A Delicious Deception Read Online Free PDF

thought, in letting her tongue run away with her.
    He laughed. ‘No.’ The engine died under the portentous turn of the ignition key. ‘Of course, if you were hoping I was …’
    Every nerve in her body seemed to pull like overstretched rubber bands. There was a time, she thought, when she was young and blinded by his looks and his devastating persona, that her heart would have leapt in wild anticipation of what he might be planning, not thumping in screaming rejection as it was doing now. Or was it? she startled herself by wondering suddenly, deciding not to go there.
    Turning to him with her cheeks scorched scarlet, she said pointedly, ‘Are you always so sure of yourself?’
    He laughed again, under his breath this time. ‘Are you?’
    Her own question, lobbed back at her, left her speechless for a moment.
    With his bent elbow on the steering wheel, a thumb andforefinger supporting his chin, his thick lashes were drawn down as he studied her reflectively, giving her every ounce of his attention. Dear heaven! What she wouldn’t have given for this much attention from him seven years ago!
    Berating herself for even thinking along those lines, unable to meet his eyes, she still couldn’t stop herself appreciating his classic and magnificent bone structure, the chiselled sweep of his forehead and cheekbones, that proud flaring nose, that tantalising dent in his chin …
    ‘I’m just finding it hard,’ he expressed, shocking her back to her senses, ‘determining why any woman would accept a strange man’s hospitality—even if he is driving a Bentley—unless she’s either very foolish or hoping to gain something out of it.’
    Of course. Rayne bit the inside of her cheek.
    ‘I suppose in normal circumstances I wouldn’t even have considered it,’ she told him, finding her tongue. ‘But in view of his age and the fact that he said he had a house full of staff to look after me, I thought I’d be perfectly safe.’
    ‘And were you aware of who he was?’ he enquired. ‘Before he brought you home with him?’
    Rayne’s heartbeat increased. Be careful, she warned herself. He doesn’t know who you are. Just breathe normally. Keep your cool.
    ‘I knew the name, certainly … as soon as he said it.’ She gave a nonchalant little shrug. ‘Who wouldn’t? Who doesn’t know the name of the man who gave MiracleMed to a grateful medical profession?’ It was an effort to smile. To pretend to believe what everyone else believed about Mitchell Clayborne. ‘He’s a very clever man.’
    That firm mouth twisted contemplatively. Such a cruel yet sensual mouth, she decided, in spite of her dislike of its owner. Crazily, she wondered how many women had felt the pressure of it, known the power of this man’s unrestrained passion.
    ‘Yes,’ he breathed, ‘but I meant before those delinquents sidetracked you into chasing after them.’
    Rayne gave herself a mental shake. What the hell was she thinking about? she berated herself.
    Unconsciously now, she brought her tongue across her top lip. She hated lying, even on her father’s account. ‘Are you still suggesting I planned for someone to rob me so I could play on your father’s sympathies and wheedle my way into his house for some financial benefit?’ she queried, her voice cracking slightly because she wasn’t being straight with him, even if it was for reasons other than he was implying. ‘If you think I’m interested in your father’s money, then all I can say is you’ve got a very overstretched imagination!’
    He laughed softly, unperturbed by the rising note in her voice.
    ‘And I could suggest that the reason you don’t like women taking an interest in your father,’ she went on heatedly, with a sudden surge of pity for Mitchell Clayborne that surprised her, ‘is because you might lose all
you
stand to gain if he reciprocates!’
    ‘Hardly,’ he said with a tug of that sensuous mouth.
    Because he was involved in so many other enterprises besides