Mistress by Mistake

“I think you are.”

“Then think again,” Eve advised grimly.“You really expect me to amuse you until you decide to go back to Lottie? It’s obvious that’s what you’re going to do!”

“Is that a fact?” he asked with interest.

Even he hadn’t the gall to deny it, she noticed.“Of course, it’ll have to be when you decide. I expect a man has to salvage a bit of pride in a situation like this.”

“You seem to have thought this through very thoroughly.”

She turned her head sharply to shut out the amused glow in his eyes.“Let me out, Drew.”

“Only out of the room, sweetheart, not my life!”

KIM LAWRENCE lives on a farm in rural Wales. She runs two miles daily and finds this an excellent opportunity to unwind and seek inspiration for her writing! It also helps her keep up with her husband,two active sons and the various stray animals that have adopted them. Always a fanatical consumer of fiction, Kim is now equally enthusiastic about writing. She loves a happy ending!

Mistress by Mistake

Kim Lawrence

MILLS & BOON

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER ONE

‘WE DON’T have to…you know…?’

Eve took pity on the teenage youth, who was looking more like the traditional sacrificial victim by the second. ‘Kiss? Definitely not,’ she said firmly. A ghost of a smile touched her lips as, with an unflattering sigh of relief, he slumped farther back onto the leather Chesterfield, his thin shoulders hunched.

‘Nothing personal,’ he added gruffly, casting a quick glance in her direction, just to see if she was holding up to the weight of his rejection.

‘Don’t fret. I’ll live,’ she promised with a gravity that was belied by the humorous light in her wide-spaced dark brown eyes.

It said a lot about her brother’s powers of persuasion, she thought, experiencing a tweak of resentful admiration for her manipulative sibling, that they were both sitting there like a pair of ill-matched bookends on Daniel Beck’s parents’ sofa, in Daniel Beck’s parents’ rather awesomely magnificent house. Eve was trying hard not to be over-awed by her surroundings. She hadn’t realised until today what sort of background her brother’s quiet, earnest friend came from. Everything in this magnificent house spoke of taste and money—serious money.

She doubted the black silky bias-cut creation that clung to her slim hips and thighs was the only designer label this particular sofa had seen. It was certainly the only designer label her body had ever worn—or was ever likely to for that matter!

That wasn’t just because her income didn’t run to such luxuries; Eve chose her clothes for comfort rather than impact. Her wardrobe boasted one skirt, which she wheeled out for weddings, funerals and interviews with her bank manager. She probably looked just as uncomfortable as poor Daniel, who was looking—well, frankly he looked ready to bolt!

‘Not long now,’ she said, glancing at the chunky, utilitarian watch on her wrist—a watch that definitely didn’t match her slinky outfit. Nick hadn’t exactly said synchronise watches, but he’d still managed to instil a strong sense of edge-of-the-seat tension when he’d given his detailed instructions.

‘Oh, God!’

My thought exactly! She summoned a smile that was meant to be maternal and comforting. The maternal part wasn’t that difficult, chronologically a mere five years might separate her from this boy, but in every other way she felt centuries older!

‘How long are your parents away for, Daniel?’ I’ll kill Nick for talking me into this, she decided as her high, curving cheekbones began to ache from the effort of smiling. What’ll I do if he faints before they all get here? Or, worse still, throws up over the carpet—a carpet that incidentally looks far too rich and sumptuous to actually walk on. The voice of impending doom in her head was growing stronger by the second.

‘Mum’s book tour of the States lasts another week or so,’ he said listlessly. ‘Dad might come back a few days early—business, you know.’

I could do with him walking through that door right now, she thought, eyeing the wooden panelled entrance hopefully. On the few occasions she’d met Alan Beck he’d seemed a really warm, friendly person, who’d be quite capable of sorting out his son’s problems without any outside help.

‘Lucky them. I wouldn’t mind being there now.’ Being anywhere would be an improvement on here. Soft-hearted? I must be soft-headed!

‘Mum doesn’t like being away from home.’

With this home who can blame her? Eve thought with a tinge of envy. Next month she’d make herself afford that paint they needed for the kitchen. She didn’t actually need a new winter jacket; the old one was more than adequate.

‘Not like Uncle Drew. He’s been everywhere.’

Not Uncle Drew! Eve’s groan was hastily transformed into a soft grunt of interest, which was enough to encourage Daniel to expand eagerly on the theme—she’d known it would be. Her expression glazed over slightly as he warmed to his subject, his pale features becoming animated as he extolled the virtues of his hero.

Eve knew all about Uncle Drew. She could have written a thesis on the man and all the daring, manly things he apparently excelled at! Since the uncle had moved in while his parents were away he’d been Daniel’s main—no, only topic of conversation, with the exception of the predicament this crazy charade was meant to extricate him from.

To Eve, Uncle Drew sounded as if he had a bad case of arrested development. She could easily imagine him as an indulged rich kid growing into just the sort of brash, immature action-man type she couldn’t stomach—a prize pain in the posterior!

She gave a small shudder of distaste as she mentally contemplated carefully nurtured biceps and an outsize ego. She strongly suspected half his supposed exploits were very probably fictional. He had to be the world’s worst role model for a sensitive type of boy like Daniel, who already had a budding inferiority complex about his lack of sporting ability.

‘Uncle Drew says…’ Daniel suddenly froze mid-sentence, and she was spared further worshipful detail. ‘They’re coming up the drive,’ he breathed. His eyes were fixed, horror-struck, on the view through the window of the sweeping drive. ‘I can see them! What’ll we do?’

‘Right, don’t panic,’ Eve said as her 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 of defence was a strangled croak.

‘When I came in it looked to me like you were having second thoughts. Am I right, Dan?’

‘Yes, But not… She’s…’ the boy began, throwing Eve a horrified look of apology.

Eve looked at the stuttering boy and willed him to spit out the explanation. Since when did I need people to speak for me? she thought as she was hit by a wave of self-disgust for this display of wimpish behaviour.

‘You don’t want to learn the stale tricks she can teach you, Dan. Some day you’ll understand that fumbling can be a lot of fun, especially when you’re both fumbling.’

Eve, taken aback by this unexpected recommendation, caught herself thinking he looked almost human for a second. Was it the memory of a girl he’d fumbled with that brought a quite unexpectedly bleak expression to his eyes? Much more likely it was indigestion, she told herself, dismissing this fanciful notion; he wasn’t the type to get mushy and nostalgic about old flames.

The notion of his perfect uncle being personally acquainted with fumbling robbed Daniel of his last remaining powers of articulation.

If Nick and his companions, carefully selected for their ability to spread gossip, hadn’t entered the room at that moment Eve had no doubts she’d have been ignominiously expelled from the house.

Nick Gordon didn’t have to call on his excellent acting ability to display shock. After a brief moment of startled amazement, tinged by a degree of irritation that his excellent plan would have to be ditched, he swiftly assessed the situation and recovered his poise. Damage limitation was the best he could hope for, he decided regretfully.

‘Clear out, you lot,’ he announced casually.

It didn’t occur to Nick that his contemporaries wouldn’t follow his instructions. He didn’t even glance around to see them leave. Eve found herself envying her sibling’s casual ability to inspire obedience.

‘What’s going on here?’

‘Nick, isn’t it?’ Drew Cummings looked at the tall dark boy with a frown of recognition. ‘Did you have anything to do with this little initiation ceremony?’

‘You all right, Eve?’ Nick said anxiously, ignoring the older man. She looked a bit fraught. Eve took everything so seriously. She really should lighten up, he decided disapprovingly, but he’d never have asked for her help if he’d known it was going to upset her like this.

‘Does it look like I’m all right?’ All right? Eve bit back a hysterical giggle that rose inappropriately to her tight throat. ‘Will you sort this out—now, Nick?’ Her soft, attractive voice rose a quavering octave.

‘You know this girl, then?’ Drew was looking from brother to sister with hard suspicion. Conspiracy theories began to solidify suspiciously in his head.

‘Of course I know her. She’s my sister.’

‘Do you get your kid brother to pimp for you often, angel?’

A gasp that came from somewhere was loud in the pregnant silence. Eve turned her head and had the brief impression of scalding scorn in those impossibly blue eyes. When Nick’s plans went wrong they did so thoroughly, but this present situation was in league of its own.

Let him sort it out. She was out of here. Her first faltering steps turned into a sprint hampered only by the ridiculous heels. She knew her tears were only the irritating outward display of sheer, inarticulate fury, but she wasn’t going to let this monster see them and think otherwise.

The door she’d been hammering on for almost the past five minutes finally swung open. Eve watched Theo’s expression change from initial lack of recognition to open-mouthed shock.

‘Say a word and you’re dead,’ she promised him venomously, just as the grin was beginning to form. ‘I forgot my key.’

The grin was swiftly deleted. ‘New look, Evie?’ He gave an appreciative leer.

‘If we’re talking make-overs…?’ She allowed her eyes to run speakingly over the tall, rangy figure of her lodger. ‘Do the words ‘‘ageing hippie’’ strike a chord?’ Head high, slender back ramrod-stiff, she stalked up the stairs trying to ignore the sounds of inexpertly muffled laughter. ‘I’ve had a very bad day!’ she yelled in warning over her shoulder.

The carpet beneath her feet was beginning to get thread-worn. It wasn’t the only thing in the big Victorian house that needed replacing—a circumstance that sometimes kept her awake late at night. When her parents had died five years earlier the first thing the solicitors had suggested was putting the rambling old building on the market.

But how could she have wrenched her thirteen-year-old brother away from the only home he’d ever known? He’d already lost his parents, and if they’d moved house he’d have had to change school too. She’d known there wouldn’t be enough left after the debts were settled to buy a place in the same area. Their parents had had many admirable qualities, but a knack with money had not been one of them. Eve had been fiercely determined that no matter what happened Nick wouldn’t suffer—he’d have all the advantages, bar loving parents, that she had had.

When she’d told the solicitors about her idea they’d regarded her with the sort of superior scorn that some people reserve for teenagers.

Impractical, they’d said. Not economically viable. Well, they’d been wrong, she thought with satisfaction. Five years on and Theo was their only long-term lodger, and, with a few exceptions, they’d been lucky with the succession of people who’d rented the other two rooms in the ugly Victorian monstrosity she’d always called home.

Right now they had a lady librarian in her early thirties and a postgraduate engineering student in his twenties as well as Theo, whom they’d known since they were children. She didn’t actually know at what point she and Nick had accepted him as extended family.

Eve had asked Theo once why he stayed, and he’d laughingly told her he was too lazy to move. He’d used to look at property, but he’d stopped pretending some time ago that this was a short-term measure. There had been a few wagging tongues when he’d moved in—she hadn’t yet been nineteen and he wasn’t exactly in his dotage—but unkind gossip had been the exception even then. Now it was non-existent. Eve thought maybe they—she and the other residents of 6 Acacia Avenue—filled a gap in Theo’s life, a gap where, but for a cruel twist of fate, there would have been a wife and children.

The old place ate up the cash, of course, so at the end of the day they weren’t much better off financially, but they coped. Actually, she was better off financially at the moment than she’d dared hope, since Nick had won a prestigious scholarship that was going to ease the financial burden of his three years at university considerably.

‘Do something reckless with it, Evie,’ he’d advised when she’d suggested spending the money she’d been putting aside for his education to replace the leaking flat roof on the kitchen extension.

‘Reckless,’ she said in disgust to her reflection in the mirror on the old mahogany dressing table. She pulled the back of her hand across her crimson-stained lips. This was the last time she let her silver-tongued sibling persuade her to do anything!

‘I’ve planned it with military precision, Evie. Nothing can go wrong.’ Nick had played expertly on her soft heart. Soft heart, she thought once again with a disgusted snort—soft brain, more like! Nick’s meticulous planning had gone wrong—big time.

She blamed herself for being so easily conned. She should have known things were getting out of hand when Nick had produced the expensive designer outfit belonging to his latest girlfriend’s sister and suggested she go into the kitchen to change. She ought to have kicked up a fuss when the girlfriend had produced cosmetics from an apparently bottomless make-up bag. To her amusement the teenager had been scandalised when Eve had casually confessed she didn’t actually bother with make-up normally.

In fact, if it hadn’t been for a miserable-looking Daniel saying, ‘She doesn’t have to do it, Nick,’ she might well have chickened out there and then. Stripping off the borrowed finery, she wished she had done just that, and been saved the most embarrassing, humiliating experience of her life.

That man, she silently fumed as she tightened the draw-string waist of her loose combat trousers with unwanted viciousness. No wonder poor Daniel didn’t confide his personal problems to an insensitive brute like that.

Recalling the flick of those icy cold blue eyes made her feel grubby and guilty all over again. She rubbed fiercely at the rash of goosebumps on her forearms and shuddered. No, she told herself firmly. I refuse to let that feeble excuse for a guardian make me feel like this. I’m not the one who should feel guilty. If Mr Marvellous hadn’t been so busy polishing his own ego he might have noticed his charge was suffering a major dose of teenage angst!