Her Baby Secret

Kim Lawrence

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

QUINN, his lean body clad in supple motor-cycle leathers, strode into the swish foyer of the world-famous magazine Chic.

The glass swing doors closed behind him and, green eyes narrowed, he paused for a moment to get his bearings. Nothing in his attitude hinted at the fact that he knew that had the person he sought known he was there he would undoubtedly have found himself chucked out on his ear!

By nature Quinn was a confident individual—in his experience assurance was far more likely to open doors than an apologetic manner—but he considered this situation called for a extra degree of audacity. The meek might well be going to inherit the earth but Quinn couldn’t wait that long—he was a man with a mission!

At any time Quinn had the sort of face that made people look, and then look again, their eyes admiringly drawn to the pleasing arrangement of strong bones and intriguing manly hollows that made his irregular features stand out from the crowd. At that moment his expression—a fairly accurate reflection of his one overriding emotion, determination—drew more second glances than usual.

His steely purpose extended beyond the tight-jawed, edgy expression on his saturnine features, his entire lean, loose-limbed body was tense with resolve; even his soft-footed tread had something uncompromising about it. In fact Quinn oozed danger, and human nature—or at least female nature—being what it was, this was the fatal ingredient that had every woman in the place instantly riveted.

In the normal run of things Quinn wasn’t much bothered about the impression he made on people, except when, as part of his professional role, he needed to put them at their ease. His present enterprise was purely personal, and he had other, more urgent, things on his mind than racing pulses! He was going to see Rowena, and if that involved an unseemly contretemps with a security guard, chaining himself to an immovable object or just generally making a spectacle of himself, so be it!

Dignity had its place—hell, he was great at dignity, he oozed the stuff morning till night—but now wasn’t the occasion to display restraint. He’d been displaying it for the past couple of months and where had it got him…? Fobbed off, ignored and generally given the run around, that was where!

His chiselled jaw tightened another notch as he contemplated the abysmal way Rowena Parrish, his long-time friend and recent lover, had been treating him since that memorable night in New York.

No, the time had arrived for a little bit of positive action. Quinn wasn’t a man accustomed to dealing with rejection or failure, and he was damned if he was going to accept it now without some sort of explanation. It would have to be an extremely good one too if it was going to satisfy him!

‘I’m here to see Ms—’ he began firmly as he approached the nearest of the receptionists arranged around a big half-moon-shaped desk.

‘Oh, and she’ll definitely be glad to see you.’ There was a fervent nod of agreement that slid like a Mexican wave down the line of pretty faces.

It wasn’t that the other applicants hadn’t been good-looking. Like this one they’d all been sheathed in sexy black leather, and unlike this clean-shaven specimen they’d had the air of dissipated ruggedness that went with a sprinkling of designer stubble. Despite this advantage none had even come close to matching the indefinable something extra that this guy had by the bucketful!

The receptionist and her companions had all been watching his approach, mouths slightly ajar. His every physical attribute—these included legs that were longer than long, narrow hips, a washboard-flat belly and wide, powerful shoulders—had been digested, drooled over and stored for future dreamy reference.

Quinn, ready to do battle, was a little taken aback by this response. He cleared his throat and frowned suspiciously—was this some new devious ploy of Rowena’s to get him out of her hair?

‘Right, then, I’ll just go to…?’

‘If you’ll give me your name I’ll let them know you’re on your way up.’

‘Quinn Tyler.’ There was no instant start of recognition—good, Rowena hadn’t left any instructions to have him thrown out if he showed up as she had done at her apartment building.

After a lot of judicious eyelash fluttering the young woman consulted the screen in front of her. ‘We haven’t actually got you down…it must be some sort of mistake.’ There were fervent nods of agreement. ‘No problem, I’ll just add your name here,’ she told him cheerfully.

It was slowly dawning on Quinn that there was some sort of mistaken identity thing going on here, but as this seemed to be working in his favour he didn’t see much point setting the record straight. If it got him closer to the inner sanctum and Rowena he was quite happy to play along, though that might be easier if he knew what role he was meant to be playing.

He dismissed any lingering qualms with a philosophical shrug—it couldn’t be worse than a punch-up with Security, could it…?

Elbow leaning on the desk, he shamelessly utilised his most winning smile. ‘That’s very good of you…’ he consulted the name badge pinned to her ample bosom ‘…Stephanie.’

A couple of minutes later, his fixed smile faded abruptly as he stepped into the glass-fronted lift and it began its smooth ascent. He looked at the piece of paper the nubile Stephanie had thrust into his hand, and his brows rose cynically at the sight of a scribbled phone number before he crushed it carelessly between his strong fingers.

The directions he’d received from Stephanie took him to a long, narrow room that contained a row of chairs and little else furniture-wise.

Quinn blinked; he was looking at a leather fetishist’s dream. Males, mostly a few years younger than himself—mid to late twenties, he estimated—filled the available chairs. They were all clad in a similar fashion to himself—black leather from head to toe.

As he was surveying the surreal biker reunion scene in front of him, a door just to his left opened and he turned to see a short female figure dressed in a garish combination of lime green and cerise emerge, carrying a clipboard.

‘Who’s first?’ The black leather rose en masse in response to her slightly bored query.

Apparently oblivious to the sudden rise in testosterone levels and anxiety, she ignored all the figures trying desperately hard to be rampantly male and turned instead to the one conveniently closest—ironically he was the only person present not trying to catch her attention.

‘You! You’ll do…’ Her eyes travelled up the six-foot-five frame, getting wider and wider the more she saw. She paused, blinking in bemused fashion when she eventually encountered the greenest pair of eyes she’d ever seen. Long, curly ebony lashes any woman would have traded her soul for and equally dark, well-defined brows were suitable accessories for these truly spectacular orbs.

Sophie had seen it all but even she couldn’t repress a tiny sigh of feminine appreciation. He might not be trying, but this guy was succeeding fairly dramatically on the rampant male front!

Her eyes eagerly slid over the strong, hawkish nose that bisected the hunk’s lean features and dropped to the wide firm line of a sensationally sexy mouth. A slow grin spread across her features.

‘You’ll do very well indeed,’ she told him with a throaty chuckle.

Quinn, aware of a battery of resentful eyes on his back, found himself being bundled by the tiny figure through the door and into the connecting room.

In contrast to his colourful escort the elegant female behind the desk was clad totally in black. She looked at Quinn for a full thirty seconds before smiling—he had the distinct impression her facial muscles didn’t get a whole lot of practice with this procedure.

She rose to her feet. ‘Anna Semple.’ Instead of extending her hand as Quinn had expected, she walked around him, head on one side in a bird-like attitude—he found himself thinking ‘vulture’ at this point. ‘And who might you be?’ Anna asked, somewhat taken aback to discover that, instead of looking eager to please, this candidate was glancing at his wrist-watch.

‘Quinn Tyler.’ He couldn’t decide whether he was amused or irritated by the treatment.

‘I haven’t got a Quinn Tyler down here,’ her colourful companion revealed, consulting her list.

‘No matter.’ His interrogator frowned as though his name was tugging at her memory. ‘These don’t look like props.’ She ran a hand lightly over the sleeve of his well-worn leather jacket and gave another vulpine smile.

‘They’re not.’

‘And have you done much of this sort of work, Quinn Tyler…?’

Time to ditch the subterfuge and move on to his main objective. ‘Actually I think there’s been some sort of…’ He edged surreptitiously towards the door.

‘Who sent you?’

‘Nobody sent me.’

‘Initiative! I like that, don’t I, Sophie? But you have an agent?’ If he didn’t this opened all sorts of interesting possibilities—such as an exclusive contract. Now wouldn’t that be nice? Very nice, she decided, trying and failing to discover any flaws in the hunk. Forget the leather spread—this guy could front their ‘new season—new man’ feature that was to run for three consecutive issues, she thought excitedly.

Quinn was a patient man, but even he had his limitations. He’d seen farmers giving prospective purchases at a livestock market a more subtle survey than this female was giving him! Any minute now he was convinced she’d ask him to show her his teeth! He was almost right…

‘Take off your shirt and jacket, will you?’ Anna requested, casually retaking her seat.

Quinn’s eyes widened as it dawned on him she was deadly serious. And I thought my job called for personal sacrifices! he thought.

‘Is that all?’

The younger woman looked startled by his response, but the irony sailed right over the older female’s head.

‘Yes, that’ll be sufficient.’

Anna flicked her female companion an amused look as the big man remained immobile. ‘Not shy, are you?’ she taunted indulgently.

‘Not shy, no,’ Quinn replied honestly. Just a bit particular about who I take my clothes off for. The thought of removing his clothes focused his mind forcefully on his original objective—Rowena.

Now, if she’d asked him his response would have been quite different. With reluctance he dragged his mind clear of the various stimulating scenarios it had immediately conjured up along this theme.

He was just about to break the news that, whatever they had in mind, he wasn’t available when the door behind him opened a crack, and the sound of voices drifted in—one at least he identified instantly.

‘Have I got the go-ahead on the ‘‘Having It All’’ feature, Rowena?’ Sylvia Morrow urgently hailed her editor who, oblivious to the admiring male eyes lining the wall, was taking a short cut through to her top floor office. She’d worked hard for that office.

Rowena was a tall, beautiful young woman with typical English-rose colouring, classical features, natural ash-blonde hair and a shapely but slender body. She was not unaware of the impact her looks made on people, but she felt on balance that these attributes had been more of a hindrance than a help in her single-minded efforts to gain the right to call that office on the top floor her own.

The job of editor that went with the luxury office was still new enough to seem unreal. It was the goal she’d been working towards ever since she’d left university with a first-class honours degree, no experience, no money and boundless ambition.

Now she was there—she had it all! Funny, she’d expected success to feel quite different. The route to the top hadn’t been easy—people had said she was too young and some still were saying it—but she was proving them wrong.

The vague feeling of anticlimax was, she supposed, to be expected. Perhaps if her personal life wasn’t such a mess she could have enjoyed her moment of glory, but ironically she’d never felt more confused or unhappy in her life. And whose fault was that? Quinn Tyler’s.

She conveniently ignored the inescapable fact that she herself was at least fifty per cent to blame for her present predicament.

‘Are you all right, Rowena?’ Sylvia’s concerned glance slipped from the haunted expression on her boss’s pale face to the slim hand pressed against her enviably flat belly.

They had both been at the glitzy party of yet another new perfume launch the previous evening, the food and drink had flowed freely and Sylvia, who was congenitally incapable of refusing freebies, had woken feeling a trifle delicate that morning. It seemed unlikely Rowena had over-indulged too—self-control was Rowena’s middle name.

Rowena smiled stiffly and, trying not to draw attention to her action, removed her hand from her stomach. If she wasn’t careful, she thought worriedly, people were going to start putting two and two together.

‘I’m fine.’ She was in control now and didn’t show even by so much as a flicker of an eyelash the conflict that was raging in her head.

For someone who’d mouthed off as often as she had about how impossible it was for a woman to give her all to a job when she had a baby, this was some position to find herself in. Actually, it was some position for anyone to find themselves in! Not that she had a baby yet…She sighed, aware that she could fool others but not herself. No matter how hard she attempted to think of the new life inside her as a cluster of cells, she couldn’t. It was a person—in the primitive stages maybe, but still a little individual.

‘The ‘‘Having it All’’ feature…?’ Sylvia prompted.

Rowena pushed aside her personal problems—for the first time in her professional career the process wasn’t easy. ‘You know my opinion on that one, Sylvia.’ Rowena didn’t believe you could ‘have it all’.

Sylvia nodded. She did know; it was no secret that their dynamic new editor considered women who thought they could combine a high-powered career with marriage and a family were fooling themselves.

Something, Rowena was on the record as stating, had to suffer, and she for one was not prepared to accept compromise in any area of her life. As for nannies, why have a kid if you immediately farmed it out to someone else?

You had to hand it to Rowena, she wasn’t too bothered about being politically correct. Privately Sylvia thought Rowena’s horror of maternity and marriage might have something to do with the fact that her boss did everything so perfectly. She doubted if Rowena had ever muddled through or made do with second-best in her life—a life which appeared to be planned down to the last second. At least she wasn’t daft or unrealistic enough to imagine a woman could carry on being so totally in control like that when she had a young family.

‘Well, I have several high-flyers who don’t share your opinion and a feature that’s just begging to be written. It can’t fail,’ Sophie predicted in full sales-pitch mode. ‘A behind-the-scenes peek into the homes and offices of the rich and famous with pictures of their dogs, kids and whatever…you know, the usual humanising influences…’

The notion of voluntarily exposing your own children to the media made Rowena grimace. Her gut response was extra strong no doubt because the whole motherhood issue had suddenly taken on a very personal aspect.

‘It could work,’ Sylvia insisted, sensing with dismay her boss’s negative response.

‘You’re probably right, Sylvia.’ With an effort Rowena focused her thoughts on the matter in hand. ‘Who have you got lined up?’ She was too professionally astute to allow her personal prejudices to get in the way of good copy.

‘Maggie Allen.’

Rowena’s delicately arched eyebrows rose. ‘A topical choice.’ Maggie Allen, the controversial new appointment to head an international pharmaceutical firm, was the sort of woman who genuinely did seem to have it all: a loving, supportive husband, two well-adjusted children and her career.

How often, Rowena wondered cynically, did Maggie get to spend time with those children? And how long before the understanding husband started looking for a woman who could spend more than the odd hour or two with him?

‘It gets better,’ Sylvia enthused confidently over her shoulder. ‘Hold on a tick, I just need to give Anna this layout.’

Rowena followed the resourceful writer through the door.

‘Anna, could you—? Oh, my god!’ Rowena heard Sylvia exclaim as she came to an abrupt halt.

Anna Semple saw her colleague’s reaction and looked complacent. ‘I rather think you can send the others home, Sophie. We’ve got our man.’ She gave the tall figure who held centre stage a look of proprietorial approval.

It didn’t take long to see what—or rather who—had robbed Sylvia of speech. Rowena got an impressive glimpse of broad, firmly muscled shoulders and a strong, supple back before she averted her eyes—beef cake wasn’t really her cup of tea.

Besides, a quick glance had already revealed a spooky and unsettling similarity of build and colouring between Anna’s hunky model and Quinn, and Rowena had problems enough without any more reminders.

They’d got the poor guy to show off his pecs. Rowena experienced a pang of sympathy, which was probably misplaced. For all she knew, the man was perfectly at ease with using his great body to promote his career, or maybe he was an exhibitionist who revelled in being drooled over?

She nodded briskly to the other women. ‘I’ll leave you to it. Three-thirty in my office…Sylvia…?’ At that precise moment the tall figure turned his head.

It didn’t occur to her for even one second to believe the proof of her eyes. She was just so obsessed she was hallucinating—it was the only possible explanation. Pale-faced, she stared transfixed at the hormonal hallucination before her.

The half-naked man, his green eyes narrowed slightly, smiled languidly, displaying a set of even, pearly white teeth.

The gasp that emerged from her lips was faint, but audible enough to attract curious glances from the other women present.

This was worse than hallucination—this was real! Only one man in the world could combine that much sneery contempt and sexual challenge in a smile!

If her legs had actually responded to her urgent mental commands she’d have obeyed her first cowardly instinct and fled the room. As it was she had to think of something to say that wouldn’t excite unwanted speculation from the women she had to work with. Women whose respect she needed.

Why here, why now, why me…? Especially why me! She took a deep breath. It was no good moaning about it, it was happening and she’d have to deal with it.

Of course she’d known she’d have to see Quinn some time—she still hadn’t worked out when precisely that some time might be, but she’d known she’d be psyched up for the experience. She’d have worked out in advance what all his arguments might be when she broke it to him, and she’d have a suitable reply for each one. But most importantly she’d have her own messy feelings sorted out by that point!

Her voice, hoarse and accusing, broke the strained silence that had fallen. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ Way to go, Rowena! She could almost smell the rampant curiosity in the quiet room.

‘This is Quinn Tyler, Rowena, our model for the—’ Anna began.

Model! Rowena threw the older woman a look of withering disbelief. ‘He is not a model!’ she exclaimed, scurrying forward to gather up Quinn’s discarded shirt and jacket from the floor where he had obviously dropped them. How could he stand there with all those women ogling him? He was nothing but a damned exhibitionist!

‘What is he, then?’

‘Yes, Rowena, what am I?’ Quinn drawled. Colour flooded Rowena’s face as she met the malicious wide-eyed innocence in his mocking emerald stare. ‘Don’t tempt me!’ she choked, wishing she could wipe that smug grin off his face.

‘Actually, Anna,’ she explained, trying a bit belatedly to re-establish some dignity, ‘Quinn is a doctor.’

‘He doesn’t look like any doctor I’ve ever seen,’ the older woman responded sceptically. Hands on her bony hips, she allowed her eyes to wander up and down Quinn’s lean frame.

Rowena couldn’t argue that point. ‘He scrubs up almost respectable,’ she snarled, experiencing an abrupt dignity meltdown the instant she looked at him again.

‘Why, thank you, Rowena,’ Quinn murmured provokingly.

‘It wasn’t meant to be a compliment. Let’s face it, put Jack the Ripper in Armani and he’d most likely look respectable,’ she announced dismissively—actually Quinn in Armani or anything else was almost impossible to dismiss or ignore! With a forced smile she turned to the other women. ‘We went to university together.’

‘Oh, an old boyfriend.’

‘I object to the old,’ Quinn complained with a hurt-little-boy look that had the other women grinning.

Nostrils flared, lips pinched tight, Rowena rounded angrily on a startled Sophie. ‘Not an old boyfriend!’ she announced emphatically. She looked to Quinn for support—not surprisingly, none was forthcoming. ‘We were part of a group,’ she began to explain laboriously. ‘A group of like-minded—’

Quinn’s deep velvet drawl cut her off. ‘A group of earnest, élitist snobs who liked to congratulate each other at frequent intervals on how brilliant, how cultured, how much better than everyone else we were. Many’s the time we’d sit there contemplating our glittering futures.’

‘Quinn!’ Rowena exclaimed, shocked.

Quinn met her outraged glare, an amused glint of humour in his eyes—eyes which she knew could unexpectedly change from deep emerald to subtle aquamarine. ‘You trying to tell me I’m wrong?’

Rowena’s face softened. Her lips were halfway to forming a rueful smile before she realised she couldn’t afford to relax around Quinn. ‘No, you’re not wrong,’ she admitted with a sigh. ‘We were unbearably pleased with ourselves.’

Quinn switched his attention to the three other women. ‘In our defence I have to add that we were all very young, and most of us aren’t quite so arrogant nowadays!’

‘If that’s a dig at me…’ Rowena bristled, growing angrily pink.

A disturbing lopsided smile tugged at one corner of Quinn’s mouth as he contemplated her stormy face. ‘It wasn’t.’

Rowena wasn’t willing to be convinced. ‘Talk about a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black,’ she muttered truculently. Her colleagues, who had never heard their leader sound truculent, exchanged glances—and as for pouting…!

‘And I don’t know how you managed to weasel your way up here, but I’ve a good mind to call Security and have you thrown out!’ He had the audacity, not to mention ill judgement, to grin. ‘You think I’m joking, Quinn—just try me.’

‘No, I don’t think you’re joking—that would require a sense of humour, not to mention an ability to laugh at yourself.’

All those weeks of deprivation she’d put him through—he could have strangled her! His darkened eyes travelled from the smooth curve of her neck to the soft outline of her wide, generous lips—or maybe kissing her would be more appropriate…? The muscles in his throat worked hard as he visualised sliding his tongue between her lush lips—she’d make that hoarse little whimper low in her throat, the one that drove him a little crazy.

Rowena’s even white teeth came together with a jaw-aching crack. ‘Shall we leave my inadequacies out of this for the moment?’ Her eyes slid of their own volition to the expanse of silky dark skin and her sensitive stomach muscles tightened. ‘For heaven’s sake, Quinn, cover yourself up!’ she pleaded hoarsely.

She wasn’t sure which was the worse, coping with her own weak, lustful reaction to the distracting sight of Quinn’s powerful torso or coping with the knowledge that the other women present were leching over his smooth olive flesh and sculpted muscles too.

She didn’t pause to consider the consequences of her impulsive actions—around Quinn that happened to her a lot—the urgent need to shield him from their lascivious eyes was just too strong to resist.

Actually the three other women were no longer looking at Quinn at all; they were too fascinated by the sight of their cool, composed editor desperately pressing a crumpled white cotton shirt protectively against the dark, hair-roughened chest of the tall, gorgeous man.

‘I suppose you think this is funny?’ she hissed. The physical contact had been a big mistake! For starters, being this close she couldn’t avoid breathing in the warm, male, distinctly Quinn scent of his body—it had a dizzy, addictive quality.

‘I don’t know how you got here, or why you’re here…’ she huffed, tears of angry frustration springing into her blue eyes as Quinn stood there totally impassive while she attempted to cover him up. She was struggling with all manner of insane urges, most of which involved plastering herself against him. ‘I take that back; you obviously came here to humiliate me!’ she accused wildly.

As if I need any help!

Quinn responded with a quirk of one dark brow and a cynical twist of his sensual lips.

‘You know exactly why I’m here, Rowena.’ Threat, promise and warning, his deep voice held all three.

She stood by helplessly, her insides quivering as he took the shirt from her shaky hands and in a fluid motion pulled it over his head. He slid it into place, tucking it into the narrow waistband of his trousers.

What was he trying to do to her? Those leather trousers left nothing whatever to the imagination; they showed off every inch of his long, powerful thighs. Rowena tried to avert her eyes, but the glint of dull silver caught her eye and held it.

It was the same silver engraved buckle he’d been wearing that night, the night that she had unclipped it with trembling fingers. He’d taken her hand and pressed it against…don’t go there, Rowena! she warned herself frantically.

Too late! Erotic images complete with taste and touch and smell rose up in her head. His smoothly textured olive-toned skin covered in a fine layer of sweat…the raw rasp in his voice that had reduced her to a compliant, quivering heap of neediness…the unbelievable combination of triumph and tenderness on his face as he’d responded to her pleas and thrust powerfully up into her body, filling and stretching every part of her…

Hand pressed flat against her heaving bosom, she fought for breath, and a semblance of composure. The stabbing sexual desire that hit her was so tangible it was like walking into a solid wall of heat. She could feel the cold trickle of sweat as it slid damply down her back.

Quinn’s slanted eyebrows quirked as he smoothed down the white fabric over his flat, leanly muscled midriff. ‘Happy now?’

The action had mussed up his thick dark hair and without thinking Rowena reached up to smooth down his tousled locks. Her antagonism faded for a moment as her fingertips sank into his hair and brushed against his scalp.

She realised the implied intimacy of her thoughtless action at the same moment Quinn’s head jerked back, the violent rejection making her lift her hurt eyes to his.

For a split second their glances collided before Quinn’s heavy lids came downwards, veiling his expression. Rowena had seen enough in that moment’s scorching contact to turn her insides hotly molten.

Their long-standing relationship had always been the sort where such innocent gestures were not misread. Well, news flash! Things had changed—big time!

But when had they started to change…?

CHAPTER TWO

AS SHE’D gone over the events in her head that had led to their becoming lovers Rowena had tried time after time to work it out, but she hadn’t been able to pinpoint the exact moment that friendship had become something else.

It had begun before her short stint at the New York office, which the powers that be had deemed essential for someone about to take over the running of the London end of the operation. Rowena had needed an escort for a big charity bash and Quinn, who had just accepted a senior post at a major teaching hospital in the city, had stepped in at the last minute.

It wasn’t as if she hadn’t noticed, but after knowing him for so long Rowena took his spectacular looks for granted. The admiring glances he’d received that night, not to mention the envious comments she’d received from friends and acquaintances, had brought home to her just what a gorgeous creature he was.

It had been a good night—no, better than good—Quinn had a way of making his companion feel very special. He was also a great dancer, and an even better conversation-alist—he had a dry wit and a clever tongue that had had her laughing half the night. She’d laughed so much that several acquaintances had commented on the fact, which had made Rowena wonder—for about two seconds—if she didn’t take things a little too seriously as a rule.

‘You were a big hit,’ she told him when he dropped her off at her flat in the early hours. Head against the back-rest, she yawned and fished around for the shoes she’d slipped off her aching feet when she’d got into Quinn’s Jaguar.

Quinn inclined his dark head. ‘We aim to please.’

‘So now I know how you manage to captivate all those women.’ Quinn worked hard, but he played hard too. He had a taste for fast cars, motorbikes and beautiful women, but no staying power with the latter as far as Rowena could tell—not that she held this against him.

Perhaps like her he was married to his career, or maybe he hadn’t met the right girl yet…The fleeting thought made her feel vaguely dissatisfied.

‘If I didn’t know you so well,’ she teased him, adjusting the strap on her kitten-heeled sling-back, ‘I might even make a pass at you myself.’

For what felt like a long time he looked at her, his expression enigmatic. ‘Is that all that’s stopping you?’

Rowena’s smile didn’t make it past the starting-post—there was no shadow of humour in his face, just a taut, dangerous expression that made the nerve endings deep inside her stomach tortuously flutter with excitement.

She couldn’t remember what she’d said to fill the awkward lingering silence that had followed, but she knew his contribution had been nil. He’d just sat there and let her babble like an idiot.

One thing she did recall, very well indeed as it happened, was how it had felt when his arm had brushed against her breasts as he’d stretched over to open the car door for her. She had been mortified, not to mention confused, when her nipples had responded instantaneously to the brief contact. She had prayed he hadn’t noticed them thrusting brazenly through the thin fabric of her bodice as she’d slid with a hastily mumbled thank-you from the car.

There had been no legitimate reason to refuse the series of invites that had followed—after all they were friends, and there was nothing wrong, she had told herself, with having a meal with a friend, or going to the theatre. As for walking by the river in the rain, what could be a more innocuous way to spend an evening?

Quinn’s behaviour had given her no cause for complaint; there had been no repeat of that electric moment in the car. No, he had acted like the perfect gentleman despite the fact that she, for some perverse reason, had gone out of her way to recreate the moment—maybe it had been just to convince herself it had actually happened…?

Letting her hand linger longer than strictly necessary on his arm or knee, a lot more eye contact than was normal between them, making sure he’d been able to see her very excellent legs when she’d sat opposite him. Nothing too heavy or obvious; at least that was what she’d thought until one night, sitting in her flat after having been out for dinner, Quinn had bluntly demanded an explanation.

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she blustered. ‘I’m not playing at anything.’

He dragged an unsteady hand through his thick hair. ‘Well, whatever that nothing is you’re doing, it’s driving me crazy.’ His green eyes came to rest on her face. ‘You’re driving me crazy.’

‘I am?’ she exclaimed, unable to hide her pleasure. ‘You’d never have known,’ she added with a condemnatory frown.

After a startled moment Quinn began to laugh. It was such a warm, uninhibited sound she couldn’t bring herself to be cross with him.

‘Well, if you must know, I’m quite attracted to you,’ she divulged bluntly. ‘The idea takes some getting used to…’ With a hint of bravado she raised her eyes and saw it was Quinn’s turn to look pleased—and relief rushed through her. It would have been too embarrassing if she’d been reading the wrong messages.

‘I think,’ he replied huskily, ‘that it might be worth the effort.’

Mesmerised by the stark hunger in his darkly lashed eyes, she felt her knees start to tremble. Her heart was battering against her ribcage like a sledgehammer.

He would be an excellent kisser—with a mouth like that how could he not be? she reasoned, allowing her gaze to rest dreamily on that stern, sensual outline. The idea of putting her theory to the test had her literally trembling with anticipation.

‘You don’t think it’s too silly an idea, then,’ she gasped, feeling a bit light-headed with relief—well, maybe relief wasn’t solely responsible for that strange but marvellous floaty feeling.

Quinn took the wilful curve of her jaw in his hand, his fingers stroking the smooth skin of her throat. The touch was so gentle and his strength was so formidable that Rowena found the contrast deeply exciting. ‘Not silly at all,’ he replied.

His deep, husky voice sent tiny shivers up and down her spine. ‘I knew you’d understand—you being not exactly big on the whole commitment thing.’ Rowena was so relieved that she hardly registered the wary expression that flickered into his eyes. ‘I mean, neither of us have the time to lavish on a proper relationship, do we?’ she told him happily. ‘With that whole pet name, flowers, and plans for the future stuff. Most of all the plans for the future,’ she added with a heartfelt shudder. ‘But we all have…needs.’ It was probably ignoring hers that was responsible for her present distracted condition. ‘I think I should be honest with you.’

‘By all means be honest,’ Quinn responded drily.

Rowena nodded, glad they were in accord. Quinn had let go of her chin and she wished he hadn’t. She wondered if it would be quite acceptable for her to take the initiative and touch him…? God, but she wanted to, she thought, her eyes running covetously over his lean frame.

‘Of course I’ve tried sex, but, I’ve got to admit, it wasn’t an unqualified success. To be quite honest,’ she added, the words coming in a rush, ‘I’m terrible at it, but I’m willing to learn.’

She heard the stark sound of his inhalation and wished she’d not been quite so frank, but it was true: sexually she was what was popularly termed frigid. The first time might have been put down to inexperience, but the second time had been a full five years later, and though her lover—an attractive, experienced man she’d liked a lot—had been perfectly polite, she’d been able to tell he’d been in no hurry to repeat the experience, and actually neither had she. Since then she’d been able to channel her energies into her work—until Quinn.

‘Let me get this straight—you want me for sex and nothing else.’

His low, very quiet tone sent a quiver of apprehension up her spine. Anxiously she searched his face but it was impossible to read anything from his enigmatic expression.

‘Well, I wouldn’t put it like that exactly.’

‘Well, I would!’ he yelled suddenly. ‘I’d put it exactly like that. I’ve heard you called callous, Rowena. I’ve heard you called a cold, calculating bitch.’

Rowena flinched. It was a tired old sexist line that she’d heard many times before and it never failed to make her mad as hell—it hadn’t hurt as it did hearing Quinn say it, though. It was nonsense, of course—a man who shared the qualities that made her good at what she did would have been universally admired for his skill, but not her. No, she was female so that automatically made her as hard as nails.

‘And I’ve always stuck up for you, but I’m beginning to see how much you’ve changed since the old days!’ he blazed. ‘Sex isn’t something you schedule like a finance meeting.’

Rowena listened to his diatribe in stunned silence. ‘I didn’t mean…I had no intention of insulting you, I just wanted to be upfront, Quinn.’

‘I’m slow,’ he reflected with a bitter smile, ‘but not that slow. I don’t need a diagram to tell me what you want.’ At some level he was aware that he was overreacting—after all, he’d been propositioned before.

Quinn’s scornful sneer reawakened her temper. ‘I have to tell you, Quinn, I find all this righteous outrage at being treated like a sex object just a tad hypocritical coming from you of all people. I mean, a man with a track record like yours hardly screams commitment, does he? Or don’t you like it when someone turns the table on you? The way you’re going on anyone would think you wanted a serious relationship or something…’ She saw his face and her eyes widened. ‘Good god!’ she gasped, horrified. ‘You didn’t, did you…?’ She laughed in what was pure nervous disbelief, but he could hardly be expected to know that.

‘I’ve been accused of being shallow in my time…’ His voice had dropped to a soft, menacing whisper, but Rowena was in no mood to be intimidated.

‘I can’t imagine why,’ she muttered belligerently.

The glacial flicker of his long-lashed eyes silenced her. ‘But it would seem I’m an amateur compared to you.’

‘The way I hear it you get by,’ she retorted childishly.

‘Then maybe you hear it wrong,’ he cut back in a chilly voice. ‘I may not be able to match your clinical objectivity, but I’m not totally unrealistic. I accept that some relationships are never going to go anywhere, but they’re fun anyway. I’ve been there and done that, but not as often as you seem to think.’

Rowena hardly noticed this dry postscript; she was too busy dwelling on the lurid images drifting around in her head of Quinn having fun. She actually felt quite unwell—she’d had doubts about that lobster.

‘Part of the excitement of entering a relationship is not knowing where it’s going.’

Diverted by this peculiar viewpoint, Rowena forgot momentarily about the sick churning in her stomach. Personally Rowena always liked to know exactly where she was going.

‘The exploration,’ Quinn expanded forcibly. ‘The wondering whether it might lead somewhere, whether she might be the one.’

Rowena’s jaw dropped—it was something of a revelation to learn that Quinn believed there was such a thing as the one. Let alone discover he was actively looking for her. Boy, had she got Quinn wrong—the man was a romantic!

‘With you there would be no wondering, we’d both know exactly where we were going—nowhere!’ he continued.

Rowena’s chin came up. She didn’t much care for that combination of pity and contempt on his face. It was pretty obvious there was no point suggesting they went nowhere together.

‘Let’s call it crossed wires,’ she suggested with an easy-come, easy-go shrug. Rowena had her pride and she didn’t want him to guess how disappointed, mortified and frustrated she was by his rejection.

His own shrug was just as untroubled and dismissive.

Dragging her thoughts kicking and screaming back to the present, Rowena slid a wary, half-defiant look in the direction of her staff.

Their expressions were respectful enough now but Rowena wasn’t fool enough to imagine that this situation would last for two seconds once she was out of the door. She hadn’t gained her hard-nosed, cool-headed reputation by accident and now in two seconds flat she’d blown her cover wide open.

‘Happy? Hardly,’ she snapped venomously, fixing Quinn with a look of loathing. ‘Well, if you’ll excuse us, Quinn was just leaving.’ Clinging to the tattered shreds of her dignity and trying to show she was still in charge, Rowena shoved Quinn’s jacket at him and nodded imperiously in the direction of the door.

‘So soon,’ Quinn bemoaned sarcastically, throwing his jacket casually over his shoulder. ‘We hadn’t even started talking money yet.’ He waved casually to the three watching women as Rowena, seething with exasperation, grabbed him by the arm.

‘That would be right!’ Rowena flared contemptuously—God, why couldn’t she keep her mouth shut? ‘You always did have your eye on the big bucks, Quinn. Why else go in for plastic surgery?’

‘Perhaps I thought I could make a difference,’ he suggested mildly.

Rowena sniffed, unwilling to admit even to herself that her accusation of avarice had been out of line, not to mention totally inaccurate.

Quinn was considered a world expert in facial reconstructive surgery and, though he did make big money from the high-profile clients who sought him out, Rowena knew he didn’t restrict his expertise to those who could pay for it. The vast bulk of his workload was, and always had been, within the NHS, even though he could have made much more by working exclusively in the private sector. Not that money mattered to Quinn, coming as he did from a wealthy, privileged background.

‘Three-thirty in my office, Sylvia!’ Rowena called, putting a bold face on her unorthodox departure.

The three women exchanged glances as the door closed. ‘I knew I recognised his name…’ Anna cried. ‘He did Lexie Lamont’s new nose, so they say, and I saw him on that telly programme last month—the one about that teenager who got hit in the face by a jet ski.’

Sylvia nodded. ‘I saw it; the girl got all choked up every time she talked about him.’

‘Small wonder!’ Anna exclaimed. ‘Did you see the before picture? She mashed just about every bone in her face to pulp—all he had to go on when he rebuilt it were pictures.’

‘There’s no mistake, then, he’s really a doctor. I suppose it’s lucky we didn’t send the others home,’ her assistant reflected.

A naughty grin appeared on Sylvia’s pretty face. ‘Is it just me or do you get the impression boss lady isn’t too keen on sharing…?’

The explosive sound of laughter was clearly audible to Rowena as she stalked, head held high, from the crowded ante-room crowded with leather-clad clones.

‘I hope you’re satisfied now!’ she gritted to Quinn.

‘Don’t fret, Rowena, I’m sure your ice-cold bitch image can survive worse than this.’

‘I hate you!’ If that were true, how it would simplify matters.

‘I can live with that,’ he lied, increasing his pace to keep up with her. ‘It’s being ignored I’m not so comfortable with,’ he concluded grimly.

‘I’ve heard of men who turn to stalking when they get given the push, but I never thought you’d be one of them, Quinn. If only I’d known then what I know now…’ As if it would have made any difference, a self-derisive voice-over in her head insisted on supplementing.

‘I haven’t been given the push.’

Rowena came to an abrupt halt in front of her PA’s desk. Hands planted on her hips, she swung around, causing her silver-blonde hair to bell around her face before settling down into the loosely tendrilled nape-length style she’d recently adopted.

‘Consider yourself pushed, Quinn.’

Quinn smiled. ‘Like hell I will!’ Ignoring her loudly voiced protests, he placed his hand against her chest and thrust her through the open door of her office. ‘Hold all Ms Parrish’s calls,’ he instructed the startled-looking young woman behind the desk.

‘Call Security, Bernice!’ Rebecca yelled shrilly just before Quinn kicked the door closed. ‘I suppose you think this ridiculous caveman act is impressive!’ she jeered, retreating to the other side of her large desk—the symbol of her authority. Unfortunately it didn’t afford her that warm, in-charge feeling it normally did.

‘If you think spending just one night with me entitles you to behave like this you’re sadly mistaken, not to mention living in the wrong century. As for taking off your clothes—I’m not even going to ask!’ she choked, her nose wrinkling in disgust at the thought of Quinn parading half naked in front of the other women. ‘If I hadn’t come in when I did, heaven knows how far you’d have gone!’

‘And you don’t like that idea?’ Quinn didn’t sound as though her disgust displeased him.

It made her feel sick to the stomach. ‘I hate to spoil your pathetic male fantasies of women fighting over you, but I simply don’t like the idea of you wasting my staff’s time. We have deadlines to meet, you know. How would you like it if I smuggled myself into your hospital and tried to pass myself off as a nurse?’

‘Give me a minute here, I’m just picturing you…Does the uniform have one of those cute frilly caps?’ Rowena didn’t have time to respond to this outrageous piece of sexism before his languid air of mockery vanished, revealing the sort of penetrative expression that made her nostalgic for his irritating mockery of seconds before. ‘What the hell have you been doing to yourself, Rowena?’ He sat down on the edge of her desk and stretched his long legs out in front of him.

‘I had my hair cut.’

‘That’s not what I mean. You’ve lost weight.’

‘Thank you.’

Her hips had always been the envy of her more amply endowed friends, but losing almost a stone in weight during the past few weeks meant that the short skirt she was wearing today no longer clung to her hips, but hung loosely.

‘You look terrible.’

In case I hadn’t got the point, she thought caustically.

‘You don’t lose that sort of weight so quickly unless you’re ill or under a lot of pressure,’ he announced authoritatively.

Her glance slid evasively from his. Did morning sickness count as being ill? ‘Well, thanks for the medical assessment, Doctor, but I’m neither. It’s just too many late nights, and no time to eat.’

‘In fact life’s just one long party.’ He didn’t bother hiding his scepticism.

‘Absolutely,’ she maintained defiantly.

‘Which no doubt accounts for you ignoring my e-mails and phone calls—although that isn’t a problem now, is it? Not since you had all your numbers changed and went ex-directory.’ Rowena watched with an irritated frown as he began to mess up the row of pencils laid out symmetrically on her desk. Looking at his long, clever fingers brought a sudden rush of memories, his fingers dark against her pale breasts. His fingers sliding between…

Rowena caught her full lower lip between her teeth. She resented the fact he was making her behave guiltily. ‘That was pure coincidence,’ she announced with stilted defiance.

He lifted his head, and from beneath the sweep of inky dark lashes looked enquiringly across at her. ‘And is it coincidence that had me made persona non grata at your apartment building?’

Rowena had a firm policy of ignoring things she couldn’t deny and she did so now with a careless toss of her fair head. ‘I’ve only just got back, Quinn. New York was hectic.’ She wished straight off she hadn’t mentioned New York.

She thought of New York and, unlike normal people who had spent any time there, she didn’t associate with the vibrant, alive, noisy, scary, exciting place it was. No, Rowena immediately associated it with Quinn, incredible sex and the frightening consequences of the latter…

‘What about the weekend you came home?’

‘You knew about that?’ Startled, she glanced up to see an expression she couldn’t quite place on his face.

‘Wasn’t I meant to?’

‘It was no secret.’ Recovering a little composure, Rowena managed to continue in a persuasively reasonable tone. ‘I’ve just started a new job. I’ve hardly had time to make contact with every casual acquaintance I have.’ She gulped, but the sound was drowned out by the sibilant hiss of his indrawn breath.

Oh, God, that had come out all wrong and then some…!

‘Casual acquaintance,’ he said very softly and deadly silkily. Then, even softer, ‘Casual acquaintance. Tell me, Rowena, how do you say hello to people you know quite well?’

She closed her eyes as an image appeared in her mind’s eye of herself walking down the crowded New York street three months ago, surrounded by a seething mass of humanity. Maybe it had been the mild culture shock of moving to another city where she knew nobody, or maybe it had been the stress of proving herself, but she had never felt so alone in her life.

Then she’d seen him. She hadn’t even needed to get a proper look at that unmistakable profile—his innately elegant, long-legged stride would have been sufficient proof. Two men in the world couldn’t move that way. Without thinking she had barged through the people separating them, breaking every rule of pedestrian etiquette and probably bruising a few shins to get to him.

Waving her bag above her head, she’d shrieked his name like a demented banshee until she’d been hoarse. She’d almost been at his shoulder when he’d finally turned around and Rowena, her face flushed, breathing hard, had come to an abrupt halt.

Shock of recognition in his eyes had morphed into hot desire. An answering desire had shimmered hot and liquid through her.

‘You’re here,’ she said stupidly. ‘I can’t believe it.’

And then he kissed her.

‘Convinced now?’ he asked, when he lifted his head.

Rowena stared dizzily up into his face unable to focus properly—unable to do anything much except stare at him.

The native New Yorkers, a tolerant bunch and not easily surprised, had parted around the embracing couple.

‘I always knew you’d be a good kisser, you’ve got such a beautiful mouth.’ Her hands, pressed flat against the hard surface of his chest, felt his responsive rumble of laughter.

He continued to display his proficiency at kissing in the taxi, then in the lift going up to his hotel room. The kissing didn’t stop once the door had closed behind them but other things started, things she couldn’t even think about without blushing.

Hurtling back into the present, Rowena was still faced with Quinn’s anger at being called a casual acquaintance. ‘You caught me at a weak moment,’ she defended herself.

‘There was no catching involved—the way I recall it you did the running.’ He reached across and touched her chin with his forefinger.

‘And you wonder why I’ve been avoiding you,’ she said, jerking her chin away from his grip.

‘I thought that was all in my mind.’ Quinn spun around on the smooth surface of the desk until his legs were the wrong side of it—her side.

‘I knew it would be like this,’ she muttered, grabbing two handfuls of silvery fair hair and shaking her head from side to side. ‘I thought you understood New York was a mistake, not the start of something.’ Nothing that she had any intention of telling him about just now, anyhow.

‘The only mistake I made was allowing you to persuade me to leave.’

Rowena’s heart dropped as far as her narrow, expensively shod feet. His inflexible tone and grim expression suggested that he was about to compensate for that mistake.

She closed her eyes, incredibly frustrated by his unyielding, downright mule-headed attitude. ‘Talking to you is like…like talking to that wall!’

Which, if things went on like this, she’d be doing in next to no time. She could see it now—crazy fashion editor carted away by the men in white coats. How her enemies would love that…another fast-track hot shot hits the dust!

‘You want me,’ he insisted.

At least this was one subject he didn’t have any doubts about—he couldn’t be in the same room as her without knowing that Rowena craved his touch just as much as he did hers. This knowledge only increased his frustration. Hell, the sizzling, sexually fuelled static between them was nothing short of a fire hazard!

Rowena glared at him for about twenty seconds before her defiance deserted her. ‘That’s as maybe,’ she conceded, concentrating hard on controlling her wildly fluctuating complexion—women in her position did not blush like schoolgirls; neither did they ache inside the way she did.

Quinn’s grin had a worryingly predatory look to it.

‘No maybe about it.’

A small shrug of her slender shoulders conceded his cocky claim. ‘You’ve only yourself to blame—laying down rules and conditions,’ she brooded darkly. ‘Whatever happened to spontaneity and free love?’ She quivered, working herself into a resentful lather as she contemplated her bad luck. She’d found the lover of her dreams—a man not noted for his steadfast devotion—and he had to get all moralistic and possessive on her.

‘Free love?’ Quinn mused. ‘I’m trying to see you as a flower child, but it’s not easy,’ he admitted.

‘You’re nothing but a reformed rake!’ The old-fashioned term seemed to suit him oddly well—he definitely had the legs for tight-fitting Regency breeches as well.

Quinn’s lips quivered at this hot accusation. ‘Just for the record, in my book spontaneity is good, but you get nothing for free. You’ll have to learn to live with the fact I’m not available on a casual, nocturnal basis only. There are people who provide such services, I believe—for a price!’

Her hand flashed out but Quinn’s reflexes were faster. Rowena found her wrist enclosed in a steely grip. Feet braced on the floor, he drew her in between the confines of his iron-hard muscular thighs as he pulled her hand back down to her side, clicking his tongue in mocking disapproval.

‘I want to be part of your life, Rowena—an integral part.’ Rowena stopped struggling, at least physically. Her inner conflict was less easily subdued! Their eyes meshed and she instantly got herself lost in his sea green gaze. ‘I’ve no interest in the sort of hole-in-the-corner affair you were suggesting in New York.’

‘Private is not the same as sordid.’ Most men would have been flattered by the sort of civilised arrangement she had offered him—no complications, no emotional dramas.

‘I’m not good at subterfuge.’

Rowena’s bosom swelled with incredulous indignation. ‘There speaks the man who’d just conned his way into this building!’

‘If you hadn’t been so unreasonable I wouldn’t have needed to resort to less than open tactics.’

‘Dirty tactics, you mean,’ she retorted, pulling her wrist free from his grip and waving an admonitory finger in front of his nose. ‘We both know that when you want something there’s just about nothing you won’t do!’ she snapped furiously.

Quinn gazed levelly back at her, not the least disturbed by her heated indictment. He reached forward and ran a finger slowly down the soft curve of her cheek, his piercing eyes darkening as she flinched back as if burnt.

‘And at the moment I want you…’

Her angry flush faded with dramatic abruptness leaving Rowena marble pale. Her breath emerged as a shaky tremulous gasp. Where was the scornful put-down when she needed one?

‘Is that meant to be some sort of turn-on? Well, I’ve got news for you…’ It worked extremely well. ‘Your problem is you like everyone to know about your trophy girlfriends,’ she jeered hoarsely. ‘It makes you feel the big man to see yourself plastered all over the gossip columns.’

‘I think that’s slight exaggeration, Rowena, I barely rate a couple of lines in Country Life.’

‘Your false modesty makes me sick.’

‘You’ll get used to the idea, you know,’ he promised.

‘What idea?’

‘The idea of being part of a couple.’

‘And if I don’t?’

‘You don’t have any choice, angel.’

‘How do you figure that one?’

‘You need me.’

Rowena gasped. His arrogance was simply unbelievable! ‘Have you always been delusional?’

His expression abruptly softened as he assimilated the torment in her wide-spaced eyes. ‘You need me, about as much as I need you. See, I can do it, and I’ve had as little practice at it as you have. It hardly hurts at all to admit it. I’m going to teach you to say it,’ he promised.

Eyes wide with horror and lips clamped defiantly shut, she shook her head vigorously from side to side.

‘We’ll see, shall we?’

There was no challenge in his statement, just total, complete conviction—whether this conviction stemmed from a misplaced notion that she was female and therefore weak and malleable, or a belief in his own ability to bend anything or anyone to his will, Rowena didn’t know. She did know a challenge would have been much easier to deal with.

Rowena wanted to put him right, but she felt strangely disinclined to do anything, move, speak, breathe even—perhaps it had something to do with the almost narcotic quality of the combination of his level, deep voice and the sexily slumbrous gleam in his eyes.

‘I did knock, Rowena…’ Her PA’s tentative voice made Rowena start.

‘Yes, Bernice?’ she responded, putting as much clear space rapidly between herself and Quinn as was possible. Her mind wasn’t functioning with its usual clarity, but at least she wasn’t staring up at him like a hypnotised rabbit screaming ‘eat me’ any longer.

This was one of the reasons she hadn’t wanted to see him. He walked in a room and her wits flew out the nearest window, which made no sense! Rowena had experienced sexual attraction before and stayed firmly in charge of her feelings at every level—the person involved only knew about it if she wanted him to. With Quinn she didn’t have that luxury, she was clumsy, inarticulate and painfully needy.

‘There’s a call from your sister and she says it’s urgent…’

Rowena frowned. Holly had taken her new fiancé up to Scotland to show him off to their elderly grandparents who lived in a remote part of the country called Wester Ross.

‘Fine, I’ll take it, Bernice,’ Rowena replied to her normally discreet assistant who was shooting surreptitious looks in Quinn’s direction.

The young woman withdrew, blushing, when Quinn smiled at her.

‘Holly, it’s me…do you mind? This is private!’ she hissed, covering the mouthpiece and glaring across at Quinn.

‘Say hello to Holly for me,’ he requested, unperturbed by her hostility as he strolled to the far end of the room and began to read the titles on the spines of the files that filled the shelves there.

‘What? Yes, it is Quinn. No…yes, he is here. It doesn’t matter, I’ll explain later. What’s wro—?’ Rowena grew silent as her sister broke into impetuous speech the other end of the line.

Rowena had her back turned to him, but Quinn could almost feel her distress as the slim, supple line of her back grew tense. Her next faltering exclamation confirmed his suspicions—Holly didn’t have good news.

‘Oh, God, no!’ Rowena raised her hand to her mouth, compressing the quivering line of her lips—not Gran!

The image of Elspeth Frazer floated before her eyes. Five feet nothing with rosy cheeks, startling blue eyes and snow-white hair, she could have come straight from the glossy illustrations in a book of fairy tales. The illusion of a cosy grandmother was shattered the instant Elspeth opened her mouth. The octogenarian had never suffered fools gladly and, not only did she have a bawdy sense of humour, she possessed a will of iron.

Elspeth had been a consultant paediatrician in the early fifties, when women consultants had been very few and far between. Rowena had left Holly to follow in Gran’s footsteps and become a doctor, but nonetheless Elspeth Frazer had been her own inspiration, the person she thought of when the going got tough. Rowena could never understand how a woman like her grandmother, who had fought so hard to get where she wanted, had turned her back on everything and buried herself in general practice in the back of beyond. She’d eventually asked.

‘Why, I saw your grandfather, my dear, and I loved him.’

Perplexed, a much younger Rowena had asked, ‘Well couldn’t he have come to live in the City?’

‘He could, but he’d have been unhappy.’

‘Well, I’d never do that for a man!’

‘We’ll see…’

Rowena heard the familiar soft accent in her head and her eyes filled with tears. She blinked back the moisture and forced herself to ask the thing she didn’t want to.

‘Is she…? Do they think…? Don’t cry, Holly, and don’t get too technical,’ she pleaded as her doctor sister began to go into details about the suspected stroke that their grandmother had suffered that morning.

She wasn’t aware that Quinn was beside her until she felt the warm imprint of his hand on her shoulder. No matter what the state of their personal relationship, she wasn’t about to reject his support. Rowena was proud, but not stupid—Quinn was the sort of man whom people automatically turned to in a crisis.

She made no objection as he slid a chair under her shaky legs and urged her gently down into it.

She held the receiver a little way from her ear. ‘She’s crying again.’ She gulped, raising tear-filled eyes to his face. ‘Holly never cries,’ she added, her own lower lip quivering madly.

‘Let me have it.’

Rowena relinquished the phone without a second thought. For once she didn’t resent Quinn’s air of calm authority.

‘Hello, Holly, sweetheart, it’s Quinn,’ she heard him say warmly to her sister. ‘Yes, I know, but…is Niall there? Good, put him on. Hi, Niall, it’s Quinn.’

Rowena, her head in her hands, could hear the male rumble as Holly’s fiancé responded at length. Quinn didn’t interrupt him. ‘Yes, I get the picture. It’ll be quicker if we fly up. Can you organise some transport from Inverness? Right, I’ll ring when I’ve got more details.’

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