In Mcgillivray's Bed

And if he believed that, next thing you knew she’d be selling him a bridge from Nassau to Miami.

“There is no room,” Hugh said firmly. “It’s just a little beach house. Not your style.”

“How do you know my style?”

“I know women.”

“Oh, really?”

The doubt that dripped from her words infuriated him. He did know women. They’d been coming on to him since he was fourteen years old. And generally speaking they liked what they saw. It was only Sydney St. John who looked at him as if she’d found him on the sole of her shoe.

“Like I said,” he told her gruffly, “I’m not your style.”

“I can stand anything for a few days,” she informed him.

“Well, I can’t. And there is nothing you can say that will—” He broke off at the sound of a shrill, happy voice calling his name from the end of the quay. He gritted his teeth and shut his eyes. “Damn it to hell.”

Sydney St. John looked at him, startled. “What?”

“Nothing.” He finished tossing the last of the gear onto the dock, grabbed his bag with one hand and took Syd’s arm none too gently with the other. Then he turned toward the woman approaching them and managed a casual and determinedly indifferent, “Hey, there, Lisa. How you doing?”

Lisa flashed him her beautiful, dimpled smile even as she looked curiously at the woman he held firmly at his side. “I’m all right,” she said, her voice a little hesitant for once. “But I was a little lonely. I thought you’d get back sooner than this.”

“I told you I had, um…business,” Hugh said vaguely.

“Business?” The smile wavered as Lisa looked at Syd. “Of course,” she said, slotting Syd into that role. “I didn’t realize you were bringing a client back with you.” She gave Syd a polite smile, then turned back to Hugh. “I made conch chowder this evening. I figured I’d bring it over when you got back.”

He shook his head. “Thanks, Lisa. I appreciate the thought. But we’re fine.”

Lisa’s smile faltered as he had hoped it would. “We?” Perplexed, she looked from Hugh to the woman standing beside him, the woman whose wrist he had a death grip on.

“We,” Hugh confirmed. He let go of her wrist long enough to loop an arm over her shoulders. “This is Syd—” he began, but Sydney cut him off before he got to her last name.

“I’m very pleased to meet you,” she said smoothly and offered Lisa a hand.

Lisa looked at it warily, but finally shook it, giving the quilt—and the bits of bare Sydney she could see—an assessing look. “You, too, um, Syd,” she said doubtfully even as she managed to paste the smile back on. “I’m Lisa. Are you staying at the Mirabelle? Or the Moonstone?”

“No,” Hugh said before Sydney St. John could say anything at all. “She’s staying with me.”

If she was astonished at his sudden about-face, at least Syd didn’t say a word. It was what she wanted, after all. She’d practically begged him to let her stay with him, hadn’t she?

So he was doing them both a favor.

Roland Wheeler Dealer would get a few days of worrying about whether he’d drowned the boss’s daughter, and Hugh would have a beautiful sexy woman living in his house.

If that didn’t convince Lisa once and for all that he was not interested in her, he didn’t know what would.

Yes, of course Sydney St. John was a little bit whacko and more than a little bit gorgeous. And yes, all his hormones had sat up and taken note.

So what? He could handle it.

It was one night. Maybe two. At the most, three.

How bad could it possibly be?

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