Her Passionate Protector. Laurey Bright

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СКАЧАТЬ to fall, it was dark and she didn’t fancy sitting around waiting for help. “I’ll get a taxi,” she said, “and call the AA in the morning.”

      “I’ll run you home,” Aidan offered, having already piled several students into his car. One of them got out and insisted on her having the front seat.

      Aidan dropped off the students first at their hostel, and then in silence drove her to the small house she rented in the center of the city.

      Drawing up outside, he sat frowning through the wind-screen as she unfastened her seat belt. “I’m sorry,” he said, “if I’ve not been good company tonight.”

      “You’re always good company, Aidan,” she assured him, pausing as she fumbled for the door handle.

      He gave a strained laugh. “Tell that to my wife,” he muttered. “She thinks I’m a bore—I don’t know what kind of life she expected with an archaeology lecturer, but it’s not lively enough for her. And my salary won’t stretch to the sort of lifestyle she’d like.”

      Sharon Rutherford always gave an impression of being restless and bored at any university function she attended, and it was fairly obvious she didn’t want to be there.

      “I’m sorry,” Sienna murmured uncomfortably. Her fingers closed about the handle.

      “Don’t go yet.” He turned to her with a pleading expression.

      “Won’t your wife be wondering where you are?”

      “I phoned her, said good night to Pixie and promised to give her a kiss if she’s still awake when I get home.” His daughter’s name was Priscilla, but he called her Pixie.

      “Give Pixie a hug for me,” Sienna said, beginning to open the door.

      “That’s very sweet of you.” As she turned away he said her name in a desperate undertone. “Sienna, I—” He grabbed at her free hand, holding tightly, then pulled the other one into an equally fierce grip and lunged toward her.

      Sienna sharply turned her head to the side. Dragging herself away, she said firmly, “Good night, Aidan. Thanks for the lift.”

      As she hurried to her front door, he restarted the engine and roared away with an uncharacteristic screech of tires.

      Her heart was pounding, and she felt a shivery dismay.

      Aidan was close to the ideal man she had quite consciously set up in her mind, a man she could respect and admire. Who seemed to respect and like her. But although they worked closely together, at times she’d almost forgotten that he was male.

      It crossed her mind that Brodie Stanner would never have allowed her to forget that important fact. When she was with him she hadn’t been able to put it out of her mind for a minute. He’d simply exuded masculinity and hadn’t bothered to hide his interest in her. Not that she supposed it was exclusive. There’d been that blonde at the wedding reception, and no doubt if nothing had come of that he’d found another woman to take his fancy by now. Perhaps more than one…

      Impatiently she dragged herself back to the immediate problem.

      She couldn’t—wouldn’t—allow Aidan to endanger his marriage and embroil her in the resultant mess. The thought of following in her father’s footsteps made her feel sick.

      She’d been fifteen when her parents’ marriage had been torn apart by his affair with a woman he’d worked with. Two families had been shattered by the inability of two people to stand by their vows.

      No way was she going to be the cause of another man making the same mistake. Why couldn’t he have maintained the comfortable working partnership of the past two years?

      She went to bed torn between pity for Aidan and a muted anger that he’d clumsily tipped the neutral balance of their relationship. Once that balance had shifted, they could never regain their previous equilibrium. And the tension would spill into her work.

      Next morning she phoned Granger Broderick and said, “I’m interested in that job with your company.”

      Sienna allowed the university authorities to believe that her health was the main reason for her requesting indefinite leave of absence from the end of the semester. Her normal appetite hadn’t returned and she was aware that her colleagues worried about her. The professor emeritus who had filled in while she was hospitalized was happy to return for the next semester. But when she confessed to Aidan that she was going to work on a marine archaeology project he was taken aback, even shocked. Sitting opposite her at his desk, he dropped the pencil he’d been idly playing with and stared as though he didn’t believe what he was hearing. “This is connected to those artifacts your friend from the history department brought to you that were stolen?” Surprising her with his vehemence, he said, “Sienna, I’d advise you to have nothing more to do with that!”

      “I know some archaeologists feel that working with treasure hunters compromises their integrity, but—”

      “You don’t realize what you’re getting into!” He leaned across the desk, his expression full of tension, his pale skin seeming even more so. “The field is full of thugs and thieves. Haven’t you had enough trouble already?”

      “What do you mean?”

      “The burglary, and…well, isn’t that enough? Suppose you’d been here when they broke in? Heaven knows what they might have done to you.”

      He could have a point. Needing to keep her private assignment separate and secret, she had worked on the pieces in her own time, at all kinds of odd hours, so she might well have been in the lab alone when the burglars made their move. “It’s kind of you to be so concerned,” she said, touched despite herself, “but you said yourself that the break-in probably had no connection to those particular pieces, and more likely someone heard the students talking about the Maori jade ornaments and carvings we’d recovered from the dig. They were just lucky that the treasure hoard was here too.”

      “I’m sure that’s true,” Aidan conceded. “Unscrupulous collectors will pay handsomely for ancient Pacific art, and of course the export restrictions only make it more desirable and raise the prices. But I still don’t like this idea of yours. Won’t you reconsider? I hate to lose you, Sienna.” He looked bothered, his brown eyes pleading.

      Hardening her heart and sternly reminding herself why she’d decided to leave, Sienna shook her head. “I’m sorry, I’ve made up my mind.”

      By the time she arrived in the north and drove along the winding coast road to the little port at Mokohina, then checked in at the Imperial, dusk was sneaking down from the hillside that half circled the town and lights were going on in the venerable villas and newer homes that populated its slopes.

      She freshened up and ate early, while the dining room was less than half filled. Through the windows she could see the lights of anchored yachts and powerboats reflecting jaggedly in the water. After eating she was drawn across the road to admire the starry night and the moving gleam and glitter of the sea, and enjoy the cool, salty night air.

      She began to stroll along the waterfront, in a surprisingly short time drawing near the old wharves.

      Camille had joined her husband on the Sea-Rogue several days previously, and there had been a note at the hotel inviting Sienna to call when СКАЧАТЬ