Safe in the Tycoon's Arms (Harlequin Romance) (18 page)

Who knew a pair of tight lips could say so much?

‘No. I’ll get a room in town...’

‘You will not,’ Ellen piped up. ‘You can have a chalet.’

He and Laney both snapped their faces towards her at the same time.

‘Mum...’

‘You have accommodation?’ That wasn’t in their file.

Ellen laughed. ‘Nothing flash—just a couple of guest dwellings up in the winter paddock.’

That was the best opening he was going to get. Staying on the property, staying close, was the fastest way to their compliance he could think of. ‘If you’re sure?’

‘Mum!’

Laney’s face gave nothing away but her voice was loaded with meaning. Too late. The offer was made. A couple of days might be all he needed to get to know all of the Morgan clan and influence their feelings about taking their operation global.

‘Thank you, Ellen, that’s very generous.’

Her face gave nothing away, but Helena’s displeasure radiated from the more subtle tells in her body—her posture, the acute angle of her neck, as if someone was running fingernails down a chalkboard on some frequency the rest of them couldn’t hear. Except her dog couldn’t hear it either—he’d flopped down behind the sofa, fast asleep.

‘Laney, will you show Elliott up to the end chalet, please?’

That sweet, motherly voice wasn’t without its own strength and it brooked no argument.

When Laney straightened she was back to avoiding eye contact again. She smiled with as few muscles as possible, the subtext flashing in neon.

‘Sure.’

She made the squeak noise again and her dog leapt to attention. She turned, trailed her hand along the back of the sofa and then around the next one, and reached for the cluster of leather he’d seen in her hand down at the beach from where it now hung over the back of a dining chair. As she bent and fitted it around the crazy, tearaway dog it totally changed demeanour; became attentive and professional. Then she stood and held the handle loosely in her left hand.

And everything fell into place.

The death-defying coffee pour. The standoffish outstretched hand. The lack of hard eye contact.

Laney Morgan wasn’t a princess or judgmental—at least she wasn’t
only
those things.

Laney Morgan—whom he’d seen dancing so joyously on the beach, who had taken a family honey business and built it into one of the most successful in the country, and who had just served him his own genitals on a plate—couldn’t see.

Copyright © 2014 by Nikki Logan

ISBN-13: 9781460327463

SAFE IN THE TYCOON’S ARMS

Copyright © 2014 by Jennifer F. Stroka

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