Книга - Untamed Billionaire, Undressed Virgin

Untamed Billionaire, Undressed Virgin
Anna Cleary


The rebel billionaire… Connor O’Brien has scars – inside and out – proof of the dark and dangerous life he leads. The innocent girl next door… Inexperienced Sophy Woodruff has never known a man as devastatingly sexy as Connor. Intense, brooding and distant, this bad boy is everything she shouldn’t desire…He’ll take her – and show her the most exquisite pleasure! Despite his vow of non-commitment, Connor can’t resist bedding Sophy. But Sophy is a virgin, and once he’s taken her innocence he’s not sure he can walk away…




Praise forMY TALL DARK GREEK BOSSby Anna Cleary:

‘MY TALL DARK GREEK BOSS is a fresh, sassy and sizzling contemporary romance… Anna Cleary is a talented storyteller who combines richly drawn characters, explosive chemistry, red-hot sensuality and dramatic emotional intensity in an irresistible romance that is absolutely impossible to put down!’

—CataRomance

Look out for more fabulous stories from Anna, coming soon in Mills & Boon® Modern Heat™!


‘But…would you feel honourable about violating my person? A woman who’s never been kissed?’

His eyes flickered over her face and throat. She could sense his hesitation, his struggle against temptation. It gave her such an exhilarating feeling to see that she could tempt him from his intent. And he would succumb, she realised with a thrilled, almost incredulous certainty, her heart thundering.

Beneath his black lashes his pupils flared like a hungry wolf’s.

He curled his lean fingers under her jaw. ‘That can be fixed,’ he said. Then he brought his lips down on hers with deliberate, sensual purpose.

At that first firm touch, a fiery tingling sensation shot through her veins like an electric charge, and sent an immediate swell of warmth to her breasts. She tried to remember he was her adversary, and made a half-hearted attempt to cool her response, but he drew her in closer. Then, like the cunning devil he was, he softened the kiss to clever, gentle persuasion, until the fire on her lips ignited her bloodstream and aroused all her secret, intimate places with erotic yearning.


As a child, Anna Cleary loved reading so much that during the midnight hours she was forced to read with a torch under the bedcovers, to lull the suspicions of her sleep-obsessed parents. From an early age she dreamed of writing her own books. She saw herself in a stone cottage by the sea, wearing a velvet smoking jacket and sipping sherry, like Somerset Maugham.

In real life she became a schoolteacher, where her greatest pleasure was teaching children to write beautiful stories.

A little while ago, she and one of her friends made a pact to each write the first chapter of a romance novel in their holidays. From writing her very first line Anna was hooked, and she gave up teaching to become a full-time writer. She now lives in Queensland, with a deeply sensitive and intelligent cat. She prefers champagne to sherry, and loves music, books, four-legged people, trees, movies and restaurants.

Recent novels by this author:

TAKEN BY THE MAVERICK MILLIONAIRE

MY TALL DARK GREEK BOSS




UNTAMED BILLIONAIRE, UNDRESSED VIRGIN


BY

ANNA CLEARY




www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


For Gabi, Ben, Michelle, Jenny, Mirandi, Tina, Vicki,

Terese and Shirley, with love and appreciation.


CHAPTER ONE

CONNOR O’BRIEN’S plane glided into Sydney on the first rays of dawn. The shadowy city materialised below, a mysterious patchwork of rooftops and dark sea, emerging from the mists of night. The comforts it promised were welcome, after the deserts he’d traversed over the last five years in the dubious name of Intelligence, but Connor expected no feeling of homecoming. To him Sydney was just another city. Its spires and skyscrapers felt no more connected to him than the mosques and minarets he’d left behind.

Once on the ground, he breezed through customs, courtesy of his diplomatic status. His honed blending-in skills spared him any undue attention. He was just another tall Australian in the Foreign Service.

The technicalities taken care of, he strolled across the International Terminal with his long easy stride, his single suitcase in tow, laptop case in his spare hand. From force of habit, with covert skill he scanned the groups of sleepy relatives waiting to embrace their loved ones. Wives and girlfriends beaming up at their men and weeping, children running into their fathers’ arms. For him, no one. With his father gone now, he kept no personal connections. No lives at risk for knowing him. His precious anonymity was intact. Not a soul to know or care if Connor O’Brien lived or died, and that was how it had to be.

The glass exit doors opened before him and he walked out into the Australian summer dawn, safe and secure in his solitariness. The sky had lightened to a pale grey, washing out the street lamps to a wan hue. Even for the height of midsummer the morning was warm. The faintest whiff of eucalyptus wafted to him on the breeze like the scent of freedom.

Scanning for the taxi rank, he felt an unaccustomed buzz.

He rubbed his bristly jaw and contemplated the potential amenities of a good hotel. Shower, breakfast, relax with the newspapers, shake off the jet lag…

‘Mr O’Brien?’

A uniformed chauffeur stepped forward from the open rear door of a limo parked in line with the exit. Respectfully he touched his cap. ‘Your lift, sir.’

Connor stilled, every one of his nerves and trigger-sharp reflexes on instant alert.

A thin, querulous voice issued from inside the car. ‘Come on, come on, O’Brien. Give Parkins your gear and let’s get on the road.’

Connor knew that voice. With disbelief he peered into the dim interior. A small elderly man swam into focus, majestically ensconced in the plush upholstery.

Sir Frank Fraser. Wily old fox, legend of the Service and one of his father’s old golfing cronies. But surely the ex-Chief had long since hung up his cloak and dagger and retired to live on the Fraser family fortune? As far as Connor knew, he was now a respectable pillar of the world of wealth and ease.

‘Well, what are we waiting for?’ The quavery voice held the autocrat’s note of incredulity at not being instantly obeyed.

Curiosity outweighed Connor’s chagrin at having his moment of freedom curtailed, so he handed his suitcase to the hovering Parkins and slid into the old guy’s travelling suite.

At once his smooth, bronzed hand was seized in a wrinkled claw and shaken with vigour.

‘Good to see you, O’Brien.’ The ancient autocrat took in Connor’s long limbs, his lean, athletic frame, with an admiring gaze. ‘And, my God, you’re the living image of your old man. Same colouring, Mick’s build—everything.’

Connor didn’t try to deny it. Sure, like his father, he’d inherited the ink-black hair, dark eyes and olive skin of some tall, long ago Spaniard who’d washed up on the Irish coast from the storm-scattered Armada, but his father had been a family man, and there the resemblance had to end.

‘And you’ve done well. What department has the embassy hired you for? Humanitarian Affairs, isn’t it?’

‘Something like that,’ Connor allowed as the limo started and nosed into the road for the city. He smiled. ‘Humanitarian Advisor to the First Secretary for Immigration.’

Sir Frank’s aged face settled into thoughtful lines. ‘Yes, yes, I can see why they need more lawyers. There’d be plenty of work involved there.’

A vision of the horror he’d had to deal with at the Australian Embassy in Baghdad swam into Connor’s mind. Unable even to begin describing it, he merely shrugged acknowledgement, waiting for his father’s old mate to spill what was on his mind.

Sir Frank sent him a glance that penetrated through to the back of his brain, and said with unnerving perspicacity, ‘Isn’t all that tragedy enough to keep you interested, without this other work you’re doing? Your father always told me the law was your first and only love.’

Connor controlled every muscle not to react, though a little nerve jumped somewhere in his gut. ‘Sir Frank, is there something behind this friendly chat? Something you need to tell me?’

Sir Frank drew a cigar from his breast pocket. ‘Let’s just say we have a friend of a friend in common.’

Connor’s ears pricked up. This was agency speak for contact. So why the old lion and not some field operative? He was considering the possibilities when Sir Frank came in with a low hit.

‘Heard about your losing your wife and child. That was tough. There’s too many of these planes going down. How long ago was it now?’

Connor gripped his case while the dust and ashes settled back in his soul. The force of it could still catch him off guard, even now. ‘Nearly six years. But—’

The elderly voice softened a notch. ‘Must be time you tried again, lad. A man needs a woman, kids to come home to. It’s time you stopped all this adventuring and settled down. Take up the threads again. This sort of work in Baghdad…’ He shook his head. ‘A man burns out fast. Two or three years should be the limit, and you’re well past it. I hear you’ve taken some very close shaves. They tell me you’re good—the very best—but a man only stays on top of the game for so long.’ He slid Connor a glance. ‘The man you replaced ended up with a knife through his gullet.’

Connor gazed at him with a mixture of incredulity and sardonic amusement. ‘Thanks.’

But the old guy was in earnest. As his enthusiasm heated up his gnarled hands gesticulated with increasing fervour. ‘I wouldn’t be doing my duty to Mick if I didn’t say this, young fella. You’re dicing with death.’

‘You should know,’ Connor fired back. ‘You diced with it yourself long enough.’

‘That’s right, I did, and I’ve learned what’s important. No one ever wins this game.’ He grasped Connor’s arm. ‘Look, I could pull a few strings for you. Your dad’s left you a wealthy man. You could set up your own firm. There’s always a call for good lawyers in this country.’ He thumped his creaky old knee with his thumb. ‘Plenty of injustice right here. A big handsome lad like you won’t take long to find another lovely girl.’

The permafrost that passed for Connor’s heart since the real thing had been broken and scattered over a Syrian mountainside registered nothing. He knew what he’d lost and would never have again. He made his way now without attachments. Banter, the occasional dalliance with a pretty woman, were sufficient to keep the shadows at bay.

‘Civilian life offers its challenges, too,’ Sir Frank persisted. ‘And its excitements.’ He waved his unlit cigar. ‘What are you now—thirty? Thirty-five?’

‘Thirty-four.’ In spite of his discipline Connor felt his abdominal muscles clench. He understood well enough what the old guy was alluding to. To perform in Intelligence an officer needed to be as clinical and objective towards his contacts as a machine. Perhaps, for some, cracks could develop over time and emotion begin to leak in, but he had no need to be concerned. He was still as balanced and dispassionate in his work as ever. He’d quit soon enough if he had a reason. In fact, he needed the constant threat of death to realise he was alive.

‘Sir Frank,’ he said in his deep, quiet voice, ‘your concern is appreciated, but unnecessary. If there’s something you need to tell me, spit it out. Otherwise your driver can drop me right here.’

Sir Frank looked approvingly at him. ‘A straightshooter, just like Mick. Exactly like him.’ He shook his head and sighed. ‘If only Elliott could straighten himself out.’

Ah. At last. The crunch.

Connor stared broodingly out at the familiar streets, riffling back through the dusty mental files of family connections. ‘Isn’t Elliott your son?’

‘Now that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. A situation has arisen.’

As far as he knew, Elliott Fraser was one of those wealthy, fifty-ish CEOs in the private sector. ‘He’s involved in something?’

The old man looked gloomy. ‘You might say something. A woman.’

Connor drew an austere breath. ‘Look, I think you may have been misinformed, Sir Frank. I’m here on leave.’ His tone was cool, but it was necessary to let the old guy feel the steel edge of his refusal. ‘I haven’t been flown halfway around the world to sort out your son’s love-life.’

Sir Frank’s indignant weedy frame flared up like a firecracker. ‘That’s exactly what you have been flown here for, mister,’ he retorted with spirit. ‘Who do you think got you your leave?’ He gestured vehemently with his cigar, pointing it in Connor’s face. ‘No need to get cocky with me, fella, just because I knew you when you had your milk teeth. That’s the very reason I’ve chosen you.’

Before Connor could respond, Sir Frank leaned forward and pinned him with an urgent, beady gaze. ‘It won’t interrupt your break much, Connor. It’ll take you a week, a fortnight at most, then you can enjoy the rest of your three months. Who knows? You might decide to stay longer. Anyway, I know you’ll do your best to help me out. For the love of Mick.’

Ah, here it was. The old boys’ friendship card. All those mornings out on the green. Boozy afternoon sessions in the clubhouse. Connor knew it for what it was—emotional blackmail, and impossible to reject. He closed his eyes for an instant, then resigned himself.

‘All right, all right. Go on, then. Shoot.’

‘That’s better.’ Sir Frank sat back, satisfaction momentarily deepening the cracks and crevices in his crocodile-skin face. ‘Now, this is strictly between us. Elliott’s being considered for a top job with the ministry. Very hush-hush. He can’t afford any scandal. Not a whiff.’ He held up a wizened hand. ‘No, it’s serious. Marla is in America on business for her firm. If she comes back and finds out he’s been playing away from home…’ He shuddered. ‘Marla can be very forceful. I have a strong instinct about this, Connor, and my instincts are rarely wrong. The chances are that this little popsy he’s got himself entangled with is a plant. The timing is suspicious. But even if she isn’t…’ He closed his wrinkled eyelids in deprecation. ‘Do you see now why I’ve chosen you? I don’t want the agency involved. This is my family…I can’t risk some stranger.’ He moved closer to Connor and lowered his voice. ‘You’ll be on your own entirely. It has to be strictly between you and me.’ He waggled an admonitory finger. ‘No logging into the agency’s tech services.’

Connor shook his head in bemusement. ‘But surely all you have to do is whisper in Elliott’s ear?’

‘You try doing that with Elliott. He thinks he’s keeping her under wraps.’

Connor concealed his amusement. The old guy was clearly loath to reveal to his son that he was keeping tabs on him.

Sir Frank clutched at his wrist. ‘Connor, for all his sins, Elliott’s my son. And then there’s my grandson.’ His rheumy old eyes filled up with tears. ‘He’s four years old.’

Connor noticed a tremor in the frail, liver-spotted hand grasping his sleeve and felt the faintest twinge in his chest. ‘Right,’ he said, exhaling a long breath. Old people and children had always been his Achilles’ heel. He might as well grit his teeth, agree to the task and get it over with. He straightened his wide shoulders, and, needing to rein in the excess of emotion lapping the walls of the limo, injected some professional briskness into his voice. ‘Do you have anything on the woman?’

Sir Frank conquered his tears with amazing swiftness and switched into business mode. Reaching into an alcove set in the door, he produced a file. ‘Her name’s Sophy something. Woodford…no… Woodruff. Works in the Alexandra.’

‘Where’s that?’ Connor said, flipping the single page. The information was sparse. A few dates and times. Meetings with Elliott in coffee shops. A bar. An indistinct CCTV still of a slim, dark-haired woman. Her face wasn’t quite in focus, but the camera had managed to catch something of the delicacy of an oval face, the lustre of longish, wavy dark hair. Employed as a speech pathologist in a paediatric clinic. A good, conservative cover. Like his own.

‘You know Macquarie Street?’

‘Who doesn’t?’ As the avenue in which both the Botanical Gardens and the Opera House resided, Macquarie Street was one of the finest boulevards in Sydney. It had long been the preserve of the high-fliers of the medical profession.

‘Some rooms have been vacated for you there. Your law practice will be a perfect cover.’ The old tycoon added slyly, ‘If you did decide to stay, there’d be nothing to stop you hanging up your shingle there for real.’

The location was just around the corner from some of the wealthiest bastions of the legal profession. Connor supposed he could get away with setting up as a lawyer in doctors’ territory. Just how dangerous did the old guy expect the assignment to be? He felt some misgivings at the amorphous nature of it. Sir Frank’s reputation as a cunning operator was well earned.

He studied the clever old face. ‘What exactly do you want from me?’

‘Find out about her. Her background, connections, everything. She’s almost certainly working for a foreign state. Pillow talk.’ He shook his head in disgust. ‘You’d think Elliott would have enough savvy to…’ He broke off, ruminating on his son’s naiveté with compressed lips. ‘Anyway, if—if—you find she’s just a little gold-digger looking for a lamb to fleece, pay her off.’

Connor winced. From what he’d heard of Elliott Fraser, his lamb-like qualities were highly doubtful. On the surface, though, it seemed a tame little assignment. Nothing like strolling to an evening rendezvous to meet a contact dressed in high explosives. Hardly in the same universe as drinking coffee with a smiling man who was preparing to slice open his throat.

‘A good-looking lad like you won’t have any trouble getting close to the woman.’

Connor flashed him a wry glance. He didn’t do close. He was just about to set him straight on that issue when the limo turned into a tree-lined avenue, and he recognised the graceful colonial architecture of Macquarie Street.

Traffic was minimal at this early hour, and there was time to appreciate the street’s pleasantness, enhanced on one side by the dense green mystery of the Botanical Gardens burgeoning with summer growth behind a long stretch of tall, iron railings.

Halfway along the street the chauffeur pulled into the kerb.

‘The Alexandra,’ Sir Frank announced.

Connor craned to stare up at a honey-coloured sandstone edifice, several storeys in height. A splash of scarlet flowers spilled from a third-floor window ledge.

‘You’ll find your rooms on the top floor. Suite 3E.’ Sir Frank pressed a set of old-fashioned keys into Connor’s hand. ‘Mind you keep in touch with me every step of the way.’ He sat back and pulled on his blank cigar, then added excitedly, ‘You know, Connor, I have a very good feeling about this now. I’m sure you’ll be just the man to stop clever little Miss Sophy Woodruff in her tracks.’


CHAPTER TWO

SHADOW. Just a touch to enhance the blue of her irises. Violet like her name, her father used to say. Her official name, not that she’d ever use it. Thank goodness it only rarely appeared, usually on government documents or bank statements. What sort of people would call their child something so schmaltzy?

Certainly not the parents she knew. They’d felt obliged to keep it, but everyone had preferred to call her by the name they’d chosen themselves. Sophy was her father’s choice. Henry—her real father, not the biological one.

That uncomfortable feeling coiled in her stomach. Her biological father. Such a cold descriptor. But could he really be as cold as he seemed? How warm was any man likely to feel when he encountered the daughter he never knew he had? Or so he’d said. Still, if he’d been lying, why order the DNA test?

He was lying about something, though, she could feel it in her bones.

Her brows were dark enough, closer to black than her hair. One quick pencil stroke to define their natural arch. In an emergency it would have to do.

Mascara was mandatory. Lashes could never be too long or too thick. A quick brush of blush on her cheekbones to warm the pallor of her broken night’s sleep, but a glance at the clock decided her to be satisfied with that if she wanted to catch the 6.03 ferry.

With the heatwave still roasting Sydney after three days, she needed to wear something cool. She slipped on a straight, knee-length skirt, turned sideways to check in the mirror. Flat enough. Her lilac shirt with its pretty cap-sleeves was fresh from the cleaners’ and required no ironing. She snatched up her handbag and slid into her lucky high heels.

Something told her there’d be running ahead. Tuesdays were seldom her best, but she had a very strong feeling about this one. She was on the verge of something, she could tell by the prickling in the back of her neck.

Zoe and Leah, her housemates, were barely stirring. She battled her way around the pile of camping gear they’d assembled in the hall, flung them a hasty ‘Bye,’ and ran down the path to the gate, the sun barely up. For the thousandth time she retraced in her mind every step she’d taken since she’d picked the registered letter up from the post office in yesterday’s lunch hour.

She’d taken it straight back to her office to read. And there it had been. Official confirmation. Elliott Fraser’s DNA profile matched sufficiently with hers for the lab to attest that he was her father.

She’d placed it in her bag, and felt sure she still had it when she went to help Millie, in the office next door, pack up for her move.

It hadn’t been until she arrived home that she’d realised it was missing. After the initial panic, she remembered pausing in the mothers’ room on the way from the Ladies. That had to be right…Sonia from the ophthalmic clinic had been in there having a weep, and she’d dragged out a handful of tissues from her bag to help Sonia mop up. The letter could have fallen out then.

If she was to find it before anyone else, she needed to get to work before the Alexandra hummed into life. She supposed she could easily get the lab to send her a replacement copy. But that wouldn’t help the confidentiality problem. A promise was a promise. If she didn’t find it… If she didn’t locate it at once, she’d have to inform Elliott. The thought of that made her feel slightly sick.

After that first meeting in the café—even before then, in fact, when she’d first laid eyes on him—she’d recognised he had a chill factor. Even his name, seen for the first time on her original birth certificate, had had a cold clink of reality to it. At eighteen, when the law had allowed, she’d gone through the procedures of finding out her birth parents’ names out of curiosity, but probably would never have acted on the information. She doubted if she’d have contacted him at all, if it hadn’t been for that Tuesday, exactly six weeks ago.

She’d been standing at the reception desk, checking a patient’s file, when someone had approached the desk and said to Cindy, ‘Elliott Fraser. I’ve brought Matthew for his check-up.’

Sophy’s heart had jarred to a standstill. In a breathless kind of slow motion she’d looked up and seen him for the first time. Her father.

He was in his late forties, his hair already silver. He looked smooth and well-heeled, the image of a successful businessman. His eyes were a cold slate-grey, not like hers at all, and as he’d talked to Cindy his gaze hadn’t warmed or changed in any way. Though Sophy had stared and stared to try to find a resemblance, she hadn’t been able to see any.

There had to be one, though. People could hardly ever see likenesses to themselves. She supposed she might take after her poor mother, who, according to the records, had died from contracting meningitis, but there should still be points of resemblance with her father.

Her glance had fallen then on the four-year-old at Elliott Fraser’s side. He had the most endearing little solemn face. In a rush of conflicted emotion she’d realised he was her half-brother.

How strange to see some of the actual people in the world who shared her blood, her genes. Even perhaps, if she were lucky, things in common. Though she’d loved her adoptive parents, they had a much older daughter in England from Bea’s first marriage, and Sophy had sometimes had the feeling she was being compared to her. Lauren was good at maths and science. While Sophy liked them, too, she preferred the arts. Lauren had done medicine, while Sophy had chosen to study child language development. Lauren went hiking and shinning up mountainsides, while Sophy liked growing things and browsing through bookshops.

Soon after Sophy had turned eighteen, it was as though Henry and Bea felt they’d discharged their responsibility towards their adopted child, for, even though there’d been lots of teary regrets and one long visit, they’d emigrated back to England to be with Lauren, Bea’s real daughter, when she started her family.

Sophy often thought that if only she’d had brothers and sisters, she mightn’t have missed her parents so badly. Still be missing them. That little brother…

As she remembered his big brown eyes her heart made a surge of pleasure, though it was tinged with concern. He’d been so sweet, but she’d had the most overwhelming instinct that he was lonely. Afterwards, going over and over the encounter in her mind, it had struck her clinical brain that, while Elliott Fraser had waited in Reception with him, he hadn’t made one single eye contact with his son. There were books and toys for the children to investigate while they waited, but Matthew had sat all hunched up on the seat beside his father, as if hedged into his own little world. Elliott hadn’t spoken to him once.

She saw that often in the clinic. Parents who didn’t understand that their communication with their child was crucial. She wished there were some way she could help Matthew. Dreaming about it, she was so deep in thought that by the time she disembarked at Circular Quay she realised she hadn’t noticed the early morning sights and smells of the harbour once in the entire trip. In Macquarie Street, she broke into a run, not easy in a pencil-slim skirt.

Thank goodness Security had already unlocked the building’s heavy glass doors. Once inside, she pressed the button for the lift, but then decided she couldn’t spare the time it took for the creaking cage to descend, and took the stairs instead.

The great domed skylight let in the morning, lighting the tiers of galleries where the doctors had their rooms. Tall, stained-glass windows at either end of the building tinctured the weak morning light with the faintest hues of rose and lavender.

Few people were in evidence this early, although the rich fragrance of coffee as she sprinted past the second gallery, mingled with the aromas rising up from the basement café, suggested that Millie, her friend and colleague, was there already, establishing herself in her new room.

Millie’s old room was right next door to hers. It was bound to be unlocked, waiting to be refurbished. If she didn’t find the envelope in the mothers’ room, or even the washroom, it would have to still be safe in there.

At the top of the stairs she paused to regain her breath, and was faced with the sight of Millie’s door, firmly shut. With a shock she saw a new sign emblazoned on it.

Connor O’Brien.

The words leaped out at her, bold and alive like a confrontation.

Connor O’Brien. Who was Connor O’Brien?

She flew along to the ladies’ room, praying Security had unlocked it. To her relief the heavy mahogany door gave at once. Turning first to the washroom, she pushed through the swing door and scanned all the wash units, checked the bins, then strode through to the innermost room and peered into all the cubicles. Nothing.

Disappointing, but no surprise. The odds were still on the mothers’ room.

She hurried across the tiny foyer, swung open the door to the mothers’ room and was brought to a sudden standstill. For a confused instant she was confronted by what looked like a dark pillar shimmering in the white-tiled space, until she blinked and her vision cleared.

It was a man.

Naked to the waist, he was tall and lean, with strongly muscled arms and pitch-black hair. He was standing at the sink, his face half covered with shaving cream. A jacket and shirt were draped over a briefcase at his feet. His powerful torso was tanned, as if he’d spent real time in the sun, and as he performed his task small ripples disturbed the sleek, satin skin of his back.

His feet were as firmly planted on the floor of the mothers’ room as if they had every right to be there. Didn’t the man have a bathroom?

As he leaned further in she caught a glimpse of an angry, jagged scar across the ribs on his right side. A breathless sensation shook her, like the moment of sudden uplift on a ferris wheel. The door escaped from her paralysed fingers just as he was laying bare a swathe of smooth, bronzed cheek. His hand halted in mid-swipe, and in the mirror his gaze collided with hers.

His eyes were dark, deeper than the night, and heavy-lidded, fringed with black lashes beneath strong black brows. What grabbed at her, though, and shook up her insides, was their expression.

At that first instant of connection a sardonic gleam had shot through them. As if he’d recognised her.

Except… She didn’t know him. Why should he recognise her?

He half turned and she caught a glimpse of his profile, a devastating sweep of forehead and long straight nose. Then he faced her full on and…

Gorgeous. Even half coated with foam, strength and masculine assurance declared themselves in the symmetrical bone structure of his lean, handsome face.

‘Hi. Connor O’Brien.’

His voice was deep, with a rich, smooth texture. A smattering of dark whorled hair on his powerful chest invited her mesmerised gaze to follow its tapering path down beneath his belt buckle to…somewhere.

‘Oh, er…er…hi. Sorry.’ She backed out again into the foyer.

Connor looked after the closing door with some amusement. He began to regret postponing checking into a hotel. The last thing he needed was to alert Miss Sophy Woodruff to the suddenness of his arrangements. But who could have guessed she’d be so early to work?

He felt an intrigued little buzz in his veins. For a first glimpse, she had been nothing like he’d expected. Big soft eyes and sensitive, passionate mouths didn’t go with tough little operators.

Unless, of course, they were her stock-in-trade. Perfect for sucking in middle-aged pigeons.

Outside in the foyer, Sophy tried to unscramble her brain. Whew. It took a few seconds to get the chest image out of her mind. Who needed to watch reruns of Die Hard with men like him around?

But, for goodness’ sake, who could do any kind of a decent search in the presence of a semi-naked man? He was a damned nuisance. The cheek of him, treating the ladies’ room like his own private en suite, even if it was barely six thirty.

And why, now she came to think of it, had she given ground? Whose rooms were they? If any of her fellow members of the Avengers netball team had been present, they’d have been yelling, ‘Attack. Attack. Evict the intruder.’

She braced herself, and walked back in.

He was buttoning his shirt. Too late, though. That first impression was already seared into her brain. He might just as well have emerged dripping from a plunge in a weedy pond, his shirt clinging and transparent, for all the good it was doing him now.

At the sound of her step he flickered a glance over her from beneath his dark lashes. She knew that look. It was the hunter’s assessment of her curves and sexual availability, as automatic to wolves and other male beasts as breathing.

‘This is the mothers’ room,’ she asserted. His dark eyes sharpened beneath their dark lashes, and a sudden tension in the room seemed to affect her voice with an unwelcome throatiness. ‘In case you didn’t know.’

‘I did know.’ He rinsed his razor under the tap and gave it a couple of shakes. She waited for some sign he’d received the hint, but he resumed shaving with cool unconcern.

So who was he, what was he, that Millie had been obliged to make way for him? He didn’t look like any of the doctors she knew.

She made a quick survey of the floor and surfaces. The cleaners had already done their work by the time she’d come in yesterday evening, but someone else might have picked the letter up after she’d left and thought it was rubbish. She glanced about for the bin and spotted it tucked under the sink. Directly in line with the man’s long, elegantly shod feet.

Right. She straightened her shoulders, cleared her throat and stated with cool authority, ‘Look, I’m sorry, but I’m afraid you’ll have to finish that up somewhere else. There is a men’s room further along.’ She opened the door and held it wide with graceful, though determined, insistence.

Seconds ticked by, until she began to wonder if he’d even heard what she’d said, then he flashed her a lazy, long-lashed glance. ‘I don’t think so.’

To her intense indignation he remained as immovable as a tree trunk, continuing to scrape the foam from his handsome jaw as if he had all the time in the world. After a charged second in which her brain was jostled by a million incredulous thoughts about calling the police or the state emergency services for back-up, he had the nerve to add, ‘No need to panic.’

Panic. Who was panicking? Even if such tall, dark sexiness was a rarity at the Alexandra, Sophy Woodruff was perfectly well able to deal with it, in the mothers’ room or anywhere else.

Forced to, if she didn’t want to look like an idiot, she let the door swing shut, as, without the slightest interest in her wishes, he started on the moustache area. Naturally her eyes were drawn to watch the delicate operation. Before she could properly drag them away, he paused and the corners of his mouth edged up a little.

‘I’ll be out of your way in a few seconds. Don’t let my presence make you nervous.’

His voice might have risen from some bottomless inner well of chocolate liqueur, so appealing its deep timbre was to the clinically trained ear. Or would have been, if it hadn’t been for the subtle mockery in it.

‘Nervous?’ She gave a careless laugh. ‘My only concern is that at any minute now mothers may need to come in here to nurse their babies.’

He glanced at his watch. ‘At six thirty-six?’

‘Well, certainly.’ It was only a bit of a lie. In truth, the clinics didn’t usually open until seven-thirty, but in an emergency they very well might open earlier. ‘There could be early appointments. I think you should be aware that this room is intended for the sole use of mothers.’

‘Ah.’ A gleam lit his dark eyes. ‘Then in that case we’d both better leave.’

Without waiting for her reply, he turned back to his reflection. Shaving foam outlined his mouth, highlighting its chiselled perfection, the top lip straight and stern, the lower one sensual in that ruthless, masculine way. Mouths could be deceptive, though. In terms of kissing, sometimes even the most promising lips could end up being a disappointment. It all depended on the proficiency of the kisser. And the chemistry with the kissee.

Connor O’Brien’s razor hand arrested in mid-air and his eyes locked with hers.

‘Missed a bit, have I?’

The depth of knowing amusement in his glance burnt her to the soles of her feet.

‘Pardon?’ she said, forcing herself to hold that mocking gaze and ignore the pinkening tide flooding to her hairline. ‘Are you asking for my advice? I’m afraid I can’t help you. I know very little about men’s hair-growth problems.’

With supreme dignity, she turned away and made an emphatic effort to search.

Connor smiled to himself, noting Miss Sophy Woodruff’s apparent sensitivity with a pleasurable leap of surprise. It was rare to draw a blush in a woman, and strangely stirring. If she was the cold opportunist Sir Frank suspected, her ability to colour up was quite an accomplishment.

She was paused now in the middle of the room, making a slow twirl in search of something, giving him ample opportunity to observe her undulating curves, long slim legs and slender, graceful neck. He wouldn’t have expected Elliott Fraser to risk everything over a scrubber, but that grainy photo had hardly done her justice.

He wondered what she was searching for.

‘I humbly apologise for intruding on your sacred female space,’ he said, in a bid to tempt her to turn his way again, the better to drink in more of her oval face. Luminous blue eyes—or had her lavender shirt turned them violet?—fringed by thick black lashes. Rosy lips against pale creamy skin. Enough to make any man’s mouth water. ‘No threat intended,’ he added soothingly.

Sophy sent him a sardonic glance. A man caught in flagrante shouldn’t try to flirt his way out of trouble. She wished now she’d called Security and had him thrown out.

‘Do you usually prefer the women’s to the gents’?’

Beneath his black lashes his eyes glinted. The air she breathed suddenly felt charged with dangerous, high-voltage sparks.

‘Nearly always. You know how it is. I like to network. And what better place to meet people?’ His bold, dark gaze drifted from her mouth to her breasts, down to her legs and back again.

Skin cells scorched all the way to her ankles. She turned her back on him and bent to check the sofa where she’d sat yesterday, slipping her hand down behind the seat cushion and feeling around the perimeter.

There was nothing there except dusty lint. Hyper-conscious of him, she straightened up to skim the change table and benchtops. He was pretending to be engaged again on his task, but she wasn’t deceived. He was tuned into her every move, or her name wasn’t Sophy Woodruff.

Or…or whatever it was.

She eyed the leather case beside him on the draining board. He might, just might, have found the envelope and be intending to hand it in. ‘Er…’ It was a stretch now at this late stage, but she tried to crank some goodwill into her voice. ‘Have you by any chance—found a letter in here?’

‘A letter.’ His expressive brows gave a quizzical twitch while he considered. ‘This seems an unusual place to expect a mail delivery. It isn’t a covert letter-drop for the CIA, now, is it?’

That sexy, teasing note again in his deep voice. And there was something hard underneath, almost as if he didn’t believe in her sincerity.

In an effort to show she was in earnest, she ignored his tone. ‘It’s not a delivery. I’ve misplaced an envelope. I think it may have dropped from my bag somewhere. Over there where I was sitting, or…’

‘What sort of envelope?’

‘Just a plain, buff-coloured…You know, with a window in it, like—’ Like any official communication to Miss Violet Woodruff, she was about to say, until it occurred to her then how ridiculous it was, having to describe it. How many envelopes was he likely to have found? ‘Look, does it matter what kind it is? Have you or haven’t you found it?’

In her frustration, she might have sounded a tad impatient, because he turned from the mirror and directed the full force of his dark, shimmering gaze on her.

‘I don’t know if I should answer that. It would depend to whom such an envelope was addressed.’

She felt a small shock, as if she’d come up against an unexpected concrete wall, but said, as pleasantly as she could, ‘Well, obviously, it’s addressed to me.’

‘Ah. So you say.’ The infuriating man had finished shaving at last, and turned to wash his razor under the tap. ‘But, then, who are you?’

It was clear he was toying with her. ‘I’m—’ She drew herself up to her full five-seven in heels and asserted, ‘You know, Security in this building is very strict. They wouldn’t tolerate your intrusion in here.’

‘Ah. Now, that’s where you’re wrong. The fact is, it was the Security guy with the freckles who unlocked these rooms for me, since the Gents is having some sort of problem with the pipes.’

‘Oh.’ Nonplussed, she took a second before she managed a comeback. ‘Well, it’s a pity he didn’t explain that that sink you’re using is intended for nursing mothers who want to make themselves a cup of tea. I hope you give it a good wash when you’re finished.’

The man’s eyes gleamed, but he continued, musing, ‘Not all states feel the need to pursue this rigid segregation of the sexes. Take France, for example. A French woman visiting the mothers’ room in, say, the Louvre, would be very unlikely to feel threatened by the presence of a man shaving. Though, I suppose any woman who’s not used to being around men…a woman, say, who’s never watched a man shave…never been kissed, as the saying goes…’

Never been kissed. Was he trying to insult her? She hissed in a breath through her teeth. ‘Look, all I want to know is if you found my envelope. If you didn’t…’

He put on a bland expression. ‘I think I might be able to help if you could be more specific. For instance, if you could give me some idea of the letter’s likely contents…’

‘What?’ She stared at him in incredulity. ‘Are you for real? Look, why can’t you just say—?’

She broke off, shaking her head in disbelief as he bent to splash his face, his composure unruffled.

Her heart started to thud. He must have found it. Why else was he being so obstructive? She breathed deeply for several seconds, wondering how to go about extracting the truth from him. Often she could sense things in people, but in his case she was aware only of an implacable resistance. Despair gripped her. What was left for her to try? An appeal to him as a human being?

He reached for a paper towel and turned to her, patting his face dry.

‘Are you sure—absolutely sure—you didn’t find it?’ Despite an attempt to sound calm she knew the plea in her voice revealed her desperation, loud and clear.

He crumpled the paper towel and dropped it in the bin. Then he slipped a purple silk tie under his collar and tied it, practice in the fluid movements of his lean, tanned fingers. At the same time he turned to appraise her with his dark, intelligent gaze. Drops of moisture sparkled on his black lashes.

‘It’s beginning to sound like a very important letter.’

‘It is. That is—’ She checked herself. The more she talked up the importance of the letter, the more likely he would be to read it if he found it. Just supposing he hadn’t already. ‘No, no, well, it’s not really. It’s only important to me. Not to anyone else.’

He nodded in apparent understanding, his sardonic face suddenly grave. Perhaps she’d misjudged him. Perhaps he could even be sympathetic. Although, how safe was it to trust him? If he could only be serious for a minute…

She watched him shrug on his jacket, then slip the leather case into his briefcase, all the while continuing her theme of playing the letter down. ‘It’s nothing really. Just a small—private thing.’

‘Ah.’ His dark lashes flickered down. ‘A love letter.’

‘No,’ she snapped, goaded. ‘Not a love letter. Look, why can’t you be serious? Why can’t you give me a straight answer?’

He sighed. ‘All right. How about this one? I haven’t found your letter. You can search me if you like.’ He spread his hands in invitation, offering her the pockets of his jacket, his trousers, then as she glared at him in disbelief he thrust his briefcase at her. ‘Go on. Search.’

As if she could. She wanted to snatch the briefcase from him and whack him with it. But even without touching it, she knew there was nothing of hers inside. He was tormenting her, when all he’d had to do was to tell her in the first place…

‘Do you know,’ she said, an angry tremor in her low voice, ‘you are a very rude and aggravating man?’

‘I do know,’ he said ruefully, wickedness in the dark eyes beneath his black lashes. ‘I’m ashamed of myself.’

She felt her blood pressure rise as he moved closer until his broad chest was a bare few inches from her breasts. The clean male scent of him, the masculine buzz of his aura, plunged her normally tranquil pulse into chaos. She became suffocatingly conscious of the nearness of the vibrant, muscled body lurking beneath his clothes.

The dark gaze dwelling on her face grew sensual and turned her blood into a molten, racing torrent. ‘And do you know that you’re a very uptight little chick? You should learn to relax.’

His sexy mouth was uncomfortably near, and, involuntarily, her own dried. She glowered at him, anger rendering her unable to breathe or speak.

He flicked her cheek. ‘I’ll let you know if I find your letter.’ His bold gaze travelled down her throat to the neck of her shirt, then back. ‘You know, with those eyes your name should be Violet.’ He turned and strolled to the door, and while she stood there, the cool touch of his fingers still burning on her skin, it swung shut behind him. Then the enormity of what he’d said hit her like a train. The incredible words resounded in her ears.

He knew her name.

He’d known it all along. That had been no coincidence.

But how could he know it? How, unless he’d found her letter?


CHAPTER THREE

SOPHY strode along the gallery to the children’s clinic. Connor O’Brien’s door was closed, but she had to steel herself to walk past it and breathe the air he was infecting with his intolerable masculine game-playing. He was probably in there now, gloating over her DNA profile.

Although, what could it possibly mean to him? What could he do with it? Apart from post it on the Internet. Take it to the papers. Contact Elliott…

She shut her eyes and tried to breathe calmly. The man could be a blackmailer. He looked bad, with that mocking dark gaze and that sardonic mouth. Just remembering his refusal to take her seriously made her blood boil all over again. She wished she’d said something clever and cutting enough to douse that insolent amusement in his eyes.

She used her pass key to unlock the clinic, relieved that neither Cindy, their receptionist, nor Bruce, the paediatrician, had arrived yet, praying that against the odds someone wonderful had found the letter and popped it through the mail slot. But no such luck. In her office she plunged into a frenzied search, her desk, her drawers, all around the children’s table and chairs, the armchairs for parents, only confirming what she already knew—she’d lost it after she’d left yesterday.

Millie was her last resort. She’d spent a good hour in there yesterday, helping her friend pack up her files. Fingers crossed, she phoned her, but again her luck was out. Amidst all her files and books, Millie had been in too much of an uproar to find anything, let alone something so ordinary and unobtrusive as an envelope.

She slumped down in her chair. Perhaps she should alert Elliott, but she wasn’t ready to give up yet. He’d seemed so paranoid at the idea of the news getting out. Not that she could blame him altogether. Her existence had come as a complete shock to him. She pitied him for what he must have gone through when he found out. Anyone—anyone would have been upset.

She tried to crush down a nasty feeling at how he might react when he knew the letter was out of her hands. Then, with some relief, she remembered he said he’d be out of town for a week, and brightened a little. At least that gave her a bit of breathing space. He might not have even received his copy yet.

And, honestly, what was the worst that could happen to him if the news got out? Thousands of people had given up their children for adoption, for all sorts of reasons. It was hardly such a shocking scandal anymore. His wife should be capable of understanding something that had happened twenty-three years ago.

And it wasn’t as if she wasn’t an independent adult. She hoped she’d made it absolutely crystal clear that it wouldn’t cost him anything to invite her into his life—their lives. Only a bit of friendship. Not a relationship, exactly. She knew she couldn’t expect that.

But there was no denying her disappointment. Elliott’s utter dismay when she’d made that first contact had been almost tangible. He’d tried to disguise it with his smooth manners, but she’d been able to sense how he truly felt. In the subsequent meetings, in the coffee shop and the bar, he’d seemed more concerned to find out who she might have told rather than how she’d spent her life to date, while she…

Her heart had been so full, so brimming over with joy and hope, she’d wanted to know everything about him. And Matthew.

But she felt sure, when someone got to know him, he was a wonderful person. When he got used to the idea, he would come round to seeing the fantastic side of having a daughter.

Restlessly she got up and started tweaking some brown-edged leaves from her geraniums on the window ledge. She hadn’t felt such confusion for years, not since Henry and Bea had told her they were staying on in England for a bit. Possibly for ever. She lifted her gaze to the Botanical Gardens across the street, wishing she could go across right now, before she saw the first of the children on her morning’s list. Somehow the soothing essence of those cool, leafy pathways always managed to soak into her like balm.

Connor O’Brien was to blame for this turmoil. A wave of puzzlement swept through her. What was wrong with him? Why had he been so mocking, almost distrustful of her?

His behaviour had been so arrogant, so callous and indifferent, as if her anxiety had been a joke. And as for that crack about her never having been kissed…

Of course she had. Countless times. He’d only been teasing, using a typical male ploy to start a flirty conversation, unless he’d been suggesting… A chilling possibility crept in. If, by some quirk of fate, a woman still happened to be a virgin, surely that minor detail wasn’t obvious to people? Could there be something about her that flagged her status to the world?

And if so, what? Could it be her clothes? Her conversation? The way she walked?

She’d never thought it worth worrying about before. It was just—the way things had turned out for her.

It wasn’t that she hadn’t had opportunities. Plenty of men had been keen to relieve her of it. And she had no philosophical objections to sex. In fact, she fully believed that every woman should drink deeply from the cup of life, although the values Henry and Bea had instilled in her had quietly insisted that the drinker should be in love. And there was the little matter of trust. She’d tried a few tentative sips once or twice, but for some reason the trust factor had always intruded and she’d stalled at a certain point.

Leah and Zoe, her flatmates, called her a late bloomer. Sooner or later, they declared, some ruthless hunk would send her completely overboard and she’d plunge right in. And that was where she needed to beware, because someone as dreamy and impulsive as Sophy Woodruff was at risk of a broken heart.

If she wanted to land a man, she needed to do her research, they’d said. Find a solid prospect with financial security and a career trajectory, and plan a campaign.

‘But what if we have nothing in common?’ she’d argued.

The answer was stern and unequivocal. ‘Plan a campaign. Build things in common.’

What Zoe and Leah didn’t understand—well, they did, but they scoffed about it—was that she had dreams. And dreams didn’t go with campaigns. In fact, she preferred to rely on her instincts about people, though she couldn’t always, she had to admit. She had been mistaken more than once, sometimes quite spectacularly. But she’d known definitely at once that those boys she’d turned down just didn’t have the chemistry, and never, ever would.

As for her needing to become more proactive, with a plan and some cold, hard strategy, she doubted she could bring that off. Campaigns weren’t her style. In the situation she was in right now, though, some cool, ruthless strategy was definitely warranted.

She felt a little shiver of apprehension.

There was only one thing for it. Whatever it took, she would have to find a way to seize her letter back. She couldn’t allow Connor O’Brien to ruin her chance to know her father before it had even begun. And he wouldn’t win any future encounter with her, either, dammit. He’d better learn that, kissed or unkissed, Sophy Woodruff was a force to be reckoned with.

Somehow, if it killed her, she would find a way into his office.

It gave her an eerie feeling to realise that at this very second he might be on the other side of her wall, gazing out at the very same view.

Connor frowned out across the treetops, beyond the Gardens, to where a strip of Walsh Bay glimmered under a hot blue sky. It occurred to him that not so very far away, as the crow flew, he owned a house. Most of his father’s things had been auctioned for charity, as became the possessions of the extremely wealthy, but it might do, especially as it wasn’t too far from the haunts of Elliott Fraser. He was sure he’d left some of his law books there. Slightly outdated perhaps, but he could pick up some of the current publications later. It might be interesting to see what had changed this side of his old profession.

He stepped back from the window and gazed appreciatively around at the high-ceilinged rooms with their ornate cornices. If he’d been setting up for real, he couldn’t have found a more pleasing location.

He glanced at his watch. Organise a car, then take some time to pick up his books and some stationery supplies before the office furnishings were delivered. Consider his next encounter with Sophy Woodruff….

His pulse rate quickened. He wondered what the letter was she’d been searching for. The anxiety in those stunning eyes had seemed genuine enough. With her sweet low voice, the ready flush washing into her cheek, she’d seemed amazingly soft, too soft to be any of the things Sir Frank suspected. But he was too hardened a case to be sucked in by appearances. Women in the profession could be superb actresses…

Whatever she was searching for, his challenge would be to find it first.

He remembered the fire that had flashed in those blue eyes when he’d touched her, and his blood stirred. He could so enjoy a worthy protagonist.

* * *

At lunchtime, on her way down to the basement deli, Sophy saw Connor O’Brien assisting some workmen to manoeuvre a handsome rosewood bookshelf through his door. She grimaced to herself. No doubt he needed it for storing other people’s private documents.

She queued at the deli for a salad sandwich, but instead of taking it to her usual picnic spot in the Gardens, headed back upstairs to finish some of the morning’s reports. As she reached the top of the last flight her stomach flipped in excitement.

Connor’s door was standing half open.

Her imagination leaped to the possibilities. The workmen must have gone to pick up their next load. Had the arrogant beast gone with them?

Except that would be too good to be true. Surely he wouldn’t leave his office unlocked and unattended?

With a thudding heart, she slowed her pace, and as she reached his door hesitated, pretending to search for something in her bag. She could hear no sound from within. All she could see in the slice of reception office visible through the half-open door was an empty expanse of carpet and the corner of the built-in reception desk.

He could be in the inner room, though, skulking. She hovered there, straining her ears, trying to guess if anyone was inside. If he was in there, she reasoned, she should be able to sense his presence. A quick glance along the gallery revealed a couple of people waiting for the lift at the other end. She closed her eyes and listened, but the air seemed flat and empty.

Voices floated up to her from below. She darted across and looked over the balustrade. There were people on the stairs to the lower levels, but no sign of Connor O’Brien. And the lift must have arrived without the workmen, for the waiting people were now stepping into it.

For the moment, the coast seemed to be clear.

It was too good a chance to lose. She made a small precautionary knock, then waited with her heart thumping fit to burst. Nothing disturbed the stillness. Feeling as guilty as a thief, she cast a last furtive glance about, then slipped inside.

Familiar with the layout, she sensed immediately that the entire suite, including both offices and the tiny tea-room inside, were unoccupied. She ventured through the connecting door into the larger room. Already Millie’s comfortable presence had gone. The place had a different feel, as if it had been given over to some sterner god.

Daylight streamed in through the tall windows, and with it the view her office shared of the Botanical Gardens and the strip of harbour beyond. A laptop sat on a heavy rosewood desk beside a stack of new stationery—cardboard folder files, packaged paper and a selection of office equipment. The bookshelves were bare, a large tea chest of books beside them waiting to be unpacked. She tilted her head and read a couple of the titles upside down. Policy and Practice of Human Rights Law. International Human Rights.

She felt disconcerted. Connor O’Brien was a lawyer?

How ironic. If he was so concerned about human rights, what was he doing stealing people’s private letters? For a second she experienced a doubt. It hardly made sense. Could she have leaped to the wrong conclusion and lost her letter somewhere else?

Even visualising the envelope made a hot and cold sensation of the most unmistakable immediacy sweep over her, as though all the tiny hairs on her body were standing on end. Her overwhelming instinct told her it was close by. If she closed her eyes, she could practically feel the texture of the paper in her hands. Without a doubt she knew it had to be here in this room.

The question was where?

A new filing cabinet stood within easy reach of the desk. She glanced over her shoulder at the door and, ignoring some warning prickles in her nape, tried the top drawer. It sounded empty, but it was locked. They were all locked. She felt a surge of excitement.

Why would he lock the filing cabinet if he had nothing worth hiding? She looked around for the keys. She tried the desk drawers first, but, finding them empty, turned to survey the room. Her eye fell on a briefcase, leaning up against the leg of his desk chair.

Ah. A thrill of guilty excitement shivered down her spine.

Should she?

She vacillated for a moment, but with the seconds ticking away it was no time for squeamishness. Her pulse drumming in her ears, she whisked the briefcase up onto the desk, pushing aside stationery to make room, and unzipped the main compartment intended for the laptop. It was empty, apart from a couple of memory sticks.

Increasingly conscious of the possibility of the workmen’s return, she made a hasty search of the other compartments. Her letter wasn’t in any of them, nor any keys. In fact, the case contained nothing except for a few odds and ends for the computer. That was when she noticed Connor O’Brien’s jacket, slung on the back of his chair.

Having sunk this deep into crime, rifling a personal jacket didn’t seem much more of a stretch.

Gingerly, suspense creeping up her spine, she slipped her hands into the side pockets, and came up with nothing. She had no greater luck with the breast pocket, although her fingers detected a bulge through the fabric. She turned the jacket to the inside and tried the inset pocket. Her heart bounded in her chest. There was no envelope in there. Only a passport.

She slipped it out, then put it straight back in. This would be an unforgivable invasion of the man’s privacy. But then, how concerned was he about respecting hers?

With a bracing breath, she squashed down her scruples and took out the alluring little red book.

Probably it was her imagination, but the covers felt warm to her touch, as if the book vibrated with some vital energy. It was such a temptation. Surely it wouldn’t hurt to examine the photo. Almost at once she gave in, opening straight to the ID page to be faced with Connor O’Brien.

She might have known. Other people took ghastly mugshots, but not him. She stared, riveted, as his face looked out at her, stern and unsmiling, but still with the faint possibility of amusement breaking out on his sardonic mouth. He was thirty-four, according to his birthdate. She flicked to the back pages, and widened her eyes in surprise. Connor was a frequent traveller. And a recent one, going by the last stamp in the book. He’d only just arrived in the country.

She’d heard of workaholics, but this was an extreme case, surely, if he came to work straight off a plane without going home first to shave. Unable to resist one more look at his picture, she flipped back to the identity page. Was it her imagination, or were his eyes piercing her now with that infuriating mockery as if he knew what she was doing and could see right through her?

Her heart suddenly thumping too fast, she snapped the book shut. She held it between her palms, swept by a confused mixture of conflicting instincts about Connor O’Brien. They couldn’t all be true. Was she going insane?

She gave an alarmed start as the sound of approaching voices alerted her that she was about to be caught red-handed, and the passport slipped from her fingers.

She dived to pick it up as bumps and grunts began to issue from the reception office, suggestive of several men hefting some bulky piece of furniture through a narrow aperture.

In her haste to slot the little book into the pocket, she knocked the stationery pile askew, and sent manilla folders sliding across the desk and onto the floor.

She dropped to her knees, and as she scrabbled to gather the files and stack them back on the desk the activity outside ceased. Her heart nearly seized as she caught sight of the briefcase. Quickly she dashed it onto the floor. For a panicked instant she considered hiding in the tea-room, then dismissed the action as cowardly.

She could do this, she thought, her heart slamming into her ribs. She’d just brazen it out. She straightened up and faced the door, steeled for the worst.

There was a brief exchange of conversation outside. She was straining to hear what was being said when the door to the room burst open. At almost the identical moment her horrified gaze fell on the passport, still lying on the corner of the desk.

She snatched it up, whipping it behind her back just as Connor strode in. When he saw her, he stopped short, an initial flare of astonishment in his dark eyes changing nearly at once to cynicism. Almost as if catching her there was no real surprise.

Without a word he stepped past her, seized a pen from the desk, and turned back to the outer room, where he signed something on a clipboard presented to him by one of the delivery men.

With no time to return the passport to his jacket, and nowhere to hide it, she popped it down the front of her shirt, just as Connor turned to stroll slowly and purposefully back into his office.

If he saw her surreptitious movement, he didn’t show it. He shut the door gently behind him, then paused to examine her, his black eyebrows raised.

He looked taller, grimmer and more authoritative when he was annoyed. It was harder to imagine him plunging through the pond.

No. No, it wasn’t.

Her mouth became uncomfortably dry, and she smoothed her skirt with moistening palms.

He didn’t appear to be imagining her in as favourable a light. His speculative gaze swept over her while she waited in an anguish of suspense, realising from the hard glint in his eyes he wasn’t about to let her off lightly.

‘Did you want something?’ His deep voice was polite, with just a tinge of incredulity lapping at its edges.

As if he didn’t know. The sheer duplicity of the man.

She tried to assume a cool, poised demeanour. ‘Oh, look, er, I should apologise. I probably shouldn’t have walked in. I came to—speak to you. The door was open, so I just—’ she made a breezy gesture ‘—wandered in.’ Her voice wobbled a little, but she kept her head high and forced herself to keep meeting his eyes, all the time conscious of her pulse ticking like a time bomb.

His eyes flicked to his desk, over the once rigidly neat pile of stationery, now listing dangerously to one side, and on—to her conscious eyes at least—to the neon-flashing space where she’d rested the briefcase.

In a brilliant move inspired by adrenaline, she did the only possible thing, and sat on the desk in the telltale space, stretching a hand back so she could lean, and once again knocking over the wonky pile.

‘Oh, damn,’ she said, trying to sound careless, ‘that’s the second time I’ve done that.’

Connor O’Brien didn’t look fooled. His acute dark eyes slid over her in sardonic appreciation. She grew uncomfortably conscious of her breasts and legs, accentuated by her posture, and hoped the red passport didn’t blaze through her shirt.

‘What can I help you with, Sophy?’

She smiled, but her sexual sensors, to say nothing of the others, were all madly oscillating on panic alert. Somehow, though, the danger she was in gave her a reckless sort of courage. She hadn’t spent lonely years of her life watching old black-and-white movie reels into the small hours for nothing. She knew how Lana Turner would have played this scene.

‘Ah, so you’ve found out my name,’ she said throatily, crossing her legs.

His glinting gaze flicked to them. ‘I described you to the Security guy. He had no trouble recognising you.’

Something in his voice told her the conversation he’d had with the man had been a loaded one. She could just imagine the sort of things they’d said about her. If his passport hadn’t been burning a hole in her midriff, she might have been incensed. As it was, her major concern for the moment, apart from escaping unscathed, was how she was to return it to its pocket. It was one thing to be suspected of snooping, another to leave behind glaring evidence.

What if he accused her of stealing? He could have her up before the courts. Her boss would be forced to sack her. Perhaps, though, if she owned up and produced the passport at once…

She examined Connor’s face for signs of softening, but his eyebrows were heavy and forbidding, his mouth and jaw stern.

Lana would have known what to do. If ever there was a man who needed beguiling, here was the man. Her skirt had ridden up a little on her thigh, and she discreetly tugged it down.

Connor O’Brien didn’t miss the movement. He prowled closer and stood looking down at her with his harsh, uncompromising gaze. ‘Breaking and entering is a criminal offence.’ She noticed his glance flick to her mouth. ‘What were you hoping to steal?’

Her heart made a scared lurch at the ‘s’ word. Somehow, owning up lost its attractiveness as an option.

‘Steal? That’s ridiculous.’ She fluttered her lashes in denial. ‘It was hardly breaking and entering… You left your door wide-open, and I came in to talk to you. Simple as that.’

He looked unconvinced. ‘I should hand you over to that Security guy and make his day.’

‘Oh, why? For coming in for a chat?’

‘A chat.’ His lip curled in disbelief. ‘About what?’

She wished he wouldn’t use that sceptical tone. It was rich, this distrust he had of her, when he was the one who stole people’s confidential DNA reports.

‘The weather,’ she said, rolling her eyes. ‘What else?’

She slid off the desk so she could bring more height to the exchange, but standing before Connor only seemed to illustrate how slight and insubstantial five feet seven of guilty woman was in comparison with six feet three of hard, cynical man. Still, after the way he’d behaved, his outraged morality act was too much to swallow.

‘I felt a bit sorry about not being so friendly this morning.’ She stretched languidly, then sashayed towards the door, casting him a long Lana-esque glance over her shoulder. ‘But I see now that my first instincts about you were correct.’

She had just grasped the door knob when she felt a big powerful bulk stride up behind her. A lean hand closed firmly over hers.

‘No, you don’t, sweetheart. Not yet.’

She could feel his hot breath on her neck. As his raw masculine proximity washed over her, accelerating her pulse into a mad racing turmoil, it homed in on her that, while she might have been playing Lana Turner, he was no two-dimensional Hollywood hero on the silver screen. He was a big, dangerous, flesh-and-blood man, and he wasn’t confined to a script.

Heat emanated from his body. She turned to face him, her back against the door, barely able to keep her rapid breathing under control, panting like a marathon runner. Her blood throbbed with a tense excitement. Still, as sexy as he looked with his black brows bristling, his intelligent dark eyes scouring her face, she reminded herself that he was the man who’d stolen her letter. It was imperative that she keep her wits about her.

She made an attempt to ignore the major chemical reaction effervescing inside her, and stiffened her spine.

He stepped back a little to study her, frowning, his dark eyes burning with a curious intensity. ‘Empty your pockets.’

In spite of her bravado, she felt her cheeks flame with the insult. ‘I don’t have any.’

A dark gleam lit his eyes. ‘Ah. Well, then, I’ll have no choice but to search you.’

Her stomach lurched. The silkiness of his deep voice couldn’t disguise the determination in the set of his chiselled jaw.

It was a seminal moment. If she allowed him to make the attempt, she was lost. His stern, masculine mouth, not so far away from hers, relaxed its unforgiving lines, as though Connor was enjoying his mastery of the situation. His mastery of her.

Suspense coiled her insides.

On a rush of adrenaline, she leaned back against the door, her breasts rising and falling, and breathed huskily, ‘But…would you feel honourable about violating my person? A woman who’s never been kissed?’

His eyes flickered over her face and throat. She could sense his hesitation, his struggle against temptation. It gave her such an exhilarating feeling to see that she could tempt him from his intent. And he would succumb, she realised with a thrilled, almost incredulous certainty, her heart thundering.

Beneath his black lashes his pupils flared like a hungry wolf’s.

He curled his lean fingers under her jaw. ‘That can be fixed,’ he said. Then he brought his lips down on hers with deliberate, sensual purpose.

At that first firm touch, a fiery tingling sensation shot through her veins like an electric charge, and sent an immediate swell of warmth to her breasts.

A shudder roiled through Connor’s tall frame, as with a gruff little sexy sound he increased the sizzling pressure and sent her blood temperature soaring.

She tried to remember he was her adversary, and made a half-hearted attempt to cool her response, but he drew her in closer. Then, like the cunning devil he was, he softened the kiss to clever, gentle persuasion, until the fire on her lips ignited her bloodstream and aroused all her secret, intimate places with erotic yearning.

Though he was a big, powerful man, he held her tenderly, his lean, tanned hands on her waist. His touch was so seductive that, instead of her putting up a sound resistance, her own hands went sliding across his ribs. Even through his shirt, the heat of his hard, vibrant body under her palms was so thrilling, she couldn’t restrain herself from writhing with pleasure.

Just when she was ready to swoon at all the intoxicating sensations of hot, strong, tender man, he tempted her lips apart with his tongue.

The taste of him exploded in her senses like a sunburst. Faint tangs of coffee and toothpaste were overridden with another flavour, some arousing primitive essence that was surely unique to him. His devilish tongue slid through, teasing and stroking erotic tissues inside her mouth she hadn’t been aware existed. The sheer pleasure of his artful, gliding tongue lit her with a fever that infected every little corner of her being.

Her insides went into involuntary meltdown. Boneless, she had to clutch at him for support.

And he was so satisfying to the touch. He was all hard muscle, bone and sinew, as strong and unyielding as steel. Through his shirt, the solid reality of him under her clinging hands felt right, and her breasts strained against her bra for—something.

As her brain swam in a drugged delirium the hot, panting hunger of desire stalked through her feverish body like a ravenous panther. She had little doubt Connor felt it, too, for on deepening the kiss he pulled her even harder against him, as though to experience more intensely her softness in arousing friction with his lean, sexy body.

His restless, seeking hands caressed her breasts, the curves of her waist and hips, and she burned for more. She let go of all her reservations about him and surrendered herself utterly. Lost in the escalating sensation, she hardly noticed a sharp little tweak of the shirt at her waist until she became aware of the scrape of his knuckles on the skin of her midriff. Then his hands came up to her shoulders, and he pushed her away.

The sudden cold shock left her gasping and adrift.

As she stood struggling to adjust to reality, her blood still heavy and inflamed, Connor stepped away a pace. He was breathing hard, his darkened eyes ablaze. An angry quirk curled his mouth. He held up his passport and waved it at her.

‘Did you really think you’d get away with this?’ The clipped words were like a face-slap.

‘Oh. Oh, that.’ Impossible, considering how flushed she must have been already, but she felt her ears grow hot enough to spontaneously combust. ‘Look, I did intend to put it back, but you—you came in too soon.’ As his expression impinged on her brain her breathless, husky voice grew more strained. ‘I couldn’t think of what else to do with it. Sorry.’

‘Sorry.’ Several conflicting emotions warred on his handsome face. Astonishment, bemusement and—judging by the compression of his stirringly sexy mouth—contempt. He gave a sardonic shrug. ‘Well, I hope you were satisfied with what you discovered.’

Stung by his disdain, she was reminded of his callous behaviour when she’d been so anxious over her letter, the letter he’d stolen, and felt her own anger flare.

‘Well, I’m not satisfied,’ she snapped. ‘And I won’t be satisfied until I get my letter back.’

‘What?’ He stared at her, then his face changed and his dark eyes lit with amused comprehension. ‘Oh, your letter. Of course.’ To her absolute fury he had the insensitivity to laugh. ‘Still searching for that, are you?’ His smile slowly faded and his gaze softened as he read her hot, flushed face, her heaving breasts. ‘Ah, but it was worth getting caught, though, don’t you think?’ He reached forward and brushed her mouth with his finger. ‘Delicious, Sophy.’ His deep voice was velvet with sensuality. ‘You must come and search again.’

She felt the strongest desire to murder Connor O’Brien.

She turned on her heel and yanked open the door, and had to restrain herself to walk with dignity and not run. When she reached the clinic, she strode blindly past Reception without seeing a soul, then stalked through her room to the window, where she stood gasping in air and trying to cool her face.

She was in a confused daze for minutes, then thoughts finally seethed to the surface in her brain. She absolutely loathed that man. She would get her letter back. And she would make him suffer.

Later on, though, after she’d cooled down and had time to analyse her feelings, she realised her humiliation was not so much about being caught. She didn’t feel as guilty as she should about breaking in. The circumstances had demanded a bold move and the opportunity had been too good to throw away. She didn’t really even feel bad about the passport. That had merely been the result of an unfortunate sequence of events.

The thing that was tearing at her, eating her up, gnawing at her soul—was that kiss.

She covered her cheeks with her hands. If she hadn’t responded to him… She felt herself grow hot all over again at the thought of her undeniable enthusiasm. She hadn’t seemed able to help herself. And he… He had seemed equally involved during the—event. She couldn’t forget, though, how quickly he’d regained his cool, while she’d still been so hot and aroused to the bitter end.

What was truly humiliating was not knowing why he’d kissed her.

Had it only been because he’d known she had the passport?

Or—because he’d wanted to?

Connor finished shelving his books and closed the glass doors. The latest developments in his field as they applied to the rules of war had been his daily practice for years. Now, seeing the tomes lined up so proudly, his curiosity was aroused about what might have changed in human rights practice on the domestic front. This would be a good opportunity to catch up.

He glanced about him with satisfaction. His short-term hired furniture looked quite impressive. He could almost imagine what it would be like to set up here for real, with Sophy Woodruff in the room next door.

She was a puzzle. If Sir Frank’s suspicions had any foundation, she was the most unusual operative he’d ever encountered.

He made a wry grimace at himself, still getting over his astounding lapse of judgement in leaving his passport unsecured. All at once Sir Frank’s warning about him reaching his use-by date had a prophetic ring to it.

He would have to assume she’d have noticed the difference in his passport, forcing him now to some further embroidery of his cover story. Still, the lapse could work in his favour. Only a man with nothing to hide left his office door unlocked.

He smiled to himself, remembering her petrified expression in the first instant he’d surprised her search. Her clear blue eyes, alight with mingled horror and shame—that hint of a laugh dying to break out.

The question was whether she was inept, or very, very clever.

Whatever she was searching for now assumed crucial dimensions. With her being prepared to risk being caught in his office, she had to be near desperate, although there was no doubt she’d played her role of nervous bravado to perfection.

Of course, she still might have done if she were Sir Frank’s other possibility—a rapacious predator seeking to lift a besotted middle-aged man from the marital nest.





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