Red-Hot Affairs: The Crown Affair / Craving Her Enemy's Touch / A Lone Star Love Affair

‘Nice place.’

‘Thank you,’ he said coolly.

‘Fabulous detail on the gabling.’

‘Really.’

‘Absolutely. And beautiful—er—grounds.’

‘Naturally.’

‘Are you the gardener?’

Matt frowned. The gardener? Hah. ‘I’m the owner.’ As if she didn’t know.

Her eyes widened. ‘Oh.’ And then she gave him a smile that had the ground beneath his feet tilting all over again before he could tell it not to. ‘Well, that’s even better.’

‘Of course it is.’

She frowned and blinked. ‘What?’

Oh, she did the innocent thing very well. ‘What do you want?’ he said.

Laura’s smile faltered. ‘If it’s not too much trouble, I was wondering if I could come over and take some photos. Of your house,’ she added.

Too much trouble? Matt’s jaw clenched. The complete and utter gall of the woman.

‘It would only be for a second,’ she added, as if sensing his reluctance. ‘You know, just a few shots. If you wouldn’t mind …’

Matt’s tenuous grip on his patience snapped. ‘Yes, I do mind, and no, you can’t.’

The smile slid from her face and she recoiled as if he’d slapped her. For a moment she just stood there, staring at him in shock, her face draining of colour so fast he thought she might be about to pass out.

Matt steeled himself against the brief stab of guilt and the flash of distress in her eyes and told himself not to be so idiotically soft.

What the hell had she expected? That he’d welcome her into his house with open arms? That he’d want to be photographed lounging on the sofa in his drawing room? That he’d roll over and offer her a double-page spread of the new ruler of Sassania ‘at home’?

If she really thought that, she could think again.

Laura blinked a couple of times and then pulled her shoulders back. ‘Oh. Right,’ she said blankly. ‘Well. Sorry to have bothered you. Enjoy your weekend.’

Like that was a possibility now.

As she gave him a vague nod and turned to walk back in the direction she had presumably come from, Matt’s hand shot out and clamped around her upper arm. ‘Not so fast.’

CHAPTER TWO

WHAT the hell?

Laura felt Matt’s fingers dig into her arm and went rigid as alarm flooded through her.

Well, alarm and a whole lot of something else. But alarm was what she decided to channel at that particular moment. Because he might have eyes the colour of dark molten chocolate and thick brown hair that her fingers itched to thread through. He might have a voice that made her think of whisky and honey and warm nights in front of a fire. And he might have a body that she longed to get her hands on.

But he was clearly a psychopath.

All she’d wanted was a bit of a snoop and a few lousy shots of his house, for goodness’ sake. Anyone would think she’d been after his soul.

‘Ow,’ she muttered, wincing and trying to wriggle away from beneath his fingers.

His grip loosened and she pulled back and rubbed her arm where her skin burned. If she had any sense whatsoever she’d be spinning on her heel and racing back to the safety of her cottage. For although she’d been drooling over his house for weeks, at no point had she considered the fact that its owner would be anything other than congenial and cooperative.

Hah. How wrong could you get?

Laura glanced up to find him glowering at her and nearly swooned at the fierceness of his glare. Whatever his problem was, and he clearly had many, she wanted nothing to do with it. She had enough problems of her own. The biggest one at the moment being the treacherous way her body appeared to respond to him.

When he’d taken her hand she’d nearly leapt a foot in the air from the jolt of electricity that shot up her arm. And then when he’d looked her up and down, so thoroughly, as if he could see right through her clothes, every inch of her body had burned in the wake of his gaze. The heat that had whipped through her when she’d been ogling him through her binoculars had been nothing compared to the scorching heat that was thundering through her now.

In the face of such blatant hostility her reaction to him was perverse.

What exactly was it about that penetrating stare of his that pinned her to the spot? Why were her insides going all squirmy and quivery? And more importantly, why wasn’t she taking advantage of the fact that he’d released her, and running off just as fast as her size sevens would carry her?

That was what the old Laura, the one who avoided confrontation like the plague and never said no, would have done. And despite the assertiveness course she’d recently completed, there was enough of the old her still floating around to make her long to run and bury herself under her duvet.

But scarpering in the face of confrontation wasn’t an option any longer, was it? Laura squared her jaw. No. Now she dealt with stuff. Or at least that was the idea. Up until now she hadn’t had the opportunity to practise.

Channelling everything she could remember from the course, Laura took a deep breath, stuck her chin up and returned his glare. ‘What do you want now?’

‘Who do you work for?’ he snapped.

She blinked and inwardly flinched. ‘That’s none of your business.’

‘What?’ His eyebrows shot up.

Laura bristled. ‘Well, who do you think you are hauling me around and demanding to know who I work for?’ She tilted her head and shot him a defiant stare. Her tutor would be proud. ‘You know, your small-talk skills leave a lot to be desired.’

Matt’s face tightened. ‘I’m not interested in small talk. Do you or do you not work for Celebrity magazine?’

Laura frowned. Maybe the mushrooms she’d eaten for breakfast had had a touch of the magic about them, because this conversation had her baffled. ‘Of course I don’t. Currently I don’t work for anyone.’

‘Freelance?’ he snapped.

Made redundant, but there was no way she was going into that. ‘On sabbatical.’

‘Right,’ he drawled, clearly not believing her for a second. ‘Then why were you watching me?’

Uh-oh. Laura’s mouth opened. Then closed. And then to her dismay she felt her cheeks begin to burn. ‘What makes you think anyone was watching you?’ she said, aiming for a blank look in the hope that it would counteract the blush. If asked, she’d attribute that to the heat.

Matt raised an eyebrow. ‘Well, let me see,’ he said dryly. ‘How about a pair of binoculars glinting in the sun and pointing straight in my direction?’

Oh, rats. Laura’s heart plummeted. So much for thinking she’d been discreet. She shouldn’t have pushed her luck and indulged for so long.

Her brain raced through her options and she realised depressingly that she had no choice but to confess. Since she’d already told him she’d come looking for him she couldn’t even bluff her way out of it.

She ran a hand through her hair and straightened her spine. ‘OK, fine. But technically I wasn’t actually—’

‘I’ll ask you one more time,’ he said flatly, his eyes narrowing. ‘Which scurrilous rag do you work for?’

Which scurrilous rag? Laura’s hand fell to her side and she blinked in confusion. What on earth was he talking about? Perhaps she ought to suggest he get out of the heat. What with all that bending and twisting while log-chopping, the sun must have gone to his head. Something had certainly gone to hers and she hadn’t even been in the sun. ‘I don’t work for a rag, scurrilous or otherwise,’ she said. ‘I’m an architect.’

A flicker of surprise flashed across his face and then vanished. ‘That’s one I haven’t heard before.’

Laura’s hackles shot up. ‘It’s not a joke.’

‘You’re absolutely right.’

‘Why would you think I was a journalist?’

‘I don’t think, I know you’re a journalist.’

Her mouth dropped open at the scorn in his voice and she had to dig deep and drum up the techniques to Embrace Confrontation to fight back the temptation to quail. ‘You’re insane.’

A muscle in his jaw hammered. ‘So explain the binoculars.’

Laura planted her hands on her hips and glared at him. ‘I was about to when you interrupted me.’

Matt’s expression took on a ‘this’ll be good’ kind of look and indignation simmered in her veins. Why the hell was she bothering? Oh, yes, the house.

Laura tightened her grip on her manners. ‘I was going to clarify that I wasn’t actually watching you.’ Much. ‘I was really eyeing up your house.’

He stared at her. ‘My house?’ he said, his brows snapping together. ‘Why?’

‘Because it’s the best example of seventeenth century architecture I’ve ever seen. Certainly round here.’

‘That’s not uncommon knowledge,’ he drawled.

Laura couldn’t help bristling at his sceptical tone. ‘Undoubtedly,’ she said tightly. ‘However I have more than a passing interest. I specialise in the restoration and conservation of ancient buildings, and I’ve been coveting yours for weeks.’

‘Is that so?’

Matt folded his arms across his chest and stared at her. For so long and so intently that she began to drown in the heat of his gaze. She might be churning with indignation, but that didn’t stop her head swimming, her knees turning watery and her stomach fluttering. Laura silently cursed her treacherous body and hoped to God he couldn’t see the effect he was having on her. ‘Absolutely,’ she said with a coolness that came from who knew where.

Matt tilted his head. Raised an eyebrow. Gave her a lazily lethal smile that zoomed down the entire length of her body and curled her toes, and quite suddenly her skin began to prickle.

‘If you’re an architect as you say you are,’ he said, leaning forwards a fraction and lowering his voice, ‘prove it.’

Prove it? Prove it?

For a moment, all Laura could hear was what sounded like the faint hum of a tractor somewhere in the distance. But that could well have been the blood rushing in her ears.

‘What?’ she said, giving her head a quick shake. Presumably she’d been so distracted by the muscles of Matt’s arms flexing as he crossed them she must have misheard. Been hypnotised by his eyes or something. Or maybe he just had a truly warped sense of humour and was joking. Because what kind of man went round accusing random strangers of being something they weren’t and then demanding they prove it?

‘If you expect me to believe you’re an architect and want nothing more than access to my house, prove it.’

Laura blinked and stared at him. Nope. Gorgeous forearms and mesmerising eyes aside, she hadn’t misheard. And he wasn’t joking. That he meant what he said was etched into the stony expression on his face.

Her pulse raced. What exactly was his problem? Was he on some sort of lord-of-the-manor power trip? Was he completely paranoid? And frankly, did she even want to venture inside his house when he was obviously one pane short of a window?

The rational side of her, the one that was seething with indignation, pointed out that she had no need to continue this idiotic conversation. It was a balmy Saturday morning. She had plenty of things to be getting on with. Like finding a job and sorting out her catastrophe of a life. She really didn’t need this kind of headache, and no mansion was worth this amount of hassle.

However, the professional part of her, the one that had recently been so ruthlessly dismissed, so flatly rejected by the company she’d worked for, clamoured for the opportunity to justify her abilities.

The two sides battled for a nanosecond but the sting of rejection was still so fresh, the wound still so raw, there was no contest.

Laura pulled her shoulders back and stuck her chin up. He wanted proof? Then he’d get it. More of it than anyone not fascinated with old buildings could possibly want.

‘Fine,’ she said, hauling out her notebook and studying the notes she’d made over the past six weeks. ‘From my preliminary investigations I’d say your house was probably built some time between the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The main structure has two storeys and, I believe, an attic.’

Possibly with a mad relative in occupancy to accompany the one who inhabited the rest.

‘It’s built out of squared and dressed limestone,’ she continued, ‘and has a stone slate roof. I believe it used to be a quadrangle, but it’s now “h” shaped with wings projecting forwards right and left of the central gabled porch. The right hand wing has been substantially rebuilt at the back. I’d say in the mid-nineteenth century.’

She paused to take a breath and glanced up from the pages to find Matt staring at her, a slightly stunned expression on his handsome face.

Good. That would teach him to leap to absurd conclusions and engage in all that sceptical eyebrow raising. And she had plenty more where that came from. She hadn’t even begun on the windows.

She arched a challenging eyebrow of her own. ‘Would you like me to go on?’

Matt frowned. ‘No. That’s fine.’

Stuffing the notebook back in her pocket, Laura pulled her camera off her shoulder and switched it on. ‘Then perhaps you’d like to see some pictures?’ she said. ‘I have one hundred and thirty photos of Regency Bath. I could take you through each one of them if you like. In great detail. I’m very thorough.

And extremely enthusiastic. Honestly I could talk about them for hours.’

The frown deepened. ‘Some other time perhaps. I’m convinced.’

Bully for him. ‘I’m so glad,’ she said witheringly, hauling her camera back on her shoulder and shooting him a cool glance. ‘So why would you think I was a journalist?’

‘Experience of binoculars.’

‘Are you really that newsworthy?’

His mouth twisted into a wry smile. ‘I have been.’

She racked her brains to place his face, but drew a blank. He probably dated supermodels or something. Poor old supermodels. ‘Who are you?’

‘Ever read the papers?’

Laura shook her head. ‘Not often. Too much doom and gloom. Unless you’ve appeared in Architecture Tomorrow, I’m unlikely to have heard of you.’ So there.

‘How refreshing.’

Now she was naïve as well as everything else? Wow, he really knew how to make women feel special.

‘How patronising,’ she fired back, before she could remind herself that he still held all the cards and she was supposed to be being charming and polite.

Matt didn’t say anything. Just looked at her steadily with those dark eyes of his until the urge to kick herself became almost impossible to contain.

Rats. Had she gone too far? Been too demanding, and blown it? Laura caught her lip and frowned. Damn, that assertiveness course had a lot to answer for.

Then the glimmer of a smile hovered at his mouth and the tension that she hadn’t realised she’d been feeling fled her body. ‘It appears I owe you an apology.’

Phew. Thank God for that. She hadn’t blown it. ‘It appears you owe me an apology?’ she said, her eyebrows lifting a fraction as she gave him a broad smile.

He shrugged and shoved his hands in his pockets. ‘More than one probably. You’ll have to bear with me, though, I’m a little rusty.’

That was the understatement of the century. ‘An apology would be good,’ Laura said, deciding to capitalise on his obvious unease and press home her advantage. ‘An invitation to take a look around your house would be better.’

Invite her to take a look round his house?

The faint smile tugging at Matt’s lips vanished.

That was absolutely out of the question.

Apart from the invasion of his privacy, with his judgement so skewed and his behaviour so unpredictable, who knew what might happen once she was inside his house and within stumbling distance of a bed?

Matt frowned as his mind raced. He was usually so measured. So careful in his decisions. He never went off the rails. Never made mistakes. So why now?

Maybe the memories the house held were more unsettling than he’d thought. Maybe the stress of the past six months had got too much. Maybe he was cracking up.

Because why else would he have leapt to the wrong conclusion and rushed over here? Why else would he have completely overreacted and lashed out at her? And why else would he be finding it so hard to keep his hands off her?

The flush of colour in her cheeks, the flashing of her eyes and the heaving of her breasts made him want to behave in the kind of prehistoric way that he doubted would go down well with a twenty-first-century woman. Even when he’d thought she was a journalist and had been burning with fury, he’d still wanted to throw her over his shoulder and cart her off to the nearest bedroom.

Which was never going to happen. Even if he’d wanted to explore the attraction that sizzled between them he didn’t have the time and really didn’t need the complication.

Ignoring the sliver of regret that pierced his chest, Matt set his jaw and pulled himself together. A tower of strength, that was him. Rock hard. Implacable.

Above all, he was absolutely not cracking up and it was about time he proved it. Giving Laura a polite smile, he hardened his heart. ‘I’m afraid that’s completely out of the question.’

Oh.

Laura’s smile faded and her shoulders sagged a little at Matt’s flatly delivered response. A flood of disappointment washed through her and a lump formed in her throat. Dammit, she could have sworn he’d been about to agree to her request. She’d thought she’d had it so in the bag.

But as she stared up at him, taking in the rigid expression on his face and his unyielding stance, it was blindingly obvious that Matt had made his decision, and it was equally clear that nothing she said would make him change his mind. He looked unforgiving, unbending and as immovable as granite.

She swallowed back the lump and inwardly shrugged. Ah, well. She’d tried. That was the main thing.

She’d given it her best shot and been defeated. Matt clearly valued his privacy and definitely wanted to be left alone. He’d made his decision and she’d respect that. So her curiosity would remain unsatisfied, but that didn’t matter. There were plenty of other equally interesting houses she could visit if she felt like it. It really was no big deal.

She was on the point of turning on her heel and leaving when her conscience suddenly decided to wake up and demand to know what the hell she thought she was doing.

Hang on a minute. She froze as her head began to pound. Was she really going to give in just like that? After all she’d been through? After all the self-analysis she’d done? After all the money and energy she’d spent on that course?

What was she? A wimp or a warrior?

Feeling determination begin to course through her, Laura stiffened her resolve. Hadn’t she vowed to banish her inner wimp and embrace her inner warrior?

She had. At length. So no way was she going to let the wimp win.

This wasn’t about the house any more. This was about her, and the promise she’d made to herself to shuck off the old Laura and embrace the new.

Matt might be standing there like Everest, but he was still a man, flesh and blood just like anyone else. Well, not quite like anyone else, she thought, letting her gaze roam over him and feeling her temperature rocket, but he was bound to have an Achilles heel somewhere. All she had to do was find it.

She’d get what she came for. By whatever means possible.

Why wasn’t she spinning on her heel and going?

Matt watched the emotions play across Laura’s face and his frown deepened. He’d made it perfectly clear his answer was no, so why was she still hovering there?

More to the point, why was he still hovering there? Just because she was running her gaze over him didn’t mean he had to stay until she’d finished, did it?

‘Oh,’ she said, her teeth catching on her lower lip as she finally lifted her face and batted her eyelids up at him.

Oh, no, Matt thought, steeling himself against the nugget of guilt that suddenly started tugging at his conscience. He was not going to be swayed by the disappointment swimming in the big blue eyes shimmering up at him. Or distracted by the wet red pout of her mouth.

No way. The guilt and the desire could get lost. He pulled his hands out of his pockets and dragged them through his hair. Dammit, this was precisely why he should have been the one to leave.

‘Please,’ she said, looking up at him from beneath her lashes, the pout curving into an enticing smile.

Matt’s gaze dropped to her mouth before he could stop it and he was thwacked by a vision of those lips roaming over his body, her hair fanning out and tickling his skin as she moved down him, her hands stroking everywhere. At the force of the desire that slammed through him his mouth went dry and his head swam.

And for the life of him he couldn’t remember why letting her loose in his house was a bad idea.

‘OK,’ he heard himself say. ‘Sure. Why not?’

‘Great,’ she said, the disappointment vanishing from her eyes and her smile switching from enticing to strangely triumphant. ‘Lead the way.’

Why not? Why not? God. He was definitely cracking up. Wishing he could give himself a good slap, Matt muttered a ‘Follow me,’ turned on his heel and marched off.

CHAPTER THREE

WELL, that had been something of a surprise, thought Laura, resisting the urge to punch the air and setting off in Matt’s wake instead. Having never employed such wily tactics before, she hadn’t really expected the pout and the eyelash flutter to work. But while she might be faintly stunned that they had, Matt, judging by the merciless pace he set as he stalked along the path, was fuming.

By the time they reached the front door of the house Laura was hot, panting and, without doubt, hideously red in the face. Matt, on the other hand, hadn’t broken a sweat.

If she was being brutally honest, her current breathlessness wasn’t entirely due to the unexpected exercise. She’d trotted along behind him, her gaze fixed to his lithe muscular frame as if magnetised, and her body had begun to hum with something other than adrenalin. The easy way he moved and the purposefulness of his stride had her thinking about all the other things he might do purposefully and easily, and her head had gone all fuzzy. She’d scraped her hair back into a messy ponytail in the faint hope it might cool her down but it hadn’t worked.

‘Where would you like to start?’ he snapped, dropping his keys onto the console table and whipping round to face her.

With the removal of his T-shirt ideally, Laura decided, totally distracted by the rippling muscles in his forearms as he crossed them over his chest. First she’d slide her hands beneath it and draw it over his head. Once she’d dealt with that she’d run her hands down his torso and tackle his belt. Then she’d undo the buttons of his jeans, hook her hands over the waistband and ease them down over his hips before pushing him down onto a deep soft sofa that was bound to be lurking somewhere around the place. And then she’d sink to her knees and—

‘Laura?’

Laura blinked and hurtled back to reality. God. She was doing it again. At the heat that rushed through her, her cheeks began to burn even more fiercely.

For the first time since she’d decided to become an architect she thanked God for the eighteenth century window tax that had bricked up thousands of windows and ultimately led to dark halls across the country. Including, to her eternal gratitude, this one.

‘Yes. Sorry.’ She blinked and swallowed and gathered her scattered wits. The house. He was talking about the house. Of course. ‘The—ah—attic, I think,’ she said. As far away from Matt and his disturbing effect on her equilibrium as possible.

‘I’ll take you to it,’ he said, heading for the stairs.

What? Alarm knotted her stomach. He was planning to accompany her? Laura shivered at the thought. With him watching her every move she’d never get anything done.