Jared's Love-Child. Sandra Field

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СКАЧАТЬ an innocent smile Devon said, “So you have trouble with your father having a sex life, Mr. Holt? Maybe you need a good psychiatrist.”

      “I don’t care who he sleeps with. I do care who he marries.”

      “Control.” She gave a short laugh. “Why am I surprised?”

      “Let’s get something straight right now,” Jared Holt grated, with such suppressed rage in his voice that Devon had to fight the urge to step backward. “And you can pass this on to your mother. I will not allow her to take my father to the cleaners when—as is inevitable, given her record—the divorce comes about. Have you got that? Or do I have to repeat it?”

      To hell with all her good resolutions. She hadn’t traveled thousands of miles to listen to this kind of garbage. “You know what?” Devon blazed. “I’ve been to forty or fifty different countries in the last eight years and in none of them, not one, have I met a man as gratuitously rude and ignorant as you. You take the cake, Mr. Holt. Congratulations!”

      If she’d hoped to get under his skin, she’d failed. His lip curling, he said, “I’m not being rude—merely honest. Not a trait you recognize, Devon Fraser? But perhaps you’re just not used to it.”

      For Devon the game, if that was what it was, had suddenly gone on too long. She said sharply, “Are you figuring on trading cheap shots with me until it’s time for the wedding? Hoping my mother will call it off at the last minute if she thinks I’m not here? I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I’m perfectly capable of finding her on my own, thank you very much.” And she took two steps past him.

      Again he moved so swiftly she scarcely even saw the movement. His hand closed around her sleeve; its grip was as tight and impersonal as a circle of steel. Devon wasn’t used to having to crane her neck to look up into a man’s face; she was too tall for that and wasn’t above using her height when it suited her. But Jared Holt made her feel diminished and ridiculously unsure of herself. Not certain which she hated more, that sensation or the man himself, she rapped, “Let go of me!”

      “Calm down,” he said sardonically, “I was only going to show you to your room.” He reached round her, the scent of his aftershave drifting to her nostrils, his dark head so close she could have stroked his hair, and took her suitcase from her unresisting fingers. “Although,” he went on, “time’s running out, and I’ve never yet known a woman who could get ready for anything in less than an hour.”

      She wanted to run her fingers through his hair, find out if it was as silky as it looked. No use denying it. Oh God, what was wrong with her?

      With a hollow sinking in her belly, Devon strove for control, praying her crazy impulse hadn’t shown in her face. Coating her features with disdain, she looked him up and down. “I’m sure you’ve known a lot of women.”

      “You could say so.”

      “In my opinion, the man who has to boast of his conquests isn’t worth bothering about.”

      “Those with little experience of men, Miss Fraser, have to make do with opinions.”

      Obviously he thought her too unattractive to get herself a man. Gritting her teeth, Devon said, “Some of us prefer to choose our experiences! You look good, I’ll give you that. But a man—again in my opinion—should be a touch more substantial than the packaging.”

      “You have a lot of opinions about men for a woman whose packaging doesn’t warrant a second look!”

      You’ll pay for that, Devon seethed inwardly. I’ll make you give me more than a second look, you arrogant playboy! The plastic carrier over her arm contained two dresses, one entirely correct for a high society wedding, the other rather more interesting but by no means as correct. She now knew which one she was going to wear. Decision made.

      Although if she were smart she’d go for the dull but safe dress. Because by far the worst thing about this absurd conversation was the fact that she found Jared so extraordinarily attractive. Male to her female at the most basic of levels. He exuded a sexual confidence that irritated her intensely, partly because she was sure it was completely unconscious. He wasn’t trying to attract her. Oh, no. She wasn’t worth the time or the effort.

      But the ease of his stance, the shiny lock of dark hair falling so casually over his tanned forehead, the latent strength of his fingers—every molecule of his body—tugged her toward him even as every word he’d said warned her to run as far and as fast as she could. She’d managed very nicely the last few years by keeping her own sexuality under wraps. If Jared Holt attracted and infuriated her, he also frightened her. Deeply.

      “You’re very quiet,” he taunted. “Don’t tell me you’ve run out of opinions already?”

      “They’re wasted on you.”

      He said with savage emphasis, “This whole day is wasted on me.”

      “Then—at last—we agree on something.”

      With sudden impatience he pulled her through the door, kicked it shut behind him and marched her across a generous and sun-filled hallway toward the graceful curve of a mahogany stairwell. More than his fingers were strong, Devon thought with a shiver of her nerves. Although she kept herself in very good physical condition, she knew it would be useless to resist him; he could overpower her without even exerting himself. Resting her hand on the banister, her one desire to puncture his intolerable ego, she said with assumed lightness, “I did compliment you, you know.”

      “I must have missed it,” Jared said tersely.

      “Your good looks, remember? The packaging. You look rather familiar to me…although I can’t place you. Have you ever done any modeling?”

      “I have not!”

      She’d gotten to him. Hurray, hurray. Taking her time going up the stairs, gazing at all the portraits of the race-horses for which Benson Holt was famous, Devon said pleasantly, “What beautiful creatures…perhaps you work for your father in the stables, Mr. Holt?”

      He bit off the words. “No. I don’t.”

      Score two. “Then what do you do?”

      “Try and keep fortune hunters away from him. At which I’ve obviously screwed up.” He led her into a separate wing and pushed open a white-panelled door. “Your mother’s in the end room, this one’s yours. They both have private bathrooms.”

      Before Devon could protest he’d walked in and was putting her case down by the bed. She didn’t want him in here. She didn’t want him anywhere near her or a bed or any combination of the two. She said amiably, “Do try and smile for the cameras, won’t you? Unless you want all the wedding albums to show you sulking like a little boy who didn’t get his own way.”

      “Don’t tell me what to do,” Jared said softly. “I don’t like it.”

      Her breath caught in her throat and her heart gave an uneasy lurch. From the very first she’d thought him dangerous. And she’d been right. But something in her refused to back down, no matter how intimidating he was. Devon said, “How interesting…I also hate being ordered around. Something else we have in common.”

      “Unfortunately we’re going to have far too much in common. I can’t imagine you’ll like being my stepsister СКАЧАТЬ