It Started With... Collection - Miranda Lee Mills & Boon e-Book Collections

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inherited.’

      ‘What did you do?’

      ‘Threatened the bastard that I’d persuade Gran to contest the will if he didn’t give her a decent amount each year. Which he did do, grudgingly.’

      ‘I’ll bet you weren’t too popular for a while.’

      ‘I’ve never been popular with the men on this side of my family,’ she replied.

      Ryan laughed. ‘I wonder why?’

      ‘Why should I suck up to the opposite sex?’ she asserted with her usual stroppiness. ‘I’m as good as they are.’

      ‘Yes, well, just remember that for the next couple of days you’re playing the part of a woman in love.’

      The expression on her face when he said this was worth all the money in China.

      ‘I knew this was a terrible idea,’ she muttered. ‘I don’t know what possessed me to do it.’

      ‘Pride possessed you.’

      ‘Yes, you’re right,’ she said with a deeply weary sigh. ‘Good old pride—one of the seven deadly sins.’

      She looked so dispirited all of a sudden that Ryan felt genuinely sorry for her.

      ‘Not just pride, Laura,’ he said gently. ‘Kindness too. Let’s not forget that. We’re here to make your gran happy. What does it matter if you’re forced out of your comfort zone for a couple of days? It’s not like it will last for ever. Let me do most of the talking. You just smile and agree to everything I say. Which I know will be extremely difficult for you,’ he added before she could say a single word. ‘But it’s all in a good cause.’

      She was quiet for a long moment, but then she nodded. ‘I’ll do my best.’

      ‘Good.’

      Good!

      Laura felt anything but good every time she looked at the man. She wanted to hit him for making her find him so darned attractive all of a sudden.

      It wasn’t pride that was possessing her at this moment. It was another of the seven deadly sins, one that terrified the life out of her.

      Laura was not intimately acquainted with lust, had never been held in its thrall before. Both Brad and Mario had seduced her into their beds, and she’d gone out of the need to be loved, not the need to have sex with them.

      But she wanted to have sex with Ryan. It was a most disturbing thought. Her sigh carried regret that she’d ever thought of this charade in the first place. Regret too that she’d given in to Ryan’s suggestion and bought that sexy red dress.

      Alison had spelled it out for her. That dress was the sort which would get an octogenarian’s hormones up and going. And Ryan was a lot younger and hornier than that. It worried her, what might happen if he did make a pass at her tonight?

      ‘Come now, Laura,’ Ryan said with a touch of exasperation in his voice. ‘Anyone would think you were going to your execution.’

      An execution would be preferable to ending up in bed with you, Laura thought, keeping her eyes firmly off his corrupting body and on the road ahead. She tried thinking of what he’d just said, about this all being in a good cause, but nothing could unwind the knots of tension in her stomach. The niggling fear she’d had that this weekend would end in disaster became steadily magnified as they drew closer to the house. The sight of her Aunt Cynthia standing on the verandah waiting for them reminded her of that other fear she’d had earlier today—the fear that they’d be put in the same bedroom for the night!

       CHAPTER TWELVE

      ONE look at Aunt Cynthia gave Ryan a clue as to why Laura was so tense.

      The woman was formidable looking to say the least, tall and solidly built, with a manner of the sergeant major about her as she stood there at the top of the front steps with her arms folded over her battleship bosom and her thick-ankled legs slightly apart. The skirt and top she was wearing was battleship grey as well. Possibly in her late fifties, she had very short, tightly curled blonde hair—probably permed and dyed—large facial features and the hint of a moustache above her thinly pressed lips. Her eyes were small and closely set, widening slightly as Ryan braked the convertible to a halt at the bottom on the front steps.

      ‘Don’t you dare get out of this car,’ Ryan muttered under his breath as Laura automatically reached for the door handle.

      When her eyes jerked round to his he bestowed a one-thousand-kilowatt smile upon her, then bent over to graze her right cheek with his lips.

      ‘Just do as I say,’ he whispered at the same time. ‘And smile, for pity’s sake.’

      She didn’t smile, he noted. But she did as he said, staying put while he exited the car and strode round to open the door for her like a gentleman of the old school. Ryan deliberately didn’t look up at Aunt Cynthia until Laura was standing up, her hand safely enclosed in his.

      By then he was gratified to see true surprise on the woman’s face, along with an almost welcoming smile. She’d even unfolded her arms by the time he dragged Laura up onto the verandah with him. Thankfully, the woman was staring at him and not at her rather robotic niece.

      ‘You must be Aunt Cynthia,’ he said, beaming broadly. ‘What a lovely place you have here!’

      When she stepped forward to extend her hand, her beady eyes, which turned out to be a faded blue, actually sparkled at him.

      ‘We think so. It’s so nice to meet you at last, Mr Armstrong.’

      Ryan shook her hand with his right hand, at the same time keeping his left tightly clasped around Laura’s lest she bolt for it. Which she just might do, judging by the tension in her fingers.

      ‘Call me Ryan, please,’ he insisted warmly. ‘And perhaps you’d allow me to call you Cynthia? After all, you’re way too young to be my aunt.’

      ‘Oh, go on with you,’ she simpered in return, her cheeks going pink with pleasure as her free hand fluttered up to touch her hair.

      Laura could not believe it—Aunt Cynthia, actually blushing. The man was a menace all right. But this was why she’d brought him with her today, wasn’t it? To see this kind of reaction from her family, and Aunt Cynthia most of all. It was worth taking the risk of making a fool of herself with him in private to experience this moment of public satisfaction.

      When her aunt turned stunned eyes towards her, Laura found a slightly smug smile along with a surge of confidence.

      ‘He is gorgeous, isn’t he?’ she said.

      Ryan was momentarily thrown, not only by Laura’s compliment but by the smoky voice she used.

      Wow, he thought. A guy could get used to her talking to him like that. Of course, he knew it was just an act, but a very convincing one. It looked like he didn’t have to worry about her making a hash of their charade.

      ‘Thank you, darling,’ he said, giving her hand a little squeeze. ‘You’re so sweet.’

      Laura almost laughed out loud at the look on her aunt’s face. Dear, but it was priceless! Like she had something stuck in her throat.

      ‘How’s Gran doing?’ Laura asked whilst her aunt was still floundering.

      Cynthia blinked. ‘What? Oh … Er, not too badly.’

      ‘Can we go and see her straight away?’

      ‘Perhaps we should take our things in first,’ Ryan suggested. ‘I’d like to freshen up as well.’

      ‘Yes, yes, of course,’ Cynthia said, quickly recovering her composure to play the perfect hostess, gushing over the car whilst Ryan collected

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