Quade: The Irresistible One. BRONWYN JAMESON
so late.”
She started to turn, on the verge of fleeing, Quade thought. With a hand on her shoulder, he stopped her and felt her still. He picked up her discarded phone and pressed it into her hand.
Slowly, finger by finger, he wrapped her hand around the instrument. No rings, he noted, with a disturbing jab of satisfaction, just neatly filed nails, unpolished, businesslike. But he felt them tremble, and she retrieved her hand quick smart and took a small step backward. A reluctant step, he knew. Chantal Goodwin didn’t like stepping back from anything.
“One thing before you go.” He waited for her to turn, to meet his gaze. “You’ve done a first-rate job here considering you’re not a professional housemaid.”
An almost-smile touched her lips. “Thank you…I think.”
“So, what’s in it for you?”
“Like I told you, it was convenient for me to help out, living so near.”
“And this—” he waved his hand expansively to indicate the whole buffed and sparkling house “—has to be worth a whole truckload of brownie points.”
One dark brow arched expressively. “You think?”
“Yeah, I think.”
“Then I’d best go see what I can negotiate.”
This time he let her go although he stood unmoving, listening to the sharp click-clack of her sensible heels all the way down the long hallway, around his dumped luggage, and out the front door. Not fleeing, but hurrying off to work, to collect those brownie points.
To further her career. He should have figured that one out without any clues.
Funny how he hadn’t recognized her, although in fairness to himself, she hadn’t merely changed, she had metamorphosed. Even funnier was the way he’d responded. Hell, he’d been practically flirting with her, circling and sniffing the air. And it wasn’t even spring yet.
Scowling darkly, he put it down to sleep deprivation and the complex mix of emotions associated with his homecoming. Combine that with the unexpectedness of finding her in his bedroom, leaning over his bed, and no wonder he’d forgotten himself for a minute or ten.
The next time they met he’d be better prepared.
Chantal didn’t slow down until a passing highway patrol officer flashed his headlights in warning, but even after she eased her pressure on the accelerator her heart and blood and mind kept racing—not because of her near brush with a speeding fine, but because of her brush with Cameron Quade.
With time weren’t teenage crushes supposed to fade? In this case, obviously not. Right now she felt as warm and flustered as when she’d first met the object of her teenage infatuation. He had fascinated her for years before that, what with all the retold stories—from her parents via Godfrey and Gillian—of his glorious achievements at the posh boarding school he’d been sent to after his mother died, then at law school, and finally his appointment to a top international law firm.
He’d done everything she aspired to, and everything her parents expected of her. Oh, yes, she’d heard a lot about Cameron Quade even before she met him, and she’d worshiped from afar. Up close he was worth all of the worshiping. Her skin grew even warmer remembering the moment when she’d turned and found him in that doorway. The perfect bone structure, the strongly chiseled mouth, the brooding green eyes and thickly tousled hair.
So long and lean and hard. So unknowingly sexy, so irresistibly male. So exactly how a man should look.
Chantal tugged at the neckline of her sweater and blew out a long breath as she recalled the way he’d looked right back at her. Like she was there in his bedroom for another purpose entirely. What was that all about?
Back in the Barker Cowan days he’d never looked at her with anything but annoyance or dismissal or—on one painfully embarrassing occasion that even now caused her to wince—with blood-freezing disdain.
And didn’t he have a fiancée back in Dallas or Denver or wherever he’d been living the past six years? Kristin, if memory served her correctly. He’d brought her home for his father’s funeral and she’d looked exactly like the kind of woman Cameron Quade would choose as a mate. Tall, stunning, self-assured—the direct antithesis of untall, unstunning, self-dubious Chantal.
She must have misinterpreted that look. Perhaps he’d been even more exhausted than he looked. After all, he hadn’t even recognized her. As for Chantal herself…well, her wits had been completely blown away by his sudden appearance. Not to mention what he’d overheard.
Good grief, Julia, you might as well have left a box of condoms on the pillow while you were at it!
Had she laughed it off or explained that she usually didn’t go around tossing phones at walls? Oh, no. She’d just stood there staring at him like some tongue-tied teenager…some lopsided tongue-tied teenager.
In her mind’s eye she saw one low-heeled black court shoe spiral through the air in stark slow-motion replay. She groaned out loud.
Way to make an impression, Ms. Calm Efficient Lawyer!
Especially when making an impression was the whole point of the exercise. Godfrey had asked her to help him out, to check that the cleaners did their job and maybe stock the fridge, but she’d wanted Merindee prepared within an inch of perfection.
To impress the boss’s nephew, to impress her boss.
She’d intended to be finished and long gone before said nephew arrived, but then she hadn’t counted on the whole bed and sheets debacle…for which Julia had to wear some culpability, she decided, frowning darkly at her cell phone. She punched Last Number Redial and waited nine rings—she counted them—for her sister to pick up.
“Hello?” Julia sounded breathless.
“Were you outside? You better not have run—”
“Relax, sis. You know I’m beyond running anywhere.”
In the background Chantal heard a deeper voice, followed by a muffled shush. Her frown deepened. “Shouldn’t Zane be at work?”
“Oh, he has been.” Julia sounded suspiciously smug. “We’re working on our honeymoon plans.”
Chantal rolled her eyes. “Good grief. You’re six months pregnant. Shouldn’t you be working on your nursery?”
Julia laughed, as she did so often these days. “It’s been finished for weeks. Where are you, by the way?”
“On my way to work.” In fact, she was just passing the Welcome sign at the eastern edge of the Cliffton city limits. “And, thanks to you, I’m running way late.”
“Thanks to me?”
“You didn’t hear the message I left earlier?”
“Sorry, we’ve been busy.” Julia laughed huskily then added in cavalier fashion, “Well, whatever the prob, I’m sure you’ll deal with it.”
“The prob is those black sheets you bought.”
“Oh, no, they’re midnight-blue. They look black but in the light they have this deep blue shimmer. Very classy but sexy, too, don’t you think?”
Chantal didn’t think about sexy sheets, at least not consciously. Before Zane Julia hadn’t, either, and Chantal was still adjusting to this new mouthy version of her formerly meek and mild sister.
“Now, about tonight…” Julia shifted to a more businesslike tone. “Would you be able to collect the party platters seeing as you’re in Cliffton?”
“Well, actually, about tonight—”
“Uh-uh, no way! You are my only sister and half of my bridesmaids and you will be at my shower.”
“I was only going to say I may be running a little late.”