Darling Enemy

“Running again?” Kingston Devereaux asked curtly, his glittering eyes biting into hers. “You’ve done a lot of that.”

“Self-preservation, Mr. Devereaux,” she replied coldly, brushing wildly at one stray tear. “You make me forget that I’m a lady.”

“A lady?” he drawled. “You?” His eyes ran down her slender body, over the high young breasts and down the tiny waist and sweetly curving hips to her long, graceful legs in their clinging cover.

“Oh, excuse me—in your exalted opinion, that’s a title I don’t deserve,” she replied coolly.

“Too right,” he ground out. He lifted his broad shoulders restlessly. “Jenna’s back at the dormitory crying her damned eyes out,” he added roughly. “I didn’t come all this way to upset her.”

“Upsetting people is one of your greatest talents,” Teddi told him, glaring back.

One eyebrow went up as he studied her face. “Careful, tiger,” he drawled. “I bite back.”

Teddi wrapped her arms around herself, turning her attention to passing students. “You’ve done nothing but attack me for the past five years,” she reminded him. “And for your information, Mr. Devereaux,” she added hotly, “if I stared, it was out of apprehension, wondering what minute you were going to start something!”

“You started it the last time, darling,” he reminded her, smiling coldly at the blush she couldn’t prevent. “Didn’t you?”

She didn’t like being reminded of that fiasco, and her eyes told him so. She turned away.

“How long did it take you to perfect that pose of innocence?” he asked.

“Oh, years,” she assured him. “I started while a baby.”

He looked down his arrogant nose at her. The sunlight made gold streaks in his dark blond hair. “You didn’t get to your particular rung on the modeling ladder without giving out a little, honey. You’ll never convince me otherwise.”

“Why bother to try?” she countered. “You’re so fond of the playgirl image you’ve foisted on me. And you’re never wrong, are you?”

“Not often,” he agreed. “And never about women,” he added, with just a trace of sensuality in his deep drawl.

She supposed that he’d had his share of women. Her own small experience of him had been devastating. He had an eye-catching physique and when he liked, he could be charming. Teddi, having seen him stripped to the waist more than once, couldn’t find a fault in him. A picture of his bronzed, hair-roughened muscles danced in front of her eyes, and she shook her head to get that disturbing memory out of her mind. Kingston disturbed her physically, he always had, and she disliked the sensations as much as she disliked him. He was the enemy, she mustn’t ever lose sight of that fact.

“You know very little about the type of modeling I do,” she said numbly.

“More than you think,” he corrected. “We have a mutual acquaintance.”

She let that enigmatic remark fly right over her head as she started walking.

“Going somewhere?” he challenged.

“To inflict myself on someone else over breakfast,” she agreed cheerfully. “Strangely enough, there are people who don’t think of me as a walking, talking 8 x 10 glossy photograph.”

“Fair dinkum?” he murmured, falling into step beside her.

She glared at him. “Believe what you like about me, I don’t care.” But of course she cared, she always had. She’d gone out of her way to try to make Kingston like her, to earn even the smallest word of praise from him. But she’d never accomplished that, and she never would.

“You can have breakfast with Jenna and me,” he said after a minute, as if the words choked him. They probably had, she thought miserably.

“No, thanks,” she said politely. “I can’t eat wondering if you’ve had time to sprinkle arsenic over my bacon and eggs.”

A chuckle came out of his throat, a surprising sound. “You never stop fighting me, do you?”

She shifted her shoulders lightly. “I’ve spent most of my life fighting.”

“Poor little orphan,” he murmured coldly.

She glared at him. “I loved my parents,” she said curtly. “Shame on you for that.”

He had the grace to look uncomfortable, but only for an instant. “Hitting below the belt?” he asked with a lifted eyebrow.

“Just exactly that.”

“I’ll pull my punches next time,” he assured her.

“You make it sound like a game,” she grumbled.

“Oh, no, it’s stopped being that,” he replied, his eyes on the dining hall ahead. “It stopped being that at Easter.”

She colored delicately, her eyes closing for an instant to try to blot out the memory. She hated him for reminding her of what had almost happened.

“I should have taken you right there in that stall instead of pushing you away,” he said in a husky, deep whisper.

She moved jerkily away from him. “Please don’t remind me of the fool I was,” she said tightly, avoiding his glittering eyes. “I had you mixed up with someone else in my mind,” she added to salvage what she could of her pride.

His features seemed to harden even more. “And we both know who, don’t we, honey?”

She didn’t understand, but was too angry to ask questions. “If you’re quite through, I’m hungry.”

His darkening eyes traced her face, the slender lines of her body, as if the word triggered a hunger of his own.

He moved closer and she stiffened, catching the amused, curious glances of the other students on their way to and from the dining hall. “People are staring,” she murmured nervously.

“Afraid they’ll think we’re lovers, honey?” he asked with magnificent insolence.

She reacted without thinking, her fingers flashing up toward his hard, tanned cheek. But he caught her wrist just in time to avoid the blow, holding it firm in a steely, warm grip.

“Temper, temper,” he chided, as if the flash of fury amused him. “Think of the gossip it would cause.”

“As if you’d ever worry about what people thought of you,” she returned hotly. “It must be nice to have enough wealth and power to be above caring.”

He searched her dark, dark eyes for a long time. “Your parents were poor, weren’t they?” he asked in an uncommonly quiet tone.

She flushed violently. “I loved them,” she muttered. “It didn’t matter.”

“You push yourself way too hard for a girl your age,” he said. “Who are you trying to show, Teddi? What are you trying to prove? Jenna says you’re studying for a major in English—what good is that going to do you as a model?”

She tugged at his imprisoning hand. “None at all,” she admitted, grinding the words out, “but it’ll be great when I start teaching.”

“Teaching?” He stood very still, staring down at her as if he doubted the evidence of his own ears. “You?”