Millionaire Under The Mistletoe: The Playboy's Mistress / Christmas in the Billionaire's Bed / The Boss's Mistletoe Manoeuvres

CHAPTER THREE

‘GOODBYE, Mrs Erskine…Mr Erskine,’ the young receptionist gushed breathily as she left them with obvious reluctance at the swing-doors.

Darcy gave a sigh of relief as the doors swung shut. The red carpet was about the only thing that had been missing and, given enough time, she had the impression the smitten young woman would have produced that too. At least she could drop the wifey act now.

‘What are we?’ Darcy grouched, intensely relieved to be out of the place and out of her role. ‘Visiting royalty? Do you always have this effect on people?’

‘What effect is that?’

Darcy raised a sceptical brow. ‘Like you didn’t notice!’ she hooted. ‘The woman was deferential, bordering on obsequious.’

Despite the enigmatic smile she received in reply, Darcy got the impression he was even less pleased than she was by the VIP treatment.

The rain had stopped, but it had started to freeze, making the pavement underfoot lethally slippery. Darcy moved cautiously past the men who were gritting the entrance to the hospital, smiling in a distracted way at them as she passed. The gravel was crunchy underfoot as they passed the tall, twinkly Christmas tree, and a layer of sparkling frost added to the festive look in a way that expensive ornaments never could.

She only just stopped herself mentioning how much she loved the smell of pine to the wet blanket beside her.

‘Where are we parked?’

Even though she hadn’t forgotten the tall, commanding presence at her side—chance would be a fine thing—she started when he spoke. It made her realise how uptight and wound up the whole play-acting thing in the hospital had made her. Her fellow conspirator, on the other hand, had seemed almost to relish his role, or maybe it was her discomfort he enjoyed…? Considering the glimpses she’d had of his warped sense of humour, the latter seemed the most likely explanation.

‘We…?’ She lifted her eyes to his face, but not for long—for some reason she felt oddly reluctant to maintain contact.

Like a silly, lust-struck teenager afraid to look the unattainable object of her fantasies in the eyes! Self-disgust curled in her belly. Grow up, Darcy!

By the time she had sternly told herself to stop acting so wet, he had paused under the blue-white beam of an overhead light and was making a careful minor adjustment to the jacket draped over his broad shoulders. His head was bent forward at an angle; she couldn’t see his face, just the strong curve of his jaw and the sharp angle of his cheekbones, but even these sketchy details were enough to proclaim him as something pretty special to look at indeed.

‘Are you going to abandon me…?’ He contemplated his abandonment with what seemed to her unnatural composure.

‘That was my plan, yes.’ She could see the flaw in this plan even before he came over all pathetic and helpless.

‘No wallet, no money or plastic. See for yourself.’ He opened his jacket, inviting her to disprove his claim.

No way—she’d been there, done that and felt her hormones riot! She was not conscious of placing her tightly clenched hands firmly behind her back.

‘There’s no need to act like an endangered species; I believe you,’ she told him gruffly. Her sigh of defeat had a long-suffering sound to it. ‘Do I look like a soft touch?’ she wondered, wearily running a harassed hand through her dampish curls.

Dark head on one side, he regarded her in a considering fashion. To add insult to injury, it took him bare moments to come to a decision.

‘Actually, yes, you do.’ She also looked extremely young, still full of youthful ideals, a soft target for unscrupulous operators—a student home for the holiday possibly…?

His own innocence and youth seemed a long way off at that moment. It seemed an opportune time, given the direction of his wayward thoughts, to remind himself how far removed she was from the females who temporarily lent a bit of variety to his solitary existence— Reece wasn’t looking for anything other than temporary.

His candour made Darcy’s face darken in annoyance.

‘And you’re the type to take advantage,’ she accused rattily.

Taken advantage of by Reece Erskine—now, there was a thought! She was too busy being angry, flustered and ashamed of her thoughts to notice that a new expression had filtered into his eyes.

Soft… His mind seemed determined to explore this avenue and there was no lack of appropriate material to feed his interest—soft lips, soft curves. The compulsive nature of his speculation had none of the objectivity Reece took for granted in sexual matters.

Don’t go there, he urged himself, repressing the sudden strong inclination to lean closer to all that softness, smell the flowery scent that enveloped her small person.

Darcy set off purposefully, reluctant to invite ridicule by admitting she’d forgotten where she’d left the car. She was too damned spooked at the prospect of being enclosed in a small space with him once more to think straight or accept defeat graciously. She heard his soft but firm footsteps shadowing her.

‘You said I’d never have to see you again,’ she reminded him crankily.

‘I’m a great believer in telling people what they want to hear if that gets the job done.’

‘Lying, you mean.’

Reece winced. ‘I wouldn’t have put it that way.’

‘That I never doubted!’

Despite the fact she wasn’t making any allowances for his delicate condition, his long long legs seemed to be having no problem keeping up with the cracking pace she was setting—pity!

‘I’m not exactly thrilled to find myself obliged to beg a lift either,’ he rasped huskily.

Of all the ungrateful rats! Darcy came to an abrupt halt and turned her wrathful gaze upon the tall figure who had almost collided with her.

‘That makes two of us!’ she retorted sharply.

Their eyes met.

It was at that moment Darcy felt it—it was a tense excitement so thick the air quivered with it, so thick her limbs were all but immobilised by it.

It didn’t seem to be a one-sided situation. His burning eyes kept moving back to her parted lips as though they were being dragged there against his will. She felt as if she was being drawn in by that raw expression in his hungry eyes. The tightness in her chest finally found release in a fractured sigh.

The compulsion to reach up and press her lips to his was so strong her head spun. Would they be cold, warm…firm…? Wondering sent delicious little shivers skating along her spine.

She wouldn’t do it, of course, because she wasn’t the sort of girl who gave in to lustful base instincts…all the same, thinking about it—and she discovered her embarrassingly lurid imagination had a mind of its own—made her body temperature soar despite the sub-zero temperature around them. Her dry-throated excitement mounted with dizzying rapidity as her knees began to literally shake.

Seconds probably carried on ticking relentlessly away in the few moments after speculative green eyes had met startled blue—but Darcy was unaware of the passing time as they stood stock-still in a silence broken only by the distant wail of an ambulance.

No good will come of this, a sensible voice, to which she paid no heed, forecast in her head.

Reece felt his breath perceptibly quicken. Her mouth was just sensationally lush. The uneven sound of her breath catching in the back of her throat was driving him slightly crazy. He watched as her clenched fingers unfurled and she began to reach out…he thought about them touching his face…his hair…his…!

With a mumbled expletive he took a step backwards. ‘Darcy…!’

It was a verbal warning, the sort an adult gave a reckless child about to indulge in dangerous exploration.

Mortified, Darcy let her extended hand fall away, and she stood there feeling stupid and confused by what had just occurred—whatever that was… He had wanted to kiss her too—hadn’t he…? It hadn’t been a figment of her over-heated imagination, had it?

The uncertainty only lasted a split-second; she hadn’t imagined anything—it had been real. She thrust her softly rounded chin forward defiantly. As unlikely as it seemed, Reece Erskine had wanted to kiss her just as much as she’d wanted to kiss him! She raised her eyes stubbornly to his stony face and her heart sank—only he didn’t now!

So he had gone off the idea; she was damned if she was going to let him make her feel ashamed!

‘Darcy what?’ She sniffed angrily. ‘Darcy, don’t kiss me…?’ she suggested shrilly.

She watched his eyes widen as she gave an appalled gasp—I can’t believe I said that!

‘Were you going to?’

I asked for that, didn’t I? What was she supposed to say…? Given a little bit of encouragement, probably…?

Darcy served up a withering look. ‘What a tactless thing to ask,’ she observed, resorting to disgust to disguise the extent of her dismay.

Spontaneous and asking for trouble would have been closer to the mark in his estimation. No wonder the brother wanted to keep her at home—if she was his sister he’d never let her out of his sight!

For the first time Darcy noticed the lines of strain around his sensual mouth—as if not kissing her hadn’t been the easy option…then why…? A horrifying possibility occurred to her. ‘Are you married?’

Unprepared for the tense, accusing query, Reece blinked, his jaw tightening. ‘That’s not relevant.’

Her mouth hardened with contempt; that meant he was. Not again! She didn’t know who she despised the most at that moment—him or herself. ‘To me it is!’ she choked bitterly.

Reece gave an exasperated sigh; he could cope with a lot of things but he discovered—rather to his surprise—that being looked at as if he was some sort of moral derelict by those big blue eyes was not one of them.

‘If it matters so much to you, I was, but I’m not now.’ He saw her slender hunched-up shoulders slump in relief. ‘Though why it should be so important to you I don’t understand…’

And Darcy wasn’t about to explain. Having an affair with a married man—even if she hadn’t known he was at the time—was not the sort of thing she felt like sharing.

‘I’d introduce the subject of morals if I thought you’d understand.’

‘I don’t see where morals come into it,’ he drawled. ‘You didn’t do anything…’

‘If I had…would you have…?’ Cheeks flaming, she struck her forehead with the palm of her hand. ‘Oh, God!’ she wailed. ‘Me and my mouth…!’ How to take an embarrassing situation and make it ten times worse in one easy-to-follow lesson!

His eyes automatically moved to the object of her contempt. The muscles in his strong throat worked overtime.

‘Yes, I’d have kissed you back,’ he admitted throatily. The words seemed drawn from him against his will.

Her eyes widened. ‘You would…?’ She saw his lips twitch at the incredulity in her voice. ‘I knew that.’ A puzzled frown crinkled her smooth brow. ‘Then why didn’t you…?’

Reece’s bark of rueful laughter brought her back to her senses—and not before time. He stared at her flushed face for a couple of moments before replying.

‘You don’t kiss married men; I don’t kiss girls young enough to be my…kid sister.’

It was the very last explanation Darcy had expected to hear. ‘How quaint that you’ve got principles.’

‘It comes as as much of a shock to me as it does to you,’ he assured her drily. ‘It’s getting cold out here.’ He spoke abruptly now, as if the humour of the situation was wearing thin. ‘If you really can’t stomach the idea of giving me a lift back I should be able to make alternative arrangements.’

Darcy touched his arm; he didn’t flinch but his rigidity didn’t suggest relaxed and carefree—was it possible he was not entirely immune to the contact? This not unflattering possibility was heady stuff.

‘How old exactly do you think I am?’ Repressing a smug smile, she worked her way towards her grand finale.

Whilst it might have been wiser to leave him in ignorance, given the dangerous sexual chemistry in the air, she wanted the satisfaction of establishing herself as a mature woman of the world in his eyes. Perhaps for once in her life she wanted danger…? Her eyes slid over his tall, rangy frame before coming to rest on his face, and she gulped; he registered high enough on the danger scale to satisfy the most reckless risk-taker, she conceded.

‘Nineteen…twenty maybe.’

‘I’m twenty-seven.’

His chin came up and the dark veil of lashes lifted from his high, chiselled cheekbones. His narrowed eyes raked her face. ‘Not possible.’

‘Furthermore,’ she continued, breathless after his intense scrutiny, ‘I’m not some teenage virgin.’ Like he really wanted to know that, Darcy.

‘What are you, then?’

‘Your best hope of getting home, mate.’

His mobile lips quirked; his expression was still rapt. ‘I’d not forgotten that. I was actually wondering what you do when you’re not doing the angel-of-mercy act.’

A wistful expression flitted across her face. ‘At this moment I should be skiing.’

‘But you were lured away by the glamour of deepest, darkest Yorkshire?’

His sneering irony brought an annoyed frown to her face. She took any criticism of her beloved Dales very personally.

‘There was a family crisis,’ she told him tersely.

‘So they called you.’ That would figure.

Darcy resented his tone. ‘I don’t mind,’ she flared. ‘Who else would they call?’

‘You tell me. My recollection is a bit cloudy, but there didn’t seem any shortage of family members from what I saw.’

‘You don’t know the half of it,’ she mumbled. ‘I get a panic attack every time I think about how many people I’m meant to be cooking Christmas lunch for.’

‘Is this the same girl—sorry, woman, who considers every strand of tinsel sacred…?’ he taunted gently.

‘This is the woman,’ she countered angrily, ‘who is trying to step into her mother’s shoes and failing miserably!’ The instant the impetuous retort emerged from her lips she regretted it; she regretted it even more when she saw the curiosity on his face.

‘Your mother’s ill…?’

‘No, she’s not. She’s…away.’

His dark brows lifted. ‘Another man…’ It might have been a trick of the light but Darcy thought his hard eyes actually softened. ‘Bad luck, kid. It happens.’

Darcy was furious and horrified by his casual assumption that her mother would have an affair. ‘Not to my family! My mother has gone to a retreat to recharge her batteries, that’s all…’ Tears prickled the backs of her eyelids and her voice thickened emotionally. ‘And I’m not a kid.’

Reece looked down into her stormy upturned face. ‘Want to talk about it?’ he was surprised to hear himself offer; he wasn’t prone to encouraging soul-baring.

‘Not to you.’ Darcy thought he looked relieved rather than disappointed by her blunt response.

‘Fair enough.’

She eyed him suspiciously before she eventually nodded and blew on her icy fingertips. ‘If the interrogation’s over, perhaps we should get along before hypothermia sets in.’

Face burning with embarrassment and humiliation, she turned abruptly on her heel. She deliberately turned her face to the icy embrace of the cold north wind and, as luck would have it, found the car almost immediately.

‘I can’t find the keys,’ she admitted after turning her pockets and handbag inside-out and upside-down.

Reece, who had watched her feverish attempts silently, walked around the car to join her.

‘Might these be what you were looking for?’

Relief was mingled with chagrin as she saw he was indicating the familiar bunch of keys inserted in the driver’s door. He pulled them out, and instead of dropping them into the palm she held out he placed them in a way that meant his fingers brushed against her wrist. The tingle that shot up her extended arm was neat electricity.

‘Thanks,’ she mumbled without looking at him. She couldn’t decide whether or not that touch had been as artless as it had appeared.

He inclined his glossy head graciously. ‘My pleasure.’

The fit inside the car was even snugger than she remembered. His head brushed the top of the car and in order to accommodate his legs he had to draw his knees up towards his chest at an awkward angle.

She went to turn the ignition key but he reached out and covered her hand with his, and if anything this time the sensation was even stronger.

Her eyes, wide and startled, lifted to his. ‘What’s wrong?’

Besides the state of imminent collapse of my nervous system, that is?

‘This kissing thing.’

Darcy wriggled her hand from beneath his and clasped it protectively to her heaving chest. ‘What kissing thing?’ she asked, desperately affecting amnesia.

‘You wanting to kiss me.’

‘You wanting to kiss me.’

‘That too,’ he agreed. ‘The point is, now that you know I’m not a married man and I know you’re not a teenager…or for that matter a virgin…’ A choking sound emerged from Darcy’s throat. ‘Incidentally we have that much in common. There’s no actual reason we shouldn’t.’

‘Shouldn’t…?’ She hoped he wasn’t going to say what she thought he was going to say—he did.

‘Kiss.’

She almost kept the wobble from her cool response. ‘Other than the fact I’d scream blue murder, probably not.’ She sent up a silent prayer that her claim would never be put to the test.

‘Ah…! You’ve gone off the idea… Maybe it’s for the best,’ he conceded casually, before leaning back in his seat and closing his eyes.

Just like that! Heavens, she didn’t expect him to get suicidal because she’d said she didn’t want to kiss him, but he could at least have the decency to look as if he cared! It was, she decided, eyeing his profile with loathing, a matter of simple good manners!

Darcy knew straight off she’d not fall back to sleep for some time—her feverishly active mind was racing like an overwound clockwork toy. She glanced at the illuminated fingers of the clock on the bedside table and groaned: it was only two a.m.

Her tiny bedroom set beneath the eaves faced due north, and the wind was battering against the window-panes, sneaking through every odd crack or cranny in the well-insulated room. The Hall wouldn’t be well-insulated…

‘Oh, hell, why did I go and think that…?’ She rolled onto her stomach and pulled a pillow over her head to drown out the noise. I will not think about him, she told herself angrily.

Trouble was, she did.

Her family had been surprised when on her return she hadn’t brought home the invalid to eat with them. Their collective comments to this effect had served to add to the burden of her own guilty conscience until she’d eventually exploded.

‘If you want to feed him, feel free, but don’t expect any thanks. Me, I’ve had enough of him for one evening!’ she’d announced.

After that they’d let it alone, but she’d been able to tell that they thought she was being mean and she’d caught Nick regarding her speculatively several times during the evening.

Thirty minutes after she’d woken from her restless sleep Darcy, armed with a torch, blanket and a flask of coffee, made her way up the lane towards the Hall.

There was no front door to knock. The beam of her torch feebly illuminated a very sorry state of affairs. Horrified, Darcy explored further; things didn’t get any better.

‘And I didn’t even offer the man a cup of tea,’ she moaned, stepping over a pile of ladders that lay across her path. ‘And why…? Just because he accepted no means no. If I find him dead from hypothermia or in a coma it’ll be my fault.’ The knowledge increased the urgency of her search for signs of life.

A room with a door seemed a logical place to look. Her efforts were rewarded with the sight of the smouldering embers of a large fire in the wide inglenook.

Tentatively she approached the large human-sized bundle on the floor. She put down everything but the torch and knelt down beside the figure. Her ears were straining for signs of healthy breathing—in her present frame of mind she’d have welcomed the odd wheeze or two!

One minute she was shuffling a little closer to the figure with her hand raised, the next she was flat on her back, pinned beneath a heavy figure. An ungentle hand was pressed over her mouth.

‘If you don’t want to get hurt, stop struggling,’ an ugly growl advised her. ‘Are you alone?’

How the hell did he expect her to reply with a dirty great paw over her mouth…? It seemed her assailant’s thoughts were running along similar lines.

‘I’m going to take away my hand, but if you try and yell to your mates you’ll regret it. Understood…?’

Heart pounding, Darcy shook her head as vigorously as her position would allow. If she hadn’t known this was Reece she’d have already died of heart failure. To her relief the suffocating hand lifted.

‘For heaven’s sake, get off me, you idiot; I can’t breathe!’ she gasped.

‘Darcy!’

The pressure across her ribs eased but he didn’t shift completely. ‘Of course Darcy,’ she grumbled crossly. ‘Who did you think it was?’

‘A burglar.’

She heard sounds of him searching for something just before a strong light was shone in her face.

‘Will you take that out of my eyes?’ she pleaded, screwing her watering eyes up tight. ‘I can’t see a thing.’

She felt a hand tug at the knitted cloche she wore on her head and pull it off. The same hand ran gently through the soft waves that had been crammed beneath. Suddenly the pressure over her middle was gone, as was the hand… Disturbingly she had mixed feelings about her release; there had been something very soothing about those probing fingers—no, that wasn’t quite the right word…

She struggled to sit up and managed it with both hands braced behind her for support on the dusty floor.

‘I had a torch but I lost it when you leapt on me like that.’ She squinted into the dusty corners, hoping to relocate it.

Reece regarded her incredulously. ‘Well, what did you expect, woman, creeping up on a man in the middle of the night?’

Fair question if you stopped to look at it from his point of view—something that Darcy hadn’t done up to this point. She realised how foolish her impulsive behaviour might seem.

She watched nervously as he got to his feet and moved towards the fire, pausing to choose a couple of dry logs. The fire immediately began to sizzle as the flames licked the wood. Picking up a box of matches from the shoulder-high age-darkened oak mantel, he began to light half a dozen or so candles which were laid out there in various stages of demise. As they took hold he switched off the torch and slid it into his pocket—it came as no surprise that he’d been sleeping fully clothed.

‘Don’t you just love candlelight?’ he drawled.

‘Not especially.’ His dark hair was mussed up and what had been the suggestion of a shadow over his strong jaw earlier was now a well-developed dark stubble. Neither of these factors altered the fact he looked devastatingly attractive—well, looking at him made her feel fairly devastated at any rate.

‘Now,’ he said in a don’t-muck-me-about sort of voice, ‘you can tell me what you thought you were doing.’