aroused. ‘Are you in a relationship with someone else?’
‘That’s none of your business,’ she snapped, straightening her clothes with faltering fingers.
‘So you aren’t,’ he deduced correctly.
Because wouldn’t it have been the best way of keeping him at bay, she thought, realising it too late, if she had said she was?
‘So what was it, Rayne? A disappointing attachment?’
You could say that!
her heart screamed bitterly, because there had been nothing that had shamed or disillusioned her more than her reckless crush on him.
‘I just don’t go in for casual sleeping around.’
‘I’m pleased to hear it,’ he responded deeply, his eyes fixing on her with a dark intensity. She looked really quite shaken, he thought, wondering why, when in every other way she seemed so much a woman of the world. ‘For what it’s worth … it doesn’t rank very highly with me, either.’
‘Hah!’ Despite her brittle little laugh, she couldn’t help wondering if he was telling the truth. She wanted to kick herself for hoping that he was.
‘You really have a very low opinion of me, don’t you?’ he remarked, running a long tapered hand through his thick hair. She was surprised to notice that it was trembling slightly.
So even the high-and-mighty Kingsley Clayborne was human!
She wondered why she was even allowing herself to grant him any concessions, and put it down to the fact that she was so affected by him—by what she had allowed him to do to her—that she was still too unsettled by it to feel anything.
‘Why should it matter to you what I—’ she began as she was smoothing back her hair, but broke off when a stick prodding the door he’d failed to close brought it flying open. Both of them had been too otherwise preoccupied to hear the wheelchair approaching.
‘King? Rayne? Oh, there you both are!’ Mitchell Clayborne’s colour was unusually high as he manoeuvred his chair into the room and Rayne guessed he’d been doing too much, against his doctor’s orders.
‘King, I wanted you to retrieve the book I dropped down behind the bedside cabinet but, since Rayne’s here, she can do it for me and perhaps read a little to me. Have you finished with her?’
King’s eyes were speculative as, on his feet now, he regarded her from his superior height, looking totally unfazed by what had just happened between them.
‘Yes, I’ve finished with her,’ he told his father.
Reluctantly inhaling his scent, keen to get away, Rayne brushed past him, although she could tell from that slight compression of his devastating mouth that what he was really saying was that where she was concerned he hadn’t even begun yet.
CHAPTER FOUR
T HE following day Rayne decided to escape from the house for a while, needing some time to decide what she was going to do.
She was uncomfortable associating with the people who had wreaked such devastation on her family, but she couldn’t see what else she could do. She didn’t want to leave there without the evidence or admission that she was determined to secure for her father’s sake.
She had started asking Mitch questions last night while she had been reading to him—very subtly, and supposedly innocently. Like how he had begun in business. And when exactly had he hit upon the idea for the MiracleMed software. How he had felt when it had taken off.
‘King must have been very proud of you,’ she’d ventured, assessing his reaction, looking for any change in his hard, world-weary features, any note of guilt in his gravelly voice.
He’d seemed all right at first. But then he’d grown more and more agitated, even when their conversation had reverted to more casual topics. As well he should have! Rayne thought bitterly.
He’d looked so unwell, though, and had sounded so breathless that her conscience wouldn’t allow her to ask any more leading questions.
‘I think you should go to bed,’ she had advised worriedly, ringing the bell to summon one of the
‘That’s none of your business,’ she snapped, straightening her clothes with faltering fingers.
‘So you aren’t,’ he deduced correctly.
Because wouldn’t it have been the best way of keeping him at bay, she thought, realising it too late, if she had said she was?
‘So what was it, Rayne? A disappointing attachment?’
You could say that!
her heart screamed bitterly, because there had been nothing that had shamed or disillusioned her more than her reckless crush on him.
‘I just don’t go in for casual sleeping around.’
‘I’m pleased to hear it,’ he responded deeply, his eyes fixing on her with a dark intensity. She looked really quite shaken, he thought, wondering why, when in every other way she seemed so much a woman of the world. ‘For what it’s worth … it doesn’t rank very highly with me, either.’
‘Hah!’ Despite her brittle little laugh, she couldn’t help wondering if he was telling the truth. She wanted to kick herself for hoping that he was.
‘You really have a very low opinion of me, don’t you?’ he remarked, running a long tapered hand through his thick hair. She was surprised to notice that it was trembling slightly.
So even the high-and-mighty Kingsley Clayborne was human!
She wondered why she was even allowing herself to grant him any concessions, and put it down to the fact that she was so affected by him—by what she had allowed him to do to her—that she was still too unsettled by it to feel anything.
‘Why should it matter to you what I—’ she began as she was smoothing back her hair, but broke off when a stick prodding the door he’d failed to close brought it flying open. Both of them had been too otherwise preoccupied to hear the wheelchair approaching.
‘King? Rayne? Oh, there you both are!’ Mitchell Clayborne’s colour was unusually high as he manoeuvred his chair into the room and Rayne guessed he’d been doing too much, against his doctor’s orders.
‘King, I wanted you to retrieve the book I dropped down behind the bedside cabinet but, since Rayne’s here, she can do it for me and perhaps read a little to me. Have you finished with her?’
King’s eyes were speculative as, on his feet now, he regarded her from his superior height, looking totally unfazed by what had just happened between them.
‘Yes, I’ve finished with her,’ he told his father.
Reluctantly inhaling his scent, keen to get away, Rayne brushed past him, although she could tell from that slight compression of his devastating mouth that what he was really saying was that where she was concerned he hadn’t even begun yet.
CHAPTER FOUR
T HE following day Rayne decided to escape from the house for a while, needing some time to decide what she was going to do.
She was uncomfortable associating with the people who had wreaked such devastation on her family, but she couldn’t see what else she could do. She didn’t want to leave there without the evidence or admission that she was determined to secure for her father’s sake.
She had started asking Mitch questions last night while she had been reading to him—very subtly, and supposedly innocently. Like how he had begun in business. And when exactly had he hit upon the idea for the MiracleMed software. How he had felt when it had taken off.
‘King must have been very proud of you,’ she’d ventured, assessing his reaction, looking for any change in his hard, world-weary features, any note of guilt in his gravelly voice.
He’d seemed all right at first. But then he’d grown more and more agitated, even when their conversation had reverted to more casual topics. As well he should have! Rayne thought bitterly.
He’d looked so unwell, though, and had sounded so breathless that her conscience wouldn’t allow her to ask any more leading questions.
‘I think you should go to bed,’ she had advised worriedly, ringing the bell to summon one of the
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