Taming the Last St Claire (9 page)

It was a less formal Gideon than she was used to seeing, in a thin black cashmere sweater that moulded to his muscled chest and the flatness of his stomach, over a pair of tailored black trousers. The gold of his hair contrasted dramatically with the black clothing, giving him the appearance of a devastatingly handsome fallen angel, and his appearance rendered Joey completely speechless for several seconds.

He shouldn’t have come here, Gideon realised when he saw the shocked wariness on Joey’s face, before that emotion was quickly replaced by frowning confusion.

‘What are you doing here?’ Joey prompted, fingers tightly gripping the edge of the door.

As if she were prepared to slam that door in his face if his answer wasn’t one that she liked!

No, he really shouldn’t have come here, Gideon acknowledged as he saw the wariness return once again to those expressive jade-green eyes. Eyes the same colour as the fitted sweater Joey wore over figure-hugging, low-riding blue jeans. Her face was bare of the make-up she
wore during the day, making her look much younger than twenty-eight.

Gideon’s mouth twisted. ‘Obviously visiting you.’

She chewed briefly on her top lip before answering him. ‘How did you even know where I live? ‘

He shrugged. ‘I looked it up in your file.’

Joey’s brows rose. ‘I have a
file?’

‘Every employee at St Claire’s has a file,’ he answered dryly. ‘Even the ones only employed by us for four weeks.’

‘Oh.’

‘You don’t have any shoes on again …’ He looked down at those graceful bare feet, poking out from beneath the bottoms of her jeans.

She shrugged. ‘I prefer not to wear them whenever possible.’

He nodded.

‘Gideon, why are you here?’ she asked again.

Gideon grimaced. ‘This was a bad idea, wasn’t it? ‘

Her tongue flicked nervously over her bottom lip. ‘That depends …’

His eyes narrowed. ‘On what?’

‘On what you came here for,’ Joey said slowly; it was one thing to deliberately provoke and argue with Gideon in the office, where they were on neutral ground, and something else entirely for him to come to her home like this. Especially after the intimacies they had shared earlier.

If Gideon had come here expecting to carry on where they’d left off, though, he was going to be disappointed. Haunted as Joey might be by those memories, she had no intention of reliving them. No matter how much just seeing him again made her ache to do just that.

It was all too easy for Gideon to see what direction Joey’s thoughts had taken. To guess from the sudden warm
flush that appeared in her cheeks, followed by the glitter of determination in her eyes, that she was thinking of how he had kissed her and touched her.

Those same thoughts had kept Gideon in a state of increasingly aching arousal for the past three hours!

Was it that which was the real driving force behind his decision to come to Joey’s apartment this evening? Oh, he had told himself that his only reason for coming here was so that they could discuss privately whatever was going on with the vandalism to both their cars—he was more convinced than ever that the two incidences were connected. But seeing Joey again now, and becoming increasingly aware of the jealousy he felt just thinking of her friendship with Jason Pickard, he wasn’t so sure any more that his motives had been that innocent.

He straightened determinedly. ‘I’m here to discuss the fact that the mechanics who came to pick up my car checked the punctures before loading the car onto the trailer, and found that a knife, or something similarly sharp, had been used to slash the inside of the tyres.’

Joey’s eyes widened in alarm. ‘It was deliberate, then?’

Gideon’s expression was grim. ‘Undoubtedly.’

She gave another moistening sweep of her tongue across her lips. ‘And my own car?’

‘The same, probably. After you left earlier I decided to look at the security camera film from the underground car park for today. I couldn’t see anything unusual, so I had Security make copies onto disks, and thought we could save some time if we looked through them this evening. You might spot something—or someone—that I missed.’ Gideon held up the disks he had brought with him. ‘You said earlier that you weren’t going out this evening, so I
thought—’ He stopped and shook his head. ‘I shouldn’t have come here. This can wait.’

‘No! No, it’s fine. Come in. Please.’ Joey opened the door wider, knowing she was behaving like a nervous virgin by keeping him standing on the doorstep in this way.

Well…she
was
a nervous virgin. But that didn’t mean she had to behave like one—especially in front of the obviously experienced Gideon St Claire!

‘I was only watching a boring detective programme on TV, anyway.’ Joey closed the door behind Gideon to follow him through to the sitting room, switching the television off before turning back to face him. ‘Can I get you tea or coffee before we start—er—before we look at the disks?’ Damn it—now she was blushing like a nervous virgin, too!

Gideon arched curious brows. ‘I thought you didn’t drink coffee?’

Joey gave a graceful shrug. ‘I don’t, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have some to give to my guests.’ She could also do with a few minutes on her own while she made that coffee—if only to allow time for the blush to fade from her cheeks! ‘Have you eaten, or can I get you something …?’

‘You can cook too?’

‘Not really.’ She grinned unapologetically. ‘Stephanie is the cook in our family. I was really only offering to get you some toast, or something simple like that, if you hadn’t eaten dinner yet.’

Gideon gave a rueful smile. ‘Just coffee would be great, thanks.’

He lowered his lids guardedly as he watched Joey go through to the kitchen, enjoying looking at the way her gently rounded bottom swayed from side to side in unknowing provocation, before he turned to look at the sitting room in which he stood.

He had somehow expected her apartment to be as crisp and modern as the woman was herself, with art and furniture that tended to be fashionable rather than comfortable. Instead Gideon found himself in a room predominantly in warm autumnal colours: yellow-painted walls, sofa and chairs in a reddish terracotta, with scatter cushions in a mixture of yellows and oranges, and rugs of equally bright colours on the polished wooden floor. The prints on the walls were also unexpected—poppy fields, and ladies in long floaty dresses wandering around abundantly floral gardens.

Could it be that the abrasive and prickly Joey McKinley was secretly a closet romantic?

Joey wasn’t sure she liked the look of thoughtful speculation on Gideon’s face when she returned from the kitchen, carrying a tray with the coffee and teapots and two cups, a jug of milk and another of cream, and a bowl of sugar.

‘You can sit down, you know,’ she invited as she placed the tray down on a low coffee table, before sitting down in the middle of the three-seater sofa—a definite hint to Gideon that she expected him to sit in one of the two armchairs.

The few minutes she had spent in the kitchen making coffee and tea hadn’t succeeded in dampening her complete physical awareness of him, but she did at least have it under control enough not to give in to the temptation he represented. She hoped!

Gideon hesitated. ‘Are you sure I’m not inconveniencing you?’

‘Even if you are, you’re going to drink this coffee now that I’ve made it,’ she came back tartly as she poured the aromatic brew into one of the cups.

The apartment might be something of a surprise to
Gideon, but it was reassuring to know that Joey’s manner could be just as acerbic here as it was at the office!

‘Black, thanks,’ he accepted, and he took the cup of coffee from her before sitting down in the armchair beside the warm gas fire. ‘Have you lived here long?’

She shrugged as she sat back on the sofa to drink her tea. ‘A couple of years.’

‘Have you always lived in London?’

‘Steph and I shared a small flat here when we were both at university.’

‘Where you studied law? ‘

‘Obviously.’

‘Has your singing voice been professionally trained?’ Gideon at last voiced the question that had been intriguing him ever since he had heard her sing so angelically at Stephanie and Jordan’s wedding.

‘Yes.’ The answer almost seemed to be forced out of her.

‘I had no idea you had such a fantastic voice until I heard you sing at the wedding.’

‘That was a special occasion,’ she dismissed stiffly.

‘Did you never think of—?’

‘Gideon, did you come here to ask me a lot of personal questions, or so that we could view the disks?’ Joey cut in sharply.

Gideon eyed her quizzically as he sipped his coffee. ‘I was merely curious as to why you didn’t pursue a professional singing career.’

‘Maybe my voice isn’t good enough,’ she suggested dryly.

‘We both know that it is.’

‘It’s personal, okay?’ Joey said curtly.

‘You don’t like to talk about yourself, do you?’

‘Said the pot to the kettle!’

Gideon smiled. ‘You already know that I have a twin, and another brother two years older. My mother lives in Edinburgh—’

‘None of those things are just about
you
—they are equally true of Jordan,’ Joey pointed out.

‘True.’ Gideon nodded. ‘This is good coffee, by the way.’ He took another sip of the strong brew.

‘It’s also a good diversionary tactic from talking about yourself.’ Joey eyed him mockingly.

‘Said the kettle to the pot?’ he returned, with a definite glint in his eye.

Joey shrugged. ‘I guess we both value our privacy.’

Gideon frowned slightly. ‘And I’ve invaded yours by coming here unexpectedly this evening, haven’t I?’

‘Stop worrying about it, Gideon. I can always check your own file for your home address and reciprocate one evening!’

Gideon immediately found himself wondering what Joey would make of his own apartment, which, for all it was expensively furnished and decorated, was of a modern and clinical style rather than being casually comfortable. He knew instinctively that she would absolutely hate it.

Which was of absolutely no relevance when he had no intention of ever allowing her to visit him there; his apartment was his personal space, and he only ever invited his close family.

‘Perhaps you’re right. We should look at the disks now,’ he suggested as he leant forward to place his empty cup back on the tray.

‘Fine,’ Joey answered lightly, easily able to tell that she had unknowingly touched upon a sensitive subject.

Not that she had ever intended visiting him at his place uninvited, but Gideon’s adverse reaction was intriguing, nonetheless. Perhaps because he wasn’t always alone there,
and an unexpected visit from her might prove embarrassing for all of them?

Or it could just be because Gideon valued his privacy even more than she did?

Whatever the reason, his reluctance to have her anywhere near his apartment was more than obvious! As obvious as her own aversion to discussing why, when she acknowledged her voice had been trained, she hadn’t pursued a professional singing career.

‘Hand me the disks.’ Joey stood up to take them from him, crossing the room to where her DVD player was and kneeling down to switch it and the television back on before loading the first disk.

‘The cameras are movement-activated, so it isn’t as bad as it looks,’ Gideon told her after they had watched the first disk showing many of the St Claire employees arriving to park their cars in the morning.

‘Perhaps that’s as well!’ Joey eyed the three discs left to play.

It took almost two hours, and the emptying of both the coffee and the tea pot, before they had viewed all four disks. Like Gideon earlier, Joey had seen nothing unusual on any of them.

Even though she had only worked at St Claire’s for three days, she already recognised many of the employees arriving and leaving the building. All very interesting—not! —and not in the least helpful in terms of discovering if anyone had actually tampered with Gideon’s car.

‘Nothing?’ he prompted as the last disk came to an end.

‘I’m afraid not.’ Joey sighed as she handed all four disks back to him.

‘It was a bit of a long shot, anyway,’ he acknowledged.

Joey stood up. ‘Would you like some fresh coffee?’

‘It’s getting late. Don’t you want to get to bed—’ Gideon broke off abruptly as he saw the telling blush that had entered Joey’s cheeks, and the way her gaze suddenly avoided meeting his.

The more time he spent in her company the more he realised what an enigma Joey was—one minute the sophisticate, the next blushing like a schoolgirl over a perfectly innocent remark.

A remark that no longer seemed quite so innocent.

‘Joey?’

Her gaze settled in the vicinity of the middle of his chest. ‘You’re right. It is late—and we both have work in the morning—’

‘Look at me, Joey,’ Gideon cut in firmly.

Joey was looking at him. And liking—far too much—what she saw! She had always thought Gideon would be lean and muscled beneath those formal suits and silk shirts he always wore, and had been increasingly aware throughout the evening of just how attractive he looked in that fitted black cashmere sweater and tailored black trousers.

To her dismay, she could once again feel the revealing hardening of her nipples as they rubbed against the soft wool of her own sweater, and the less visually obvious aching arousal between her thighs. Joey didn’t dare so much as look at Gideon’s face now, knowing that if she saw awareness in his own expression she would be well and truly lost.

She flicked her tongue nervously across her lips. ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t of any help with—Gideon …!’ Her gasp was breathily panicked as she was suddenly pulled into his arms, her gaze alarmed as she finally looked up at him.

Oh, help.

His eyes were that pure molten gold as he looked down searchingly into her face. There was a telling, aroused flush
along those high, aristocratic cheekbones, and his lips—those sensually sculptured, perfectly delicious lips—were slightly parted, as if he were about to kiss her!

Gideon would be lying to himself as well as to Joey if he were to claim that he hadn’t known from the moment he’d arrived at her apartment that this was going to happen. The whole time the disks had been playing he had been watching her from beneath lowered lids, rather than the television screen. Watching. And waiting. The hardness of his arousal becoming a pulsing ache as the minutes slowly ticked by.