The Reunion Lie. Lucy King

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СКАЧАТЬ making a mess of his brain, but nevertheless it did prove that he needed to keep his wits about him, because right now he wasn’t in the mood for smiles. Of any kind. ‘Enlighten me,’ he said abruptly.

      At his tone her smile faded, much to his relief, and her eyes clouded over for a second. ‘I’m not sure I can.’

      ‘Well, try.’

      ‘Look, you have every right to be furious,’ she said with an apologetic shrug. ‘I shouldn’t have accosted you like that. I’m sorry.’

      Dan gritted his teeth and ignored the sensuous way her dress shifted over her body with the movement. ‘If that picture ends up in the paper, you will be.’

      She frowned. ‘What?’

      ‘The kiss,’ he said flatly, ruthlessly stamping down the heat that threatened to shoot through him at the memory of how hot and soft she’d felt as she’d pressed herself up against him. ‘The set-up.’

      Her jaw dropped and what looked like genuine surprise flashed across her face. ‘How could you possibly know about that? I only thought of it myself a minute or two ago.’

      ‘Experience.’

      Her eyebrows shot up. ‘This has happened to you before?’

      ‘Once.’ And that was quite enough, he thought, snapping that train of thought off before it could take root and bring back all the feelings of foolishness, disillusionment and betrayal he’d experienced following his most recent ex-girlfriend’s duplicity. ‘And you might as well know now you won’t get a penny. My lawyers will slap an injunction on you and your photographer friend so fast your head will spin.’

      ‘What photographer friend?’

      He glanced round in search of her camera-wielding pap sidekick, but whoever it was had clearly fled because from what he could see none of the people who surrounded them was showing the slightest bit of interest in either of them or the kiss that she’d just planted on him.

      But that didn’t mean he hadn’t been there.

      ‘Innocence doesn’t suit someone who looks like a sexy fallen angel,’ he said grimly, shifting his gaze back to her and watching her closely.

      Her eyes darkened and her cheeks went pink while her lips parted to let out a little gasp. ‘You think I look like a sexy fallen angel?’ she echoed, her voice sounding a bit breathy.

      With all that tumbling blonde hair, eyes the colour of liquid dark chocolate and those killer curves Dan actually thought she looked like every fantasy he’d ever had. To his consternation he could all too easily picture her lying sprawled on his bed, her hair fanning out over his pillows as he loomed over her, watching her writhe beneath him and listening to her pant and plead and beg him to do filthy things to her.

      At the vividness of the image his head swam and the entire reason for this conversation nearly shot clean from his mind. Nearly, but not quite. ‘With the morals of a phone-hacking tabloid journalist,’ he added sharply, because it suddenly seemed important to remember that bit.

      She recoiled and took a hasty step back. ‘Crikey, that’s a bit much, isn’t it?’ she murmured, staring at him in astonishment. ‘It was only a quick kiss.’

      Yeah, right, he thought, rather rattled by the discovery that the self-control he’d always taken for granted wasn’t quite as rock solid as he’d assumed. ‘And tell?’

      ‘What?’ She leaned in a little and regarded him closely, the astonishment making way for concern. ‘Look, are you sure you’re all right?’

      No, he wasn’t sure he was all right at all. He wasn’t sure he’d been all right for months. Years, probably. But then maybe that was what happened when you’d been betrayed not once, but twice, by women you once trusted. Maybe it was perfectly natural to develop a cynicism that ran bone deep and a wariness that coloured practically every decision you ever made when it came to the opposite sex.

      Dan shoved his hands through his hair and drew in a deep measured breath in an effort to regain some sort of grip on his control, because now he was coming down from the embarrassingly melodramatic way he’d reacted to the kiss she’d given him it was slowly beginning to occur to him that he might have got this wrong.

      For one thing the woman who’d attacked him was looking at him with such an unusual combination of sincerity, concern and bewilderment, and, now he thought about it, an underlying hint of panic, that she’d have to be a better actress than he’d ever come across to portray such a convincing range of emotion. Her lack of guile seemed pretty genuine too, although given his track record perhaps he wasn’t the best person to pass judgement on that particular trait.

      For another thing, if all she’d wanted was a picture of the kiss, having got what she was after wouldn’t she now be making every effort to leave and go off in search of a buyer?

      So maybe there was another reason she’d approached him, he thought, belatedly applying the logic he would have applied a while ago had she not stolen his brain. Maybe she made a habit of kissing random men. Maybe she’d taken one look at him and for some reason had been unable to stop herself. Maybe she was just mad...

      Another flash caught his attention and he jerked his head away from the woman in front of him and scanned the room until his gaze fell on a guy holding a camera and taking a series of group shots of the women on the far side of the pub.

      And then as he realised that the photos weren’t of him, they weren’t of her, and the guy with the camera wasn’t a paparazzo, and that he had got it wrong, he inwardly groaned. God, maybe he was the one who’d gone mad.

      ‘Forget it,’ he muttered, briefly wondering whether at some point in the not too distant future he oughtn’t address his attitude towards women because surely not all of them could be out for everything they could get.

      ‘Not a chance,’ she said with a little snort. ‘Who are you?’

      ‘Dan Forrester,’ he replied and automatically braced himself for the spark of recognition that usually came with his name.

      But this time it didn’t come. In fact, she was staring at him utterly blankly and he wasn’t sure what to make of it.

      ‘I don’t mean to be rude,’ she said, now looking a bit embarrassed, ‘but is that supposed to mean something?’

      ‘Doesn’t it?’

      She shook her head. ‘I’m afraid not. But then I don’t take much of an interest in anything other than work, so if you haven’t appeared in Significance then it’s entirely possible you’ve slipped beneath my radar.’ She shrugged. ‘Sorry.’

      ‘Significance?’

      ‘It’s a magazine about statistics and data interpretation. Riveting if you’re into that sort of thing, boring as hell if you’re not.’

      ‘And you are?’

      She nodded. ‘For my sins. I’m a statistician. But getting back to the point, I think you might have misinterpreted my kiss.’

      No surprise there. Quite a shock though when her gaze dropped to his mouth and lingered for a second, and he found himself a split СКАЧАТЬ