Taming the Last St Claire (3 page)

What would that hair feel like to touch? As soft and silky as it looked? Or as brittle and defensive as the woman herself—

Gideon took an abrupt step back, shutting down his thoughts as he realised what he was doing, his jaw tight as he looked down the length of his nose at her. ‘Joey, I appreciate the fact that your sister being married to my brother puts us in the position of being almost related.’
Almost
being the operative word! ‘But let me state here and now that I have absolutely no interest in knowing anything about your sex life.’

Joey’s eyed widened at the vehemence she heard in Gideon’s tone. She had no doubt that he genuinely respected and liked her sister, and that he approved of Stephanie’s marriage to his brother. So why had he decided he disliked Joey from their very first meeting?

Maybe he had disliked and disapproved of her
before
that first meeting, if his assumptions about her friendship with Jason Pickard were any indication, she mused. She was well aware of the rumours that had circulated about her
and the junior partner at Pickard, Pickard and Wright for the past six months. Erroneous rumours, as it happened.

Oh, Jason was incredibly handsome, and the two of them went out to dinner at least once a week. Joey always enjoyed herself on those evenings as she found Jason good company. But their friendship wasn’t based on either sexual attraction or love.

In actual fact their friendship had become more in the nature of a smokescreen, because Jason was really in love with a man he had met at university and had shared an apartment with for the past ten years. Unfortunately his parents, Pickard Senior and Gloria, had no idea that their son’s relationship with the other man was anything more than friendship, and would have vehemently disapproved if they did.

Joey had been thrilled the first time Jason had asked her out—after all, he was the second Pickard in Pickard, Pickard and Wright. But it hadn’t taken her long to realise that Jason wasn’t in the least sexually interested in her. With her usual straightforwardness she had asked a couple of blunt questions, and eventually received a couple of straight answers. The revelation about Jason’s sexuality hadn’t changed anything as far as Joey was concerned; she liked him and enjoyed his company. Enough to agree to go out to dinner with him often—and why not, when there was very little happening in her own love life at the moment! And so the myth of their having a relationship had been born, a myth, it seemed, that even the coldly aloof Gideon St Claire was aware of.

Joey gave him a cool smile. ‘Then why are we still standing here discussing my sex life?’

‘You—’ Gideon broke off in obvious frustration, choosing instead to exercise rigid self-control. ‘Shall we just take your things upstairs and get to work?’ He moved to pick up
one of the boxes from the boot of her car before walking stiffly over to the private lift.

Joey picked up the other box and then closed the boot and locked her car, a smile of satisfaction curving her lips as she followed him.

The next four weeks—if they entailed shaking Gideon St Claire out of his aloof complacency—promised to be a lot of fun. For her, if not for himself.

‘W
HERE
are you going?’ Gideon questioned sharply as he turned and saw that, instead of following him down the hallway to his own office, Joey had stopped outside the office usually reserved for Lucan’s PA. It wasn’t currently occupied, because Lexie had become Lucan’s PA three weeks ago, and the two of them were now happily honeymooning together on a private Caribbean island for a month.

Mocking green eyes met his. ‘I believe it was an attempt at diplomacy on Lucan’s part when he suggested I might like to use Lexie’s vacant office rather than your own.’

After the bombshell Lucan had dropped on Gideon at the wedding reception on Saturday evening, he didn’t have too much faith in his older brother’s ‘diplomacy’!

‘And how did you
know
that particular office was Lexie’s?’

‘You mean apart from the fact her name is printed on the door?’

Gideon scowled darkly at Joey’s obvious sarcasm. ‘Apart from that, yes,’ he gritted out.

She shrugged slender shoulders. ‘I came over on Thursday afternoon, so that Lucan could explain exactly what it is he wants me to do while he and Lexie are away.’

Thursday afternoon. The one afternoon in the week
when Gideon didn’t work at the St Claire Corporation but instead went to the small office he kept across town and dealt with private legal matters needing his attention. A fact that Lucan would have been well aware of, damn him.

Maybe Gideon had been overly generous concerning that ‘little’ amount of pain he had considered inflicting on his older brother the next time he saw him!

‘And exactly what
is
it he wants you to do here while he and Lexie are away?’ Besides be a damned nuisance to him, of course!

Joey shrugged. ‘Well, Lucan seemed to have a pretty good idea that you aren’t going to release too much of the legal side of things to me.’ Those jade-green eyes danced knowingly. ‘But obviously I’ll be only too happy to take up the slack. There’s also the fact that with Lexie away too you’re without a PA.’

‘My own secretary—’

‘Is now
my
secretary,’ she reminded him pertly.

Damn it, this situation was just getting worse—made even more so by the fact that he suspected Lucan and Lexie were sitting on their private Caribbean island right now having a really good laugh at his expense. Falling in love hadn’t just made his older brother unpredictable; it had also brought out a distinctly warped sense of humour in him!

‘If you would prefer, I can use your office rather than this one,’ Joey said as she once again tapped the toe of one stiletto-heeled shoe to mark her impatience. ‘Could you make your mind up soon, Gideon; this box is getting heavy!’

His mouth pursed with frustration. He had always thought of the office down the hallway as being his own personal space: all wood-panelled walls, floor to ceiling bookshelves containing his reference books on English and foreign law, all in alphabetical order. And the top of
his mahogany desk was always completely cleared at the end of each working day, with none of the personal clutter that so many people seemed to surround themselves with during working hours.

The two bursting boxes they had carried upstairs seemed to imply Joey intended surrounding herself with exactly that sort of reprehensible clutter for the next four weeks, he mused. No, he
didn’t
relish the idea of having his office personalised by this woman. But knowing that Joey McKinley’s disturbing presence was in the office next door to the one he intended using would be just as unacceptable—

‘Too late,’ Joey announced decisively, and she lowered the door handle to Lexie’s office with her elbow before breezing inside. ‘Very nice,’ she could be heard murmuring appreciatively.

Gideon reluctantly followed her into the office Lucan had decorated before Lexie became his permanent PA three weeks ago, seeing again that the desk of mellow pine, the cream walls and gold-coloured carpet were all a perfect foil for Lexie’s long black hair.

But he couldn’t help noticing against his will that they were equally complementary to Joey’s rich auburn-gold-cinnamon-red hair and jade green eyes.

‘What on earth do you have in here—rocks?’ Gideon muttered bad-temperedly as he crossed the room to drop the box he was carrying down onto the desktop beside Joey’s own.

Not a happy bunny, she recognised ruefully as she saw his dark scowl. Not a bunny at all, actually. No, as Gideon began to prowl restlessly about the office he looked more like the predator Joey had likened him to earlier.

‘Not quite,’ she answered, as she flipped up the lid of one
of the boxes to start taking out the objects and unwrapping them from protective newspaper.

The usual predictable clutter, Gideon recognised. Her law degree. A couple of framed photographs—one of her parents, the other of Stephanie and Jordan at their wedding. A paperweight with a perfect yellow rose inside. A golden dragon.

Hold on a minute—
a golden dragon?

‘Yes?’ Joey continued to hold the small golden ornament almost defensively in the palm of her hand as she turned to look at him.

It was Gideon’s first indication that he had actually made an exclamation out loud. But, damn it, a
dragon!
Even one as romantically beautiful as this—with the creature’s scaled body beautifully etched in gold, its wings extended as if it were about to take flight, and two small yellow sapphires set in the fierceness of its face for eyes—didn’t quite fit in with the abrasive image he had formed of this woman.

Any more than that angelic singing voice, he suddenly recalled.

Joey looked across at him and frowned; really, you would think from his disgusted expression that she had just produced a semi-automatic rifle and intended mounting it on the wall!

‘Stephanie had this made for me when I got my law degree.’

Her twin had always known that the dragon meant something to Joey. A golden dragon had been a feature in Joey’s dreams since she was seven years old. Whenever she’d had a problem—difficulties at school, or with friends—and when she and Stephanie were ten and had been involved in the car accident that had left her twin unable to walk for two years, Joey had dreamt of her golden dragon and instantly felt reassured that everything would work out.

Consequently, where she went, this dragon went too.

She placed it firmly in the centre of the empty desk. ‘It has great sentimental value.’

‘If Stephanie gave it to you, then I’m sure it does.’ Gideon acknowledged softly.

Joey looked up at him, looking for this man’s usual cold distance whenever he spoke to her. Instead she sensed almost an affinity…’Do you miss Jordan?’

Gideon looked taken aback by the question. ‘There’s hardly been time for that when he only left this morning.’

‘I meant before that, of course,’ Joey said impatiently. ‘He’s been in LA how long now? ‘

He frowned. ‘Ten years.’

Stephanie had only been gone for two months, but Joey was still deeply aware of the void her twin had left in her own life. ‘Did you miss him when he first left?’

‘You’re still missing Stephanie?’

‘There’s no need to sound so surprised, Gideon,’ she said ruefully.

Gideon
was
surprised, and yet he knew he shouldn’t have been. Just because Joey appeared to enjoy mocking him at every opportunity, there was absolutely no reason for him to assume she didn’t have the same deep emotional connection to her own twin that he had with Jordan.

‘Yes, I missed Jordan very much when he first went to LA,’ he acknowledged gruffly. ‘It does get easier,’ he added.

The two of them stared across the office at each other for several long minutes. As if each recognised something in the other that they hadn’t been aware of before. A softness. A chink in their armour. A vulnerability…

Whilst Gideon found this insight into Joey’s emotions faintly disturbing, he found it even more so in himself;
revealing vulnerability of any kind was not something Gideon did.
Ever.

‘The dragon is very beautiful,’ he said, in a swift change of subject. ‘But personally I prefer to believe in the things I can see and touch,’ he added.

‘Maybe that’s your problem,’ Joey said as she turned away to continue unpacking the contents of the box.

Gideon’s jaw tightened. ‘I wasn’t aware that I
had
a problem.’

Joey raised auburn brows as she sat on the edge of the desk behind her, her pencil-slim skirt hitching up slightly as she did so, exposing more of her shapely legs. ‘You don’t see the fact that you have absolutely no imagination as being a problem?’

Gideon ignored that bare expanse of skin and kept his gaze firmly fixed on her beautiful heart-shaped face. ‘I have always found basing my opinions on cold, hard reality to be the better option.’

‘Don’t you mean the boring, unimaginative option?’ she taunted.

‘I believe I know myself well enough to know exactly what I mean, Joey.’ He glared down at her.

Joey had regretted telling him how much she still missed Stephanie almost as soon as she had started the conversation. But she had been surprised when Gideon admitted missing his own twin just as much.

He gave every impression of being self-contained. A cold and unsentimental man. To imagine him feeling the same ache of loneliness for his own twin as she felt for Stephanie suddenly made him seem all too human.

But perhaps he felt the same about her? The thought suddenly seemed much too intimate. ‘There’s no need to get your boxers in a twist, Gideon,’ she murmured, being deliberately provocative to hide her uneasiness.

‘My boxers?’ Gideon’s nostrils flared in distaste.

‘That’s always supposing you
wear
boxers, of course,’ Joey continued outrageously. ‘Yet I somehow can’t see you going commando—’

‘I would prefer that we not discuss my underwear, or lack of it, if you don’t mind,’ he bit out with an incredulous shake of his head. ‘You really are the most irritating woman I have ever met.’

‘Really?’ Joey smiled appreciatively.

Gideon eyed her in exasperation. ‘It wasn’t meant as a compliment!’

‘I didn’t think for one moment that it was,’ she said dryly. ‘But can I help it if I feel honoured that the coolly aloof Gideon St Claire has lowered his aristocratic brown eyes far enough to even notice my existence, let alone to actually form an opinion about me?’

Gideon realised it was this woman’s impulsiveness that made him feel so uneasy in her company. So unsure and definitely wary of what she was going to do or say next. It wasn’t a comfortable admission from a man who usually maintained a tight control over his own emotions. Not comfortable at all.

His mouth compressed into a hard line. ‘Now who’s being insulting?’

‘Was I?’ she came back airily. ‘But you
do
have brown eyes. And you
are
an aristocrat. Lord Gideon St Claire, to be exact,’ she added, as though he’d forgotten.