A Secret Seduction: A Secret Until Now / A Sinful Seduction / Secrets of a Shy Socialite

‘And you’re not?’ she flung back.

‘Or do you judge yourself?’ he speculated.

‘And for the record there’s nothing wrong with a man being the carer.’

He arched a brow. ‘Did I say there was?’

‘You implied it,’ she contended. ‘If I had a boyfriend who wanted to stay at home and look after Jas I’d consider myself lucky.’ But she’d refuse. Angel would never allow her child to become fond of someone who could vanish. ‘And I don’t enjoy being away from Jas.’ She swallowed, her voice thickening with emotion she couldn’t hide as she added, ‘But it won’t always be this way. I’ve given myself five years to make enough to start my own—’ She stopped and thought, You are telling him this why, Angel?

Out of this information one detail jumped out at Alex. ‘If... You do not have a boyfriend?’

‘Why? Are you thinking of applying for the vacancy?’ As jokes went this one fell pretty flat. Did the man even have a sense of humour? ‘That was a joke. My brother is good at helping out with Jas.’

‘You have a brother?’

‘We share...’ She paused and lowered her gaze from his interrogative stare. She felt disinclined to explain the circumstances that had led her to be living in a wing of the highland castle that her brother had inherited. She had tried to replicate for her daughter the idyllic childhood there that had been snatched away from her and Angel was not about to let anyone tear it away from Jasmine.

‘He was available to take care of Jasmine.’

She took a step away from him towards the rocks, taking care to avoid the tideline of broken shells and seaweed that was coarse underfoot. ‘Look, I’d better be getting back.’

‘Not that way.’

She looked at the hand on her arm, feeling a worrying disinclination to break the contact.

‘You can’t get back along the beach at high tide.’ His hand fell away, leaving Angel conscious of the tingling imprint. ‘It is nearly high tide.’

Absently rubbing the spot where his fingers had been, she fought another tide—this time one of rising dismay. Alone on a beach she could have coped—she was resourceful and it appealed to her spirit of adventure—but she wasn’t alone!

‘We’re trapped?’

‘Another instalment in your dramatic life.’ For a split second he was tempted to say they were trapped, but he stifled the impulse. ‘Relax, there’s a path through the trees.’ He pointed to the pines that lined the beach. ‘Slightly longer, but quite well marked. Come on, I’ll show you.’

Side by side but not touching, they walked towards the tree-shaded area. The pine needles underfoot crunched as they walked beneath the fragrant canopy. In the softer light the bruise on her forehead was much more evident.

‘I think you’ve escaped a black eye.’

‘It’s my shoulder that I’ll feel tomorrow.’ She rotated her shoulder, feeling the stiffness that was bound to get worse before it got better. Her hand went to her head, which she dismissed with a casual, ‘I bruise easily.’ She stopped, her eyes widening as she turned to him, and she grimaced as she realised the implications of his comment. ‘There’s a bruise? You can see it?’

He nodded, picking up the concern in her voice and wondering why she was bothered about something she had previously shrugged off.

‘Terrific!’ Wincing slightly, she traced the slightly raised outline on her temple with her finger. It was not vanity or the pain that gathered her brows into a worried straight line above her tip-tilted nose, but the prospect of what the women in Make-up would say when they saw her, and the horror would likely not be limited to them. The last thing she needed as the new girl was people questioning her professional attitude.

‘It’s not that bad.’

She slung him a gloomy look and continued to walk. ‘It is that bad if you have lights and a camera pointed at your face. There’s only so much even the best make-up and lighting can disguise.’

And even less could she disguise her growing feeling of confusion around him. Life had been simpler before she’d had any insight into the man who had for six years been the focus of her anger. Not a shiny, perfect hero—although he did have a habit of being in the right place to snatch her from the jaws of, if not death, definitely discomfort—but not, it turned out, a serial seducer. He was a man with a family and a history that had left him with his share of emotional scars and even, it seemed, the odd moral value.

Struggling to lift his eyes from the long, sinuous curves of her sleek brown body, his gaze drawn to the tiny slice of paler skin where her bikini bottom had slipped down over the angle of her hip bone, he shrugged.

‘Can they not film around your scenes?’

Angel laughed. She could not imagine that this would be the response from the team when she appeared looking this way. ‘This is an advert, not a blockbuster. I’m in all the scenes and, as they keep telling me, time is money.’

‘No, time is a luxury.’

They had reached the point where the trees thinned and the hotel came into view.

‘A luxury I don’t have.’ She expelled a deep sigh. ‘Ah, well, I’d better face the music.’ She turned to him. ‘I might not have said it. In fact, I know I didn’t, but thank you for fishing me out of the drink. I really am grateful.’

He looked down at her with an odd expression. ‘I do not want your thanks—I want this!’

Without warning, he bent his head and covered her mouth with his. A primitive thrill shot through her and she moaned into his mouth, responding to the hunger of his lips, melting against him as she was carried along on a dizzy tide of raw need. Not fighting it, not questioning, just sinking into all the warm darkness that only he seemed able to tap into and going with it. The relief...the release, it was incredible! She had stopped being the person she tried so hard to be and let herself be the person she was—with him.... Why him?

As abruptly as it had begun, it ended.

They stood there staring at each other. Angel saw wariness in his blue eyes then, with a muttered imprecation, he turned away.

She remained where she was, her eyes wide, her hand to her mouth as he stalked away back along the path they had just walked along.

CHAPTER SIX (#uf9ff38c7-3705-5089-92cf-ce5ad2294efa)

AFTER HER FACE had been viewed from all angles and all light conditions by all interested parties, including the dermatologist who had been shipped in when Clive had developed a spot, it was decided that the situation was not as bad as originally feared. In three days’ time the swelling would be gone and the bruises that make-up didn’t disguise could be airbrushed away.

Three days was not long enough to fly home and see Jas, but long enough to miss her like hell. With nothing to fill her day, Angel found sheer boredom set in very quickly. Sunbathing on a beach might be many people’s idea of bliss, but Angel had never been good at sitting still doing nothing.

With no other suggestions after she had been banned from doing anything that might injure her and delay the schedule further, she ended up armed with a pair of knitting needles, a ball of bright blue wool and instructions from Clive, who assured her a child could do it. He predicted she’d be amazed at how relaxing it was so she sat beneath a palm tree and set about being creative.

Half an hour later, her teeth aching with tension, she grabbed the tangled lot and flung it across the beach. She knew she was acting like a spoiled child, if you discounted the adult expletive that accompanied the action. She knew it wasn’t the minor frustration that made her want to yell and stamp her feet, it was everything that had gone before and what was to come. Her teeth ached with the tension that was tying her body in knots. Not thinking was exhausting. If she could have rid herself of the decisions she had to make in the same way she had that damned wool—the colour reminded her of his eyes—she might have been able to enjoy a moment’s peace.

Before the voice, the prickling on the back of her neck had warned her she wasn’t alone. Even so, she flinched when he spoke.

‘It’s an instant fine for littering here.’

How long had he been watching her?

She turned her head in the direction of the mocking drawl but sat rigidly, watching as he gathered up her rejected knitting and walked back towards her. It was just her luck. Miles of beach and he had to walk along the stretch that she had chosen. Ashamed of the ache of longing that made her throat dry, she followed his progress across the sand.

Alex was in no hurry, but as he got closer her heart rate became more erratic. Pressing a hand to her chest, she lowered her gaze and trained her eyes on his bare feet. It seemed a relatively safe part of his anatomy to focus on until, unable to stop herself, she lifted her gaze up over his hair-roughened calves and muscular thighs. The khaki shorts he wore were belted low over his narrow hips and his short-sleeved shirt hung open, revealing his lean ribbed brown torso.

‘So are you here to arrest me?’ She extended her hands, wrists crossed for imaginary cuffs. ‘I’ll come quietly.’

‘Now that I find hard to believe.’ The idea of her giving up without a fight brought a grim smile to his face as he dropped her knitting needles onto her lap. ‘Actually I’m here to save you.’

The comment drew a sardonic laugh from Angel. The only thing she needed saving from was standing right there, sending her entire nervous system into a state of chaos, with his long, greyhound-lean limbs, oozing sex from every perfect pore.

‘From death by boredom.’