Taming the Last St Claire (13 page)

Gideon had become so accustomed to Joey’s perky self-confidence, the way she usually had an answer to everything and everyone, that for a few brief seconds he could only stand and stare at her rather than respond. Until those tears swimming in her jade-green eyes began to cascade over her lashes to fall hotly down her cheeks.

‘Oh, Joey!’ Gideon gave a pained groan as he stepped forward to enfold her in his arms and hold her tightly against him.

Joey clung to Gideon, knowing she had never felt so scared. Never felt as if her life, what was going on around her, was so totally out of her control.

How long had Richard Newman been following her? Just this past week, since she’d come to work at St Claire’s? Or had it started before that? Had he been secretly watching her for weeks? Just waiting for the chance, the opportunity—

‘Don’t let your imagination run away with you, Joey,’ Gideon advised evenly.

‘Well, at least I can claim to
have
an imagination!’ She moved back to glare up at him.

Gideon’s mouth thinned as he recalled their conversation on Monday morning, when Joey had last accused him of lacking in imagination. ‘Resorting to insulting me again isn’t going to help this situation.’

‘Nothing
is going to help this situation!’

‘I’ll deal with it.’

‘How?’ Joey challenged. ‘How will you deal with it, Gideon?’ Her voice rose emotionally. ‘I realise you’re one of the invincible St Claires, but even so—’

‘Joey.’

Joey stared at him for several long seconds before drawing in a deep, controlling breath. Gideon had only spoken her name, in that cool and calm way of his, but nevertheless it was enough to halt her rising hysteria.

‘I’m sorry.’ She released a shaky sigh. ‘Instead of insulting you I should really be congratulating myself—the fact that Newman only punctured one of my tyres to your two would seem to imply that he only hates me half as much as he hates you,’ she explained ruefully when Gideon raised questioning brows.

‘Glad to see you’re getting your sense of humour back! ‘
he murmured as his arms dropped back to his sides and he stepped away from her.

‘That’s me.’ Joey nodded self-derisively. ‘A laugh a minute!’

Gideon wasn’t fooled for a moment. He had seen yet another side of Joey this morning. Beneath that tough exterior she chose to present to the world there was a woman every bit as soft and vulnerable as her twin. The woman who kept a golden dragon on her desk because her twin had given it to her. For good luck, she said. And the woman with a singing voice an angel would envy, which she chose not to share publicly. Knowing what he did of her now, Gideon was sure there was a perfectly good reason—an emotional reason—why that was.

Joey McKinley was the most complex and by far the most fascinating woman Gideon had ever met.

That alone was enough to set off alarm bells inside him. The emotions she displayed were enough of a warning to keep his distance. Gideon had managed, for over twenty years to avoid all emotional entanglement, apart from with his close family, and the complex and deeply emotional Joey McKinley was in danger of breaching that carefully built-up detachment.

Gideon had learnt at a young age, after the break-up of his parents’ marriage when he was ten years old, of the complexities and the danger of feeling emotion—particularly romantic love—for another person. His mother Molly had loved his father Alexander—only to learn, after thirteen years of marriage and the birth of three sons, that her husband had been in love with another woman for twenty years. The woman Alexander had eventually abandoned his wife and sons to be with.

Oh, Molly had seemed to finally come to terms with that when Lucan had announced he was marrying the
granddaughter of the ‘other woman’ in that love triangle. But Gideon still clearly remembered the heartache his mother had suffered when she and Alexander had parted so acrimoniously. In all these years she had never even thought of falling in love again—let alone remarrying. It was a lesson in ‘love’ that all three of Molly’s sons had taken to heart.

The fact that Jordan and Lucan had both succumbed in the past two months, and subsequently married the women they’d fallen in love with, in no way shook the decision Gideon had made over twenty years ago
never
to put his own heart into someone else’s keeping just so that they could trample all over it.

He certainly wasn’t about to break his own rule of remaining detached by allowing himself to feel any sort of emotion for the unpredictable Joey McKinley!

Apart, that was, from the desire that raged through him every time he so much as looked at her.

He moved to sit back behind his desk before Joey could become aware that he was once again aroused. ‘I believe the best way to deal with this is for me to contact the police and tell them what we know. Once I have, they will probably want to talk to you, too.’

‘I’m not going anywhere.’ Joey had no idea what Gideon had been thinking about for the past few minutes, but whatever it was they hadn’t been pleasant thoughts.

Not surprising, really, when the two of them had the problem of Richard Newman hanging over their heads like the Sword of Damocles. But, awful as that situation was, Joey felt a certain relief that it had at least diverted attention from their earlier passion.

That whole situation was getting completely out of hand—or
in
hand, as it had turned out; Joey wondered if she would ever be able to banish the memories of touching
Gideon, and having him touch her as intimately, completely from her mind!

But she was going to have to do just that if she was to stand any chance of getting through the next three weeks of working with him so closely.

She straightened. ‘I suggest we refrain from telling Stephanie or Jordan anything about this for the moment,’ she said briskly. ‘They can’t do anything about it, and it would only worry Stephanie, and no doubt Jordan too, if they knew about it.’

Gideon raised derisive brows. ‘I believe I have enough intelligence to have worked that out for myself.’

Joey had never doubted his intelligence—only his ability to empathise with other people. Although even
that
was questionable after the way he had kissed and caressed her to the brink of release earlier.

Her traitorous body still ached for that release. Her breasts chafed uncomfortably inside her bra, and her panties were damp and uncomfortable against the sensitive skin between her thighs…

She nodded abruptly. ‘I’ll leave you while you call the police.’ She turned swiftly on her heel to walk to the doorway between their two offices.

‘Joey …’

She came to an abrupt halt, determinedly schooling her features into mild curiosity before she turned back to face Gideon. ‘Yes?’

‘It’s going to be all right, you know.’ He gave her a reassuring smile. ‘I’m not going to let Newman anywhere near you,’ he added gently.

That gentleness was almost Joey’s undoing, and as she once again felt that emotional lump rise to constrict her throat. She could deal with Gideon’s coldness, his sarcasm,
his detachment, even his unexpected passion, but his gentleness was something else entirely.

‘We’ll see,’ she managed, before finally escaping into her own office.

Before she broke down a second time and decided to run back into the security of Gideon’s protective arms and blubber all over him like a baby!

‘I
STILL
think this is unnecessary,’ Joey muttered grumpily as she got out of her car and locked it, before turning to face Gideon as the two of them stood in front of her apartment building.

‘You heard the police advice.’ He shrugged unapologetically as he joined her on the pavement, his own car parked directly behind Joey’s. ‘For the moment there’s safety in numbers—which means I don’t intend letting you drive to or from work again on your own, or indeed anywhere else, until they’ve managed to locate and question Newman.’

Yes, Joey had been present in Gideon’s office when the two police officers, after learning of the events of the past few days, had offered that advice. She had even appreciated the practicality of that advice at the time; if she never went out alone then Newman wouldn’t be able to accost her again, as he had at the coffee shop on Monday morning. But appreciating the practicality of the advice and actually living with it were two distinctly different things!

Especially now, after a day of having Gideon insist on accompanying her to the coffee shop this morning to collect her hot chocolate—with less than flattering remarks about the immaturity of the poor guy serving behind the counter!—and then again to the park nearby when she went out to eat her sandwich at lunchtime. Now, finally, he had
followed her home in his own car to make sure she arrived safely.

All this ‘togetherness’ certainly wasn’t going to make it any easier to forget what had happened between them that morning!

She pulled the strap of her bag firmly up onto her shoulder. ‘I’m home now, Gideon,’ she said pointedly, not feeling in the least reassured by the way he had locked and walked away from his own car just now.

His eyes narrowed. ‘Are you intending to go out again?’

‘What if I am?’ Joey frowned. ‘You aren’t coming with me!’ she exclaimed as she saw the determined expression on his face.

‘That would depend on where you intend going, now, wouldn’t it.’

Joey snorted her frustration. ‘And if I’m going out on a date?’

Gideon’s brows rose. ‘Are you? ‘

‘As it happens, no,’ she said. ‘I usually go to the gym on a Friday evening,’ she added grudgingly.

He nodded. ‘Then that’s where we’ll go.’

She sighed with impatience. ‘Newman is hardly going to follow me there. You have to be a member to get in, for one thing—’

‘Joey.’

Again Gideon only said her name—but it was done in such a way as to convey to her that he had no intention of doing anything other than what he chose to do. And at that moment he was choosing to accompany her to the gym.

‘We haven’t so much as set sight on the man for the past two days—’

‘Which in no way guarantees that he won’t decide to follow you again tonight,’ Gideon reasoned.

‘This is utterly ridiculous!’

Gideon had to hold back a smile at Joey’s obvious frustration with the situation. Not that he found the reason for this caution in the least amusing, but her response to it certainly was.

She had been obviously uncomfortable that morning, when he’d accompanied her to the coffee shop and given his opinion on the ‘buff’ young god serving behind the counter. She’d been equally ungracious when Gideon had chosen to eat his own lunch in the park with her—and then teased her mercilessly about illegally feeding most of her sandwich to the ducks. And he had to admit to enjoying her discomfort now, at the idea of his accompanying her to the gym.

Obviously his spending all this time in her company was far from ideal, after his earlier decision to keep his distance from her, but other than assigning her a bodyguard—something Joey would no doubt find even more unacceptable than their present arrangement—he couldn’t think of any other solution to their present problem.

So, until the police had found and at least spoken to Richard Newman, the two of them appeared to be stuck with each other. And she would just have to accept it.

‘How about I take you out to dinner afterwards?’ he cajoled.

‘Isn’t that rather defeating the object of going to the gym?’ Joey asked.

‘Not if you have something healthy to eat, no.’

He was being deliberately irritating, Joey decided shrewdly. He was patently enjoying himself far too much—and at her expense! ‘Look, Gideon—’

‘No,
you
look, Joey,’ he interrupted calmly. ‘You and I both know that Stephanie would never forgive me if I didn’t make sure nothing happens to you.’

Damn!

Damn, damn,
damn!

Joey glared at him. He
would
have to invoke the ‘Stephanie’ word. A tactic that Gideon knew very well was guaranteed to silence all her protests. Much as Joey liked her independence, she would never do anything to disturb or disrupt her twin’s newly married bliss to the gorgeous Jordan.

She couldn’t help thinking that, for twins, the two men didn’t look or behave anything alike. Jordan was dark-haired and golden-eyed, and Gideon had blond hair and chocolate-brown eyes; Jordan was effortlessly charming, while Gideon’s charm was much more subtle.

So much of Gideon, it seemed, was hidden beneath the surface. That deep love for his family. His concern two months ago for Stephanie. The way he was insisting on taking care of Joey right now.

Whatever the reason for Joey’s attraction to him—and the more she came to know him the deeper the attraction became—she hoped that the police managed to find and talk to Richard Newman very soon. Because she wasn’t sure how much of this togetherness with Gideon she could take without succumbing to the desire that raged through her every time she looked at him—when she wasn’t annoyed with him, that was.

She gave him a reproving frown now. ‘That’s emotional blackmail.’

He appeared unconcerned by the accusation. ‘So?’

Joey grumbled, ‘It’s absolutely shameful to use my love for Stephanie in this way.’

‘Is it working?’

‘Yes.’

‘Mission accomplished.’ Gideon gave an unapologetic
smile. ‘I’ll wait here while you go up and get your things.’

Wasn’t this going to be a lot of fun? The whole point of Joey’s thrice-weekly workout was to keep her fit, but it also involved her becoming hot and sweaty. Not something she particularly relished with Gideon looking on.

‘You’re wasting time, Joey,’ he drawled mockingly, as if well aware of her discomforting thoughts.

Which no doubt he was! ‘How about I sign you in as my guest, and you can join me instead of just keeping an eye on me?’

‘Good idea,’ he agreed. ‘I usually go to my own gym every morning before work, so my stuff from this morning is still in the boot of my car.’

Well, that little ploy hadn’t worked, had it? She should have guessed Gideon worked out in a gym on a regular basis; he obviously hadn’t acquired that muscled chest and the taut power of the rest of his body, just by sitting behind a desk five days a week.