Darling Enemy

“Please let me go...” she asked curtly, giving up the unequal struggle.

His fingers abruptly entwined with hers, the simple action knocking every small protest, even speech, out of her mind as he drew her along the cobblestoned path beside him. She wondered at her own uncharacteristic meekness as the unfamiliar contact made music in her blood.

“You’ll come home with us,” he said quietly. “The last thing you need is to be alone in that damned apartment, while your dizzy aunt bed-hops across Europe, with no one about to look after you.”

She knew he disliked her aunt Dilly, he’d made no secret of the fact. She’d often thought that his dislike for her aunt had extended automatically to herself, even though she was nothing like her father’s sister.

“You don’t have to pretend that you care what happens to me,” she said coldly. “You’ve already made it quite clear that you don’t.”

His fingers tightened. “You weren’t meant to hear that,” he said. He glanced down at her. “I say a hell of a lot of things to Jenna to keep the issue clouded.”

She blinked up at him. “I don’t understand,” she murmured.

He returned her searching look with a smoldering fire deep in his gray eyes that made her feel trembly. His jaw tautened. “You never have,” he ground out. “You’re too damned afraid of me to try.”

“I’m not afraid of you!” she said, eyes flashing.

“You are,” he corrected. “Because I’d want it all, or nothing, and you know that, don’t you?”

She felt her knees going weak as she stared up at him, the words only half making sense in her whirling mind. One of Teddi’s friends walked past, grinning at the big, handsome man holding Teddi’s hand, and King grinned back. Women loved him, their eyes openly interested, covetous. But the looks they were attracting embarrassed Teddi, and she tried to pull loose.

“Don’t,” King murmured, tightening his warm fingers with a wicked smile. “Don’t read anything into it, it’s simple self-preservation. If I hold your little hand, you can’t slap me with it,” he added with a chuckle.

It was one of the few times she’d ever heard him laugh when they were together, and she studied his lofty face, fascinated. She was of above average height, but King towered over her. He wasn’t only tall, he was broad—like a football player.

“Like what you see?” he challenged.

“I was just thinking how big they grow them in Australia,” she hedged.

“I’m Australian born,” he agreed. “And you’re from Georgia, aren’t you? I love that accent...early plantation?”

She pouted. “I have a very nice accent. Nothing like that long, twanging drawl of yours,” she countered.

“A souvenir from Queensland,” he agreed without rancor.

She searched his eyes. “You spent a lot of your life there,” she recalled.

He nodded. “Mother was a Canadian. When she inherited the Calgary farm, we left Australia and moved to Canada. That was before Jenna was born. Dad and I spent a lot of time traveling between the two properties, so Mother and I were little more than strangers when I was younger.”

“You don’t let anyone get close, do you?”

He stopped at the door of the dining hall and looked down at her. “How close do you want to get, honey—within grabbing distance of my wallet?” he asked with a cold smile.

She glared up at him. “I’m not money crazy,” she said proudly. She jerked her hand out of his grasp, and this time he let it go. “I have everything I need.”

“Do you really?” he retorted. “Then why do you live with your aunt—why does she have to keep you?”

She wanted to tell him that she made quite enough modeling to pay her school fees and to support herself. But she hadn’t seen the sense in trying to maintain an apartment of her own when she was in school nine months out of the year. Besides, she thought bitterly, Dilly was rarely at the New York apartment these days. There was always a man....

“Think what you like,” she told him. “You will, anyway.”

He looked down at her quietly. “Does it bother you?”

She shrugged carelessly. “You don’t really know anything about me.”

His eyes dropped to her soft, full mouth. “I know that underneath that perfect bone structure and bristling pride, you burn with sweet fires when you want a man to kiss you....”

Her face flamed. She moved away as he opened the door for her, standing in such a way that she had to brush against his powerful body to enter the dining hall. She glanced up at him as she eased past, her eyes telling him reluctantly how much the contact disturbed her.

“Soft little thing, aren’t you?” he asked in a deep, lazy drawl, his eyes pointedly on the high thrust of her breasts as they flattened slightly against his broad chest in passing.

Teddi was grateful that Jenna was already at a table waiting for them, so that she didn’t witness the strange little scene. Jenna tended to carry teasing to an embarrassing degree.

Chapter Two

Breakfast was pleasant. It was one of the few times Teddi could remember sitting down to eat with King when he didn’t go out of his way to needle her. She had the strangest impression that their fiery relationship had undergone a change while they talked earlier. She looked into his eyes and blushed, and the reaction caused an amused glint in his own eyes.

“How soon can you girls get packed?” King asked over a final cup of coffee. At a nearby table, several female students were openly watching King with every bite, their eyes dreamy.

“I’m taking a flight to New York later this afternoon,” Teddi said quickly.

King watched her, reading accurately the panic in her young face. “You and I will iron out our differences this summer,” he said in a tone that made her tingle all over. “In the meantime, there’s no excuse for denying Jenna your company just to spite me.”

It was the truth, but part of her was afraid of what settling those differences might lead to. She was nervous of men in any physical sense, and especially of King—there were scars on her emotions that she didn’t want reopened.

“I’ve got modeling jobs—” she began.

“You can live without them for a few weeks, surely?” he taunted. “Twenty-four-hour days are only bearable for short terms,” he reminded her. “You’ve been holding down a night job, Jenna told me, in addition to your day courses. Quite a feat, if I remember curfew regulations.”

“The gates close at midnight here,” Teddi murmured. She glared at Jenna, who managed to look completely innocent.

“All the same, you could use a vacation. As long as you don’t spend it mooning over me,” he added.

Her eyes jerked up to find him smiling in a teasing way, his eyes kind and glittering with good humor. It surprised her into smiling back, accentuating her beauty to such a degree that King just sat and stared at her until she dropped her own gaze, embarrassed.

“Besides,” King added tautly, “where else have you got to go? With that nymphomaniac of an aunt, or to an apartment alone?”

“A half hour ago, you wouldn’t have cared if I’d had to shack up with a bear at the local zoo,” she reminded him hotly.

He cocked an eyebrow. “As I recall, Miss Cover Girl,” he murmured, “the subject of bears once got us into an interesting situation.”

She went fiery red, avoiding Jenna’s smiling, curious gaze. “An unbearable situation,” she murmured, laughing when King got the pun and threw back his own head.

“Please come,” Jenna added, pleading. “If you’re around to chaperone me, King will let me chase Blakely all over the ranch,” she laughed.

“Blakely?” King frowned. “You don’t, surely, mean my livestock foreman?”

Jenna peeked at him through her lashes. “I’m interested in ranching,” she murmured.