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‘Bobbie is almost a member of the family,’ Olivia insisted and then added slyly, ‘and very soon she might become one officially, as well.’
Whilst Bobbie protested, her cheeks burning hotly, Jenny gave her an interested look but didn’t press the matter, leaving it to Olivia to explain.
‘Luke’s pretty smitten with Bobbie,’ she elaborated whilst teasingly shaking her head as Bobbie tried to contradict what she was saying. ‘It’s no good,’ Olivia said, laughing. ‘The pair of you have given yourselves away too clearly to start denying it now.’
‘Hello there. I was hoping we might get to meet again.’
Bobbie turned thankfully towards Max as he strolled over to join them, his arrival a welcome interruption, although it was obvious that Olivia didn’t think so because almost immediately she announced, ‘I was just about to take Bobbie to introduce her to Gramps, Max, so I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse us.’
‘You haven’t met my grandfather yet?’ Max asked Bobbie, pointedly ignoring his cousin as he turned his back to her, effectively blocking her out of the conversation. Instead, he concentrated on Bobbie, giving her the benefit of his heated crocodile smile and a look that slid slowly from the top of her head all the way down to her toes. It lingered appreciatively on her body in a manner that was both extremely practised and, so far as Bobbie was concerned, extremely unappealing, but she kept her thoughts to herself, waiting politely whilst Max reached out and tucked her hand through his arm as he told her, ‘Come with me, but let me warn you that he—’
‘Doesn’t like Americans,’ Bobbie supplied dryly for him. ‘Yes, so I’ve been told.’
‘It isn’t an aversion I share,’ Max assured her softly with another appreciative look. ‘Far from it.’
‘But your wife, I believe, is British,’ Bobbie pointed out sweetly, just ever so slightly emphasising the words ‘your wife’.
‘Very much so,’ Max agreed suavely, looking more amused than concerned that she should have reminded him that he was a married man, confirming her inward assessment of him when he continued, ‘My wife is also small, plump and, I’m afraid, rather plain and a brunette, while I, I must admit, have a penchant for long-legged blondes, especially when they’re as beautiful as you are.’
His audacity was unbelievable, Bobbie decided as she replied with cool firmness, ‘Really. Unfortunately I do not have a penchant for married men, especially those as unkind about the woman they’ve chosen to marry as you have just been. Please excuse me,’ she added as she detached herself from him and started to move away.
Only she didn’t get very far because as she turned round, to her consternation, she found her way blocked by Luke. When had he arrived and why was he looking at her like that?
‘Er...Luke,’ she faltered as guiltily as a child caught with her fingers in the cookie jar, as she later angrily told herself.
‘Luke,’ she heard Max drawling in a far more composed voice, ‘I was just taking Bobbie over to introduce her to Grandfather.’
‘Really. Via a rather long detour I can only presume,’ Luke returned coldly as Max looked innocently round the empty room he had brought her to and told him, ‘Your grandfather is in the library with your wife.’
‘Oh, is he? That’s obviously why we couldn’t find him, then,’ Max replied cheerfully, but he made no attempt to remain with them, Bobbie noticed, excusing himself with some vague comment about needing to speak with his father and leaving Bobbie on her own to face Luke’s obvious ire.
‘I might have known,’ Luke said grimly. ‘I imagine it must be a case of like to like, but let me warn you, if you’re hoping to get anything more than a very brief tumble in bed and the dubious pleasure of boosting Max’s ego out of him, you’re going to be very disappointed.’
‘There’s obviously not much to choose between you, then, is there?’ Bobbie quipped, using flippancy to cover the churning havoc his presence was creating in her body.
She knew she had gone too far, though, when Luke turned towards her, reaching for her wrists, his teeth baring in a feral smile of high-octane anger, but before he could say or do anything, mercifully Olivia popped her head round the door.
‘Not still quarrelling? I thought you’d have made it up by now, the pair of you. You should be kissing and making up, not fighting....’
She was gone before either one could say anything, responding to Caspar’s summons from the other side of the door, leaving Luke to demand savagely, ‘And just what the hell was that all about?’
‘Olivia thinks that you and I...that we’re...that we’re romantically involved,’ Bobbie informed him shakily.
‘She what?’
‘Don’t blame me. I’m not the one who dragged you into my hotel room and then left a note at the reception desk that anyone could have seen,’ Bobbie reminded him grittily. ‘You were keen enough to have Fenella think we were involved. It’s a pity that you didn’t think a little harder and realise that others might make the same mistake.’
‘I see, and you, of course, being the person you are, obviously haven’t thought it desirable to put Olivia right.’
The sarcastic contempt dripping from his words made Bobbie flinch, but she was determined not to let him see just how much he was hurting her.
‘Why should I do your dirty work for you?’ she challenged him spiritedly.
‘Why indeed,’ he returned unpleasantly, ‘especially when you could have some hidden agenda of your own that makes it an advantage for you to be publicly, at least, romantically attached to me?’
He had come perilously close, too close, to guessing the truth for Bobbie’s peace of mind, guilt and anxiety panicking her into reacting angrily. ‘There couldn’t be any advantage, public or private, that would make me want that—or you,’ she denied vehemently.
‘No!’ Luke contradicted her firmly. ‘That isn’t the way I remember certain events—far from it. In fact, while I hate to call you a liar,’ he drawled unkindly, ‘there have been at least two occasions I can call to mind when you evinced anything but reluctance to demonstrate just the opposite.’
Bobbie glared at him. ‘If you’re referring to the way you forced yourself on me ... the way you kissed me totally against my will...’ She stopped, her face flushing as she saw the way Luke was looking at her. ‘I...I’ve told you before,’ she started to protest defensively. ‘I was thinking about someone else.’
Wildly she started to head for the half-open door, knowing that she was on unsafe ground, very unsafe ground indeed, but she was still unable to resist one final act of defiance in the face of his accusations.
‘Under normal circumstances,’ she raged furiously, ‘there’s just no way I’d respond to you and anyway I wasn’t responding to you ... I was...’ She shook her head. What was the point in arguing with him? The sensible thing to do would be quite simply to walk away from him right now.
But unfortunately she had left it a little too late. Luke’s gaze was already mercilessly fixed on her and as she measured the distance between them and the narrow doorway he was blocking, he sprang into action, catching hold of her as she tried to run past him and imprisoning her easily in his arms despite her attempts to struggle free. Kicking the door shut and enclosing them both in the semi-darkness of the room, he pushed her back against the closed door.
‘You’re sure about that, are you?’ he demanded mockingly.
‘Of course I’m sure,’ Bobbie lied through gritted teeth. ‘And even if I wasn’t, I don’t get any kicks from...from physical violence,’ she told him bitingly.
She could feel Luke’s anger as he absorbed the impact of her angry remark, and her own body tensed in wary response. How much, after all, did she actually know about him? How much did she...?
‘Neither do I,’ she heard him telling her curtly and with so much distaste in his voice that she knew he was speaking the truth. ‘But I don’t like liars,’ he continued. ‘When I kissed you, you responded to me.’
‘I responded t
o being kissed,’ Bobbie protested. ‘It had nothing to do with you. You were ... I thought you were someone else,’ she lied again.
‘Is that a fact? Well, let’s just put that to the test, shall we?’ Luke told her and she could tell from the deceptive softness of his voice that he was very, very angry, indeed, far more angry in fact, than he had been when he had physically stopped her from leaving.
