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stomach did a nervous back flip. ‘Mess up your hair,’ she said, regarding him with a critical frown. Ignoring her brother’s parting instruction of, ‘For God’s sake, Evie, show a bit of leg,’ she automatically pulled down the black fabric of the short dress she was wearing.

      ‘What?’

      ‘Like this,’ she said, rubbing her hands impatiently through the short wavy ebony strands of her own soft, silky cap of hair. ‘Here, let me,’ she said with ill-concealed exasperation. She leant forward and rumpled the teenager’s straggly blond locks. ‘Put an arm around me, or something; make it look as if we’ve been…kissing.’

      Daniel made a couple of vague movements towards her. ‘I can’t. I’ve never…’

      You and me both, mate, she thought, managing a small ironic grin. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll show you what to do.’ A classic case of the blind leading the blind!

      ‘I just bet you would, sweetheart.’ The deep, cold voice made her start violently. ‘But I don’t think Daniel requires instruction from the likes of you.’ There was the touch of the surgeon’s scalpel to the insulting glance that flickered comprehensively over her tall, athletically slender figure.

      He summed her up in glance: this was no gauche schoolgirl; this was a woman who knew what she was doing—and the fact that she planned to do it with his nephew caused Drew Cummings’ protective instincts to go into overdrive.

      ‘Likes of me?’ Just what the hell did he mean by that? Eve looked indignantly towards the intruder. She didn’t have to be particularly intuitive to know that she wouldn’t like it, whatever it was!

      Even as she was being pulled unceremoniously off the sofa Eve realised she was at last making the acquaintance of the dreadful Uncle Drew. Even if she hadn’t, Daniel’s faltering, ‘I thought you were out,’ would have clinched it.

      It turned out she’d been wrong to assume Daniel had exaggerated his uncle’s physical attributes. The muscles in the arms that were manhandling her were seriously well developed, and the chest she stumbled against was rock-hard—it was also still damp. Uncle Drew had obviously strolled into the room directly from the shower. One towel was looped far too casually for her liking around his slim waist, another was draped over his shoulders. Her sensitive nose quivered as she was treated to a heavy dose of a clean, sharp masculine odour.

      ‘One day you’ll be glad I wasn’t, Dan.’ Drew Cummings flicked a quick, wry grin in his nephew’s direction before turning his attention back to Eve. His expression grew openly contemptuous. ‘Sorry, sweetheart.’ Eyes big and soft as a startled fawn’s stared back at him, all confusion and innocence. Innocence? That was rich! ‘But, unlike Dan, I’m not interested in providing a shoulder for the likes of you.’

      A flash of anger flickered into the beautiful dark eyes which had been made even more exotic by skilfully applied make-up. ‘Though it didn’t look like you were having much luck in that direction from what I saw,’ he recalled with a taunting half-smile. ‘Besides, it seems to me like you’ve got more than enough leg to support yourself.’ His eyes moved consideringly over her legs, clad in fine denier, as he set her on her own feet.

      ‘Guilt’ had to be written in mile-high letters across her forehead she decided drearily, with subtitles of ‘scarlet woman’ and ‘cradle-snatcher’ for good measure.

      Under the circumstances she was prepared to swallow his crude insults—just. Even though the snide, sneering superiority of this man made her want to scream. She told herself she had to remember that anyone could and probably would have misread the situation. He was going to feel pretty silly when he knew what was happening, and it was probably time she put him straight. The thought of Drew Cummings feeling silly was a warm thought to cling to when she felt she was drowning in her own humiliation.

      ‘This isn’t what it looks like, Mr Cummings.’ Calm composure was the best way to defuse this unpleasant situation, she told herself hopefully. Unpleasant, Eve? Who are you kidding, girl? This is on par with nightmares of walking around a supermarket stark naked!

      ‘You know my name?’ The blue eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘You do your research.’

      Name, shoe size, favourite colour… ‘Daniel talks about you all the time.’

      I bet he does, Drew thought, his eyes slipping of their own volition back to the incredible length of this girl’s legs. He’d yet to meet a teenage male who wouldn’t tell a female who looked as sleekly sexy as this one just about anything she wanted to know. He could recall all too well what it was like to be ruled by rioting hormones.

      She wasn’t the type he personally went for, he preferred petite and blonde, but it wasn’t hard to see what Dan saw in her. The girl herself obviously had a good nose for money. Call him cynical, but he felt pretty confident about ruling out emotional involvement on her side. One thing was certain: she wasn’t getting her hooks any deeper into his nephew.

      ‘That gives you the advantage.’ Eve found his smile more threatening than any abuse he might have hurled at her head. ‘No, don’t tell me your name.’

      If Katie ever found out about this he was dead meat. His sister was very protective—over-protective, some might say—of her only child. It had taken all her husband’s persuasive powers to convince her that her younger brother was a fit temporary guardian for their son’s physical and moral welfare.

      ‘I wasn’t going…’ Eve began hotly. Advantage! If she’d ever been in a situation that had made her feel less advantaged she couldn’t recall it right now.

      The way he’d looked at her—as if she was a piece of meat! She shuddered, and shook her head from side to side as a wave of dizzying fury washed away her last idiotic impulse to apologise. No man had ever looked at her like that before.

      This musclebound bully wasn’t what she’d pictured—he was worse! God, but she wished he’d put some clothes on. It was nigh on impossible to avert her eyes from that bare golden-brown flesh; there was so much of it! His shoulders and deeply muscled chest were extraordinarily wide in proportion to his slim hips. Hips that looked far too lean to stop that towel from obeying the laws of gravity. She doubted if the blushes would be his if the unthinkable occurred; modesty wasn’t one of the characteristics that leapt to mind when you looked at this man! Now if you were talking insufferable arrogance and smug superiority—that was another matter!

      Was the hair on man’s body normally a shade darker than that on his head? In this man’s case a deeper shade of antique gold. The warm, squirmy, unpleasant feeling in the pit of her belly grew unaccountably more intense, and she swiftly raised the level of her eyes—and her thoughts too!

      Even in these stupid heels she still had to look up at him, which was a novelty for her, and one she didn’t enjoy. He had to be at least six-four or five, she estimated. Concentrating on his face didn’t improve her growing sense of antipathy. His angular jaw was hard and uncompromisingly set, and his features, from heavy-lidded startling blue eyes to firm, sculpted mouth, managed miraculously to combine regularity with an individuality which made it impossible to dismiss him as just a pretty face.

      If he sneered once more she might just give in to the growing desire to throw an unladylike punch.

      ‘Oh, but you are going—and now.’ The soft observation left no room for negotiation.

      ‘Uncle Drew, don’t!’ Daniel discovered his voice as his uncle’s hand fell heavily on Eve’s shoulder. ‘You don’t understand.’

      Some of the implacable hardness died from Drew’s eyes as he looked towards his nephew’s horrified face. ‘I understand, all right. At best she’s a tart with a heart, Dan—at worst a predatory little bitch who targets boys like you because anyone with a bit more experience can see past her innocent eyes, beautiful face and sexy body.’ It was obvious from the contemptuous curl of his lips as he glanced at Eve which version he favoured.

      Sexy body! Eve was so stunned by this assessment that all that emerged from her lips by way

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