A Christmas Seduction

Cover Page

Excerpt

About the Author

Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

Copyright

“Do you expect an apology?”

He was so blatant in his judgment, she had to laugh. “I wouldn’t hold my breath.”

Quinn nodded and smiled to himself, then took her completely by surprise. One long-fingered hand reached out to cup her chin. Her eyes widened as danger signals went off in her head, urging her to move.

But he outmaneuvered her, and instead of brushing his hand away, her fingers closed about his wrist and held on as a delicious, tingling warmth began to expand from the spot. Her brain seemed to grow sluggish, and her eyelids grew so heavy, it took all her energy to stop them from closing. They fluttered. “You’re very good,” he said quietly, and it took a second or two for his meaning to sink in.

Discovering a talent for acting she had previously been unaware of, Laura pulled away. “If you aren’t going to buy, don’t touch the merchandise!”

AMANDA BROWNING still lives in the Essex house where she was born. The third daughter of four children—her sister being her twin—she enjoyed the rough-and-tumble of life with two brothers as much as she did reading books. Writing came naturally as an outlet for a fertile imagination. The love of books led her to a career in libraries, and being single allowed her to take the leap into writing for a living. Success is still something of a wonder, but allows her to indulge in hobbies as varied as embroidery and birdwatching.

A Christmas Seduction

Amanda Browning

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

From the moment Laura Maclane met Quinn Mannion, a state of war would exist between them. Not that she knew it that rain-lashed Friday night, as she paid off the taxi and made a dash for the door of the building where Jonathan Ames had his law practice. Jonathan had been Alexander Harrington’s lawyer and was the only living soul, apart from herself, who knew about his relationship with her mother, and her own relationship to him. The world at large was still speculating about it but, as yet, nobody had come close to the truth, which was that she was Alexander Harrington’s natural daughter.

Laura had never known her father’s name. She had had no idea who he was until her mother had died of cancer, leaving instructions that Laura was to inform Alexander Harrington of her death. He had realised at once who she was, but his quite understandable shock had quickly been surpassed by his obvious pleasure. It had been Laura herself who had doubted his claim to parentage, but a blood test had proved he was right. She had the same rare blood group as himself. She was his daughter.

She had known very little about the affair which had brought about her existence. Her mother had never revealed any details. From Alexander she had learned that he and her mother had met at university and fallen in love. They had lived together for a while, but then Alexander’s father had died and he had had to return home. There had been problems, and one thing had led to another. He never did go back, and had never seen her mother again. She, for whatever reason, had kept her pregnancy to herself. He had married and raised a family, never knowing he had another child.

Blame was not something Alexander had cared to apportion. He had accepted that he had treated her mother badly, and that withholding knowledge of his child had been her revenge. Fault lay on both sides, but it was in the past. He knew about his daughter now, and he was determined to make up for lost time.

They had spent as much time as they could together over the next few months, getting to know each other. Alexander’s wealth and position in life had taken some getting used to, but not for a second had she been envious of it. If she envied anything at all, it was the family she did not know. She had never pushed him to introduce her to her half-brother and sister, though she longed to meet them. Being an only child had been very lonely at times. Alexander, however, had been determined that she should become part of the family one day. The difficulty was telling his wife. She was unaware of her husband’s brief affair almost thirty years ago. It was bound to come as a shock, and he wanted to minimise it because Maxine Harrington had a serious heart problem. He would have to pick his time carefully.

Until then they had tried to be discreet, but somehow the ever vigilant press had found out about their meetings. The next thing Laura had known, her picture had appeared in the society gossip columns above a caption asking who was this woman who was constantly seen with the wealthy financier Alexander Harrington? Speculation had been rife. Knowing it would only be a matter of time before somebody actually claimed they must be lovers, Alexander had decided he must act. However, before he had been able to put the facts right, he had suffered a massive stroke from which he’d never recovered. He had died a few days later, at the age of fifty-one.

That might have been the end of it, except for Alexander’s will. Laura had been astounded to discover that he had left her a very great deal of money. When the press got hold of that little snippet, she had been described in various unkind ways, not the least of which was gold-digger. As if she had somehow known he was going to die so suddenly! Sadly, she had accepted it was impossible to put the matter right, at least in the eyes of the press and society. For one thing, nobody would accept a denial at this late stage. For another, she had promised Alexander she would say nothing of their true relationship until he had broken it to his family.

Stymied, that was how things stood several months later. She still secretly hoped to be able to meet her family one day. She just didn’t know how to bring it about.

To this day, only Jonathan knew the truth. Because of it, she considered him her best friend. Sometimes it seemed he was her only friend, she thought wryly, brushing droplets of rain off her coat before stepping into the building.

At this time of night the foyer was quiet, and she headed for the bank of elevators to the echoing sound of her own footsteps. She stepped into the nearest and pressed the button for the third floor. The system was old and cranky and progress was slow, and Laura used the time to take a quick glance at her reflection in the mirror, to check for any damage the rain might have caused. There was very little.

Her blonde hair curled under in a shining bob to just below her ears. It made her heart-shaped face appear all the more fragile. Her grey eyes, with their long lashes, stared back at her doe-like, whilst her surprisingly full mouth was curved in a faint smile. Beneath her woollen coat, the soft curves of her body and the length of her legs were shown to perfection by the lines of her black cocktail dress and stiletto shoes.

She looked good for a twenty-eight-year-old interior designer, she decided, and instantly pulled a wry face. As she had overheard one doyenne of society say only recently, what woman wouldn’t, given a fortune to spend in only the best stores?

It was a pretty universal assumption. Any money she had must have come from her ‘liaison’. Society matrons ignored the fact that she and her friend Anya Kovacs ran a successful interior design business, which they patronised. In the beginning Laura had feared the worst for their combined welfare but, far from slumping through the supposed scandal, business had boomed. The reason had soon become clear; everyone had hoped to be able to glean some titbit of gossip from her. They had been unlucky. Laura had gritted her teeth and refused to utter a word. Some custom had eventually fallen off, but not to the extent she had expected. What clientele remained was loyal because they produced good work.

The elevator came to a stop and, stepping out of it, she turned left towards Jonathan’s office. Light glowed beneath the door and she sighed. He was brilliant at his job but, when he was working on a case, he had a head like a sieve about more mundane things. For instance, tonight he was supposed to have picked her up an hour ago for the opening of a new art exhibition, and then they were to have gone on to dinner. She really should have phoned him earlier, but she had assumed he would remember. More fool her.

Pushing open the door, she discovered Jonathan exactly where she expected, bent over his desk, lost in the depths of a file. His brown hair was endearingly tousled, as if he had raked it constantly, and a cup of cold coffee sat by his elbow with a dehydrated jelly doughnut.

‘I thought I’d find you here!’ Laura exclaimed wryly, and he looked up with a start.

‘Laura? What on earth.?’ Jonathan gasped in surprise, then his eyes made a quick inspection of her and she saw light Dawn. Clapping a hand to his head, he rose to his feet and came round the desk to her, his expression ruefully apologetic. ‘Oh, Lord, I’m sorry. We were supposed to be going to the opening, weren’t we?’ He kissed her cheek and Laura sighed.

‘We were,’ she confirmed as she raised her hand to brush his hair off his forehead. ‘Honestly, you’re hopeless. What happened this time?’

‘I’m afraid I happened.’ A strange voice, rich and slightly husky, broke into their conversation, and it was her turn to jump. She turned towards the voice, but its owner stood in the doorway of Jonathan’s private washroom, and the light coming from behind made him little more than a large silhouette.

‘Who are you?’ she asked more sharply than she intended, and behind her Jonathan shifted uneasily.

‘Oh, hell, it had to happen some time, I guess,’ he said heavily, and made the introduction. ‘This is Quinn.’

Laura went absolutely still, ‘Did you say Quinn?’ she asked, though she had heard well enough.

‘Uh-huh’

Laura had heard a great deal about Alexander’s godson, Quinn Mannion. Mentally she recapped what she knew. He was thirty-six years old, a former investigative journalist who now wrote political thrillers which had put him on the top of the best-seller list countless times, and earned him millions of dollars. In the best tradition of novelists he lived in splendid isolation, somewhere on the coast of Maine. Over the years his name had been linked romantically with several women, but he had resisted the ties of marriage. She was curious to know what he looked like, and waited with bated breath as he stepped forward into the light of the desk lamp.

Laura’s eyes widened. This was Quinn Mannion?

She saw a tall, dark-haired man, broad-shouldered and lean-hipped, wearing a leather jacket over an Aran sweater and jeans he must have been poured into, they hugged his thighs so lovingly. He carried himself with an assurance and self-belief which was almost palpable. Her gaze skittered over his face. He was breathtakingly handsome, although there was nothing soft in it. In fact, the only feature to break the strong lines was a surprisingly sensual mouth. At least, that was what she thought until her eyes met a pair of intense blue ones and somehow got locked there.

They had to be the bluest eyes she had ever seen. The sort of eyes you could dive into and drown in with the greatest pleasure. Rimmed with long dark lashes, they should have been feminine, but weren’t. Everything simply made him look even more heart-stoppingly masculine. Quinn Mannion was pretty potent stuff, and deep inside her something elemental stirred. She became, in an instant, so supremely aware of him that every single nerve in her body came to life, tingling in a state of intense receptivity. She knew she would know he was in the same room as her even if she were blindfolded.

It was a disturbingly unfamiliar sensation for her. Whilst she had always appreciated an attractive man, she had never before been made quite so aware of another human being. Her heart gave a sudden lurch and sprinted away as she recognised what was happening; female recognising the male. This was sexual attraction at its rawest, and the strength of it caused her to breathe in sharply as her stomach clenched on a primitive wave of desire.

More than a little stunned, she remained transfixed, like a rabbit caught in the headlights of a car, as Quinn Mannion advanced on her with a darkling glint in his eye. He came to a halt mere feet away and stared down at her.

‘Well, well. As I live and breathe, Laura Maclane in the flesh. The newspaper pictures hardly do you justice,’ he drawled disdainfully.

It was a voice which, despite its unfriendliness, conjured up visions of rich dark chocolate. Sinful, luscious and infinitely addictive. Laura fought down a shiver of pure reaction to it.

‘Tell me, Laura. Are you enjoying the fruits of your labour?’

The unexpected question set her back on her heels momentarily. She had been prepared to offer a polite greeting for, in a roundabout way, this man was connected to her, but it took only those few words to make her realise there was to be no pretence of pleasantries from him. It wounded her, as all injustice did, but it angered her too. So that was how it was to be, she thought. Well, she could handle anything he cared to throw at her. For instance, that question wasn’t an idle one and, though she suspected she wouldn’t like the answer, she wasn’t about to avoid asking for clarification. She needed to know exactly where she stood with him.

‘Labour?’

Quinn’s eyes dropped to her mouth and traced the line of her lips with blatant suggestion, so that she had a pretty good idea of what he was going to say before he said it. “The hard work you put in between the sheets with a man old enough to be your father,’ he explained dispassionately, which made the remark all the more insulting.

‘Quinn!’ Jonathan stepped in warningly, frowning heavily at his friend, but Laura held up her hand. She didn’t need protecting, although the words stung. He had no idea how close to the truth he was.

‘It’s OK, Jonathan. Mr Mannion is saying no more than has been said behind my back. In fact, I give him credit for saying it to my face. The answer to your question is yes. I do enjoy the fruits of my labour,’ she confirmed with an unrepentant tilt to her head. Though he didn’t know it, she was referring to her business, not her supposed relationship with his godfather.

He did not care for her response. ‘I never expected you to be so honest,’ he retorted coldly, and she smiled with grim satisfaction. It was the first time she had ever been able to strike a blow for herself since Alexander’s death. She discovered that putting noses out of joint, especially this one, could give her quite a kick, and it had the double advantage of taking her mind off her reaction to him. His closeness was setting all her nerves at attention and, under the circumstances, that was treachery of the highest order.

‘Oh, I’m full of surprises,’ she retorted mockingly, finding it remarkably easy to slip into the character he thought her. For months she had had to hold her tongue, and the relief of verbal battle was quite heady. If he wanted a fight, she would give him one. In spades.

He smiled then, and he reminded her of nothing so much as a tiger—a very hungry one. ‘I just bet you are. As a matter of interest, just how did you manage to snare him? I would have expected someone of Alex’s intelligence to see you coming.’

Laura ground her teeth. Lord, when this man went for the jugular, he held nothing back. ‘Do you want the gory details, or will a rough outline do?’ she asked sweetly. all the while sending invisible daggers into him.

Quinn’s lips twitched, though the amusement was chilly. ‘I’m a big boy. You don’t have to spare my blushes.’

‘I doubt very much that you have ever blushed, Mr Mannion,’ she returned pithily.

‘Quinn,’ he invited, swatting her verbal dart aside and returning one of his own.

Committing murder had never been so inviting a proposition. ‘Are you sure we’re on intimate enough terms for Christian names?’ she asked coyly, and he laughed dryly.

‘Rest assured you and I will never be on intimate terms but I think, under the circumstances, we can dispense with the formality.’

So, they were to play games, were they? That was fine by her, too.

Laura allowed a sensual smile to spread across her lips. ‘Quinn, then,’ she flirted dangerously, and from the corner of her eye caught sight of the stunned expression on Jonathan’s face.

‘Don’t do this, Laura,’ he advised urgently, knowing full well that Quinn was a formidable opponent and never backed away from a fight but, before he could do more to head her off, his friend was responding.

‘He’s right. It wouldn’t be a wise move to use your feminine wiles on me, Laura.’

Ignoring the look on Jonathan’s face, Laura ventured where angels and sensible folk feared to tread. “Why not? It could be fun,’ she teased, boldly reaching out to run her fingers up and down the zip of his jacket, wondering at the same time just exactly where it was she got her nerve.

With a look of distaste, Quinn brushed her hand away. ‘Believe me, you wouldn’t enjoy the experience,’ he warned, but, truth be told, she was beginning to enjoy herself and merely batted her lashes at him.

‘You don’t know what I like,’ she purred sultrily.

His beautiful mouth twisted into a sneer. ‘I’m beginning to get the picture. Now cut it out.’

Delighted by her success, Laura heaved an elaborate sigh, as if to say he was no fun. ‘All right, where was I?’

‘You were about to tell me the truth about how you got my godfather to give you all that money,’ Quinn gritted through his teeth.

Actually, that was the very last thing she was about to do. She had a deep dislike of people who jumped to conclusions. He knew nothing of her, save what he had obviously read in the newspapers, and he had already decided it was true. Since he had clearly made up his mind, she was not going to waste time trying to persuade him differently.

‘I used the gifts God gave me,’ she vouchsafed provocatively, and it didn’t surprise her in the least to see his gaze travel the length of her body. Quinn Mannion was nothing if not predictable.

‘With which you are fulsomely endowed,’ he drawled contemptuously, making her blood boil. ‘I never thought my godfather would be so easily taken in.’

Unabashed, she smiled. ‘Alexander got exactly what he wanted from me. Do you want me to draw you a picture?’ she challenged sweetly. It was amazingly easy to dislike this man, even if he did have megawatt sex appeal which turned her insides to mush.

‘I’ll pass, thanks.’

He looked as if he had just discovered a bad smell right under his nose, and Laura couldn’t resist taunting him some more, to rub salt in the wound.

‘We were about to go to dinner. Would you care to join us?’ she invited, and heard Jonathan’s sharp intake of breath. He was going to be livid.

‘Sorry, but I can’t’ Quinn refused with every appearance of regret. “There’s someplace I have to be and—’ he glanced at the gold Rolex on his wrist ‘—I’m late already.’

Her smile of dismay was as sincere as his regret. ‘What a shame. Another time, perhaps?’ she ventured politely, holding out her hand. Unable to be so pointedly rude as to ignore her gesture, Quinn reached across and took it.

His hand closed around hers. Flesh touched flesh, and it seemed to Laura that a breathtakingly powerful charge of electricity shot clean through her system, bringing every atom of her body alive. It was like being plugged into a live socket. Her heartbeat accelerated off the scale, and her blood ran hot and thick through her veins so that her whole body thrummed with it It was a totally stunning sensation.

When Quinn released her and turned to Jonathan, Laura was left trembling in the aftershock. She had never felt so unnerved in her life. An hour ago she had been in blissful ignorance of the possibilities, but now she was seriously rattled. She was left gazing down at a still tingling palm. She drew in a shaky breath. My God, she thought dazedly, how could a simple touch do that?

‘What on earth did you think you were doing?’ Jonathan snapped at her, bringing her head up sharply. They were alone. Quinn had gone.

‘What?’ she asked blankly, still rocked by her reaction. She could scarcely believe it had happened, yet her hand told her it most certainly had. She shivered. She was glad he was gone. If she never saw him again, it would be too soon.

Jonathan raked an agitated hand through his hair. ‘My God, Laura, you were acting like an idiot!’ he exclaimed in disbelief.

‘I was acting the way he expected me to act,’ she declared defensively, and Jonathan rolled his eyes heavenwards, seeking patience.

‘You could have disappointed him.’

Laura was fully aware that she had just done herself no favours, but the man had rubbed her up the wrong way right from the beginning and she did not regret what she had done. In fact she would do it again, with as much satisfaction.

‘His assumption annoyed me,’ she pointed out testily, and he snorted.

‘You don’t say!’

She frowned at him. “There’s no need to be sarcastic. You know very well I couldn’t tell him the truth,’ she argued reasonably.

Jonathan jammed his hands in his pockets as if to keep from strangling her. ‘Maybe not, but you didn’t have to tell such a bald-faced lie, either.’

Her still tingling palm was annoying her, and she rubbed it over her coat to ease it. ‘I didn’t say a thing!’ she protested, and he laughed humourlessly.

‘Trust me, your implications were eloquent. Quinn now thinks you’re the very worst kind of gold-digger.’

‘I wasn’t aware there was any good kind of gold-digger,’ she riposted facetiously, and drew a quelling look for her pains.

‘Laura.…!’

She held up her hands in defeat. ‘Oh, all right, I admit I was at fault. I just couldn’t help myself. It was either that or punch him on the nose.’

That finally brought a smile to Jonathan’s pursed mouth. ‘All in all, I think I’d rather you’d hit him,’ he admitted drolly.

Laura laughed, but soon sobered again. ‘What was he doing here, anyway? It gave me the shock of my life to find him with you.’ Although she knew of all the close members of Alexander’s family, and had hoped to meet them, she had never expected to do so in such a fashion.

Jonathan moved away and began clearing up his desk. ‘Actually, he was delivering a message from Maxine,’ he informed her, mentioning Alexander’s wife.

‘That must have been nice for you,’ she said dryly, and Jonathan shot her a mildly reproving look. ‘Sorry,’ she apologised quickly, knowing her response had been left over from her run-in with Quinn. She had no reason to dislike Maxine Harrington.

‘I happen to be a close friend of the family and, as such, I was being invited to spend Christmas with them in the usual way.’

Her surprise was genuine. ‘I had no idea you knew the family that well.’

‘As it happens, the law firm of Ames and Ames have been legal advisers to the Harrington family for several generations. Christmas has become something of a tradition. I could hardly refuse,’ he said apologetically, as if she would think it disloyal of him.

‘No, of course not,’ she concurred readily. ‘I don’t imagine it will be much fun this year.’