Seducing The Enemy. Emma Darcy

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СКАЧАТЬ She’s not focused on the person I am.”

      She grinned at him. “Feeling somewhat diminished, Daniel?”

      He gave a wry laugh. “Guilty on two counts,” he agreed, conceding the argument to her.

      She sat back, ridiculously pleased he had caught her point so quickly. Her eyes flirted with him. She was taking wicked pleasure in putting him on the spot. “I wouldn’t like a lover who didn’t make me feel uniquely special to him.”

      Heart-tripping desire flashed out at her. “You are unique. Superficial likenesses are irrelevant to the person you are inside.”

      She shook her head, trying to quell the treacherous response he evoked as she rebutted his opinion. “They’re not really irrelevant, you know. In some ways they shape the inner person.” Her mouth twisted ruefully. “Who knows how I would have developed if I hadn’t been a twin?”

      “The strength of mind and inner fire would still be there,” he said with certainty.

      “Is that what you see?”

      “More like feel. I’d no sooner laid eyes on you than it hit me like a sledgehammer. I’ve never experienced so much concentrated mental and emotional power. A totally annihilating blast. It made me wonder if you were telepathic.”

      Had it made him suspicious?

      Annabel silently fretted over what might have been a telling overreaction to him that night at the motel. She had been under intense pressure to keep alert and make all the right responses, leaving no crack in her credibility. When he had stepped into the room, she’d been wound up tight, having already fielded a host of questions from the motel people, the ambulance officers, the police. Someone had tipped off the media, as well, and reporters were baying for blood outside.

      One look at Daniel Wolfe and all her instincts had screamed, “Danger, threat.” Her mind had leapt into overdrive, instantly dictating, “Fight, eliminate.” He hadn’t said a word, yet she’d repelled him with all the power she could harness because...because she’d felt his power and it had disturbed her, distracted her, and she couldn’t afford to be distracted or disturbed. Not until Izzie was safe.

      “Are you?” he asked.

      The question meant nothing to her. She was still deeply involved in analysing her reaction to him, trying to explain it away. No other man had ever affected her like that. On the other hand, she’d never been in such a nerve-racking, life-and-death situation before.

      “You don’t want to answer?” he appealed.

      “Pardon?”

      “Are you telepathic? It’s said that twins sometimes are with each other.”

      She sighed. “There you go again, thinking of me as a twin.”

      “But not as a carbon copy, Annabel. I would never mistake you for your sister.”

      Warm pleasure flooded through her as his eyes reinforced his insistence that she was unique to him. Then she remembered the photograph, and her heart seized up. If he had it, could he tell the difference? Most people couldn’t with photographs. Her heart kicked into life again. One man’s personal opinion didn’t count as hard evidence. He’d need more than that to prove it was Isabel who had been with Barry Wolfe when he died.

      If that was his intent.

      Maybe it was just curiosity to know the truth.

      Or was that hope speaking?

      The soup was served. Its arrival was very timely. Annabel didn’t like the confusion in her mind. She felt a very strong tug of attraction towards Daniel Wolfe. The idea of exploring where they might go together was getting more seductive by the minute. If only their connection had been simple and straightforward. But it was impossible to ignore the complications involved in his identity and hers. She had to stay on guard.

      Her mind wandered over the problems as they silently consumed the soup. The truth had to be suppressed. It could hurt too many people. Even if Neil Mason forgave Izzie’s lapse into temptation, he wouldn’t forget it. His trust in her would be shaken, which would erode the supportive nature of their relationship. This would inevitably rebound on the children, and what had been a happy and secure household would start snapping with tensions.

      Izzie wouldn’t be able to bear it. She needed approval. She needed someone strong to lean on. That was why she’d married Neil Mason, a man twelve years older and imbued with the confidence of having all the answers to everything, a man who was more than prepared to take charge of his innocent, malleable young wife and direct her along the lines he considered right and proper.

      Had Izzie fallen into the marriage because she didn’t know what else to do? She had only been twenty. Was it because Annabel had struck out on her own, determined to pursue interests her twin didn’t share, tired of suppressing them for Izzie’s sake?

      Annabel had never voiced these private doubts. Although Neil’s pompous righteousness always irritated her, it had felt wrong to criticise a choice when it seemed to fulfil Izzie’s needs. However, if she was ruthlessly honest with herself, it had been a relief to pass the responsibility of propping up her sister onto Neil. She had overlooked his faults, wanting Izzie to be happy with him.

      But was she?

      To go to a motel with Barry Wolfe.

      How much guilt did she bear in all this for effecting a separation from her twin to claim a life of her own, knowing Izzie’s dependence on continual support?

      My other half, Annabel thought with a sense of helplessness. No escape from it. They were two sides of the same coin, different, yet joined to each other in an unbreakable mould that made up the whole. What kind of fate arranged such things? Or was it simply an unfortunate trick of nature? Why, in the split that had taken place to form two of them, was it ordained that one be strong and the other weak?

      Steel and putty. Daniel Wolfe’s succinct summing up slid into her mind. How had he seen it so quickly? On such brief acquaintance?

      Annabel wished it wasn’t true. She was always conscious that the division could have gone the other way, with Izzie being the strong one. She knew she could not turn her back on any cry for help from her sister. It wouldn’t be right. It wouldn’t be fair. It wasn’t Izzie’s fault that she couldn’t cope alone. It wasn’t really Annabel’s fault, either. It was just how it was.

      “It must be a difficult relationship for you, being a twin.”

      Annabel glanced up sharply, startled at how closely Daniel Wolfe’s remark echoed her thoughts. He had finished his soup and was sitting back, watching her. The. instant their eyes locked she knew he was satisfied he had guessed right. It gave her an eerie feeling. How had he perceived and understood what she had kept hidden from so many others, even her own family?

      Her parents were so proud of their girls, Isabel’s marriage, Annabel’s career, never really seeing the downside of their duality. Her mother would still be parading them in the same clothes if she had her way, blindly unaware it had made them feel like show dolls, not real people at all.

      She looked at her bowl of soup, her hand poised over it with the spoon, and realised she had been brooding over a plate she had emptied, bar a trickle of liquid СКАЧАТЬ