A Lesson In Seduction. Susan Napier

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СКАЧАТЬ involved in national security might feel obliged to come sniffing around with some serious questions, and then she might have no choice but to betray her conscience.

      ‘Well, what do you say, darling?’ her mother asked eagerly, visibly frustrated by Rosalind’s lack of enthusiasm. ‘I can’t believe you’re even hesitating...’

      A disturbingly familiar tension began to crawl around the back of her skull as Rosalind looked into the expectant faces around her. A paralysing sense of her own vulnerability swept over her, but she knew she mustn’t allow it to dictate her actions. She couldn’t let the fear win.

      Surprisingly it was Jordan who came to her rescue. Her brother-in-law rose to his feet, dominating the room with his muscled bulk, almost dwarfing Hugh.

      ‘I think we should back off and let Roz make up her own mind in her own time,’ he said with the ease of a man confident of his authority. ‘She’d probably like to go home and think things over without the rest of us breathing down her neck.’

      Rosalind cast him a grateful look and he continued smoothly, strolling over to take her by the elbow, ‘Why don’t I run you back to your apartment now, Roz, so you can do just that? Here, take these with you.’ He scooped up a handful of brochures and thrust them into her free hand, and picked up her embroidered tote bag from a chair, looping it over her shoulder.

      ‘You can leave your own car here as a decoy,’ he said. ‘The reporters won’t bother to follow me if they see me leave alone. You can nip out over the back fence and through the neighbours’ gardens and I’ll drive around the block and pick you up in the next street.’

      ‘Uh, but I’m going to need my car later,’ said Rosalind, disconcerted by the unexpectedness of the offer and the firmness of the grip steering her towards the door. Although Rosalind and Jordan were cordial to each other, she had always been very careful to maintain a cool distance between them that had precluded friendship. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Olivia observing her husband’s urgency with a worried crease of suspicion on her smooth brow.

      ‘Richard or one of the others can drop it over to you later.’ Jordan brushed aside the feeble protest. ‘At least it’ll give you a temporary respite from all the unwelcome attention you’ve been getting.’

      The idea of a few hours’ respite from the bloodhounds outside was undeniably appealing. ‘well... I suppose...OK, thanks.’ She dug her heels in and skewed round to look over her shoulder. ‘Uh, are you coming, Olivia?’

      ‘Olivia wants to stay and chat with Connie, don’t you, kitten?’ Jordan cut in as his wife opened her mouth. ‘We’re going back to Taupo tonight and with her exhibition coming up she might not get the chance to visit again for a while...’

      There was a hasty flurry of startled goodbyes as Rosalind found herself hustled out into the hall.

      ‘For heaven’s sake, what’s the big rush?’ she hissed as Jordan practically pushed her out the back door. ‘Did you see Olivia’s face? She looked awfully suspicious...’

      ‘Maybe she thinks you’re going to try and seduce me again,’ said Jordan sardonically, blocking the doorway as she made a tentative effort to go back inside.

      Rosalind, who never blushed, went hot at the reminder of one of the most mortifying encounters of her life. ‘That was all a horrible mistake and you know it,’ she gritted fiercely. ‘I didn’t know you two had even met when I pretended to be Livvy... and anyway, nothing happened—’

      ‘Quite. There’s zero physical attraction between us. I know it, you know it, and Olivia certainly knows it. After all, even when I thought you were her and wanted you to turn me on, you failed miserably.’

      ‘OK, OK, I get the picture,’ Rosalind grumbled, jerking her elbow out of his grip. ‘But I might point out the failure was completely mutual.’

      He grinned, his odd-coloured eyes warming with laughter. ‘True. So now we’ve finally got that out in the open maybe we can relax around each other. Olivia is beginning to worry that we intend to keep up the pussyfooting for ever.’

      Rosalind grinned back, relinquishing the last vestige of embarrassment which had constrained her natural, exuberant friendliness. ‘Well, I guess if you can accept your total lack of sex appeal, so can I,’ she teased with deliberate ambiguity.

      ‘Big of you,’ said Jordan, ignoring the overt provocation. ‘Do you need a boost over that wall, or can you make it yourself?’

      At five feet nine Rosalind wasn’t used to men treating her as a wisp of delicate femininity and she reacted with her usual bravado to the implied challenge. Waiting in the quiet cul-de-sac on the other side of the neighbours’ property a few minutes later, she brushed off her painfully grazed palms with a rueful acknowledgement that at her age maybe she should start thinking about putting dignity before daring.

      Jordan’s car turned out to be a macho four-wheel drive, scarcely less attention-grabbing than Rosalind’s beloved fluorescent green VW, but, as he had predicted, the journalists outside the Marlows’ gate had let him go unhindered when he had forced his way through the gauntlet of their questions.

      ‘So...what’s the real reason why you offered me a lift?’ asked Rosalind quietly as they cruised towards the city. ‘Don’t tell me it was just to clear the air between us. You could have done that any time. It’s something to do with Livvy, isn’t it? Why she was looking so...pulled back there at the house...’

      She watched Jordan’s big hands tighten betrayingly on the wheel, highlighting the nicks and scars that were the legacy of his work as a sculptor.

      ‘She’s pregnant,’ he said baldly.

      The words hit her like a sharp blow. Rosalind’s ears rang and she felt a chill across the base of her skull and tasted metal on her tongue.

      ‘Pregnant?’ she whispered. She felt a floating sense of utter separation. Olivia. Her sister. Her twin.. the other half of herself...was going to have a baby...contribute to the growing brood of Marlow grandchildren?

      Rosalind was shocked...and more; emotions boiled through her that she didn’t dare examine too closely.

      ‘I thought she didn’t want a family yet,’ she said, when she could get her stiff mouth to work. ‘She said she wanted to concentrate on her painting—’

      ‘I know,’ Jordan’s voice was clipped and slightly grim. ‘We agreed we were going to wait a few years...but fate evidently had other plans for us. Olivia found out last week—she’s still trying to come to terms with it herself; that’s why she doesn’t want to tell anyone just yet... No one else in the family knows and she wants to keep it that way for another few weeks. Apart from her own ambivalent feelings, there are one or two early warning signs, like elevated blood pressure, that the doctor is nervous about...’

      Rosalind sensed rather than saw the sidelong look that Jordan gave her as he continued carefully, ‘It’s a little too soon to confirm it, but the doctor suspects from his physical examination that it could be twins...’

      Twins. Of course, given their family history, it was only to be expected, but Rosalind’s sense of shock deepened. Livvy, the mother of not one child but two. The buzzing in her ears increased and she put her hand over her clenching stomach in sudden awareness. ‘Livvy’s been having dreadful morning sickness, hasn’t she?’

      ‘Yes; СКАЧАТЬ