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‘The fact that the leg still hurts could be a positive thing, not a negative one,’ Stephanie McKinley retorted.
‘I’ll be sure to think of that at two o’clock in the morning, when I can’t sleep because the pain is driving me insane!’
When Lucan St Claire had warned Stephanie that his brother was ‘a lot aggressive’, he had forgotten to add that he was also stubborn and unreasonable! ‘In this case pain could be a good thing—it could mean the muscles are regenerating,’ she explained patiently.
‘Or it could mean that they’re dying!’
‘Well, yes.’ No point in trying to deceive him concerning that possibility. ‘I’ll be able to tell you more once I’ve worked with it—’
‘The only part of my body I would be remotely interested in having any woman work with is a couple of inches higher than my thigh!’ he shot back wickedly.
There was no way, complete professional or not, Stephanie could have prevented the heated flush that now coloured her cheeks. Or the way her gaze moved instinctively down to the area in question. That particular part of his anatomy certainly seemed to be working normally, if the hard and lengthy bulge she could see pressing against his jeans was anything to go by!
Jordan St Claire—no, Jordan Simpson—was obviously physically aroused. By her.
No, not by her in particular, Stephanie rebuked herself impatiently. She very much doubted that this man had allowed a woman within touching distance since his accident, and after six months of celibacy she was probably just the first reasonably attractive female he had seen in a while—consequently he would have been aroused by a nun, as long as she had a pulse and breasts!
‘If you’re trying to embarrass me, Mr Simpson—’
‘Then I’ve succeeded.’ He eyed her flushed cheeks triumphantly.
‘Perhaps,’ she allowed briskly. ‘Does knowing that make you feel good?’ She eyed him speculatively as he gave a hard and unapologetic grin. A slow and sexy grin that reminded her all too forcibly that this man was the actor she had lusted after for years.
Oh, help!
He gave a casual shrug. ‘It doesn’t matter whether it did or it didn’t. I intend to forget you even exist as soon as you’ve walked out the door.’
This time it was Stephanie’s turn to smile slowly. ‘You’re an altogether arrogant family, aren’t you?’
Jordan gave a huff of laughter. ‘How many of us have you met?’
Stephanie blinked. ‘Just Lucan and you.’
‘And you think we’re arrogant?’ He snorted. ‘Believe me, you don’t know what arrogance is until you’ve met Gideon.’
‘Your twin?’
That golden gaze sharpened. ‘You seem to know a lot about me.’
She shrugged. ‘I believe it’s public knowledge that Jordan Simpson has a twin brother.’
He grimaced. ‘Gideon and I are only fraternal twins, not identical ones.’
Thank goodness for that! Stephanie wasn’t sure the world—or she—could stand there being two men in the world with Jordan’s devastating good-looks.
She had yet to decide whether or not this man posed a problem as regarded her working with him—other than the need she felt every time she so much as looked at him to rip his clothes off and jump into bed with him, of course. But surely that was normal? Hundreds—no, thousands of women must feel the same way about the actor Jordan Simpson. Except none of those women were supposed to act the complete professional and treat this man like any other patient—which he most certainly wasn’t to Stephanie!
She gave a weary sigh as she pushed back some loose tendrils of hair that had escaped the plait down her spine. ‘Look, Mr Simpson, I’ve had a long drive up here from London, and on top of that I could do with something to eat, so do you think we could call a truce to this argument long enough for me to cook us some dinner?’
Jordan’s eyes narrowed contemplatively. On the one hand he wanted this woman gone from here, but on the other the mention of food had reminded him that he was hungry—a side-effect of those damned sleeping pills he had to take in order to get any rest at all. ‘That depends,’ he finally murmured slowly.
Deep green eyes looked across at him suspiciously. ‘On what?’
‘On whether or not you can actually cook, of course,’ Jordan drawled. ‘Put another plate of baked beans on toast in front of me and I may just throw it at you!’ He had been living off something on toast since he’d moved here a month ago, in too much pain and lacking the appetite to bother to cook anything else.
Lucan had gone to the trouble of sending this woman here, but Jordan had no intention of even allowing her to look at his injuries. Sex didn’t appear to be on her agenda either. So she might as well make herself useful in some other way—before Jordan went ahead and threw her out anyway!
‘I think I can do better than that,’ Stephanie McKinley told him. ‘I wasn’t sure what the situation was for having groceries delivered, so I brought some things with me,’ she continued brightly. ‘I’ll just go out to the car and get them.’ She collected her black jacket from the back of one of the kitchen chairs and slipped it on, releasing her braid from the collar before moving towards the door. ‘I hope you like steak?’
Just the mention of red meat was enough to make Jordan’s mouth water. ‘No doubt I could cope,’ he said gruffly.
Stephanie was smiling slightly to herself as she went out to her car. He was allowing her to stay long enough to cook dinner, at least. Unsurprising, when she knew from the dirty plates she had collected up earlier that Jordan hadn’t been exaggerating about the amount of baked beans on toast he had eaten since coming here. What happened after Stephanie had fed him was still in question, of course; she wasn’t fooled for a moment by his sudden acquiescence in allowing her to cook dinner for them both.
She was going to have dinner with Jordan Simpson!
Admittedly he was a Jordan Simpson much changed from the charming, sensual man she had read about so much in the newspapers over the years. Or the one she had gazed at so longingly on the big and small screen, but still.
Stephanie had barely had time to open her car door when she heard her mobile ringing. Bending down to pick it up from where it lay on the passenger seat, she checked the number of the caller. ‘Joey?’ she breathed thankfully as she pressed the receiver to her ear and took her sister’s call. ‘I’m so glad you rang! I think I might be in trouble. Big trouble! ‘
CHAPTER TWO
‘I THOUGHT you had decided to get in your car and leave after all,’ Jordan rasped when Stephanie McKinley finally came back into the kitchen, carrying a box of groceries.
She put the box down on the kitchen table before answering him, her face slightly flushed, and even more of that long fiery-red hair having escaped the confining plait. ‘I stopped to admire how beautiful the big house looked in the distance, with the sun going down behind it.’
‘Mulberry Hall?’
She nodded. ‘Is it a hotel, or something?’
‘Or something.’ Jordan nodded tersely. He had sat down at the kitchen table while he waited for her to return, and stretched his leg out in front of him now as he watched Stephanie take steak, potatoes, asparagus and salad from the box with hands that were long and slender, the nails trimmed capably short. No doubt in readiness for the sadistic pummelling she gave her patients!
‘Either it is a hotel or it isn’t,’ she reasoned with a slight frown as she paused in the unpacking.
‘It isn’t,’ Jordan supplied unhelpfully. The sight of all this fresh food reminded him of just how long it had been since he had last eaten. Yesterday some time, he thought. Maybe.
Besides which, he had absolutely no intention of talking about Mulberry Hall, or its function, with a woman who was going to be gone from here in a few hours.
‘Your brother Lucan said this whole estate was owned by the St Claire Corporation.’
Jordan’s mouth twisted. ‘Did he?’
She raised dark brows. ‘If you don’t want to talk about it then just say so.’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
Well, she had definitely asked for that one, Stephanie acknowledged ruefully. ‘I was only trying to make polite conversation.’
Jordan looked at her coldly. ‘I agreed to let you cook dinner, not talk.’
Stephanie bit back her angry retort as she resumed unpacking the box of groceries. Maybe he would be more amenable after he had eaten? And maybe he wouldn’t! she thought dryly.
His medical file had stated that the broken bones in his arm and ribcage had knitted back together well, but the lines of strain grooved beside his mouth and eyes were evidence of the pain he still suffered in the hip and leg that had been fractured and obviously hadn’t healed as well. Stephanie’s fingers itched to explore that damaged leg and hip, to check for herself what could be done about restoring this man to full mobility.
Or maybe they just itched to touch all six foot four inches of lean, male flesh that was Jordan Simpson.
Her sister had been first incredulous and then amused when Stephanie had explained her dilemma to her, dismissing her misgivings regarding having the actor as her newest patient.
Joey had also reassured Stephanie concerning her worry over her unwilling involvement in the Newmans’ divorce. Her lawyer sister had advised Stephanie to ‘just get on and do what you do best, sis, and leave me to deal with the Newman situation.’
That the ‘Newman situation’ even needed dealing with still rankled with Stephanie.
‘Could you lay the table while I cook?’ she prompted sharply.
His jaw clenched. ‘I’m not a complete invalid, damn it.’ He gritted very white teeth as he rose awkwardly to his feet before grasping the ebony cane to balance himself.
‘It was a request for you to actually lay the table, not a question as to whether or not you’re capable of doing it,’ she elaborated.
‘Of course it was,’ he said sarcastically.
Stephanie watched him as he limped across the kitchen to open the cutlery drawer, determinedly keeping her gaze professional. The muscles in his leg were obviously weakened from months of disuse, but that didn’t explain the amount of pain he seemed to be suffering. It might be an idea to have someone else look at him—
‘What the hell are you looking at?’
Stephanie raised her gaze to find Jordan scowling across the kitchen at her, and the look of savage anger on that handsome face warned her to opt for honesty. ‘I was wondering if you should have that leg and hip re-X-rayed.’
‘Forget it.’ He threw the cutlery noisily back into the drawer before slamming it shut. ‘And while you’re at it take your food and just get out!’ He walked stiffly towards the door that led back into the hallway.
Stephanie frowned her dismay as she realised his obvious intention of leaving. ‘What about dinner?’
Those amber eyes were glittering furiously as he turned to glare at her. ‘I just lost my appetite.’
‘Just because I talked about your leg?’
‘Because you talked at all, Jordan told her insultingly. ‘Men just shut up and get on with it—whereas women, I’ve learnt, feel the need to dissect everything.’
‘If by that you mean that men prefer to bottle up their anxieties rather than—’
‘The only anxiety I have at this moment is you!’ he cut in viciously, able to feel the nerve pulsing in his tightly clenched jaw. ‘A situation that will resolve itself the moment you walk out the door.’
This man really was an immovable object, Stephanie recognised in sheer frustration. Well, two could play at that game! ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ she told him levelly.
Those glittering amber eyes turned icily cold as his gaze raked over her from head to toe and back again. ‘No?’
‘No.’ She stood her ground. ‘And I very much doubt that you’re capable of making me leave, either.’
His face was once again unhealthily pale as his mouth tightened to an angry grim line. ‘You don’t pull your punches, do you?’ he muttered harshly.
Stephanie sighed. ‘It isn’t my intention to upset you, Mr Simpson—’
‘Then get the hell out of my house! ‘ He turned and left the room without a backward glance, his dark hair long and unkempt on his shoulders, and his back stiff with the fury he made no effort to hide.
Leaving Stephanie to sink down wearily into the kitchen chair Jordan had just vacated. She was used to difficult patients—actually relished the challenge of working with them. But dealing with Jordan Simpson was going to be so much harder than Stephanie could ever have imagined a week ago, when she had unknowingly agreed to help Lucan St Claire’s brother.
‘Changed your mind?’ She looked up hopefully an hour later, when she heard the slight unevenness of Jordan’s gait as he walked back down the hallway.
‘No.’ Jordan couldn’t say he hadn’t been tempted by the delicious smells emanating down the hall from the kitchen and into the study, where he’d sat as this stubborn woman obviously prepared her own dinner. Or that his mouth hadn’t watered at the thought of sinking his teeth into a medium-rare steak and a fluffy jacket potato smothered in butter, possibly with a nice light French dressing on the green salad on the side. Tempted, maybe, but there was no way he would give Stephanie McKinley the satisfaction of joining her. ‘I thought I told you to leave?’ The pristine tidiness of the kitchen showed that she had finished cleaning before even attempting to cook her meal.
She remained comfortably seated at the kitchen table, where she had obviously just finished eating her meal—washed down by a glass of decent-looking red wine if the label on the open bottle on the table was anything to go by. ‘Your brother wants me to stay.’
Jordan clenched his jaw. ‘You’ve spoken to him?’
‘Not since last week, no.’
‘Well, it may have escaped your notice, but Lucan isn’t here right now.’
‘I have no doubt that he could be here in a matter of hours if I should decide to call him,’ Stephanie McKinley came back unconcernedly.
Knowing his arrogant brother as he did, Jordan had no doubt, either, that Lucan was quite capable of climbing into his private helicopter and flying up here if he felt there was a need for him to do so. If Lucan thought that Jordan was being difficult. Which he undoubtedly was!
Jordan limped over to get a glass out of one of the cupboards, poured himself a glass of red wine from the open bottle and then took a sip before answering this increasingly annoying woman. ‘If that was a threat then I’m not impressed.’
‘It wasn’t, and you weren’t meant to be.’ She grimaced. ‘And should you be drinking wine if you’re taking medication for pain?’
‘This is my medication for the pain!’ One thing Mulberry Hall did have was a decent wine cellar, and Jordan had helped himself liberally to its contents this past month. A cripple and a drunk; how the mighty had fallen! he thought derisively.
Stephanie McKinley eyed him frowningly. ‘Alcohol causes depression—’
‘I’m not depressed, damn it! ‘ The glass landed heavily on the table-top as he slammed it down, spilling some of its contents over his hand and onto the wooden surface.
‘Okay. But you’re angry. Frustrated. And rude.’
‘How do you know that I wasn’t angry, frustrated and rude before the accident?’ Jordan asked.
‘You weren’t,’ Stephanie said quietly as she looked up at him. ‘The press would certainly have made something of it if the famous Jordan Simpson were known to be any one of those things.’
Instead of which the media had always written glowing reports of the handsome and charming actor as he escorted leggy blondes to film premieres, or out to dinner at one exclusive LA restaurant or another. Usually looking devastatingly handsome in a black tuxedo or casually tailored clothing, his dark hair still overlong but expertly styled to make the most of his hard and chiselled cheeks and jawline, and the lazily sexy smile that curved those sculptured lips. Not to mention, of course, those mesmerising amber-gold eyes!
A complete contrast to this savagely acerbic man, in the crumpled T-shirt and denims he wore this evening, with that growth of beard on his chin and his too-long untidy hair.
‘When did you last go to a barber or have a shave?’ Stephanie asked.
Jordan picked up the glass and took another long swallow of red wine. ‘None of your damned business,’ he growled.
‘Taking a pride in your appearance—’
‘Isn’t going to make a damned bit of difference to the fact that my leg is shot to hell.’
‘We need to find out why that is,’ she pressed.
‘No, Stephanie, you need to find out why that is if you want to keep what I have no doubt is a very well paying job,’ Jordan pointed out. ‘But, as I have no intention of letting you anywhere near me or my leg, that’s going to prove rather difficult, don’t you think?’
Impossible, actually, Stephanie admitted with frustration. Being able to actually assess a patient’s disability was more than half the battle. It also affected any and all treatment. Treatment this man had assured her he definitely wasn’t going to allow her to give him. She stood up to collect her dirty plates, and carried them over to begin loading them into the dishwasher. ‘Would you like me to cook your steak for you now?’
‘Tell me, Steph, which part of get the hell out of my home didn’t you understand earlier?’ Jordan St Claire snarled cruelly.
Stephanie drew in a controlling breath. ‘As I am neither stupid nor deaf, I understood all of it. I also prefer my. my clients to call me Stephanie or Miss McKinley,’ she added primly. Only her family and very close friends were allowed to shorten her name in that way. Besides which, the formality of her full name sounded more professional. And she freely admitted she was having more trouble than usual in keeping her relationship with Jordan Simpson on a professional basis.
Considering the threatened scandal of what Joey called the ‘Newman situation’, Stephanie definitely needed to keep her relationship with this man—with all her patients—on a completely professional basis. If Rosalind Newman’s accusations concerning her husband and Stephanie had been true, she knew she would deserve the other woman’s vitriol. As it was, she had actually found Richard Newman one of her least likeable patients.
Unlike Jordan Simpson, despite his disgraceful temper.
Jordan eyed her mockingly as he refilled his wine glass. ‘Why won’t you just accept that you’re wasting your time with me, Stephanie? That I don’t want or need you here?’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘I agree with the first part of that second statement, at least!’
Jordan’s jaw tightened as he saw the challenge in the slight lift of her pointed chin and sparkling green eyes. As he acknowledged once again that his mouth and brain were pushing this woman away at the same time as his body wanted to pull her into his arms and kiss her senseless. He hadn’t so much as felt a flicker of physical interest in a woman these past six months, and had wondered in some of his darker moments if perhaps the accident had robbed him of that ability too. The stirring of his thighs just looking at this woman had at least reassured him that wasn’t the case, he thought ruefully.
Jordan wondered just what the determinedly professional Stephanie McKinley would do about it if he were to follow through on his instinct to kiss the hell out of her? Run screaming bloody murder into the night, probably, and never darken his door again!
Which, thinking about it, was precisely what Jordan wanted her to do.
He carefully placed his cane against the kitchen table before turning to walk—damn it, hobble!—the short distance that separated them, so that he stood only inches away from the suddenly wary Stephanie McKinley as she pressed herself back against the kitchen cabinet to look up at him with wide apprehensive eyes. ‘Not so confident now, hmm, Stephanie?’ Jordan deliberately moved closer still.
Stephanie inwardly panicked. She could actually feel the heat of Jordan’s body as he stood mere centimetres away from her. She instantly responded to that heat, her breasts seeming to swell, and the nipples becoming hard and full against the thin material of her T-shirt, to her dismay.
Shaved or not, untidy overlong hair notwithstanding, he was undoubtedly every inch the sexually mesmerising A-list actor at that moment!
Stephanie moistened dry lips with the tip of her tongue, at once realising her mistake as she saw the way that seductive golden gaze followed the movement. ‘This isn’t funny, Jordan—’
‘It isn’t meant to be.’ He moved the small distance that separated them. The aroused hardness of his thighs pressed against Stephanie’s own, causing that heat to flare into an uncontrollable flame. ‘Is this natural?’ Jordan lifted a hand to touch the deep red hair at her temple.
Stephanie frowned. ‘You don’t seriously think any woman would deliberately dye her hair this colour?’ she scorned, in an effort to dispel her discomfort at his close proximity. At having Jordan Simpson touch her in this way.
‘It’s beautiful,’ he murmured appreciatively as he caressed several silky tendrils against his fingertips. ‘Unusual.’
Stephanie knew exactly what Jordan was doing. She’d already realised that he was deliberately playing with her as another tactic in getting her to leave. But knowing that didn’t make the slightest difference to the way she was responding to his closeness and the light caress of his fingertips as he touched her hair. She could barely breathe—didn’t dare breathe—when her aroused breasts were already brushing against the hardness of Jordan’s chest and making her ache for even closer contact! ‘It’s just plain old red.’
‘No,’ he murmured huskily. ‘I’ve never seen hair quite this colour before. It’s auburn and cinnamon, with highlights of red and gold.’
The colour of Stephanie’s hair had been the bane of her childhood, and certainly wasn’t the feature to mention if he was serious about this seduction. Which he obviously wasn’t! ‘It’s red,’ she insisted flatly.
That golden gaze moved slowly over the fullness of her breasts, lingering appreciatively on those hardened nipples before travelling over the flatness of her stomach and down to her thighs, to linger there speculatively. ‘Are you the same—?’
‘Don’t even go there!’ Stephanie interjected sharply, the heat having burned up her cheeks now. ‘Just step away from me, Jordan,’ she warned.
That golden gaze taunted her. ‘Or …?’
She met his gaze challengingly. ‘Or I’m afraid I’ll have to make you.’ Stephanie had taken Ju-Jitsu lessons in self-defence several years ago. She had no doubt she could make him stop, but she wouldn’t enjoy doing it to this particular man.
Unnerving Stephanie McKinley, making her too uncomfortable to want to stay on here, had started out as a game to Jordan. It didn’t feel like a game any longer, as he saw her physical response to his deliberate seduction. As his erection literally throbbed, so full and hard that it actually hurt as he imagined stripping those figure-hugging jeans from her shapely bottom and thighs, sliding her panties down her long legs before releasing himself, pushing her back against one of the kitchen cabinets and sinking his fullness into her hot and welcoming warmth!
Jordan wanted to do those things so badly—wanted to hear Stephanie McKinley screaming in ecstasy rather than bloody murder—and he could feel the sweat dampening his forehead as he fought against giving in to that impulse.
This physical response to her—the second in an hour or so—had to be because Jordan had been too long without a woman in his bed. With that long red hair, impishly attractive face, and slender if curvaceous body, she wasn’t in the least his type, damn it!
Jordan’s gaze was deliberately mocking as he looked down into her overheated face. ‘You just might have been amusing to have around, after all, Stephanie.’