A Delicious Deception by Elizabeth Power

wallet from the inside pocket of his jacket. ‘Make the call,’ he reiterated, taking out a credit card.
    ‘I … I couldn’t possibly,’ she stammered, blushing to her roots as she realised how her statement must have sounded. As though she was asking him to help her. ‘I didn’t mean I wanted you to …’
    ‘What’s the number?’ he asked, ignoring her embarrassment.
    Seeing how determined he was, she quoted it from the piece of paper she’d jotted it down on earlier.
    ‘Now what is it you want?’
    With a little shrug, feeling indebted, uncertainly she told him. He dealt with it swiftly and effortlessly. And not only that—in fluent French!
    ‘And the recipient?’ he enquired, reverting to English to ask her.
    Cynthia Hardwicke,
she almost said, realising only just in time that that would blow her cover good and proper. ‘Address it to “Mum,” care of …’ Casually she filled him in with the name of the friend her mother was staying with. ‘And the message is simply,
Happy Birthday. Love from Rayne.’
    It took him just seconds, it seemed, to supply the florist with his own details, his voice deep and confident, its dark rich timbre sending an unwanted tingle along Rayne’s spine.
    ‘Thanks,’ she murmured when he had finished, unable to look at him as she came around the desk. ‘I really wasn’t asking you to do that. I can let you have the cash.’
    ‘There’s no hurry,’ he said, his tone surprisingly reassuring, the sudden touch of his hand on her shoulder bringing her startled gaze to his.
    She looked instantly wary, King thought, noticing the guarded emotion in the green-gold depths of her eyes. They were, quite simply, the most beautiful eyes he had seen on any woman he’d ever met, but there was some other emotion behind the wariness that was defying him to touch her. Sadness, he was startled to recognise. Deep-buried, but not altogether concealed. And he knew in that moment that somehow—somewhere—those eyes had penetrated his consciousness before. Last week? Last year? He gave a mental shrug. Perhaps it was only in his dreams.
    ‘We got off to a bad start.’ He was surprised at how hoarse his voice sounded. Was it because his hormones had kicked in again, causing him to harden from the warmth of her body through her thin blouse? Or was it the dark and heady mixture of her perfume? ‘I thought it might be sensible if we were both to try again.’ Otherwise she’d get away from him, he was sure, and he’d never lost a woman he’d set his heart on having in his life.
    ‘Try?’ she ventured croakily, realising why she had never stood a chance against his potent masculinity as a teenager. He was really quite amazing. With those dynamically darklooks. In the way he spoke. The way he carried himself. As if he owned the world. Which he probably did. Or a fair proportion of it anyway, she thought cynically, resenting him for how rich he was, how influential, and for making her wish that she was spreadeagled over that desk with him …
    ‘To be civil to each other,’ she heard him saying. ‘I’ll accept that your reason for being here is all above board. And you …’ He was massaging his lower jaw with his free hand. ‘You’ll promise to keep your hands to yourself.’
    Wings of colour touched her cheeks from his all too shaming reminder of how she had struck him. ‘As long as you promise to do the same with yours.’
    ‘If that’s what you want.’
    Rayne felt her throat constrict. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
    He smiled silkily. ‘You know very well.’
    Yes, she did. The last thing she wanted was for him to spell it out, but it seemed he was going to anyway as he went on.
    ‘Calling a truce, unfortunately, isn’t going to put paid to the fact that there’s a definite chemistry between us, Rayne, even if you do want to deny it. But a woman doesn’t respond to a man the way you responded to me unless she wants that man to make love to her. Even if she is,