Quade: The Irresistible One. BRONWYN JAMESON
he watched her straight skirt ride up the backs of smoothly stockinged thighs. Watched the fine gray material stretch from classic to seam-threatening across a stunning rear end.
It was the first sight to snare Quade’s total attention in those thousands of miles of travel.
Hiking her skirt higher, she slid one knee onto the mattress and stretched even farther, and he realized, belatedly, that she was remaking his bed. No, not his childhood bed but the big old double from the guest room—the antique one with the rusty springs. And as she leaned and bent and stretched and tucked, the mattress squeaked and creaked with a sound evocative of another kind of movement, a sound that stoked Quade’s warm enjoyment of the scene to hot discomfort.
Hot discomfort as inappropriate as his continued silent observation, he decided with a wake-up-to-yourself shake of his head. He stepped out of the doorway and into the room and asked the first question that came to mind. “Why are you changing the sheets?”
She whipped around in a flurry of fast-moving limbs that put her off the mattress and onto her feet in one second flat. Or, more accurately, onto one foot and one shoe in one second flat. Her other shoe had sailed free midflurry and now lay on its side, stranded halfway between the bed and the discarded sheets. She faced him with one hand splayed hard against her pink-sweatered chest, with her eyes round and startled.
Eyes, he noticed, almost as intensely dark as her hair. Both contrasted starkly with her pale complexion, although her softly rounded face was in perfect harmony with her body.
“I haven’t the foggiest who Julia is or why she’s been choosing my bed linen,” he continued softly, toeing the heap of satin out of the way as he came further into the room, “but I have nothing against her taste.”
Her gaze whipped to the phone and back again, and he knew that she knew exactly what he’d overheard, but she offered no explanation, no comment, other than an accusatory, “You’re not supposed to be here for another hour. Why are you early?”
She looked annoyed, sounded put out, and there was something about the combination that seemed oddly familiar. Quade tried to place her as he dealt with her objection. “We had a decent tailwind across the Pacific and got into Sydney ahead of schedule. Plus I’d allowed for fog over the mountains but it was surprisingly clear for August. I made good time.”
Her attention slid past him, toward the doorway. “You’re alone?”
“Should I have brought someone?”
When she didn’t reply he lifted a brow, waited.
“We didn’t know if you were bringing your fiancée,” she conceded. “We decided to play it safe.”
Hence the double bed. Hence the black satin and condoms. At least that made some sort of sense, or it would have done if he still had a fiancée to share his bed. As for the rest…
“We?” he asked.
“Julia and I. Julia is my sister. She’s been helping me out.” Or not helping, if her disgusted glare at the abandoned sheets was any indication.
Again, he felt that inkling of familiarity. Nothing solid, but… Gaze fixed on her face, he came a little closer. “Now we have Julia sorted, that leaves you.”
“You don’t recognize me?”
“Should I?”
“I’m Chantal Goodwin.” She lifted her chin as if daring him to disagree.
He almost did. Hell, he almost laughed out loud in startled disbelief. While at university Chantal Goodwin had clerked in the law firm where he’d worked. Hell, he all but got her the gig but he didn’t recall ever seeing that spectacular rear end. He did, however, recall her being a spectacular pain in the rear end.
“It was a long time ago,” she said stiffly. “I dare say I’ve changed a bit.”
A bit? Now there was a classic understatement. “You had braces on your teeth.”
“That’s right.”
“And you’ve rounded out some.”
“Nice way of saying I’ve put on weight?”
“Nice way of saying you’ve improved with age.”
She blinked as if unsure how to deal with the compliment, and he noticed her lashes, long and dark and natural. If she wore any makeup, he couldn’t tell. And in the sudden stillness, the total silence, he realized that the music had stopped. And that a nice warm hum of interest stirred his blood.
“So, Chantal Goodwin,” he said softly, “what are you doing in my bedroom?”
“I’m an associate in your uncle’s law firm.”
“Well, that explains you being in my bedroom.”
She had the good grace to flush, prettily, he thought. “I also happen to live just across the way—”
“In the old Heaslip place?”
“Yes.”
“So, you’re making my bed as a neighborly gesture? Kind of a welcome-home gift?”
That pretty hint of color intensified as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other. When the other turned out to be the shoeless one, she listed badly to the left. Quade steadied her with a hand beneath her elbow, taking her weight and enjoying the notion that he’d thrown her off balance almost as much as he was enjoying her pink-sweatered, softly flushing, female-scented proximity.
Clearing her throat, she pointed beyond his right shoulder. “Before I fall flat on my face, would you mind fetching my shoe?”
Quade retrieved it; she thanked him with a smile. It was no more than a brief curve of her wide unpainted mouth but it softened her eyes. Not quite black, he noticed, but the deep opaque brown of coffee…without the cream. That was reserved for her skin, skin that looked as velvety smooth as those orchids in his hallway.
“As I was saying—” She paused to slip her foot into the shoe. “Godfrey and Gillian wanted your place habitable before you arrived and because I live so near, I was…I volunteered.”
Ah. His uncle—her boss—had volunteered her for the job. The Chantal Goodwin he remembered would have just loved that! “You cleaned my house?”
“Actually I employed a cleaning service. But the linen’s all packed away and I didn’t like going through your father’s things. That’s why I asked Julia to buy the sheets.”
“Does Julia work for Godfrey, too?”
“Good grief, no.” She shook her head as if to clear it of that staggering notion. “I was running short on time so she was helping me.”
“By buying sheets…?”
“Exactly. Anyway, these ones—” she indicated the sheets on the half-made bed behind her “—are mine and because I had to go fetch them, I’m running late.”
“For?”
“Work. Clients. Appointments.” With quick hands she resumed her bed making. “Julia also shopped for groceries. I’m sure you’ll find there’s enough to get by on. I took the liberty of having your phone connected, and the power, of course.”
Quade folded his arms and watched her tuck the plain white sheets into ruthless hospital corners. “Leave it,” he said, feeling unaccountably irritated by her seamless switch to business mode.
She straightened. “Are you sure?”
“You think I can’t make my own bed?”
Unexpectedly her mouth curved into a grin. “Well, yes, actually. I’ve never met a man yet who could make a bed worth sleeping in.”
Her wry amusement lasted as long as it took their gazes to meet and hold, as long as it took for images of rustling sheets and