Lover By Deception

‘Why should I believe you? You could pull the same disappearing stunt as your partner.’

‘Leave the country, you mean.’ Anna looked down at where Missie was lying on the conservatory floor. ‘No. I couldn’t do that,’ she said simply and ridiculously.

Ward found that he believed her. She might be quite happy to cheat his brother and goodness knew how many others, but he had seen the love in her eyes when she looked at her dog. She wasn’t going to abandon her.

‘I could, of course, give you a cheque now,’ Anna suggested sweetly. The look he gave her in return almost made her want to laugh.

‘Which your bank would, no doubt, refuse to honour,’ he told her, shaking his head. ‘No, I don’t think so. I want the cash...’

‘Then you will just have to wait until tomorrow,’ Anna told him firmly.

‘Very well, then,’ Ward agreed. ‘I’ll be here at nine sharp.’

‘Nine? But the bank doesn’t open until ten,’ Anna protested.

‘Exactly,’ Ward responded smoothly. ‘I can hardly allow you to take the risk of travelling there and back alone with such a large sum of money. I shall come with you.’

‘Come with me...?’ Anna’s outrage momentarily overwhelmed her. ‘Perhaps you’d like to stay the night and keep me chained to your side,’ she said acidly, only to flush bright red as she saw the look in his eyes.

Ward was as startled by the bright pink glow of her cheeks as Anna was. It would have been much more in character for her to have deliberately flirted with him, to have flaunted her sexuality and drawn his attention to it rather than to betray such embarrassment. It was just another one of her tricks, of course, and one she had no doubt used to good effect in the past on the more vulnerable members of his sex. He could well imagine how easily a man might feel tempted to rush to protect and cherish her. She was so tiny, so fragile... and yet, at the same time, so determinedly and so ridiculously feisty.

Angrily he turned away from her, warning her as he did so, ‘Don’t even think of not being here because I promise you, wherever you go I shall find you.’

He had just started to walk back to his car when Missie suddenly darted out from behind Anna and ran after him, whining pathetically.

Immediately he stopped, turned round and dropped down to fuss the little dog. From his kneeling position he looked up at Anna and growled, ‘Poor little thing. She deserves better—someone worthy of her loyalty and her trust, someone who knows what those things mean and values them, respects them.’

And then, before Anna could say a word, he got to his feet and strode towards his car.

Of all the nerve! What an arrogant, insensitive blockhead of a man, Anna fumed once he had gone. Nursing Missie on her lap and chiding her for her treachery, she told the dog severely, ‘Well, I certainly feel sorry for his wife.’

His wife. Heavens, but it must take an awful long time to caress every inch of that big hard chest, and heaven knew how much coaxing and cajoling it must take to get that hard mouth soft enough to kiss it. And as for his oh, so high moral principles... What must it be like to have to break through that stern, austere barrier to get him to react emotionally, to drive him out of control with longing and desire? If he were to wrap his arms around her she would be lost in them, Anna reflected. It would be like being mauled by a lion. Was his body hair as soft and delicious to touch as her old teddy’s? Did he growl, too, if you pressed his middle?

Anna gave a little giggle, her eyes dancing with amusement. Oh, but there was so much of him. A woman would have to be either very brave or very foolish to risk falling in love with him. He had been so antagonistic towards her, so ready to believe the worst... and yet, at the same time...Sternly she reprimanded herself.

‘Down you go. I need to ring Dee,’ she told Missie, gently dislodging her from her lap.

Anna’s heart sank when she listened to the message on Dee’s answering machine. She had, she informed her callers, gone north to see her aunt.

Anna had the- number of her mobile but when she tried it there was no reply. Well, she would just have to try again later, she decided. Heavens, but Ward Hunter had been so rude, so aggressive. She just hoped she had been right in thinking that paper he had could be used against Julian Cox. She certainly had never given Julian permission to name her as his partner, and his doing so had been a blatant piece of fraud on his part. Mulling over what she had learned, Anna headed for her kitchen.

She was an enthusiastic cook but she was the first to admit that there was much more fun in cooking for others than in cooking for herself, which was one of the reasons she enjoyed her work with the elderly so much. Which reminded her...

She would make herself something to eat and then she would go outside and finish her gardening before it got too dark.

Half an hour after leaving Anna, Ward was booking into a local hotel. It had been a warm day and he was beginning to feel in need of a shower and something to eat. After the porter had gone he looked a little disparagingly around the room. He had booked into the first hotel he had come across. Luxurious living was something Ward could either take or leave. He liked good things, appreciated them, and had a good eye for quality, but the comfort of a five-star hotel with a highly recommended restaurant was the last thing on his mind right now.

God, but she was the most distracting, deceitful, downright dangerous woman he had ever met.

When the sunlight had shone through that long skirt thing she had been wearing, revealing slim, surprisingly long legs, it had been all he could do to drag his gaze away.

It couldn’t possibly have been deliberate, and neither could the way her soft stretch tee shirt top had clung to the warmly rounded outline of her breasts as she’d bent so protectively towards her ridiculous little dog.

Her bare arms had been softly pale, just barely sprinkled with pretty freckles, and Ward had had to fight an overwhelming urge to run his fingertip all the way up the soft flesh of one of them from her wrist right up past her breast. She had smelled distractingly of roses and honeysuckle and there had been a piece of clematis in her hair that he had itched to reach out and remove.

He had wanted to hold her, stroke her and shake her all at the same time, so confusing and conflicting had been his reactions to her.

One reaction had been uncompromisingly plain, though. His jaw tightened irritably. He was forty-two and he couldn’t remember the last time his body had given such an impromptu display of its potent maleness.

Thankfully he had managed to control it before she had seen what was happening.

Ward swallowed hard. There was a print on the bedroom wall, a cornfield bright with red poppies, and, for one logic-defying moment, he could almost breathe in the field’s summer scent, feel the itchy sharpness of it against his bare skin, the sun hot against his naked body as he wrapped Anna’s equally naked form in his arms. Her flesh felt so soft, her breasts delicious mounds of femininity, creamily pale, throwing into prominence the erotic, contrasting darkness of her nipples. He touched them with his fingertips and heard her indrawn breath of pleasure, saw the eager, wanton look in her eyes as she commanded him, ‘Kiss them, Ward. I want to feel you mouth against me.’

Ward closed his eyes. The little triangle of hair between her thighs felt so unbelievably silky soft.

‘Ward, I want you so much...’ he heard her whisper.

Ward opened his eyes. Damn her. What was she, some kind of witch? Well, she wasn’t going to bewitch him. No way. His body felt hot and tense, aching with angry desire. Very deliberately he ran the shower cold. That should put a damper on such dangerous thoughts, amongst other things!

That was all the dead-heading done. Now all she needed to do was to put everything away and then she could go and have a bath. Heavens, she was tired. Her whole body ached. A little guiltily Anna flushed. It wasn’t just the gardening she had been doing that was causing that ache. Now, where was that hoe she had been using—a long-handled one especially useful for recalcitrant weeds? Tiredly Anna stepped backwards, and then cried out in pain as she inadvertently trod on the hoe and the handle came up and hit her right on the back of her head.

Missie whined unhappily. Why was her mistress lying in the middle of the lawn ignoring Missie’s anxious little cries and licks...?

Ward pushed away the room-service meal he had ordered, half-eaten. It was no good. He simply didn’t trust that woman. By morning she could be heaven alone knew where. Quickly Ward gathered up his coat and his keys, almost running out of the hotel towards his car.

Missie greeted his arrival with excited, relieved little barks. Ward frowned. The house was in complete darkness, even though it was now dusk, and the conservatory door was open. Where the devil was Anna?

Missie showed him, standing anxiously beside her unconscious mistress, her little tail beating the ground as she looked trustingly up at Ward.

On the ground Anna gave a little moan and started to open her eyes.

‘Oh, my head hurts,’ she cried out, tears filling her eyes.

‘It’s all right; you’ve bumped it. Don’t move. I’m going to call for an ambulance,’ Ward told her grimly.

When Anna had moved her head he had seen the dark patch of drying blood staining her hair and he could see a smear of blood on the handle of the hoe, too.

‘Who are you?’ he heard Anna asking him fretfully.

He checked before he started to dial the emergency services number on his mobile phone and stared at her.

‘Don’t you know?’ he asked her.

Tearfully Anna looked at him.

‘No, I don’t.’ She started to shiver as she told him frantically, ‘I don’t know anything.’