Ким Лоренс – A Secret Seduction: A Secret Until Now / A Sinful Seduction / Secrets of a Shy Socialite (страница 17)

There was a delicious dark irony that he had blamed his father for not taking responsibility for the consequences of his actions.... Unprotected sex—how stupid is that? He heard the scornful words of his younger self and they still had the power to make him flinch.

The only reason he had not found himself in a similar situation was not down to higher moral standards or even basic common sense, but pure luck!

‘So it isn’t normal— You...you don’t—’ She broke off, flushing.

‘Sleep with women I have just met? Actually no. Though I can understand why you made that assumption given how we met. That makes you unique on two levels—my only virgin and my only one-night stand,’ he remarked bleakly. ‘How about you?’

‘I thought you’d already decided that a model is an easy lay.’

He winced and frowned at the crudity while uneasily accepting its factual accuracy. ‘I was not enquiring about your sexual history.’

‘Oh, I see, you just want to know the real me?’ She widened her eyes. ‘Where do I begin? My political views or my favourite author? Let’s see, I’m a Pisces, I drink too much coffee and my favourite colour is green....’

‘Do you always make a joke when things get too personal?’

Shocked that he had recognised the self-defence mechanism so easily, she shook her head in an angry negative motion, but before she could follow up with a firm denial he asked a question that, even though she knew was inspired by idle curiosity not suspicion, almost tipped her over into outright panic.

‘Where is she, your daughter, now?’

Not here, thank goodness.... Angel shuddered to imagine how she would have reacted if fate had thrown this man in her path when Jas had been with her.

‘At home, in Scotland, with Ce...’ She stopped, remembering that he knew Cesare and not wanting him to make the link between her and her brother until she was ready. ‘I always know she’s safe with him.’

The mention of the other man and the perceptible loosening of the tension in her body language when she mentioned him caused muscles along Alex’s taut jaw to clench.

He rarely found himself taken by surprise but he was. Having established that the father was not involved in the upbringing of the child, it had not occurred to him to question whether another man was. And considering he was a man who was justifiably famed for factoring in all possibilities when he approached a project, in retrospect it seemed astonishing that he had not foreseen any other outcome, when engineering a situation where their paths would cross, other than them falling into bed together. He had not been willing to contemplate failure.

It had genuinely not once crossed his mind that Angel might be with someone. He struggled to readjust to these facts.

While he recognised it was totally irrational, he could not shake the feeling of being cheated.

So what did you expect, Alex—that she’d spent the past six years waiting for you to reappear? The glaring immaturity of his reaction annoyed him, and, continuing in the immature mindset, he found himself blaming her for the situation.

His slightly narrowed eyes went to her left hand, but the long tapering fingers were bare of everything but sand. To leave a child with someone implied a great deal of trust but there was no ring. He half closed his eyes but he could still see her fingers on his skin. He inhaled and fought his way through a rush of hot lust...a virgin!

He still could not get his head round the fact that the best sex in his life had been with a virgin! Everything was successfully conspiring to up his guilt levels: the wife he had watched suffer barely in the ground and he had jumped into bed with a green-eyed witch...then that temptress had turned out not to be a siren but a virgin! Effectively making him feel like some sort of predatory sleaze. What was it they said—ignorance was no excuse in the eyes of the law?

It was certainly no excuse in his eyes.

He had been staring so long at her hands that Angel had to fight an impulse to hide them. Instead she dug them into the sand before rubbing them against her thighs and dragging them through her wet hair.

‘You’re with someone?’

This was good, he told himself. It was always good to focus on a known quantity. A partner meant there was no chance of becoming involved once more with her. That was one line in the sand he did not cross.... Unlike virginity, Alex?

‘Does the child’s father mind her being brought up by another man?’

‘Would you?’ she countered.

He thought about it—but not for long as it was a no-brainer. ‘Yes, I would.’ Little Lizzie—not so little these days—had spent the first few years of her life farmed out to relatives and friends before her father had claimed her and given her the home that had always been hers by rights. To allow that to happen to a child of his...?

It would never happen! His child would not suffer an identity crisis. She would always know where she belonged, she would always feel safe, loved and secure.

The instant response sent a flurry of panic through Angel. She brought her lashes down in a concealing sweep to hide her response. Exhaling a slow, measured, calming breath, she told herself there was no way he could know—and he didn’t.

She looked up. There was no shocked realisation, not even a shade of suspicion in his bright eyes.

‘I am bringing my daughter up alone.’

‘So you make the calls and your boyfriend of the moment acts as a childminder, providing he has no problem with your work taking you away from your family?’ It amazed him that any man trusted her enough to let her out of his sight, let alone halfway across the globe.

An energising rush of anger surged through her body as, with lush lips compressed in an angry rose-tinted line, she retorted, ‘I would never ever farm my daughter out!’

‘Why do you constantly assume I’m judging you?’

‘And you’re not?’ she flung back.

‘Or do you judge yourself?’ he speculated.

‘And for the record there’s nothing wrong with a man being the carer.’

He arched a brow. ‘Did I say there was?’

‘You implied it,’ she contended. ‘If I had a boyfriend who wanted to stay at home and look after Jas I’d consider myself lucky.’ But she’d refuse. Angel would never allow her child to become fond of someone who could vanish. ‘And I don’t enjoy being away from Jas.’ She swallowed, her voice thickening with emotion she couldn’t hide as she added, ‘But it won’t always be this way. I’ve given myself five years to make enough to start my own—’ She stopped and thought, You are telling him this why, Angel?

Out of this information one detail jumped out at Alex. ‘If... You do not have a boyfriend?’

‘Why? Are you thinking of applying for the vacancy?’ As jokes went this one fell pretty flat. Did the man even have a sense of humour? ‘That was a joke. My brother is good at helping out with Jas.’

‘You have a brother?’

‘We share...’ She paused and lowered her gaze from his interrogative stare. She felt disinclined to explain the circumstances that had led her to be living in a wing of the highland castle that her brother had inherited. She had tried to replicate for her daughter the idyllic childhood there that had been snatched away from her and Angel was not about to let anyone tear it away from Jasmine.

‘He was available to take care of Jasmine.’

She took a step away from him towards the rocks, taking care to avoid the tideline of broken shells and seaweed that was coarse underfoot. ‘Look, I’d better be getting back.’

‘Not that way.’

She looked at the hand on her arm, feeling a worrying disinclination to break the contact.

‘You can’t get back along the beach at high tide.’ His hand fell away, leaving Angel conscious of the tingling imprint. ‘It is nearly high tide.’

Absently rubbing the spot where his fingers had been, she fought another tide—this time one of rising dismay. Alone on a beach she could have coped—she was resourceful and it appealed to her spirit of adventure—but she wasn’t alone!

‘We’re trapped?’

‘Another instalment in your dramatic life.’ For a split second he was tempted to say they were trapped, but he stifled the impulse. ‘Relax, there’s a path through the trees.’ He pointed to the pines that lined the beach. ‘Slightly longer, but quite well marked. Come on, I’ll show you.’

Side by side but not touching, they walked towards the tree-shaded area. The pine needles underfoot crunched as they walked beneath the fragrant canopy. In the softer light the bruise on her forehead was much more evident.

‘I think you’ve escaped a black eye.’

‘It’s my shoulder that I’ll feel tomorrow.’ She rotated her shoulder, feeling the stiffness that was bound to get worse before it got better. Her hand went to her head, which she dismissed with a casual, ‘I bruise easily.’ She stopped, her eyes widening as she turned to him, and she grimaced as she realised the implications of his comment. ‘There’s a bruise? You can see it?’

He nodded, picking up the concern in her voice and wondering why she was bothered about something she had previously shrugged off.

‘Terrific!’ Wincing slightly, she traced the slightly raised outline on her temple with her finger. It was not vanity or the pain that gathered her brows into a worried straight line above her tip-tilted nose, but the prospect of what the women in Make-up would say when they saw her, and the horror would likely not be limited to them. The last thing she needed as the new girl was people questioning her professional attitude.