an Aussie river, with spotlit red gums soaring into the night sky. Jared had tried to be there in spirit as well as in body. He’d smiled until his jaw ached. He’d danced with the bride and he’d teased the groom. He’d stood until he couldn’t stand any more, and then he’d sat beneath one of the big old gum trees, his back to the bark, and let the party happen around him.
It had to be mid-evening by now—with many of the guests gearing up to kick on well into the night. Jared, on the other hand, could feel the adrenalin seeping out of his body and leaving a bone-deep exhaustion in its wake. He needed to find a bed and lie in it for a few days, weeks, months … He needed to find a place to be, a place to stay.
Damon had offered the beach house, and, yeah, maybe that would work for a few days. But people had a habit of dropping by the beach house, and what Jared really wanted was to be alone.
He watched with faint interest as Trig headed his way with a woman in tow. She’d arrived about an hour ago and hadn’t seemed the slightest bit perturbed that she’d missed the wedding ceremony or the food. Not a guest, he surmised. He didn’t quite know what she was.
Immaculately dressed—he’d give her that. All class, with slender legs and a pair of high-heeled shoes that he figured had cost a small fortune. Both his sisters had gone through an expensive shoe phase. He recognised the look of them, even if he couldn’t recognise the brand.
The shoes stopped in front of him and he looked up, his head resting against the tree trunk, steadying him, holding him.
Up close, he could see that the slender athletic form he’d been admiring had more miles on it than he’d thought. Up close, he could see that whoever had put this woman’s face together had had one hell of a liking for the unusual. She had a wide, lush mouth that tilted up at the edges, and wide-set eyes that tilted up at the edges too. Her nose was small. Her brown hair was short and boyish. Her ears weren’t big, but maybe—just maybe—they stuck out a little.
Together, her features made up a whole that was too odd to be classically beautiful and too arresting to be ignored.
‘Jared, I want you to meet Rowan Farringdon,’ Trig said. ‘The new Head of Counter-Surveillance, Section Five.’
Section Five. Jared tried to get his brain to work. Section Five was Eastern Europe, and when he’d left two years ago it had been headed up by Old Man Evans. Hard to say if she was going to be an ally Jared could use or not.
Probably not.
‘Your reputation precedes you, Mr West.’
Her voice came at him gravel-rough, with just enough honey at the edges to keep things interesting. She bent lower; she had to if she wanted to get a good look at his face.
‘You’re not as pretty as I’d been led to expect.’
‘Give me time. Bruises fade.’
She smiled at him then, careless and casual, and that smile …
That smile was a weapon.
‘Your sister suggested that you might want a lift up to the house. I have a car here.’
He’d noticed it. Black. Sleek. Probably armour-plated.
‘Why all the security for a wedding?’ He’d noticed them—of course he had. Fully a quarter of the guests here tonight were