In Defiance of Duty Read Online Free PDF Page B

for him to claim a seat at one of the tiny tables overlooking the busy little lane—perhaps a touch overzealously.

    “I think you’ll find it’s customary to pretend to apologize when stealing a table from someone else,” she had said, a teasing note in her voice that made her sound as if she was about to bubble over into laughter. As if there was something impossibly merry, very nearly golden, inside her just bursting to come out. That had been his first impression of Kiara—that voice.
    Then he’d looked up. He’d never been able to account for the way that first look at her, when she’d been a stranger and speaking to him as if she found him both unimpressive in the extreme and somewhat ridiculous—not something that had ever happened to him before—had struck him like that. Like an unerring blow straight to the solar plexus.
    First he’d seen that mouth. It had hit him. Hard. He’d seen her brown eyes, much too intelligent and direct, with the same arch look in them that he’d heard in her voice. He’d had the impression of her pretty face, her hair thrown back into a careless twist at the back of her head. It had been winter in Melbourne, and she’d dressed for it in boots and tights beneath some kind of flirty little skirt, and a sleek sort of coat with a bright red scarf wrapped about her neck. She had been all edges and color, attitude and mockery, and should not have attracted or interested him in any possible way.
    “But as you and your entourage are fairly bristling with self-importance,” she’d continued in that same tone, waving a hand at his bodyguard and himself with an obvious lack of the respect he’d usually received, which Azrin had found entirely too intriguing in spite of himself, “I can only assume that you see café tables as one more thing you are compelled to conquer.” She’d smiled, which had not detracted from her sarcasm in any way. “In which case, have at. You clearly need it more than I do.”
    She’d turned to go, and Azrin had found that unbearable. He hadn’t allowed himself to question why that should be, or, worse, why he should feel compelled to act on that unprecedented feeling.
    “Please,” he’d said, shocking his usually unflappable bodyguard almost as much as he’d shocked himself—as Azrin was not known for his interest in sharp-mouthed, clever-eyed girls who took too much pleasure in public dressing-downs. “Join me. You can enumerate my many character flaws, and I will buy you a coffee for your troubles.”
    She’d turned back to him, a considering sort of light in her captivating eyes, and a smile moving across that generous mouth of hers.
    “I can do that alone,” she’d pointed out, her smile deepening. “I’m already doing it in my head, as a matter of fact.”
    “Think of how much more satisfying it will be to abuse me to my face,” he’d said silkily. “How can you resist that kind of challenge?” As it turned out, she couldn’t.
    Azrin had spent the rest of the afternoon trying to convince her to join him for dinner at his hotel, and the rest of his time in Melbourne trying to persuade her to go to bed with him. He’d managed only the dinner that night and then a week of the same, and he was not a man who had before then had even a passing acquaintance with failure of any sort.
    He hadn’t known how to process it. He’d told himself that had been why he’d been so unreasonably obsessed with this woman who had treated him so cavalierly, who had laughed at him when he’d tried to seduce her, and yet whose kisses had nearly taken off the back of his head when she’d condescended to bestow them upon him.
    “You want the chase, not me,” she’d informed him primly on his last night in Melbourne.
    She had just stopped another kiss from going too far, and had even removed herself from Azrin’s grasp, stepping back against the wall outside the door to her flat, into which she’d steadfastly refused to invite him.