His Most Exquisite Conquest: A Delicious Deception / The Girl He'd Overlooked / Stepping out of the Shadows. Robyn DonaldЧитать онлайн книгу.
Rayne decided grudgingly. From his pristine white shirt and dark designer suit, to the very tip of his shiny black shoes. A man whose cool, sophisticated image masked a deceptively ruthless nature and a tongue that could cut with the deftness of a scythe.
For a moment she couldn’t speak, stunned by how the years had given him such a powerful presence. Recent newspaper photographs, she realised, had failed to capture the striking quality about him that owed less to his stunning classic features and thick black hair that had a tendency to fall across his forehead than to that breath-catching aura that seemed to surround his tall, muscular frame.
‘For your information, I’m twenty-five.’
Why had she told him that? Because of the condescending way in which he had referred to her? Or to assure him that she was a woman now and not the shrieking eighteen-year-old he had had to deal with that last time they had met.
The cock of a deprecating eyebrow told her he had taken her response in the way that his calculating brain evidently wanted to. That she was more than eligible to bed his father, and that she was probably planning to do so—if she hadn’t already—with purely mercenary motives in mind. But there wasn’t a glimmer of recognition in those steel-blue eyes …
‘And he didn’t pluck me off the street,’ she corrected him, allowing herself to relax a little. ‘We were both victims of a spiteful ploy to relieve me of my possessions. I came to France—and then Monaco—for a break, and I was left with no credit cards, no money and nowhere to stay.’ Why did she feel she had to justify herself to him? she thought with her jaw clenching. Because she hadn’t been sitting in that pavement café just by coincidence? Because as an experienced journalist who had researched her subject thoroughly beforehand, she knew exactly where Mitchell Clayborne would be? ‘Your father very kindly offered me a roof over my head until I could get things sorted out.’
That wide masculine mouth she had always thought of as passionate compressed in a rather judgemental fashion. ‘A bit remiss of you not to have booked ahead.’
Why did every word he uttered sound like an accusation? Or was it just guilt making her imagine things? The dread of being found out?
‘My mother’s been ill for the past year or so. Now her condition’s stabilised she took up her friend’s offer to go away for three weeks, and so I decided to just take off.’ It had seemed like a good idea from the security of the little rented Victorian house she still shared with her mother in London, although she knew that Cynthia Hardwicke would have thrown up her hands in horror if she knew the real reason her daughter was taking this trip. ‘I had somewhere to stay until that morning.’ She shrugged and didn’t think it worth bothering to tell him that her friend, Joanne, who now lived in the South of France with her husband, and whom she’d been planning to spend some time with, had been unexpectedly descended upon by her sister and her three young nieces, so that Rayne had had to politely offer to move on before she was asked. ‘With the holiday season barely started, I didn’t envisage too much problem checking in somewhere.’ Except that she hadn’t reckoned on being robbed before she’d got the chance. ‘I’d hired a car for the day, stopped for a coffee and … well … you obviously know the rest.’
He knew what his father had told him, but Mitch was clearly biased, King thought, and he could see why. Despite referring to her as ‘little’ just now, this woman was—what? Five feet six? Five seven?—with a good figure. And quite striking, too, with that Titian red hair. Or did they call that auburn? Her skin was creamy, complementing big eyes set just wide enough apart for his liking and a particularly full mouth a man could easily get carried away by. And there was certainly nothing waiflike about that air of confidence about her which, being as shrewd a judge of people as he was, did seem rather too assertive for a woman without an agenda. He wondered what that agenda could be, as he recalled how Mitch had said he’d picked her up.
Apparently his father had been leaving his usual lunch venue last Wednesday, alone because, as cantankerous as ever, Mitch had that morning had a barney with the latest chauffeur King had engaged for him and sent the man packing.
Rigid to routine, it was typical of Mitch that he’d refused to change his plans or wait for another member of staff to drive him into town, and had taken the old Bentley—which had been modified for him to use—himself. Not that he thought his father wasn’t capable. But it was inadvisable for a sixty-seven-year-old man of Mitch’s prominence to be out without proper security, even for one who wasn’t so physically challenged. After transferring himself into the car—always a struggle for him—outside the café and folding up his wheelchair, the wheel he’d taken off was snatched from under his nose in broad daylight. It just went to show how susceptible he was. It also proved how easily his stubborn independence could be taken from him, and would have been if this supposedly ministering angel King saw before him hadn’t leapt up and given chase.
He affected an air of effortless charm. ‘It seems I should be thanking you for looking out for my father, Miss …’
‘Carpenter. Rayne Carpenter.’
It wasn’t her real name. Well, not entirely. It was her mother’s maiden name and the name Rayne had used in the small provincial newspaper she used to write for. But then introducing herself as Lorrayne Hardwicke would only have earned her a one-way ticket out of there, she thought with a little shiver, even though she had been planning to tell his father exactly who she was in the beginning. At first … before those thieves had intervened and thrown all her well-laid plans awry.
‘You’re the best reporter I have, but you’ve got to come up with a story!’ her editor had told her six months ago, before he’d been forced to let her go when her mother’s worrying illness and inevitable operation had forced her to take too much time off.
Well, she could come up with a story! she thought now, with her teeth clamped almost painfully together. It was one exposé she wanted, and one everyone would want to read. Except that this one was personal …
She saw a muscle twitch in the man’s hard angular jaw as he came closer—close enough for her to catch the scent of his cologne—as fresh as the pines that clothed the steeply rising hillside.
‘I’m Kingsley Clayborne. But everyone calls me King,’ he told her, holding out a hand.
I know who you are!
Her confidence wavered. She didn’t want to touch him. But fear of his checking up on her if she showed any sign of unease or aversion to him forced her to plaster on a bright smile. Taking the hand he was offering, she found herself responding before she could stop herself, ‘I’ll bet they do!’
Feeling her slender hand tremble in his, King let his fingers find a subtle path across the blue vein pulsing in her wrist. He noted the way it was throbbing in double-quick tempo. There was something about her eyes too. Deep hazel eyes flecked with green, which were darkly guarded as they fixed on his. But fix on them they did, with a contention that was as challenging as it was wary, and which mirrored the superficial smile on her beautiful bronze-tinted mouth.
He knew his father could take care of himself. He was a man of the world, for heaven’s sake! But Mitch was also vulnerable to a pretty face, and therefore to unscrupulous gold-diggers—and this Rayne Carpenter was one hell of a cagey lady.
Even so, he wasn’t blind to the long, elegant line of her pale, translucent throat, or the way it contracted nervously beneath his blatant regard. Any more than he could fail to notice that her breasts—the cleft of which was just tantalisingly visible above the neckline of her chic but simple black dress—were high and generously proportioned. Quite a handful, in fact.
Hell! He was surprised by how acutely his body responded to the femininity she seemed to flaunt without any conscious effort, especially when his keen mind was telling him that Miss Rayne Carpenter was definitely one to watch. But there was something about her …
Some memory tugged at his subconscious like the fragment of a dream, too elusive to grasp, but still powerful enough to deepen the crease between his thick, winged brows, compelling him to enquire, ‘Have we met before?’
Beads