In McGillivray's Bed (5 page)

“Yes, of course.” She would have declined his hand altogether but she was afraid she might fall over if she did. But somehow, touching him, knowing the effect she'd had on him, made her let go the second she was upright. “I'm all right,” she assured him. “Really. I just got a bit light-headed for a moment. I
didn't
faint!” she added when she saw the gleam in his eyes.

“Whatever you say,” he replied gravely, but the gleam was still there.

And something else.

Attraction? Certainly it was something electric. Awareness seemed to sizzle between them for just a moment.

Abruptly, McGillivray looked away. His jaw tightened, and he wiped his hands down the sides of his shorts and turned toward the door.

“Hurry up,” he told her, his voice raspy. “I'm burning the bacon.”

The door banged shut behind him, and Syd was left in the same bathroom she'd been in moments before.

But something had changed. Something was different. There was an electricity lingering in the air. Syd was used to electricity. She felt it whenever she was in the midst of closing a business deal, when things were coming together, when an energy seemed to take over of its own accord.

It felt like that now.

And there was no business deal. No business at all.

Just awareness. Man-woman awareness. McGillivray had wanted her. Physically.

Intellectually, of course, Syd knew all about that sort of thing. Men—heterosexual ones—lusted after women. But, generally speaking, men had never really lusted after
her.

They had mostly been interested in her as her father's daughter. Roland certainly hadn't given her cause for believing that his interest in marrying her had anything to do
with her innate attractiveness. He had been going to marry her because it was good for business.

He'd never even pretended otherwise.

How mortifying was that?

Pretty mortifying. But it would have been even more so if McGillivray hadn't so clearly felt otherwise.

She felt suddenly, exquisitely, aware of her own nakedness.

She'd stripped her dress off in the boat without even thinking, without expecting a reaction at all. She'd never even considered he might react. Roland had been impervious to her charms. Why should she have expected anyone else to succumb?

Not that McGillivray had succumbed, she reminded herself, as she stepped beneath the shower spray. But he had been interested. Physically responsive.

The knowledge made her smile. It made her feel alive. It made her feel desirable in her own right—as a woman—and not just as an asset to the St. John Electronics company.

She tipped some of McGillivray's shampoo into her hands and began rubbing it into her hair. It smelled of lime and the sea and something else she couldn't quite put a name to. But it was fresh and sharp, and she liked it more than she liked the flowery English-garden stuff she was accustomed to.

It was a new beginning.

She liked the sound of that. She stuck her head under the showerhead and lathered up vigorously, washing Roland Carruthers right out of her hair. And St. John Electronics, too. Then she ducked her head beneath the shower and watched the lather disappear down the drain. In seconds it was gone.

She was clean, fresh, unencumbered.

And desirable.

An intriguing thought.

Syd turned off the water, toweled herself off and dressed in the clothes McGillivray had given her. Then, for luck,
she dabbed a tiny bit of McGillivray's lime-scented after-shave on her pulse points—and began to plot the future.

 

T
HIS
might have been a mistake—bringing Sydney St. John home with him.

The woman was a menace, Hugh thought, banging around the kitchen, trying not to think about the naked woman showering just beyond that closed bathroom door. She was ten times more tempting than Lisa Milligan had ever thought of being, and she didn't even seem to know it.

And because he had done his best to preserve her modesty, she'd thought he was gay!

He'd never felt less gay in his life!

He stood at the kitchen counter now, in theory chopping up onions for an omelette, but in fact he had his eyes shut while in his mind he could still see her as she'd shimmied out of that beaded dress on the boat. Judging from his reactions, his body remembered the view even better than his mind did.

And the glimpse he'd got when that quilt had fallen away just moments ago hadn't helped cool his ardor. He didn't need any more views like that one, thank you very much—not unless she was going to follow it up with a little action.

Fat chance.

Wasn't going to happen.

He
wasn't going to let it happen, because Sydney St. John—for all her clothes shedding and shimmying—was no different than Lisa Milligan. If she had been telling the truth about what had happened on the yacht—and she had to be, simply because her story was so ridiculous she couldn't possibly have made it up!—then she was obviously an idealist. She'd refused to marry Roland What's-His-Name for business reasons. Ergo, she must have some romantic notion about marrying for love.

Nothing wrong with that.

Hugh believed in it himself. It was exactly what he had wanted with Carin.

But he couldn't have Carin, so he had learned to want something else. Fun. Games. A night's romp with no strings attached.

It didn't take a genius to see that Sydney St. John had more strings than a tennis racket. There would be no romping with her.

“Not gonna happen,” he told Belle. “No sir. No way.”

So when Sydney St. John waltzed into the kitchen fifteen minutes later, he was prepared.

Or he thought he was—until he caught a glimpse of her breasts bobbing beneath the soft cotton of his navy blue T-shirt and her endless legs below the hem of his boxer shorts. Then his firm commitment and his well-planned words dried right up.

“Well, that was refreshing,” she said, beaming at him. “I feel so-o-o much better.”

She looked better, too, if that were possible. She had her long hair tucked up inside a towel which made her look almost regal in a Queen Nefertiti sort of way—all neck and turban.

And breasts. And legs. No way could he forget the breasts and legs. Hugh swallowed hard.

“Glad to hear it,” he managed, and was relieved that he didn't sound like a fourteen-year-old. Just to be sure, he cleared his throat before he went on. “Sit down. Dig in.” He dumped an omelette on her plate, then gestured toward a plateful of toast and several bowls of leftovers from Lisa's earlier seduction efforts. “Then we need to get some things straight.”

“Sure.” Syd gave him a bright smile. Her breasts jiggled beneath his T-shirt as she sat down. Hugh looked away as she took a bite of omelette, then began heaping salad and coleslaw onto her plate.

“This is great! Did you cook all this? I can't cook a thing,” she admitted cheerfully. She swallowed the ome
lette, then took a big bite of the coleslaw and closed her eyes blissfully. “God, it's good. I'm famished.”

She dug in, plowing her way through the eggs, the toast, the bacon, the leftover slaw and salad and chicken wings Lisa had fixed. Hugh tried not to watch. She was just a woman eating, for heaven's sake. Nothing spectacular about that.

Except that she relished it so much, sighing happily, smacking her lips. Watching her attack a chicken wing was like watching that old movie
Tom Jones.
Except she was a damned sight sexier than whoever that woman had been playing opposite Albert Finney. And the sexual undercurrents weren't on the screen, they were in Hugh's head. He jumped up and paced around the room.

“Something the matter?” she asked, following him with her gaze.

“No!” The word came out more as a snap than as a word. “I'm just…making some coffee. Do you want some coffee?”

“That would be wonderful.”

He made a pot of coffee. And while he was doing it, he got a grip. He remembered again all the things he needed to say to make sure they both got through the next day or so unscathed. And when it had finished dripping, he poured two mugs and carried them over to the table.

He set one in front of her and took one to the other side of the table where he sat down opposite her with slow deliberation, intending to make sure she understood how very serious he was.

She took the coffee gratefully, then started in on the chicken again.

Hugh averted his gaze. “Rule number one,” he said.

She looked up, fork halfway to her mouth, which was shaped like an
O.
She blinked. “Rule what?”

He set his jaw. “We need some ground rules. So you don't get any mistaken ideas.”

“So I don't…” Her voice trailed off. She put the forkful
of potato salad in her mouth, closed it again, then began to chew slowly as if she were chewing over his words as well as the food. All the while her very blue eyes never left his. He felt his blood pressure going up.

At last she swallowed. “Right,” she said finally. “Ground rules.” She set down her fork and folded her hands in her lap. “By all means.”

There was something in her voice—sarcasm?—that made him narrow his gaze. She smiled at him.

He scowled at her. “I don't want you getting any ideas.”

“Ideas?” By God, she looked as if butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. “About what?”

“About us,” he bit out.

“Us?”
Her eyes grew like saucers.

“Yes, us. You and me.” He spelled it out. “On account of what happened before. In there.” He jerked his head toward the bathroom.

Her brows lifted fractionally. “Oh. I see. When you demonstrated your heterosexuality, you mean?”

Her expression was perfectly bland, but Hugh knew when someone was having a go at him. His jaw clenched. He had to force himself to unlock it. “Call it whatever you want. The point is, don't get the idea that I'm interested, because I'm not!”

She smiled. “Could've fooled me,” she said brightly, then picked up her fork again and took a big bite.

Hugh strangled his own fork to keep from strangling her neck. “I didn't agree to let you stay here to keep Lisa away only to have you thinking along the same lines!” he informed her flatly.

Sydney St. John's eyes bugged. “
That's
the idea you don't want me getting? You think I want to
marry
you? My God, I didn't even want to marry Roland, and he at least had a job to recommend him.”

Now it was Hugh's turn to blink. She didn't think he had a job? Well, fine. Let her think what she wanted.
“Right,” he said. “Wouldn't want to distract you from your headlong dash toward spinsterhood.”

She sputtered into her coffee, then visibly pulled herself together and informed him haughtily, “Spinsterhood has a great deal to recommend it. More and more every minute,” she told him, breasts heaving beneath the soft cotton of the T-shirt she wore.

Hugh cleared his throat again. “Glad to hear you think so,” he said. “But just to make sure you remember it,” he went on, refusing to be distracted, “I think a few rules would make things easier during the short time you're here.” He came down hard on the word
short.

Sydney shrugged negligently. “Frankly I'm pretty sick of rules,” she told him. “I've followed the rules all my life, and look where it's got me.”

He didn't want to look at where it had got her. He just wanted her gone. “Rule number one,” he persisted. “You get your own clothes tomorrow.”

The sooner she stopped wearing his, the saner and more sensible he would feel.

“If someone will extend me some credit,” she said. “I don't want to give out my credit card number for a few days, or Roland will be able to find out where I am.”

“I'll lend you some cash,” Hugh promised. “Rule number two—”

“You don't look like a man who likes rules.”

“I don't,” Hugh said before he thought.

“Then why do we need them?” Syd asked.

Because I'd like to jump your bones,
didn't seem like the best response. “I thought it would make you more comfortable,” he said somewhat stiffly.

“Well, I'm not,” she said, and set down her coffee with a thump. “I'm finished with rules. I've made up my mind. I'm done with doing what I'm supposed to do.” The Captain Ahab chin tilted again.

Seeing it actually made a corner of Hugh's mouth lift. She had guts, did Syd St. John, he'd give her that.

“Good for you,” he said, nodding and thinking Roland Carruthers deserved a little payback.

Syd beamed at him. “You think so? Great!” She leaned intently toward him across the table, her blue eyes alight. “I thought about it all the time I was taking a shower—about how I'd got into this mess. I thought about what happened tonight on the yacht and everything that led up to it. I thought about Roland and about my father. About his expectations—and mine. About where I've been and where I'm going.” She straightened up and gave a firm little jerk of her head. “And I've decided it's going to be different from here on out. Completely different.”

Hugh saw the way she was looking at him for approval, and nodded his head “Right. You show 'em.”

“I will! I've spent twenty-seven years living by rules. My father's rules. My father's expectations. My fault, not his,” she said quickly. “I know that. But the point is, following them didn't do any good. I tried to be the sweet malleable daughter he wanted, and I tried to be the takeover-the-business son he never had. And I was just a cog in the machine. I was never a person who mattered. So I'm done with it! From now on, I'm going to be me.”

Hugh gave her a grin and a thumbs-up. “Good for you.”

“First, though, I have to figure out who me is.” She beamed at him.