AMANDA BROWNING - The Playboy's Proposal

The sound of a polite cough gathered her scattered wits into a seething whole, and Kathryn careened back into the present with a gasp. She had an instant to see the answering passion in those blue eyes before the instinct of self-preservation took over and she swiftly hid her thoughts behind practised calm. She eased her hand away just as Agnes brought in a tray of coffee, and she turned to the woman, grateful for the breathing space.

Joel Kendrick had proved to be more than a little overwhelming close up. Always before she had had the ability to keep a cool head, but this man had changed that completely. It shook her, and sent a frisson of alarm through her system. Drew was right, this man was different. She had an inkling of what he could do to her, and it was distinctly unsettling.

‘Can I help you with that, Agnes?’ she asked in a voice that thankfully gave away nothing of her inner turmoil.

The housekeeper smiled at her. ‘Thank you, my dear. If you’d just move that vase to one side… There.’ She set the tray down whilst Kathryn found another spot for the vase. When she straightened up, she glanced at Drew. ‘Have you eaten, Mr Templeton?’

‘Not since this morning, Agnes,’ Drew admitted.

It was a cue for Kathryn to shoot Joel a mocking look. She might be all of a twitter inside, but not for the world would she let anyone know it, least of all the cause. Keeping up the appearance of normality was suddenly very important. Having started out flirtatiously, she couldn’t now back off without giving too much away.

‘He said we couldn’t spare the time. Food was weighed in the balance against your temper, and found wanting,’ she taunted gently, not averse to saying what she thought. She was here to do him a favour. Her livelihood didn’t rest upon his goodwill. Besides, she felt the need to goad him a little, because the best form of defence was often attack. Until she had had time to think, it seemed the most appropriate thing to do.

Joel’s response was to raise an eyebrow, but he said nothing to her, merely turned to his housekeeper. ‘You’d better bring dinner forward, Agnes. I’d hate to see such a beautiful woman fainting away.’

‘Very good, Master Joel,’ Agnes agreed. ‘I’ve put Mr Templeton in his usual room, and I thought it best to put the young lady in the rose room.’

Joel’s expression became wry, but he smiled fondly at the elderly woman. ‘Quite right. The rose room does have some of the best views.’

‘And it’s on the other side of the house from you,’ Agnes added pointedly, causing Kathryn to hastily smother a laugh. ‘Now, if you’d give me a hand with the cases, Mr Templeton, I can get the food on the table sooner,’ she declared in her motherly fashion, and bustled out again.

‘Master Joel?’ Kathryn asked in amusement, after Drew had obediently followed the other woman from the room. She had recovered her equilibrium, and felt more able to hold her own with him now that her pulse had steadied.

Joel pulled a wry face. ‘Agnes used to be my nanny. She’s been with my family for many years, and nobody wanted to see her go, so her position has changed several times. She was companion to my mother before becoming my housekeeper. She’s more like one of the family now.’

Kathryn felt a curl of warmth grow inside her at his explanation. It showed, she was glad to notice, that there was a softer side to him. ‘I like that.’ Her grandfather, her mother’s father, treated his servants as something below his notice. His only interest in their welfare was in how it would affect him.

‘You approve?’

‘I always approve of kindness. My grandfather would call it foolish sentimentality,’ she admitted regretfully. ‘You don’t keep somebody on when they’re past their usefulness.’

‘Your grandfather, if you’ll forgive me for saying so, is a fool.’

Kathryn smiled wryly. ‘Blunt, but true. He’s a cold man. I’ll never understand how my grandmother came to marry him, but it’s no mystery to me why she left. I’m very like her, so I’m told.’

Joel raised an eyebrow questioningly. ‘Don’t you know?’

‘He won’t have a picture of her in the house,’ she explained evenly. ‘She humiliated him, you see, by leaving. I used to think the reason he didn’t like me was because I reminded him of her.’ Childhood visits to her grandfather’s house had been far from pleasant.

‘But you don’t think that now?’

She smiled and shook her head. ‘The truth is it isn’t in him to love or be loved.’

‘Whereas you are eminently loveable,’ he declared with a decidedly rakish gleam lighting up his eyes again.

Barely recovered from the last time, the nerves in Kathryn’s stomach quivered in reaction, but she laughed and shot him an old-fashioned look. ‘Do you think flattery is going to get you somewhere?’ she asked, sounding far too breathless to her own ears, but thankfully Joel didn’t appear to notice.

His grin was charmingly lopsided. ‘A man has to live in hope.’

Kathryn groaned silently. Everything about him pleased her rioting senses. It was amazing she was still on her feet, considering her knees felt like jelly. Still she battled on. Tipping her head to one side, she eyed him thoughtfully. ‘Are you really as good as they say you are?’

He placed a hand on his chest, whilst a smile flickered round the edges of his mouth. ‘In all humility, I couldn’t possibly say.’

Oh, Lord, just let me get through the next few minutes without turning into a gibbering idiot, she prayed silently, as the power of his charm hit her yet more devastatingly. ‘Meaning, if I want to know, I’ll have to find out for myself?’

His shrug was careless, but his eyes glittered invitingly. ‘There’s nothing to compare with first-hand knowledge. You might find it…interesting.’

She was sure she would. This was seduction on the grand scale, and, despite her floundering senses, she met it with a gurgling laugh. ‘I’m sure it would be educational, but there’s always the danger of the commodity being overpriced.’

‘Trust me,’ Joel urged throatily. ‘I always do my very best to give value for money.’

‘Hmm,’ she murmured consideringly, whilst the nerves in her stomach fluttered around like demented butterflies. Oh, he was good. He was very good. All he’d done was utter a few innuendoes and she was quivering like a jelly because her mind had filled in the gaps with vivid pictures that definitely needed censoring.

‘I’ve a feeling the woman who mashed your computer felt just a little short-changed,’ she observed ironically, and Joel’s smile vanished like magic. She blinked, surprised to find she had hit a nerve. So the man was vulnerable after all.

‘She took the relationship too seriously,’ he declared shortly, and Kathryn’s heart lurched as she took in the message. She knew it wasn’t specifically aimed at her, but it might as well have been. Her nerves steadied as she heeded the warning shot across her bows.

‘Perhaps she didn’t intend to. Perhaps she fell in love with you,’ she suggested, and her lips parted on a soft gasp as her statement brought a chilly glitter to his eyes.

‘I didn’t ask her to,’ he added grimly, and she laughed chidingly,

‘Nobody asks to fall in love, they just do,’ she argued, stating what most people accepted as universal, but Joel looked at her steadily.

‘I don’t, and I never intend to. I make no secret of it.’

Kathryn felt a chill wind brush past her and shivered faintly because he had sounded so adamant. ‘How can you be so certain you’ll never fall in love?’ she asked curiously. It seemed to her a rash statement to make.

‘Because in order for it to happen you have to believe in it, and I don’t believe in love,’ he told her firmly, but she saw the flaw in his argument immediately.

‘You love Agnes,’ she said softly, and his eyes narrowed.

‘That’s different. The kind of love we’re talking about between a man and a woman doesn’t exist.’

The flat statement, in direct opposition to her own belief, couldn’t pass without argument. ‘There are countless millions of people out there who would disagree with you. They can’t all be wrong.’

He dismissed them, and her, with a shrug. ‘If they want to believe in fairy tales, I won’t stop them.’

Kathryn shook her head sadly. ‘You know, beliefs like that are likely to get shot down in flames. It wouldn’t surprise me if one day love hit you right between the eyes and proved you wrong.’

Joel laughed out loud, his good humour restored as quickly as it had departed. ‘I won’t be holding my breath. And don’t you let those rose-coloured glasses of yours trip you up. I wouldn’t want to see all that beauty spoilt.’

Kathryn smiled at him confidently. ‘It won’t be. You see, I happen to believe the man for me is out there somewhere. I just haven’t met him yet.’

‘And in the meantime?’

She laughed, her shrug a masterful touch. ‘In the meantime, I enjoy searching, because there are interesting stops along the way.’

He stepped heart-stoppingly closer. ‘Like coming here to sort out my computer?’

His closeness didn’t make thinking easier. Still, she managed to find a chirpy reply. ‘Exactly. If I hadn’t said I’d help Drew, who knows when I would have met another Big Bad Wolf?’

‘You’re not afraid of me?’

‘Should I be? Do you intend to devour me?’ she challenged scoffingly, knowing she wasn’t the least bit afraid of him.

The fires in his eyes sent out sparks. ‘The idea becomes more enticing by the minute. Doesn’t it?’ he charged softly, the question heavy with meaning, and her breath caught as her stomach twisted with a powerful surge of desire.

Her lips trembled faintly, drawing his eyes. Crazy as it was, her flesh tingled as if he had actually touched her. Warning bells went off in her head. ‘I think this is where I should protest that we have only just met.’

Reaching out, he drew a finger lightly across her lips, setting up a tingle she felt to her core. ‘Maybe we have, but it took only a second for both of us to know we want each other.’

Without warning he had brought the unspoken out into the open and her brows rose. Instinct put her on the defensive. ‘Do we know it?’ she charged mockingly, and he nodded.

‘Oh, yes, and I give you fair warning. When I want something, I usually get it.’

Her throat closed over and she had to swallow hard to answer. ‘It never does anyone any good to get everything they want,’ she pointed out with creditable calmness.

His smile was pure seduction. ‘Resist it if you want. It makes victory even sweeter.’

Her heart tripped. Like a big cat sensing its prey’s vulnerability, he was trying to outflank her. She couldn’t allow that to happen. ‘Such confidence! You could lose, you know.’

‘I could, but I’m going to do everything in my power to ensure that I don’t.’

Kathryn gasped. ‘Your arrogance is incredible!’

‘My lovemaking is better,’ he returned sexily, and sent her defences scattering to the four winds.

Wow! This man had all the weapons, and then some. Taking a steadying breath, Kathryn urged her fluttering heart to be still. Drew was right; this man was dangerous. If he could make her defences crumble without really trying, what would happen if and when he did try? It was more than time to beat a strategic retreat.

‘I’ll have to take your word on that. For the moment I’m more interested in freshening up before dinner. Agnes has put me in the rose room, isn’t that right?’ she said, with all the composure she could muster.