Partner for Love

‘I think Sebastian might have made a big mistake,’ he said. ‘A very big one.’

He might as well have dashed a bucket of cold water in her face. Darcy recoiled from the sharp slap of reality, aghast at her own response. White-faced, she pushed his hands away from her waist and retied the belt herself, pulling the sides of the dressing-gown together high around her throat with shaking fingers.

‘That wasn’t fair,’ she said unsteadily.

‘It wasn’t particularly fair of you to sit there with nothing on under that dressing-gown either.’ Quite unconcerned, Cooper propped himself against the table and calmly watched Darcy’s fumbling attempts to straighten herself.

It was impossible to believe that this cool, self-contained man eyeing her with faint amusement could be the same man who had been kissing her only moments ago, the same man who had buried his face in her hair, whose hands had explored the smooth softness of her body with such devastating skill. Darcy clutched her robe about her, her eyes huge and dark. She felt disorientated and lost, almost bereft. How could he look so indifferent? Hadn’t he felt anything?

She pulled herself together with an immense effort. If Cooper could appear so unmoved, she wasn’t going to let him know just how shattered she felt. ‘I know what you’re doing,’ she said, somehow managing to keep her voice steady. ‘You just want to make me leave and you’re prepared to do anything to make sure I go as soon as possible.’

‘If that were what I was trying to do, I would hardly have offered you a month’s truce,’ Cooper pointed out coolly. ‘However, now you mention it, it doesn’t sound like a bad policy. Have I persuaded you that you’d be better off leaving as soon as the creeks are down?’

‘No, you haven’t!’ said Darcy, who was regaining her temper with her composure. ‘If you think a paltry little kiss like that is enough to scare me into leaving, you’ve got another think coming!’

‘Does that mean you want to go ahead with a month’s trial partnership?’

Darcy felt as if she had been outmanoeuvred somewhere along the line. She wanted nothing better than to tell Cooper what he could do with his trial partnership, but then she would have little option but to leave, and she wasn’t going to give in that easily. ‘As long as there are no more... incidents... like the one that’s just taken place,’ she said.

‘But I thought paltry little kisses didn’t bother you?’

‘They don’t,’ said Darcy bravely and quite untruthfully. ‘That doesn’t mean I like them.’

‘That’s funny,’ said Cooper. ‘I was under the impression that you quite enjoyed it. I know I did.’

Darcy eyed him with acute resentment. ‘I’d rather it didn’t happen again,’ she said in a frosty voice.

‘I’ll tell you what,’ he said amenably. ‘I won’t kiss you again if you don’t provoke me again.’

‘I didn’t provoke you!’ she protested indignantly.

Cooper raised an eyebrow. ‘Didn’t you? It felt that way to me.’

‘I can’t help the way you feel,’ said Darcy, ruffled as much by Cooper’s calm discussion of the kiss as by the kiss itself.

‘No,’ he agreed, straightening from the table. To her fury, his eyes held not embarrassment but an unmistakable glint of amusement. ‘You could try wearing more clothes in future, though. Now,’ he went on in a brisk tone before Darcy had time to think of a suitably dignified retort, ‘I suggest we abide by the terms of our truce and start work. Since there’s just the two of us here, this seems like a good opportunity to clear out Bill’s office. You could give me a hand—once you’ve changed, of course.’

Darcy made sure she covered herself from neck to toe. Her bones were still weak with remembered desire as she stood under the shower and she felt hollow whenever she thought about Cooper’s mouth and Cooper’s hands and the lean, hard strength of his body. She closed her eyes, wishing she could banish the memory of his touch, but he might as well have been standing there still, his fingers tracing irresistible patterns of desire on her skin, for all that she could forget.

She felt better after pulling on jeans and a bulky cardigan over a cotton polo-necked jumper. There, Cooper could hardly accuse her of being dressed revealingly now! Darcy had given herself a stern talkingto, but she was more nervous than she cared to admit about the coming month. If only she and Sebastian really were still in love, it would make it so much easier. She wouldn’t have responded to Cooper’s kiss like that for a start, Darcy told herself, choosing to ignore a little voice which told her that Sebastian’s kisses had never been like that. Well, she would just have to pretend that she still was, she decided; she wasn’t an actress for nothing, and she was determined that Cooper wasn’t going to get the better of her. Darcy had always had a stubborn streak along with a certain instinctive contrariness when faced with a will as strong as her own. She would stick out this month, just to show Cooper Anderson that she could, and what was more she would be so useful that in the end he would beg her to stay, and she would have great satisfaction in refusing!

It was a comforting thought, and Darcy enjoyed herself imagining exactly what she would say to Cooper, and how he would grovel to try and persuade her not to go, but when she had finished dressing and had to face him again suddenly the scene didn’t seem quite so likely. She had to muster all her acting skills to appear cool and poised as she made her way down the gloomy corridor to her great-uncle’s old office, a dark, poky little room at the back of the house, overflowing with piles of letters, accounts, catalogues and old farming magazines.

Cooper was sitting at the desk, trying to clear a space among the clutter. ‘What a horrible little room,’ said Darcy, wrinkling her nose. ‘How could Uncle Bill bear to sit in here?’

‘I don’t think he could,’ said Cooper drily. ‘He just used to throw all his papers in here and shut the door—hence the mess. No one knew the land better than Bill, but he wasn’t a businessman.’

‘And you are, I suppose?’ Darcy was unable to prevent herself saying snidely.

He gave her a cool look. ‘I own five properties in this part of South Australia, as well as several businesses in Adelaide—I have to be.’

‘If you’re such a good businessman, why do you want Bindaburra so badly?’ she asked, wrapping her cardigan more firmly about her as she wandered over to the tiny window. It was much easier to pretend to be cool and poised when she wasn’t looking at him, she discovered. Bulky layers didn’t seem to make much difference; under that cool, amused gaze, she might as well still be wearing the silken robe.