LITMIR.BIZ

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interested in charity work; that might be the way to go. On the other hand,’ he ploughed on—difficult to keep sounding like a kindly uncle in the face of her total lack of response—‘you could enrol for a course in anything that takes your fancy.’

      Setting the cat down, Zoe got to her feet, her movements fluidly dismissive. Wordlessly, she left the room, her golden head high. The little dog leapt from Javier’s lap and pattered after her. Javier’s chest tightened with an inward tug of breath. Guilt swamped him. He blamed himself for her wayward noncooperation; he should have been around far more often. When she’d been a kid he’d known how to handle her, she’d always responded to him. He didn’t know what made the newly adult woman tick.

      Zoe hadn’t let herself cry. She never cried. But the hurt was difficult to push away. As little as an hour ago she would have welcomed his interference in her life with open arms if it meant he was going to be around more often. Bent over backwards to please him, knowing he would be giving her his time and attention, clinging onto the childish hope that he would grow to feel something for her.

      But that wasn’t going to happen. She had finally accepted it. At long last she had stopped fantasising.

      When Oliver Sherman rang her mobile she sat cross-legged on her bedroom carpet to take his call. His run-in with Javier hadn’t fazed him. Merely, ‘Your guardian’s a bossy bastard, Zo, but it needn’t spoil our plans. Obviously, I can’t pick you up this evening, but Guy’s willing. He’s bringing Jenny, and the three of us will collect you at seven—I thought we’d eat first so I booked us in at Anton’s for half past and we’ll go on from there. OK? Oh, and while I think about it, you can give me the keys and I’ll pick the Lotus up when we bring you back, provided the boss is tucked up in bed! I hate being without wheels and until I hear from the insurance bods about my latest write-off, I’m stuck. You still there, Zo?’

      She pulled in a deep breath. Because Javier was home she’d fully intended to cancel. But things had changed. Her determination to stop herself loving him was still a touch shaky so it would be better if she didn’t have to spend too much time around him.

      A fun evening with her friends, even if she did end up picking up the tab, was probably just what she needed to take her mind off Javier. And she’d grab the opportunity to take Ollie aside and tell him that if he wanted to keep her friendship and have the loan of her car in return for teaching her to drive, there must be no more repetitions of what had happened this afternoon.

      ‘Seven it is, then,’ she said coolly and cut the connection.

      Zoe was on the doorstep at five to. All trigged out in her finest, making a statement.

      Her freshly washed hair was caught back from one side of her face with a sparkling gold clip, echoing the gold of the band she wore on one wrist, picking up the tawny bronze of her sleeveless, almost backless silk sheath, the finishing touch of strappy bronze sandals adding four inches to her height.

      Her mirror had told her she looked flirty. Expensive and flirty, startlingly reminiscent of the Glendas and Sophies of unfond memory. Set for a fun evening with smooth friends who knew their way around. Which should show Javier that he couldn’t interfere in her life.

      Even Ethel, catching sight of her as she’d sauntered down the stairs, had popped her eyes. ‘I take it you won’t be in for dinner?’

      ‘Full marks for observation,’ had been her less than friendly response, pay-back time for snitching on her, a response she had immediately regretted because she liked Ethel in spite of her habit of handing out boring lectures. She would apologise tomorrow, she vowed as Ethel turned on the heels of her sensible shoes and bustled away. She wouldn’t want to hurt her for the world.

      And quite why she’d been in such a sudden rush was made clear when moments later Javier appeared at her side.

      The inside of his head felt hot and churned. She looked stunning. The thought of her out on the loose made his brain boil.

      ‘Going somewhere?’ he gritted, his eyes sliding with involuntary precision down the length of her exquisite naked spine, dragging them smartly away as she dipped her head in acknowledgement, adding, not looking at him, ‘With my friends,’ laying cool emphasis on the final word.

      ‘Including Sherman?’

      ‘Naturally.’ Zoe didn’t have the courage to look at him. He was so close. Everything inside her seemed to leap out, strain to touch him. Her body was needy for him, for the strong warmth of his arms, the touch of his beautifully made hands, for his mouth, his wanting mouth…

      She was getting nowhere in her useless attempt to stop loving him! Still fantasising about how his mouth would feel if he kissed her! Her teeth gritted together, her shoulders tensing as she willed Guy’s car to appear on the long sweeping drive so that she could jump in and escape.

      As her ears strained for the sound of an engine Javier’s words came like an electric shock. ‘Go to the study. Now,’ he added with deadly purpose as he watched her head jerk up and back in what he knew had to be defiance. Tacking on with grim determination, ‘Go under your own steam or I carry you. It’s your choice. I’ll let Sherman know you won’t be available to see him.’

      Which was no choice at all, Zoe acknowledged on an inner flutter of dread mixed up with a treacherous vein of excitement. Javier didn’t make idle threats; he always meant what he said. Her mouth went dry. If she didn’t do exactly as he’d told her to he would scoop her into his arms and carry her. If he touched her she wouldn’t stand a chance. She would go up in flames of delirium.

      She turned on her spiky heels and walked back through the house and heard the sound of Guy’s engine. So much for a wild evening out, the prospect of getting Javier out of her head for a few hours.

      The prospect of getting him out of her heart would take more than that, she acknowledged glumly. She’d been a fool to think it could be easily accomplished. And now, she supposed, she was in for another lecture!

      Zoe was standing in front of one of the tall study windows that overlooked the garden. She turned slowly at his approach, tall, graceful and stunningly lovely. Something tightened around his heart. The golden eyes, so like the topaz ear droppers he’d picked out while passing through London this morning to mark her birthday tomorrow, might be flashing defiance but there was an aching vulnerability about her soft mouth that sent rivers of sweetly sharp compassion flowing through his veins.

      He tugged in a deep, shuddering breath and crossed to the drinks cabinet. He took his time over selecting a bottle of red wine, opening it, pouring it into two glasses. Laying down the law over the lack of structure in her present lifestyle would get him nowhere. Her grandmother and the teachers at her boarding-school had tried harsh discipline, resulting not in the desired meek compliance but in open defiance.

      Zoe wouldn’t be pushed, but she could be led.

      Trouble was, she was no longer a child, a fact brought home as he turned, a glass in each hand, his eyes veiled as he watched her sink into a chair, her long, elegant legs displayed as the narrow skirt of her dress rode up to well above her shapely knees.

      A loose cannon was his immediate and uncomfortable thought.

      Slender fingers closed round the stem of the glass he offered, one delicate brow rose as she drawled, ‘Wine. How liberal of you. I’d rather expected a can of fizzy pop or a beaker of milk.’

      Javier acknowledged the dig with a grim smile. Maybe he had been guilty of treating her like a kid—he’d been guilty of too many things where she was concerned. Time to make amends.

      Pale blonde tendrils of hair curved around the slender line of her throat. He could see a pulse beating just above the fabric of her dress where it flowed down to skim the outline of perfectly rounded, unfettered breasts.

      His throat tightening, Javier stalked over to the desk, leaned against it, half sitting, facing the glorious creature who was like a bomb primed to go off at any moment. With her stunning looks, her need for the love that had been denied her, she would be easy prey for

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