His Mistress Proposal?. Trish Wylie
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Название: His Mistress Proposal?
Автор: Trish Wylie
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Контркультура
Серия: Mills & Boon By Request
isbn: 9781408970386
isbn:
Streaks of colour mounted his hard cheekbones as his hand fisted in the damp towel. ‘I never thought you were,’ he said through clenched teeth. ‘I’m not that much of a hypocrite—’
‘You virtually accused me of making it easy for him!’ she cried.
‘I didn’t say that. It’s him I don’t trust. I don’t want him anywhere near you,’ he said with sullen belligerence. ‘I don’t like him touching you. I don’t like the way he looks at you. He’s damned lucky I only gave him a few unfriendly taps. If he does it again he won’t be coming up for air again quite so quickly.’
Remembering the flying elbows, head-dunkings and jarring full-body smashes during the lawless one-on-one, Veronica marvelled at his understatement.
Then his words fully sank in and a possible source of his indiscriminate rage suddenly hit her between the eyes.
Her stomach flipped.
Was Luc jealous?
He was certainly acting like the quintessential territorial male, radiating a violent antagonism that signalled his dominance to challenger and female alike.
Or, given his murky recent past, was he just being dog in the manger?
She wished she hadn’t made her dramatic gesture with the towel. Now she had nothing to hide behind. Except words. She stood straight and proud.
‘I’m sure he won’t. After all, he’s already warned me against trusting you—’
He glowered. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
She couldn’t back down now. The festering wound would never heal if she ignored it. ‘He told me about you and Karen. He said you were more than just acquaintances—’
‘And you believed him?’ His thick fury almost convinced her, but she had seen the tell-tale shutters go up at the mention of her sister’s name. ‘He lives in Australia, for God’s sake. What the hell would he know?’
‘He said Ashley had photos of you and Karen at a dinner—’
‘A dinner?’ he interrupted scathingly. ‘Is that all? No porno pics of us actually getting down and dirty, then?’ he lashed out, his words dripping with acid. ‘For God’s sake, how could you give credence to anything that cretin says? You said yourself he’s a sleazebag! The only way he can make himself look good is to make someone else look bad!’
She knew he was right, but she also knew that lies were often based in truth, and trust was a two-way street.
‘There’s no smoke without fire.’
The trite phrase seemed to be the last straw. ‘Well, if you’d rather believe him than me, go ahead!’ he exploded. ‘Unlike you I don’t choose to run my life guided by the opinions of muckraking slime!’
He stormed out the door, leaving Veronica’s head ringing as if she had been hit by a stun-grenade. He had never actually addressed the allegation at all, she thought numbly. Instead, all his anger had been directed at the fact that she had taken Ross’s word as gospel.
But she hadn’t … not really. Her own self-doubt had made the idea seem all too credible, but, still, she had harboured the secret expectation that Luc would flatly deny the accusation as a slanderous lie. If he had, she would have believed him in a heartbeat.
That he hadn’t was a sickening blow to her unacknowledged feelings, leaving her fiercely grateful that she had fought the powerful attraction that had tempted her to abandon her pride and her principles to a transient affair.
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