A Fortune's Children's Wedding. Barbara Boswell

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СКАЧАТЬ they just—just—”

      “Rub each other the wrong way?” suggested Flynt. “Believe me, I’ve been there.”

      “You don’t get along with one of your children?” Angelica asked, her dark eyes wide as saucers.

      A smile twitched at the corners of his lips. “I don’t have any kids. Or a wife, either, for that matter. I meant that, growing up, I played Casper’s role. I always managed to do or say exactly what would get on poor Mom’s last nerve. She always claimed she was doing her best, too.”

      He felt Angelica studying him, and a peculiar warmth began to spread through him. “I’m waiting for you to express your deepest sympathy for my mom. To say that an obnoxious adult like me could’ve only been a hellacious kid, one that would drive any well-meaning mother into a frenzy.”

      “Do you get along with her now?” Angelica said instead. “Did things between you and your mother get better when you grew up?”

      “After I left home, things between us definitely improved. Because I wasn’t there.” Flynt was glib. He wanted to drop the subject; Corrigan family history was not something he ever cared to dwell upon.

      “Do you keep in touch with your mother?” Angelica pressed. “Do you phone or visit her often?”

      She was watching him, both curious and determined. As a dogged interrogator himself, Flynt realized that she wouldn’t let up till she got some answers. Well, he was willing to provide some, but if she was hoping to hear about a fractious mother-son relationship turned harmonious, she was out of luck.

      “There is the occasional phone call,” he admitted. “But I limit my visits to one afternoon a year, on Christmas Day. My aunts, uncles and cousins are around to keep the conversation, and the eggnog, flowing. The TV set is on all day and that helps, too.”

      He shrugged his shoulders. “Sorry I can’t paint a more glowing picture for Casper’s future relationship with your mother, but who can tell? Maybe it will be better for them, maybe they’ll end up the best of friends. Now, about Brandon—”

      “What about your sisters and brothers?” Angelica dismissed his attempt to switch topics. “Are you close to them? Are they—”

      “There aren’t any,” Flynt said tersely.

      He felt the familiar ache that struck whenever anyone posed casual, innocuous questions about siblings. If he replied that he had none, he felt he was denying that Mark had ever existed at all.

      But mentioning his younger brother often led to more questions, ones that inevitably culminated in the pain and dread that had shadowed his childhood. And his adult life, too. How could it not?

      “You look strange,” Angelica observed. She’d moved to stand closer to him and was eyeing him intently.

      She was close enough for him to inhale the subtle scent of her perfume, a fresh citrusy aroma that reminded him of sunshine and… Flynt gulped. And sex.

      The sexual arousal was based strictly on his strong attraction to her, not the perfume, Flynt conceded. Because never before had the delicate scent of orange blossoms turned him on.

      He was definitely turned on now. Heat streaked through him, from the top of his head to his feet, pooling sensually, deliciously, inconveniently, deep in his groin. If she were to lower her eyes, she would notice that the fit of his jeans had been altered quite visibly by his arousal.

      Flynt fervently hoped that she wouldn’t see.

      “Of course I look strange.” He retreated a few steps, desperately needing to marshal his defenses against her all-too-potent allure. “I’ve just been held at gunpoint, and then got stuck witnessing a nasty family quarrel,” he said flippantly. “It would be strange if I didn’t look strange.”

      “You didn’t look strange till I asked you about sisters and brothers,” Angelica persisted. “I can tell that’s obviously a sensitive subject with you.”

      She took a step closer, and Flynt shifted under the intensity of her gaze. That laser stare of Romina’s seemed to be a genetic trait.

      “Don’t give me that psychology junk you learned in nursing school, Angelica.” Flynt did a rather credible imitation of Romina’s rebuke.

      Instead of taking offense, Angelica smiled. And Flynt felt as if he’d been struck by a bolt of sensual lightning. He’d thought she was enticing from the moment he’d laid eyes on her, but when she smiled like that, her eyes bright, her face alight, she was well-nigh irresistible.

      “Nice dodge, but it won’t work, Mr. Corrigan,” Angelica said, tilting her head.

      She was still smiling, and he gazed at her, transfixed.

      “You’ve had a firsthand look at the Carroll family, now it’s your turn to cough up some personal information about the Corrigans.”

      Was she flirting with him? Flynt clamped his teeth together to keep his jaw from hanging agape like a starstruck idiot.

      And then her words filtered through the sensual clouds and abruptly quashed every amatory feeling. An abrupt transition, akin to being thrown into an icy lake. Which was a good thing, he concluded. He had been too distracted by her appeal, he’d lost his focus on the job at hand. That was unacceptable.

      “I’m here to talk about your father, not me.” His lips thinned to a hard, straight line. “To set up the initial meeting between the two of you, and the sooner, the better.”

      Angelica stared at him. His transformation was startling. For a few moments there, his mood had been light, almost playful, now he was strictly business.

      Fortune business. She flinched. “I have no desire to meet—”

      “You didn’t know Brandon was your father, did you?” Flynt lowered his voice and she leaned in closer to hear. “You don’t have to don the family mask, no one is here but me. Be honest, Angelica.”

      “No, I didn’t,” she confessed. “I guess there’s really no harm in admitting that.”

      “Any particular reason why you pretended that you knew?” He sounded almost amused.

      “I just did, that’s all.”

      “Because you were raised to automatically lie when faced with the unknown, according to your mother’s ‘trust no one’ philosophy?”

      Bingo! He’d hit it. Not that Angelica was about to tell him so. “Now who’s overindulging in psychology, Agent Corrigan?”

      “Ex-agent, remember?” he corrected. “And call me Flynt.”

      Their eyes met again, and Angelica felt her pulses jump queerly. He had an unnerving effect on her. A most unusual one. Because when she’d been holding him at gunpoint, when she suspected him of being sent here to investigate them, of being one of the enemy, she’d felt an unexpected, unwelcome sexual awareness of him.

      That had never happened to her before. Being attracted to a man who could bring their lives crashing down on them? Good Lord, it was something her mother might do! But not perceptive, practical СКАЧАТЬ