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his superbly masculine mouth? she wondered. Disapproval? Dislike? And why was she even
looking
at his mouth? she thought, annoyed with herself. Let alone considering it superb?
    Refraining from telling him that Shadow’s problem sprang from rolling on a chocolate wrapper while on his walk this evening, much to the surprise and angry retaliation of a few disgruntled wasps, she enquired breezily, ‘Don’t you like dogs?’
    A broad shoulder lifted beneath the tailored jacket. ‘I cantake them or leave them. Let’s just say I wouldn’t choose to share my home with one.’
    Well, tough! Sienna thought, but said brightly, and with some relish, ‘That’s all right, then. Because if you want to take Daisy and me away with you for the summer I’m afraid you’re going to have to take us all.’
    ‘I thought you said Conan never had much time for his brother?’ Faith Swann commented when Sienna rang her parents to tell them where she would be going and why. ‘That he was positively heartless towards him, and that Avril Ryder was always making you feel inferior and criticising the way you were bringing up my granddaughter?’ Faith was fiercely protective of those she loved, and was constantly trying to persuade Sienna to bring Daisy to join her and her husband in Spain.
    ‘He was—and she was,’ Sienna averred, and though she hated having to acknowledge it she said, sighing, ‘But they’re Daisy’s family too. And no matter how they treated me, or Niall, as his mother’s not well I have to go.’
    ‘I expect he can be quite persuasive,’ her mother was remarking distractedly about her late son-in-law’s brother. ‘I only saw him in the flesh that once …’ She meant at the wedding. ‘But I saw a picture of him recently in one of our English newspapers,’ Faith continued. ‘He’s quite a looker, isn’t he? Not so obviously handsome as Niall was, but the more moody and magnificent type that a lot of women go for. At least he
looked
moody in that photograph,’ she added with a little chuckle. ‘Probably because he was caught hurrying from the executive lounge of some airport with his latest adoring companion. You know that chat show hostess? Petra Somebody-or-other?’
    ‘Petra Flax,’ Sienna supplied, not unfamiliar with the raven-haired beauty whose twice-weekly programme was a little too gossipy for her own taste.
    ‘Just wait until I tell the regulars and our friends at the golfclub that my daughter’s hobnobbing with the likes of Conan Ryder.’
    ‘Mum!’ Sienna burst out, cringing at her mother’s penchant for dropping names—the more influential the better. ‘I’d appreciate it if you didn’t.’
    ‘Don’t be silly,’ Faith remonstrated, having clearly lapped up the news that Sienna was going to be in the bosom of her late husband’s family. ‘I’m proud that my daughter had the good sense to marry a man with such illustrious connections. So should you be.’
    ‘Yes, Mum.’ Sienna sighed resignedly, reminded of how much her mother enjoyed basking in other people’s reflected glory, and remembering that it was those very traits of Faith Swann’s that had gone a long way to letting Sienna and her family down with Avril Ryder and her friends on that one inauspicious occasion when their families had met.
    ‘Don’t take any notice of your mother. She means well,’ Barry Swann placated, when he came on the line to talk to his daughter. ‘I know you’ve always liked to play things close to your chest, but just remember we’re here, love, if you need us. For anything at all.’
    Strangely, that simple token of kindness from her father produced a welling of emotion in Sienna.
    She’d never worried her parents with the reason for her estrangement from Niall’s family, or with the extent of Conan’s accusations—that he’d not only as good as accused her of being a gold-digger, but also of cheating on his brother. If she had, her father would have come over here to sort him out,