LITMIR.BIZ

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wheeled her off towards the pergola at the bottom of the wide stone steps that led up to the terrace. Phoebe had no option but to stagger after him, shoes dangling from her fingers as panic and shock flooded back into every bone in her body.

      ‘Hang on,’ she said, desperately trying to keep her voice down. ‘You can’t throw me out too. Ow!’ The smooth paving stones had turned into sharp gravel, which dug into the soles of her feet.

      He stopped, looked down as she hopped madly while trying to put her shoes back on and then, muttering a brief curse under his breath, swept her up into his arms. Phoebe let out a tiny squeal as her shoulder slapped against a rock-hard chest. One of his hands planted itself on the side of her breast, the other wrapped around her bare thigh.

      ‘Put me down!’ she whispered furiously, her legs bouncing with every step he took as she tried to tug down her dress in a vain attempt to protect her modesty.

      He stopped beneath a lantern and set her on her feet, her body brushing against his in the process. A flurry of tingles whizzed round her and she wobbled. He wound one arm round her waist and clamped her against him.

      ‘I have no intention of throwing you out,’ he said roughly, raking his gaze over her face.

      ‘So let me go.’

      If anything, his arm tightened and Phoebe felt as if someone had plugged her into a socket. What else could explain the tingles and sparks that zapped through her? What else could account for the searing heat that swept along her veins, making her bones melt and turning her spine to water?

      ‘My name is Alex and you should choose your boyfriends more carefully.’

      At the icy restraint lacing his voice, Phoebe’s eyes jerked to his and for a moment she forgot how to breathe.

      Oh, dear God. His eyes were mesmerising. Grey. No, not just grey. Silver, rapidly darkening to slate, and fringed with the thickest eyelashes she’d ever seen on a man. Set beneath straight dark eyebrows and blazing down at her with fierce concern.

      As she dragged her gaze over the planes of his face in much the same way as he was now doing to her Phoebe’s mouth went dry and the blood in her veins grew hot and sluggish. He wasn’t just handsome. He was jaw-droppingly gorgeous. But not in the pretty way the men who occupied her world were. This man looked like the sort of man who knew how to do, and probably did, the things that real men were supposed to do.

      The little white scar above his right eye and the hint of a broken nose gave him an air of danger that she might have considered to be intoxicating if she’d been in the market for a man. Which she wasn’t. But heavens, that mouth. What a mouth…

      Her hands, currently curled into fists and jammed between his chest and hers, itched to unfurl themselves, creep their way up the thick white cotton shirt, maybe taking in a quick detour to the V of tanned flesh exposed where his top button was undone, and up, round his neck to wind themselves in his hair so that they could tug that delicious-looking mouth down and weld it to hers.

      Phoebe blinked. Agh. What on earth was she thinking? Her body had no business behaving like this, especially without her prior approval. And that would not be forthcoming this evening. Or ever, she reminded herself belatedly, pushing all thoughts of what sort of things a real man might be required to do out of her head.

      Giving herself a mental shake, she forced herself to concentrate. What had he been saying? She thought frantically. Boyfriends. That was it. ‘What boyfriend?’ she managed, squeezing her hands tighter and hauling back some of the self-control that had fled when he’d pulled her against him.

      ‘The jerk in the pond.’

      ‘He’s not my boyfriend.’ After her last disastrous relationship, she was off men. For ever. Especially ones who crept up on her and nearly gave her a heart attack. However good-looking.

      ‘Did he hurt you?’

      ‘No. Of course not.’ What was he talking about? She struggled to pull herself out of the steel circle of his arm, but it was no good. Alex didn’t seem inclined to let her go.

      Instead he gripped her chin with his long brown fingers and turned her face so that the light fell on her cheek. ‘He took a swing at you with the bottle,’ he said harshly. ‘Where did he hit you?’

      Phoebe’s skin sizzled beneath the pressure of his fingers. ‘Have you lost your mind?’ she said, baffled as much by the tingles shooting through her as the direction of the conversation. ‘Mark didn’t hit me.’

      ‘Are you sure?’

      ‘Of course I’m sure,’ she said. ‘I think I might have noticed if I’d been thwacked by a bottle of champagne. Particularly vintage.’

      His mouth tightened. ‘Not funny.’

      ‘I couldn’t agree more,’ she said sharply. There was absolutely nothing funny about the damage he could have done tonight, possibly the most important night of her and Jo’s lives. ‘Can I have my chin back?’

      He let her chin go as if it were on fire and she swung her head round to glare up at him. For a moment they simply stared at each other and Phoebe became aware that, still locked in his vice-like embrace as she was, every inch of her body pressed up against every hard-muscled inch of his.

      Heat pooled in the pit of her stomach and her heart thumped. Her mouth dried and she swallowed. She had to get a grip. And not of his biceps. ‘Right. So you barged in because you thought my boyfriend had hit me?’ A rogue bubble of delight bounced round inside her before she reminded herself that not only did chivalry not exist in her world, she neither needed nor looked for it.

      His brows snapped together. ‘Where I come from men don’t hit women.’

      Something warm started to unfurl deep inside her. ‘Where I come from no one hits anyone.’ The Jacksons employed far more subtle tactics.

      ‘He called you darling. You cried out and jerked back.’

      Oh. She felt her cheeks grow warm. ‘Well, yes, but only because I didn’t want to get splashed,’ she said. ‘And Mark calls everyone darling.’

      His hands sprang off her as if she were a hot coal and he stepped back. ‘You didn’t want to get splashed,’ he echoed softly, his voice suddenly so cold and distant that it sent a chill hurtling down her spine and she automatically rubbed her upper arms.

      In the thundering silence that hung between them, a seed of shame took root in her head and the blush on her cheeks deepened. His face was dark, tight and as hard as stone.

      The combination of sheer disbelief and icy disdain that replaced the concern in his eyes made her wish she’d kept her mouth shut. If she’d kept her mouth shut she’d still be in his arms, enveloped in his heat and strength, feeling all warm and deliciously quivery instead of feeling as shallow as the pond and utterly rotten.

      Then she rallied. Hang on a moment. Why was she being made to feel the guilty party in this little melodrama? She hadn’t exactly begged him for help. And it was hardly her fault if he’d mistaken her dodging an arc of champagne for something more serious. While a spattering of water turned her sleek mane of hair into a frizzy mess, a carelessly flung spray of champagne would turn it into a frizzy sticky mess and she had enough to worry about right at this minute.

      Phoebe nipped that seed of shame in the bud. ‘This,’ she said coolly, pointing at her hair, ‘takes hours to straighten and my dress is dry-clean only.’

      For a split second Alex looked dumbstruck and then his expression shuttered and his eyes went blank. She cast a glance over his hair, thick, dark and unfairly shiny. Of course he would never understand the struggle she had with her hair, nor the burning need to keep it under control. But what was his problem?

      ‘Look, I didn’t ask you to interfere,’ she pointed out. ‘And I certainly didn’t need your help.’

      ‘So I’m beginning to gather.’

      ‘I

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