Jordan St Claire: Dark and Dangerous
Jordan St Claire: Dark and Dangerous
Carole Mortimer
About the Author
CAROLE MORTIMER was born in England, the youngest of three children. She began writing in 1978, and has now written over one hundred and fifty books for Harlequin Mills and Boon. Carole has six sons, Matthew, Joshua, Timothy, Michael, David and Peter. She says, ‘I’m happily married to Peter senior; we’re best friends as well as lovers, which is probably the best recipe for a successful relationship. We live in a lovely part of England.’
THE SCANDALOUS ST CLAIRES
Three arrogant aristocrats—ready to marry!
Don’t miss any of Carole Mortimer’s
fabulous trilogy:
January—
JORDAN ST CLAIRE: DARK AND DANGEROUS
February—LUCAN ST CLAIRE
March—GIDEON ST CLAIRE
And read where it all began—with The Notorious St Claires, in Regency England!
Only in Mills & Boon® Historical Romance,
out next month
LADY ARABELLA’S SCANDALOUS MARRIAGE
JORDAN ST CLAIRE:
DARK AND
DANGEROUS
CAROLE MORTIMER
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
PROLOGUE
‘I THINK I should warn you, Miss McKinley—at the moment my brother is behaving like an arrogant lout!’
Must run in the family, Stephanie thought wryly as she looked across at Lucan St Claire, who was sitting behind his desk in the London office of the St Claire Corporation. Tall, dark, and aristocratically handsome, with a remoteness that bordered on cold, he wasn’t loutish at all—but this man had to be the epitome of arrogant!
The fact that he showed absolutely no interest in her as a woman might have something to do with Stephanie’s unkind thoughts—but, hey, a girl could dream of being hotly pursued by a mega-rich, tall, dark and handsome man, couldn’t she? That Lucan St Claire had more money than some small countries, and reportedly only dated leggy blondes—as opposed to women like Stephanie, with her average height and flame-red hair—probably had something to do with his lack of interest. Also, if that weren’t enough strikes against her, she was merely the self-employed physiotherapist this man intended hiring—she hoped—to aid his younger brother’s recuperation.
She steadily returned the piercing darkness of his gaze. ‘Most people in pain tend to become … a little aggressive in their behaviour, Mr St Claire.’
The sculptured lips curved in a humourless smile. ‘I believe you will find that Jordan’s a lot aggressive.’
Stephanie mentally sifted through the relevant facts she already had on the man who was to be her next patient. On a personal level, she knew Jordan St Claire was thirty-four, and the youngest of three brothers. Medically, she knew Jordan had been involved in some sort of accident six months ago, resulting in his having broken almost every bone down the right side of his body. Numerous operations later, his mobility still impaired, the man had apparently retreated from the world by moving to a house in the English countryside, no doubt with the intention of licking his wounds in private.
So far Stephanie found nothing unusual about his behaviour. ‘I’m sure that it’s nothing I haven’t dealt with in other patients, Mr St Claire,’ she said confidently.
Lucan St Claire leant his elbows on the leather-topped desk to look at her above steepled fingers. ‘What I’m trying to explain is that Jordan may be … less than enthusiastic, shall we say? … even at the mere thought of having yet another physiotherapist working with him.’
As Stephanie had never thought of herself as ‘yet another physiotherapist’, she found the remark less than flattering. She was proud of the success she had made of her private practice these past three years. A success that had resulted in almost all her clients coming as referrals from doctors or other satisfied ex-patients.
From what Stephanie had read in the medical file that now sat on top of Lucan St Claire’s desk—a confidential file that she was sure he shouldn’t even have had access to, let alone a copy of—the surgeons had done their work, and now it was up to Jordan St Claire to do the rest. Something he obviously seemed less than inclined to do …
Her eyes narrowed as she studied the aristocratically haughty face opposite her own. ‘What is it you aren’t telling me, Mr St Claire?’ she finally prompted slowly.
He gave a brief appreciative smile. ‘I can see that your professional reputation for straight talking is well earned.’
Stephanie was well aware that her brisk manner, along with her no-nonsense appearance—her long red hair was secured in a thick braid down her spine, and there was only a light brush of mascara on the long dark lashes that surrounded cool green eyes—invariably gave the impression she was less than emotionally engaged. It wasn’t true, of course, but inwardly empathising with her patients was one thing, and allowing them to see that empathy something else entirely.
As for her professional reputation.
Thank goodness Lucan St Claire didn’t give any indication that he had heard any of the rumours concerning Rosalind Newman’s recent accusation—that Stephanie had been involved in an affair with her husband Richard whilst acting as his physiotherapist. If he had, then she doubted he would even be thinking of engaging her.
‘I’ve never seen any point in being less than truthful.’ She shrugged. ‘Especially when it involves my patients.’
Lucan nodded in agreement. ‘Jordan wouldn’t accept anything less.’ He sat back in his black leather chair.
‘And …?’ Stephanie pierced him with shrewd green eyes. If she was going to work with this man’s brother then she needed to know everything there was to know about him—and not just his medical background.
He gave a heavy sigh. ‘And Jordan has absolutely no idea about my intention of engaging you.’
Stephanie had already had a suspicion that might be the case. It made her job more difficult, of course, if the patient was hostile towards her before she had even begun working with him, but she had worked with difficult patients before. In fact most of Stephanie’s patients were difficult; her reputation for being able to deal with ‘uncooperative’ patients was the reason there had been no shortage of work since she had opened her small clinic.
‘Can I take it from that remark it’s your intention to present him with a fait accompli?’
He grimaced. ‘Either way, he’s as likely to tell you to go away—impolitely—as he is to let you anywhere near him.’
Stephanie pursed her lips. ‘If you engaged me we would just have to make it impossible for him to tell me to go away—impolitely or otherwise. I believe you said that the house where he’s staying in Gloucestershire is actually owned by you?’
Lucan eyed her warily. ‘It’s part of an estate owned by the St Claire Corporation, yes.’
‘Then as the head of that corporation you obviously have the right to say who does and does not stay there.’ Her gaze was very direct.
He looked at her appreciatively, those dark eyes gleaming with hard humour. ‘You wouldn’t have a problem just turning up there and facing the consequences?’
‘If my patient leaves me with no other choice, no,’ she assured him bluntly.
He smiled slowly. ‘I do believe that Jordan may have more than met his match in you!’
Stephanie brightened. ‘You’ve decided to engage me to work with your brother?’
‘Working with Jordan might be an exaggeration,’ Lucan drawled ruefully. ‘He’s been very vocal in not wanting anyone else “poking and prodding” him about, as if he’s a specimen in a jar.’
‘I never poke or prod, Mr St Claire,’ Stephanie said dryly, her interest in the case deepening as she considered the hard work ahead of her. ‘I can begin next week, if that would suit you?’ She had absolutely no intention of allowing this man to even guess how relieved she felt at the thought of getting out of London for a while.
Away from Rosalind Newman’s nasty—and totally untrue—accusations that Stephanie had had an affair with her husband.
‘Very much so.’ He looked relieved that nothing he had told her about his brother seemed to have succeeded in deterring her.
Stephanie understood that relief only too well—knew that very often a patient’s inability to deal with their illness affected close family as much as it did them. Sometimes more so. And, for all that Lucan St Claire was known for his coldness and arrogance, he obviously loved his brother very much.
‘I will need a key to the house where he’s staying, and directions on how to get there,’ she said. ‘What happens next you may safely leave to me.’
Jordan St Claire didn’t know it yet, but the immovable object was about to meet the unstoppable force!
CHAPTER ONE
‘WHO the hell are you? And what are you doing in my kitchen?’
Stephanie had arrived at the gatehouse of Mulberry Hall an hour or so ago, and had rung the bell and knocked on the door before deciding that either Jordan St Claire wasn’t in or he was just refusing to answer. Either way, it left her with no choice but to let herself in with the key Lucan St Claire had given her. Once she had walked into the kitchen and seen the mess there she hadn’t bothered going any further. The dirty plates and untidiness were a complete affront to her inborn need for order and cleanliness. She doubted Jordan had bothered to wash a single cup or plate since his arrival here a month ago!
‘This is a kitchen?’ She continued to collect up the dirty crockery that seemed to litter every surface, before dropping it gingerly into the sink full of hot, soapy water. ‘I thought it was a laboratory for growing bacterial cultures!’ She turned, her gaze very direct as she raised derisive dark brows at the unkempt man who stood in the doorway, glaring at her so accusingly.
Only to feel the need to steady herself by leaning against one of the kitchen cabinets as she instantly recognised him. Despite the untidy overlong dark hair, the several days’ growth of beard on the sculptured square jaw, and the way the black T-shirt and faded blue jeans hung slightly loose on his large frame, there was no mistaking his identity.
It took every ounce of Stephanie’s usual calm collectedness to keep her expression coolly mocking as she found herself looking not at Jordan St Claire but at the world-famous actor Jordan Simpson!
Admittedly, the shaggy dark hair and the five o’clock shadow that looked more like an eleven o’clock one managed to disguise most of his handsome features—which was perhaps the intention. But there was no mistaking those mesmerising amber-gold eyes. Reviewers’ descriptions of the colour of those eyes differed from molten gold to amber to cinnamon-brown—but, whatever the colour, the descriptions were always preceded by the word mesmerising!
As a fan of the English actor, who had taken Hollywood by storm ten years ago when, as a relative unknown, he had been given the starring role in a film that had been an instant box office hit, Stephanie knew exactly who he was. She should do, when she had seen every film this man had ever made—twenty or so to date. A couple of them had even resulted in him winning Oscars for his stunning performances, and she would have recognised those chiselled features in the dark. In her many fantasies involving this man it had always been in the dark.
Added to which, she knew Jordan Simpson had fallen from the top of a building six months ago, whilst on the set of his last film. The newspapers had been full of sensational speculation at the time, hinting that Jordan had been severely disfigured. That he might never walk again. That he might never work again.
No doubt about it, Stephanie accepted, as her heart continued to beat rapidly and her cheeks started to feel hot, he might be walking with the aid of a cane, but the man in front of her really was the incredibly handsome actor she had obsessed over for years. A little fact that Lucan St Claire had forgotten to mention to her the previous week, she thought with annoyance. She’d rather have been forewarned!
‘Very funny!’ Jordan rasped in response to her remark about the kitchen. He stood in the doorway, leaning heavily on the ebony cane he had necessarily to carry around with him everywhere nowadays if he didn’t want to end up falling flat on his face. ‘That still doesn’t tell me who you are or how you got in.’
Jordan had been in an exhausted sleep, lying on the bed that had been brought down to the dining room because he could no longer walk up the stairs, when he’d heard the sound of someone moving about in the kitchen. His first thought had been that it was a burglar, but intruders didn’t usually hang around long enough to wash the dishes!
‘I have a key.’ The redhead shrugged.
His eyes narrowed. ‘Given to you by whom, exactly?’
A slight indrawn breath and then another shrug. ‘Your brother Lucan.’
Jordan’s glare turned to a scowl. ‘If my interfering brother sent you here to act as housekeeper, then I think you should know I don’t need one.’
‘All evidence is to the contrary,’ the redhead drawled, and she turned her back on him to once again move efficiently about the kitchen, collecting up yet more dirty plates and stacking them on the draining board. Giving Jordan’s narrowed gaze every opportunity to notice how a short white T-shirt clung to the firmness of her breasts and flat stomach, ending a couple of inches short of the low-slung jeans that moulded to narrow hips and the perfect curve of her bottom.
Great—the only part of his body that didn’t already ache from his injuries was now engorged, throbbing and ached like hell!
It was the first time Jordan had felt the least bit of sexual interest in a woman since the accident six months ago—but, considering the pitiful condition the rest of his body was in, it wasn’t an interest he particularly welcomed now. ‘Most of that stuff will go into the dishwasher, you know,’ he muttered resentfully as the redhead began to wash the dishes already in the soapy water in the sink.
‘They could have gone in the dishwasher after they were first used,’ she corrected without turning. ‘Now they need to be soaked first.’
‘Implying that I’m a slob?’
‘Oh, it wasn’t an implication,’ she commented pertly.
‘It may have escaped your notice, but I’m slightly impaired here!’ Jordan defended angrily; he didn’t have much of an appetite nowadays anyway, but on the occasions he did feel hungry his hip and leg ached so much by the time he had finished preparing the food and eating it that he didn’t feel up to doing the dishes.
The redhead stopped washing up to slowly turn and look at him with wide green eyes. ‘Wow.’ She gave a rueful shake of her head. ‘I have to admit I didn’t expect you to play the “I’m crippled” card right off the bat! ‘
Jordan drew in a harsh, disbelieving breath even as his fingers tightened about his cane until the knuckles showed white. ‘What did you just say?’
Stephanie’s gaze continued to calmly meet Jordan’s fierce amber eyes even as she quickly registered the way his already pale cheeks had taken on a grey tinge, along with the resentful stiffening of a body that obviously showed the signs of being ravaged by pain and illness.
Normally a complete professional when it came to her job, Stephanie was finding it difficult to deal with Jordan’s dark and sensual good-looks with her usual detachment. In fact, she had deliberately not looked at him for some minutes in an effort to regain her equilibrium! Usually level-headed when it came to men, Stephanie had dragged her reluctant sister along to see every film Jordan Simpson had ever made, just so that she could sit in the impersonal darkness of the cinema and drool over the big screen image of him before she was later able to buy the film on DVD and drool over him in private. Her sister Joey was just going to fall over laughing when she learnt who Stephanie had taken on as her patient!
Her expression remained outwardly cool as she inwardly acknowledged that thankfully the sexy and ruggedly handsome actor was barely recognisable in the gaunt and pale man in front of her. Except for those eyes!
‘I’m sorry. I thought that was how you now thought of yourself? As a cripple,’ she said evenly.
Those eyes glittered a dangerous gold. ‘Forget who you are and what you’re doing here, and just get the hell out of my home!’ he ordered furiously.
‘I don’t think so.’
He frowned fiercely at the calmness of her reply. ‘You don’t?’
Stephanie smiled unconcernedly in the face of the fury she could see he was trying so hard to restrain. ‘This is your brother’s home, not yours, and the fact that Lucan gave me a key to get in shows he has no problem with me being here.’
Jordan drew in a harsh breath. ‘I have a problem with you being here.’
She smiled slightly. ‘Unfortunately for you, you aren’t the one paying the bills.’
‘I don’t need a damned housekeeper! ‘ he repeated, frustrated.
‘As I said, that’s questionable,’ Stephanie teased lightly as she moved to dry her hands on a towel that also looked as if it needed to come face to face with some hot soapy water—or, more preferably, disinfectant! ‘Stephanie McKinley.’ She thrust out the dry hand. ‘And I’m not a housekeeper.’
A hand Jordan deliberately chose to ignore, breathing deeply as he looked down at her from between narrowed lids. Probably aged in her mid to late twenties, the woman had incredibly long, dark lashes fringing eyes of deep green, and the freckles that usually accompanied hair as red as hers were a light dusting across her small uptilted nose. Her lips were full, the bottom one slightly more so than the top, above a pointed and determined chin. She also had one very sexy body beneath the casual white T-shirt and denims, and—as he was now all too well aware—a tongue like a viper!
No one—not even his two brothers—had dared to talk to Jordan these last few months in the way Stephanie McKinley just had.
‘How do you know Lucan?’ Jordan probed suddenly.
‘I don’t.’ With a shrug, the woman allowed her hand to fall back to her side. ‘At least, not in the way I think you’re implying I might.’ She gave him another mocking glance.
Jordan had been standing for longer than he usually did, and as a result his hip was starting to ache. Badly. A definite strain on his already short temper! ‘Is paying a woman to go to bed with me Lucan’s idea of a joke?’
Stephanie smiled in the face of the deliberate insult—at the same time as she wryly wondered whether the coldly remote man she had met the previous week even had a sense of humour! ‘Do I look like a woman men pay to go to bed with them?’
‘How the hell should I know?’ Jordan scorned.
‘Implying you don’t usually need to pay a woman to go to bed with you?’ That was something she was already well aware of—Jordan Simpson had trouble keeping women out of his bed rather than the opposite!
‘Not usually, no,’ he ground out.
Stephanie realised that he was deliberately trying to unnerve and embarrass her with the intimacy of this conversation. He was succeeding, too—which wasn’t a good thing in the circumstances.
She raised an eyebrow. ‘I assure you I would have absolutely no interest in going to bed with a man who is so full of self-pity that he’s not only shut himself off from his family but the rest of the world, too.’
Jordan’s face darkened ominously. ‘What the hell would you know about it?’ he snarled viciously. ‘I don’t see you suffering pitying looks every time you so much as go outside, as you stumble about with the aid of a cane just so that you don’t completely embarrass yourself by falling flat on your backside!’
Stephanie hesitated slightly before answering. ‘Not any more, no.’
Those golden eyes narrowed to dark slits. ‘What exactly does that mean?’
Stephanie calmly met that furiously glittering gaze. ‘It means that when I was ten years old I was involved in a car crash that left me confined to a wheelchair for two years. I couldn’t walk at all for all of that time, not even to “stumble about with the aid of a cane”. You, on the other hand, still have mobility in both your legs, which is why you won’t be receiving any of those pitying looks from me that you seem to find so offensive from the rest of humanity!’
Ordinarily Stephanie didn’t tell her patients of her own years spent in a wheelchair. She saw no reason why she needed to, and wouldn’t have done so now, either, if the challenge in Jordan’s tone hadn’t touched on a raw nerve.
‘You were lucky enough to get up and walk so now you think anyone else who finds themselves in the same position should do the same?’ he said.
‘So you’ve had the bad luck to receive injuries that have left you less than your previously robust and healthy self. Either live with it, or fight it, but don’t hide yourself away here, feeling sorry for yourself.’ She was breathing hard in her agitation.
Jordan looked down at her with sudden comprehension. ‘If Lucan didn’t send you here to go to bed with me, then who the hell are you? Yet another doctor? Or perhaps my arrogant big brother now thinks I’m in need of a shrink?’ His top lip turned back contemptuously.
Stephanie McKinley quirked dark brows. ‘I had the impression from reading your medical notes that your skull escaped injury when you fell?’
‘It did,’ he bit out tightly.
She raised auburn brows. ‘Do you think you’re in need of a psychiatrist?’
He scowled darkly. ‘I’m not playing this game with you, Miss McKinley.’
‘I assure you I don’t consider this a game, Mr Simpson—’
‘You know who I am?’ Jordan interjected.
‘Well, of course I know who you are.’ Irritation creased the smooth creaminess of her brow. ‘You’re a household name. Obviously you’re feeling less than your usual … suave and charming self,’ she concluded tactfully, ‘but you’re still you.’
Was he? Sometimes Jordan wondered. Until six months ago he had enjoyed his life. Living in California. Doing the work he loved to do. ‘Suave and charming’ enough to be able to go to bed with any woman who took his interest. Since the accident all that had changed. He had changed.
‘In that case, Miss McKinley, what I need is for someone to find a screenplay that calls for a male lead who limps! Know of any?’ Jordan growled his frustration as he moved away from her, favouring his right side as usual, as the damaged muscle and bones in his hip and leg protested at the movement. Hell, he hurt no matter if he moved or not!
‘Not offhand, no,’ the redhead said tartly. ‘And you wouldn’t need one if you concentrated your energies on getting back the full use of that leg instead of wallowing in self-pity.’
‘Damn it to hell!’ Jordan gave a groan of disgust, his eyes lifting to the heavens in supplication. ‘You’re another sadistic physiotherapist, aren’t you? Come to pound and massage until I can’t stand the pain any longer.’ It was a statement, not a question; Jordan had had one physiotherapist or another working on his leg and hip for weeks, months, since the surgeon had finished putting his shattered bones back together. None of them had succeeded in doing more than sending him to hell and back.
‘The fact that the leg still hurts could be a positive thing, not a negative one,’ Stephanie McKinley retorted.
‘I’ll be sure to think of that at two o’clock in the morning, when I can’t sleep because the pain is driving me insane!’
When Lucan St Claire had warned Stephanie that his brother was ‘a lot aggressive’, he had forgotten to add that he was also stubborn and unreasonable! ‘In this case pain could be a good thing—it could mean the muscles are regenerating,’ she explained patiently.
‘Or it could mean that they’re dying!’
‘Well, yes.’ No point in trying to deceive him concerning that possibility. ‘I’ll be able to tell you more once I’ve worked with it—’
‘The only part of my body I would be remotely interested in having any woman work with is a couple of inches higher than my thigh!’ he shot back wickedly.
There was no way, complete professional or not, Stephanie could have prevented the heated flush that now coloured her cheeks. Or the way her gaze moved instinctively down to the area in question. That particular part of his anatomy certainly seemed to be working normally, if the hard and lengthy bulge she could see pressing against his jeans was anything to go by!
Jordan St Claire—no, Jordan Simpson—was obviously physically aroused. By her.
No, not by her in particular, Stephanie rebuked herself impatiently. She very much doubted that this man had allowed a woman within touching distance since his accident, and after six months of celibacy she was probably just the first reasonably attractive female he had seen in a while—consequently he would have been aroused by a nun, as long as she had a pulse and breasts!
‘If you’re trying to embarrass me, Mr Simpson—’
‘Then I’ve succeeded.’ He eyed her flushed cheeks triumphantly.
‘Perhaps,’ she allowed briskly. ‘Does knowing that make you feel good?’ She eyed him speculatively as he gave a hard and unapologetic grin. A slow and sexy grin that reminded her all too forcibly that this man was the actor she had lusted after for years.
Oh, help!
He gave a casual shrug. ‘It doesn’t matter whether it did or it didn’t. I intend to forget you even exist as soon as you’ve walked out the door.’
This time it was Stephanie’s turn to smile slowly. ‘You’re an altogether arrogant family, aren’t you?’
Jordan gave a huff of laughter. ‘How many of us have you met?’
Stephanie blinked. ‘Just Lucan and you.’
‘And you think we’re arrogant?’ He snorted. ‘Believe me, you don’t know what arrogance is until you’ve met Gideon.’
‘Your twin?’
That golden gaze sharpened. ‘You seem to know a lot about me.’
She shrugged. ‘I believe it’s public knowledge that Jordan Simpson has a twin brother.’
He grimaced. ‘Gideon and I are only fraternal twins, not identical ones.’
Thank goodness for that! Stephanie wasn’t sure the world—or she—could stand there being two men in the world with Jordan’s devastating good-looks.
She had yet to decide whether or not this man posed a problem as regarded her working with him—other than the need she felt every time she so much as looked at him to rip his clothes off and jump into bed with him, of course. But surely that was normal? Hundreds—no, thousands of women must feel the same way about the actor Jordan Simpson. Except none of those women were supposed to act the complete professional and treat this man like any other patient—which he most certainly wasn’t to Stephanie!
She gave a weary sigh as she pushed back some loose tendrils of hair that had escaped the plait down her spine. ‘Look, Mr Simpson, I’ve had a long drive up here from London, and on top of that I could do with something to eat, so do you think we could call a truce to this argument long enough for me to cook us some dinner?’
Jordan’s eyes narrowed contemplatively. On the one hand he wanted this woman gone from here, but on the other the mention of food had reminded him that he was hungry—a side-effect of those damned sleeping pills he had to take in order to get any rest at all. ‘That depends,’ he finally murmured slowly.
Deep green eyes looked across at him suspiciously. ‘On what?’
‘On whether or not you can actually cook, of course,’ Jordan drawled. ‘Put another plate of baked beans on toast in front of me and I may just throw it at you!’ He had been living off something on toast since he’d moved here a month ago, in too much pain and lacking the appetite to bother to cook anything else.
Lucan had gone to the trouble of sending this woman here, but Jordan had no intention of even allowing her to look at his injuries. Sex didn’t appear to be on her agenda either. So she might as well make herself useful in some other way—before Jordan went ahead and threw her out anyway!
‘I think I can do better than that,’ Stephanie McKinley told him. ‘I wasn’t sure what the situation was for having groceries delivered, so I brought some things with me,’ she continued brightly. ‘I’ll just go out to the car and get them.’ She collected her black jacket from the back of one of the kitchen chairs and slipped it on, releasing her braid from the collar before moving towards the door. ‘I hope you like steak?’
Just the mention of red meat was enough to make Jordan’s mouth water. ‘No doubt I could cope,’ he said gruffly.
Stephanie was smiling slightly to herself as she went out to her car. He was allowing her to stay long enough to cook dinner, at least. Unsurprising, when she knew from the dirty plates she had collected up earlier that Jordan hadn’t been exaggerating about the amount of baked beans on toast he had eaten since coming here. What happened after Stephanie had fed him was still in question, of course; she wasn’t fooled for a moment by his sudden acquiescence in allowing her to cook dinner for them both.
She was going to have dinner with Jordan Simpson!
Admittedly he was a Jordan Simpson much changed from the charming, sensual man she had read about so much in the newspapers over the years. Or the one she had gazed at so longingly on the big and small screen, but still.
Stephanie had barely had time to open her car door when she heard her mobile ringing. Bending down to pick it up from where it lay on the passenger seat, she checked the number of the caller. ‘Joey?’ she breathed thankfully as she pressed the receiver to her ear and took her sister’s call. ‘I’m so glad you rang! I think I might be in trouble. Big trouble! ‘
CHAPTER TWO
‘I THOUGHT you had decided to get in your car and leave after all,’ Jordan rasped when Stephanie McKinley finally came back into the kitchen, carrying a box of groceries.
She put the box down on the kitchen table before answering him, her face slightly flushed, and even more of that long fiery-red hair having escaped the confining plait. ‘I stopped to admire how beautiful the big house looked in the distance, with the sun going down behind it.’
‘Mulberry Hall?’
She nodded. ‘Is it a hotel, or something?’
‘Or something.’ Jordan nodded tersely. He had sat down at the kitchen table while he waited for her to return, and stretched his leg out in front of him now as he watched Stephanie take steak, potatoes, asparagus and salad from the box with hands that were long and slender, the nails trimmed capably short. No doubt in readiness for the sadistic pummelling she gave her patients!
‘Either it is a hotel or it isn’t,’ she reasoned with a slight frown as she paused in the unpacking.
‘It isn’t,’ Jordan supplied unhelpfully. The sight of all this fresh food reminded him of just how long it had been since he had last eaten. Yesterday some time, he thought. Maybe.
Besides which, he had absolutely no intention of talking about Mulberry Hall, or its function, with a woman who was going to be gone from here in a few hours.
‘Your brother Lucan said this whole estate was owned by the St Claire Corporation.’
Jordan’s mouth twisted. ‘Did he?’
She raised dark brows. ‘If you don’t want to talk about it then just say so.’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
Well, she had definitely asked for that one, Stephanie acknowledged ruefully. ‘I was only trying to make polite conversation.’
Jordan looked at her coldly. ‘I agreed to let you cook dinner, not talk.’
Stephanie bit back her angry retort as she resumed unpacking the box of groceries. Maybe he would be more amenable after he had eaten? And maybe he wouldn’t! she thought dryly.
His medical file had stated that the broken bones in his arm and ribcage had knitted back together well, but the lines of strain grooved beside his mouth and eyes were evidence of the pain he still suffered in the hip and leg that had been fractured and obviously hadn’t healed as well. Stephanie’s fingers itched to explore that damaged leg and hip, to check for herself what could be done about restoring this man to full mobility.
Or maybe they just itched to touch all six foot four inches of lean, male flesh that was Jordan Simpson.
Her sister had been first incredulous and then amused when Stephanie had explained her dilemma to her, dismissing her misgivings regarding having the actor as her newest patient.
Joey had also reassured Stephanie concerning her worry over her unwilling involvement in the Newmans’ divorce. Her lawyer sister had advised Stephanie to ‘just get on and do what you do best, sis, and leave me to deal with the Newman situation.’
That the ‘Newman situation’ even needed dealing with still rankled with Stephanie.
‘Could you lay the table while I cook?’ she prompted sharply.
His jaw clenched. ‘I’m not a complete invalid, damn it.’ He gritted very white teeth as he rose awkwardly to his feet before grasping the ebony cane to balance himself.
‘It was a request for you to actually lay the table, not a question as to whether or not you’re capable of doing it,’ she elaborated.
‘Of course it was,’ he said sarcastically.
Stephanie watched him as he limped across the kitchen to open the cutlery drawer, determinedly keeping her gaze professional. The muscles in his leg were obviously weakened from months of disuse, but that didn’t explain the amount of pain he seemed to be suffering. It might be an idea to have someone else look at him—
‘What the hell are you looking at?’
Stephanie raised her gaze to find Jordan scowling across the kitchen at her, and the look of savage anger on that handsome face warned her to opt for honesty. ‘I was wondering if you should have that leg and hip re-X-rayed.’
‘Forget it.’ He threw the cutlery noisily back into the drawer before slamming it shut. ‘And while you’re at it take your food and just get out!’ He walked stiffly towards the door that led back into the hallway.
Stephanie frowned her dismay as she realised his obvious intention of leaving. ‘What about dinner?’
Those amber eyes were glittering furiously as he turned to glare at her. ‘I just lost my appetite.’
‘Just because I talked about your leg?’
‘Because you talked at all, Jordan told her insultingly. ‘Men just shut up and get on with it—whereas women, I’ve learnt, feel the need to dissect everything.’
‘If by that you mean that men prefer to bottle up their anxieties rather than—’
‘The only anxiety I have at this moment is you!’ he cut in viciously, able to feel the nerve pulsing in his tightly clenched jaw. ‘A situation that will resolve itself the moment you walk out the door.’
This man really was an immovable object, Stephanie recognised in sheer frustration. Well, two could play at that game! ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ she told him levelly.
Those glittering amber eyes turned icily cold as his gaze raked over her from head to toe and back again. ‘No?’
‘No.’ She stood her ground. ‘And I very much doubt that you’re capable of making me leave, either.’
His face was once again unhealthily pale as his mouth tightened to an angry grim line. ‘You don’t pull your punches, do you?’ he muttered harshly.
Stephanie sighed. ‘It isn’t my intention to upset you, Mr Simpson—’
‘Then get the hell out of my house! ‘ He turned and left the room without a backward glance, his dark hair long and unkempt on his shoulders, and his back stiff with the fury he made no effort to hide.
Leaving Stephanie to sink down wearily into the kitchen chair Jordan had just vacated. She was used to difficult patients—actually relished the challenge of working with them. But dealing with Jordan Simpson was going to be so much harder than Stephanie could ever have imagined a week ago, when she had unknowingly agreed to help Lucan St Claire’s brother.
‘Changed your mind?’ She looked up hopefully an hour later, when she heard the slight unevenness of Jordan’s gait as he walked back down the hallway.
‘No.’ Jordan couldn’t say he hadn’t been tempted by the delicious smells emanating down the hall from the kitchen and into the study, where he’d sat as this stubborn woman obviously prepared her own dinner. Or that his mouth hadn’t watered at the thought of sinking his teeth into a medium-rare steak and a fluffy jacket potato smothered in butter, possibly with a nice light French dressing on the green salad on the side. Tempted, maybe, but there was no way he would give Stephanie McKinley the satisfaction of joining her. ‘I thought I told you to leave?’ The pristine tidiness of the kitchen showed that she had finished cleaning before even attempting to cook her meal.
She remained comfortably seated at the kitchen table, where she had obviously just finished eating her meal—washed down by a glass of decent-looking red wine if the label on the open bottle on the table was anything to go by. ‘Your brother wants me to stay.’
Jordan clenched his jaw. ‘You’ve spoken to him?’
‘Not since last week, no.’
‘Well, it may have escaped your notice, but Lucan isn’t here right now.’
‘I have no doubt that he could be here in a matter of hours if I should decide to call him,’ Stephanie McKinley came back unconcernedly.
Knowing his arrogant brother as he did, Jordan had no doubt, either, that Lucan was quite capable of climbing into his private helicopter and flying up here if he felt there was a need for him to do so. If Lucan thought that Jordan was being difficult. Which he undoubtedly was!
Jordan limped over to get a glass out of one of the cupboards, poured himself a glass of red wine from the open bottle and then took a sip before answering this increasingly annoying woman. ‘If that was a threat then I’m not impressed.’
‘It wasn’t, and you weren’t meant to be.’ She grimaced. ‘And should you be drinking wine if you’re taking medication for pain?’
‘This is my medication for the pain!’ One thing Mulberry Hall did have was a decent wine cellar, and Jordan had helped himself liberally to its contents this past month. A cripple and a drunk; how the mighty had fallen! he thought derisively.
Stephanie McKinley eyed him frowningly. ‘Alcohol causes depression—’
‘I’m not depressed, damn it! ‘ The glass landed heavily on the table-top as he slammed it down, spilling some of its contents over his hand and onto the wooden surface.
‘Okay. But you’re angry. Frustrated. And rude.’
‘How do you know that I wasn’t angry, frustrated and rude before the accident?’ Jordan asked.
‘You weren’t,’ Stephanie said quietly as she looked up at him. ‘The press would certainly have made something of it if the famous Jordan Simpson were known to be any one of those things.’
Instead of which the media had always written glowing reports of the handsome and charming actor as he escorted leggy blondes to film premieres, or out to dinner at one exclusive LA restaurant or another. Usually looking devastatingly handsome in a black tuxedo or casually tailored clothing, his dark hair still overlong but expertly styled to make the most of his hard and chiselled cheeks and jawline, and the lazily sexy smile that curved those sculptured lips. Not to mention, of course, those mesmerising amber-gold eyes!
A complete contrast to this savagely acerbic man, in the crumpled T-shirt and denims he wore this evening, with that growth of beard on his chin and his too-long untidy hair.
‘When did you last go to a barber or have a shave?’ Stephanie asked.
Jordan picked up the glass and took another long swallow of red wine. ‘None of your damned business,’ he growled.
‘Taking a pride in your appearance—’
‘Isn’t going to make a damned bit of difference to the fact that my leg is shot to hell.’
‘We need to find out why that is,’ she pressed.
‘No, Stephanie, you need to find out why that is if you want to keep what I have no doubt is a very well paying job,’ Jordan pointed out. ‘But, as I have no intention of letting you anywhere near me or my leg, that’s going to prove rather difficult, don’t you think?’
Impossible, actually, Stephanie admitted with frustration. Being able to actually assess a patient’s disability was more than half the battle. It also affected any and all treatment. Treatment this man had assured her he definitely wasn’t going to allow her to give him. She stood up to collect her dirty plates, and carried them over to begin loading them into the dishwasher. ‘Would you like me to cook your steak for you now?’
‘Tell me, Steph, which part of get the hell out of my home didn’t you understand earlier?’ Jordan St Claire snarled cruelly.
Stephanie drew in a controlling breath. ‘As I am neither stupid nor deaf, I understood all of it. I also prefer my. my clients to call me Stephanie or Miss McKinley,’ she added primly. Only her family and very close friends were allowed to shorten her name in that way. Besides which, the formality of her full name sounded more professional. And she freely admitted she was having more trouble than usual in keeping her relationship with Jordan Simpson on a professional basis.
Considering the threatened scandal of what Joey called the ‘Newman situation’, Stephanie definitely needed to keep her relationship with this man—with all her patients—on a completely professional basis. If Rosalind Newman’s accusations concerning her husband and Stephanie had been true, she knew she would deserve the other woman’s vitriol. As it was, she had actually found Richard Newman one of her least likeable patients.
Unlike Jordan Simpson, despite his disgraceful temper.
Jordan eyed her mockingly as he refilled his wine glass. ‘Why won’t you just accept that you’re wasting your time with me, Stephanie? That I don’t want or need you here?’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘I agree with the first part of that second statement, at least!’
Jordan’s jaw tightened as he saw the challenge in the slight lift of her pointed chin and sparkling green eyes. As he acknowledged once again that his mouth and brain were pushing this woman away at the same time as his body wanted to pull her into his arms and kiss her senseless. He hadn’t so much as felt a flicker of physical interest in a woman these past six months, and had wondered in some of his darker moments if perhaps the accident had robbed him of that ability too. The stirring of his thighs just looking at this woman had at least reassured him that wasn’t the case, he thought ruefully.
Jordan wondered just what the determinedly professional Stephanie McKinley would do about it if he were to follow through on his instinct to kiss the hell out of her? Run screaming bloody murder into the night, probably, and never darken his door again!
Which, thinking about it, was precisely what Jordan wanted her to do.
He carefully placed his cane against the kitchen table before turning to walk—damn it, hobble!—the short distance that separated them, so that he stood only inches away from the suddenly wary Stephanie McKinley as she pressed herself back against the kitchen cabinet to look up at him with wide apprehensive eyes. ‘Not so confident now, hmm, Stephanie?’ Jordan deliberately moved closer still.
Stephanie inwardly panicked. She could actually feel the heat of Jordan’s body as he stood mere centimetres away from her. She instantly responded to that heat, her breasts seeming to swell, and the nipples becoming hard and full against the thin material of her T-shirt, to her dismay.
Shaved or not, untidy overlong hair notwithstanding, he was undoubtedly every inch the sexually mesmerising A-list actor at that moment!
Stephanie moistened dry lips with the tip of her tongue, at once realising her mistake as she saw the way that seductive golden gaze followed the movement. ‘This isn’t funny, Jordan—’
‘It isn’t meant to be.’ He moved the small distance that separated them. The aroused hardness of his thighs pressed against Stephanie’s own, causing that heat to flare into an uncontrollable flame. ‘Is this natural?’ Jordan lifted a hand to touch the deep red hair at her temple.
Stephanie frowned. ‘You don’t seriously think any woman would deliberately dye her hair this colour?’ she scorned, in an effort to dispel her discomfort at his close proximity. At having Jordan Simpson touch her in this way.
‘It’s beautiful,’ he murmured appreciatively as he caressed several silky tendrils against his fingertips. ‘Unusual.’
Stephanie knew exactly what Jordan was doing. She’d already realised that he was deliberately playing with her as another tactic in getting her to leave. But knowing that didn’t make the slightest difference to the way she was responding to his closeness and the light caress of his fingertips as he touched her hair. She could barely breathe—didn’t dare breathe—when her aroused breasts were already brushing against the hardness of Jordan’s chest and making her ache for even closer contact! ‘It’s just plain old red.’
‘No,’ he murmured huskily. ‘I’ve never seen hair quite this colour before. It’s auburn and cinnamon, with highlights of red and gold.’
The colour of Stephanie’s hair had been the bane of her childhood, and certainly wasn’t the feature to mention if he was serious about this seduction. Which he obviously wasn’t! ‘It’s red,’ she insisted flatly.
That golden gaze moved slowly over the fullness of her breasts, lingering appreciatively on those hardened nipples before travelling over the flatness of her stomach and down to her thighs, to linger there speculatively. ‘Are you the same—?’
‘Don’t even go there!’ Stephanie interjected sharply, the heat having burned up her cheeks now. ‘Just step away from me, Jordan,’ she warned.
That golden gaze taunted her. ‘Or …?’
She met his gaze challengingly. ‘Or I’m afraid I’ll have to make you.’ Stephanie had taken Ju-Jitsu lessons in self-defence several years ago. She had no doubt she could make him stop, but she wouldn’t enjoy doing it to this particular man.
Unnerving Stephanie McKinley, making her too uncomfortable to want to stay on here, had started out as a game to Jordan. It didn’t feel like a game any longer, as he saw her physical response to his deliberate seduction. As his erection literally throbbed, so full and hard that it actually hurt as he imagined stripping those figure-hugging jeans from her shapely bottom and thighs, sliding her panties down her long legs before releasing himself, pushing her back against one of the kitchen cabinets and sinking his fullness into her hot and welcoming warmth!
Jordan wanted to do those things so badly—wanted to hear Stephanie McKinley screaming in ecstasy rather than bloody murder—and he could feel the sweat dampening his forehead as he fought against giving in to that impulse.
This physical response to her—the second in an hour or so—had to be because Jordan had been too long without a woman in his bed. With that long red hair, impishly attractive face, and slender if curvaceous body, she wasn’t in the least his type, damn it!
Jordan’s gaze was deliberately mocking as he looked down into her overheated face. ‘You just might have been amusing to have around, after all, Stephanie.’
She arched dark brows. ‘Might have been?’
‘Hmm.’ He deliberately moved away from her to limp across the room and pick up his cane. ‘Despite your pert little breasts and curvaceous bottom, I still want you out of here,’ he bit out contemptuously.
Stephanie eyed him in frustration. Although she had to admit she was relieved Jordan was no longer standing quite so close to her. Or touching her. Or making her completely aware of the thick hardness of his arousal. A physical response that had been undoubtedly because of her!
She ran the dampness of her palms down denim-clad thighs. ‘I’m still willing to cook you that steak if you’re hungry?’ she said huskily.
‘That would just be feeding the wrong appetite, Stephanie,’ he jibed back.
‘Your brother is paying me to take care of your leg, not to go to bed with you!’ she exclaimed.
He shrugged. ‘That’s a pity, when I’ve decided that right now I need a woman in my bed more than I need a physiotherapist.’ Jordan knew he had never needed physical release more than he did at that moment!
‘Don’t you have a girlfriend you could call?’ Stephanie asked curiously.
His face hardened. ‘Not any more, no.’
Stephanie looked at him searchingly. Because his parents had divorced when he was a child, Jordan Simpson had never made any secret of his own aversion to the married state. But that hadn’t prevented him from having a constant stream of women in his life. Beautiful women. Sophisticated women. Women as unlike Stephanie as it was possible for them to be. Which was the reason she knew that his interest in her wasn’t genuine.
‘Why not? There must be plenty you could call who would come running.’
He gave a humourless smile. ‘Look at me, Stephanie,’ he demanded. ‘Really look at me,’ he pressed.
Stephanie had already looked. Several times! And, yes, he was obviously thinner, gaunter, grimmer than he had been six months ago, but as far as she was concerned none of that detracted from the fact that he was a compellingly handsome man.
‘What am I looking for?’
Jordan gave an impatient snort. ‘What was it you called me earlier? A cripple, wasn’t it?’
She gasped at the bitterness in his tone. ‘No, what I actually said was that you obviously believe yourself to be a cripple,’ she corrected firmly.
‘Maybe because that’s what I am?’ he said harshly. ‘I certainly don’t want any woman to be with me just because she feels sorry for me.’
‘That’s ridiculous—’
‘This from the woman who just refused me?’ he taunted.
Stephanie rolled her eyes. ‘We both know you weren’t being serious.’
‘Do we?’
‘Yes,’ she snapped. ‘You were just trying to make me leave.’
‘Is it working?’
‘No,’ she told him firmly, determined to ignore the traitorous responses of her own body to this conversation; her breasts felt full and aching, and there was a burning warmth between her thighs.
Knowing that this man was deliberately playing with her in an effort to make her leave made absolutely no difference to the way Stephanie’s body responded to him. ‘How do you think Lucan will react if I have to call him and tell him I had to leave because you were sexually harassing me?’ She looked at him challengingly.
Jordan gave a feral grin. ‘He would probably be relieved to know that something has aroused my interest at last.’
Remembering how deeply concerned Lucan St Claire had been about Jordan the previous week, Stephanie thought that might be the case, too!
‘Aroused being the operative word,’ Jordan jeered, and had the pleasure of seeing the blush that re-entered those creamy cheeks.
Stephanie McKinley was really quite beautiful, he realised with a frown, her face impishly lovely, her body feminine and shapely. And his fingers actually itched to release that red-cinnamon-gold hair from its confining braid. He could imagine all that hair splayed out across her luscious nakedness as he feasted hungrily on the fullness of her breasts, before going lower.
He wasn’t going to get any sleep tonight, either, if he continued to allow his imagination free rein. In fact a cold shower sounded as if it might be a good idea! ‘I’ll wish you goodnight, Stephanie.’ He gave her another lazy grin before he turned and left the kitchen.
Heading straight for that cold shower.
CHAPTER THREE
‘WHERE have you been?’ Jordan demanded the following morning, as Stephanie unlocked the kitchen door and let herself back into the house accompanied by a gust of chilling wind, the plastic shopping bags she carried in her hands necessitating she gently nudge the door closed behind her with her foot.
The cold shower Jordan had taken the night before had briefly succeeded in dampening some of his arousal. Unfortunately that arousal had returned with a vengeance the moment he had heard Stephanie making her way up the stairs to use one of the bedrooms for the night.
Because Jordan could no longer negotiate the stairs, Lucan had had the dining room converted into a bedroom before Jordan had moved in, and he’d lain on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, aware of nothing but the throb of his own arousal and easily able to imagine Stephanie McKinley stripping off in the room above his. Jordan had got up to impatiently pull on his clothes before going back out to the kitchen. In the circumstances, the nearly full bottle of red wine on the table had seemed very appealing!
Which had turned out not to be such a good idea on an empty stomach. Consequently, Jordan was like a bear with a sore head this morning, his temples aching almost as much as another part of his anatomy had continued to do for most of the night.
He had already made a pot of strong coffee and brought it to the kitchen table, and had drunk half a cup of the rich and flavoursome brew before he’d become aware of the silence in the rest of the house. Unable to go up the stairs himself, to check on whether Stephanie had left or not, he had instead looked out of the kitchen window to see that her car had gone from the driveway. Leading Jordan to believe that she had taken his advice and left, after all.
Which, strangely, hadn’t given him as much satisfaction as he had thought it would. Making him wonder if Lucan could be right when he said Jordan had been here on his own for too long. And now, if he actually felt pleased at the return of the physiotherapist his interfering big brother had hired without even consulting him, he knew he probably had!
‘Where does it look like I’ve been?’ Stephanie said sarcastically—a question that required no answer as she dumped the heavy bags of shopping on top of the wooden table before removing her jacket to reveal she wore a yellow fitted T-shirt today, with those low-slung faded blue jeans.
Another short T-shirt, that once again revealed a tantalising glimpse of her flat abdomen and clung to what Jordan was pretty sure were completely bare breasts above …
‘Why don’t you pour me some of that delicious-smelling coffee while I find the croissants I bought for our breakfast?’ she suggested lightly, and she began to look through the bags, that thick braid of red- cinnamon-gold hair falling forward over her shoulder as she did so.
‘Yes, ma’am,’ he murmured dryly, and he leant back in the wooden chair to snag a clean mug from the side before sitting forward to lift the coffee pot and pour the hot and aromatic brew into both mugs.
‘It was a request, not an order,’ she sighed.
Jordan raised dark brows as he placed her mug down on the other side of the table, frowning his irritation as he realised he was actually enjoying having his verbal sparring partner back in the house. ‘I telephoned Lucan last night,’ he informed her coolly.
She continued to search through the bags for the croissants. ‘I know.’
Jordan became very still as his gaze narrowed on her suspiciously. ‘You know?’
‘Yep.’ Stephanie smiled her satisfaction as she found the box of freshly baked pastries and took it out of the bag, putting it on the table along with the butter and honey she had obviously bought to go with them. ‘I telephoned and spoke to him before I went out shopping. He didn’t seem too happy about the fact that you woke him up at two o’clock this morning to tell him how much you didn’t appreciate him sending me here.’
She lifted the rest of the bags unconcernedly down onto the floor to be unpacked later, moving to take out the plates and knives they needed to eat the croissants before sitting down at the table in the chair opposite his.
Jordan’s already frayed temper hadn’t been improved the night before by his consumption of two-thirds of a bottle of red wine, and he hadn’t even noticed what time it was when the idea to telephone Lucan and take his temper out on his brother had occurred to him. Lucan’s growled responses to Jordan’s complaints had left him in little doubt as to his big brother’s displeasure at the call.
‘Then maybe he should have thought of that before he sent you here without asking me!’ he snarled.
Stephanie gave a dismissive shrug as she helped herself to one of the deliciously buttery croissants. ‘He obviously completely underestimated just how rude and unreasonable you’ve become.’
Jordan’s mouth twisted derisively. ‘No doubt you took great pleasure in enlightening him.’
‘I didn’t need to after you had called him at such a ridiculous hour to complain.’ Stephanie took a bite of the butter-and honey-covered croissant, almost groaning at the sensory pleasure she experienced. After being assailed with the delicious aroma of the croissants, first in the supermarket and then on the drive back to the gatehouse; they tasted just as wonderful as she had imagined they would. ‘Try one of the croissants, Jordan,’ she advised him. ‘They might help to get rid of your hangover,’ she added naughtily, before taking another delicious bite.
It had been obvious from the used wine glass and the completely empty bottle of red wine she had found left on the table this morning that Jordan must have returned to the kitchen some time during the night. From the look of the dark shadows under his eyes and the pallor in his cheeks the red wine had done little to dispel whatever pain had been keeping him awake.
Although he had at least brushed his hair and shaved this morning, his cleanly shaven jaw revealing its perfect squareness and the beguiling cleft in the centre. A beguilement that Stephanie resisted responding to by concentrating on the fact that he was also wearing a clean white T-shirt and faded jeans, hopefully meaning he wasn’t completely bereft of the social niceties, after all. Although she wouldn’t like to bet on it!
Stephanie hadn’t slept that well herself the night before, aware as she had been of Jordan’s presence somewhere in the house, and discovering this morning that there was nothing she could eat for her breakfast—not even bread for toast!—hadn’t improved her mood.
A quick telephone call to Lucan St Claire, to confirm that she had arrived safely and so far hadn’t been bodily thrown out into the Gloucestershire countryside, had resulted in his informing her that Jordan had already telephoned him during the night with the same news. Although in Jordan’s case it had obviously been in the nature of a complaint. A complaint that the older St Claire brother didn’t appear in the least concerned about. In fact, his comment had been the one Jordan had predicted—that any response from Jordan was better than the uninterest he normally showed to everything and everyone nowadays.
Stephanie waited until Jordan had taken one of the croissants onto his plate, smothered it in butter and taken a bite before speaking again. ‘I decided to refrain from telling your brother that you had decided on sexual innuendo as the best way of getting rid of me.’
Jordan continued to slowly chew the first mouthful of food he’d had for a couple of days, swallowing the buttery pastry before answering her. ‘Only because you knew Lucan wouldn’t be interested.’
She shrugged. ‘Or maybe I’m just saving that complaint for another day.’
Jordan decided there was a lot more to Stephanie McKinley than that unusually coloured hair and a taut and supple body. It surprised him how curious he was to know exactly what that lot more was.
He leant back in his chair. ‘I should have asked last night whether or not there’s a Mr McKinley waiting for you at home.’
She glanced down at her bare left hand. ‘No ring.’
‘Not all the married women I know wear a wedding ring,’ Jordan drawled.
‘That’s probably because the married women you meet don’t want you to know that they’re married,’ Stephanie pointed out.
Jordan’s eyes narrowed. ‘I don’t get involved with married women.’
‘No?’
His mouth firmed. ‘No.’
‘Because of your parents’ divorce?’
Jordan drew in a sharp breath. ‘And what do you know about my parents’ divorce?’
She shrugged as she stood up to place her empty plate neatly inside the dishwasher. ‘Only that during interviews you use it as an excuse for never having considered marriage yourself.’
‘It happens to be a fact, not an excuse.’ He pushed his empty plate away to stand up abruptly.
Stephanie knew she had annoyed Jordan intensely with her mention of his parents’ divorce. Not quite the reaction she’d wanted from him, but it was probably better than no reaction at all!
She gave a knowing smile. ‘I can’t imagine any woman ever daring to be unfaithful to the famous Jordan Simpson.’
His eyes glittered a bright, intense gold. ‘My father was unfaithful, not my mother.’
Reason enough, Stephanie decided, for Jordan never to know that she was being named—albeit completely falsely—as the ‘other woman’ in an ex-patient’s divorce!
He thrust a hand through his hair. ‘I’ll be in my study for the rest of the morning.’
‘Doing what?’ She moved so that she was standing in front of the door that led out into the hallway.
He frowned at her. ‘None of your damned business!’
‘Maybe I could help?’
‘And maybe you could stay the hell out of my face!’ He glared down at her.
Maybe getting in his face hadn’t been such a good idea, Stephanie recognised uncomfortably, as she became aware of the heat of Jordan’s body and the glittering intensity of those mesmerising gold-coloured eyes. ‘When I spoke to Lucan this morning, he mentioned that there’s a heated indoor pool at Mulberry Hall …’
Jordan raised a brow. ‘And?’
‘And a swim might be fun.’
Those gold eyes hardened. ‘Am I right in thinking it might also be regarded as good exercise to strengthen the muscles in my leg?’
Stephanie felt the guilty heat of colour in her cheeks and her expression became defensive. ‘What’s wrong with that?’
He shrugged those wide and powerful shoulders. ‘Absolutely nothing.’ His mouth thinned. ‘If I wanted to exercise the muscles in my leg. Which I don’t,’ he added emphatically.
She sighed. ‘Why don’t you?’
A nerve pulsed in his tightly clenched jaw. ‘Get out of my way, Stephanie.’
She gave a firm shake of her head, her chin raised. She refused to move. ‘Not until you explain to me why you don’t even seem to want to try to get back the full mobility of your leg.’
A red haze seemed to pass in front of Jordan’s eyes as this woman’s persistent questions managed to pierce his armour once again. ‘Don’t be so stupid!’
‘So you do want to get back the use of your leg?’
‘What I want and what I’ve got are two different things,’ he said pointedly.
Stephanie put a hand on his arm. ‘Then prove me wrong and come swimming with me this morning.’
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Carole Mortimer
About the Author
CAROLE MORTIMER was born in England, the youngest of three children. She began writing in 1978, and has now written over one hundred and fifty books for Harlequin Mills and Boon. Carole has six sons, Matthew, Joshua, Timothy, Michael, David and Peter. She says, ‘I’m happily married to Peter senior; we’re best friends as well as lovers, which is probably the best recipe for a successful relationship. We live in a lovely part of England.’
THE SCANDALOUS ST CLAIRES
Three arrogant aristocrats—ready to marry!
Don’t miss any of Carole Mortimer’s
fabulous trilogy:
January—
JORDAN ST CLAIRE: DARK AND DANGEROUS
February—LUCAN ST CLAIRE
March—GIDEON ST CLAIRE
And read where it all began—with The Notorious St Claires, in Regency England!
Only in Mills & Boon® Historical Romance,
out next month
LADY ARABELLA’S SCANDALOUS MARRIAGE
JORDAN ST CLAIRE:
DARK AND
DANGEROUS
CAROLE MORTIMER
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
PROLOGUE
‘I THINK I should warn you, Miss McKinley—at the moment my brother is behaving like an arrogant lout!’
Must run in the family, Stephanie thought wryly as she looked across at Lucan St Claire, who was sitting behind his desk in the London office of the St Claire Corporation. Tall, dark, and aristocratically handsome, with a remoteness that bordered on cold, he wasn’t loutish at all—but this man had to be the epitome of arrogant!
The fact that he showed absolutely no interest in her as a woman might have something to do with Stephanie’s unkind thoughts—but, hey, a girl could dream of being hotly pursued by a mega-rich, tall, dark and handsome man, couldn’t she? That Lucan St Claire had more money than some small countries, and reportedly only dated leggy blondes—as opposed to women like Stephanie, with her average height and flame-red hair—probably had something to do with his lack of interest. Also, if that weren’t enough strikes against her, she was merely the self-employed physiotherapist this man intended hiring—she hoped—to aid his younger brother’s recuperation.
She steadily returned the piercing darkness of his gaze. ‘Most people in pain tend to become … a little aggressive in their behaviour, Mr St Claire.’
The sculptured lips curved in a humourless smile. ‘I believe you will find that Jordan’s a lot aggressive.’
Stephanie mentally sifted through the relevant facts she already had on the man who was to be her next patient. On a personal level, she knew Jordan St Claire was thirty-four, and the youngest of three brothers. Medically, she knew Jordan had been involved in some sort of accident six months ago, resulting in his having broken almost every bone down the right side of his body. Numerous operations later, his mobility still impaired, the man had apparently retreated from the world by moving to a house in the English countryside, no doubt with the intention of licking his wounds in private.
So far Stephanie found nothing unusual about his behaviour. ‘I’m sure that it’s nothing I haven’t dealt with in other patients, Mr St Claire,’ she said confidently.
Lucan St Claire leant his elbows on the leather-topped desk to look at her above steepled fingers. ‘What I’m trying to explain is that Jordan may be … less than enthusiastic, shall we say? … even at the mere thought of having yet another physiotherapist working with him.’
As Stephanie had never thought of herself as ‘yet another physiotherapist’, she found the remark less than flattering. She was proud of the success she had made of her private practice these past three years. A success that had resulted in almost all her clients coming as referrals from doctors or other satisfied ex-patients.
From what Stephanie had read in the medical file that now sat on top of Lucan St Claire’s desk—a confidential file that she was sure he shouldn’t even have had access to, let alone a copy of—the surgeons had done their work, and now it was up to Jordan St Claire to do the rest. Something he obviously seemed less than inclined to do …
Her eyes narrowed as she studied the aristocratically haughty face opposite her own. ‘What is it you aren’t telling me, Mr St Claire?’ she finally prompted slowly.
He gave a brief appreciative smile. ‘I can see that your professional reputation for straight talking is well earned.’
Stephanie was well aware that her brisk manner, along with her no-nonsense appearance—her long red hair was secured in a thick braid down her spine, and there was only a light brush of mascara on the long dark lashes that surrounded cool green eyes—invariably gave the impression she was less than emotionally engaged. It wasn’t true, of course, but inwardly empathising with her patients was one thing, and allowing them to see that empathy something else entirely.
As for her professional reputation.
Thank goodness Lucan St Claire didn’t give any indication that he had heard any of the rumours concerning Rosalind Newman’s recent accusation—that Stephanie had been involved in an affair with her husband Richard whilst acting as his physiotherapist. If he had, then she doubted he would even be thinking of engaging her.
‘I’ve never seen any point in being less than truthful.’ She shrugged. ‘Especially when it involves my patients.’
Lucan nodded in agreement. ‘Jordan wouldn’t accept anything less.’ He sat back in his black leather chair.
‘And …?’ Stephanie pierced him with shrewd green eyes. If she was going to work with this man’s brother then she needed to know everything there was to know about him—and not just his medical background.
He gave a heavy sigh. ‘And Jordan has absolutely no idea about my intention of engaging you.’
Stephanie had already had a suspicion that might be the case. It made her job more difficult, of course, if the patient was hostile towards her before she had even begun working with him, but she had worked with difficult patients before. In fact most of Stephanie’s patients were difficult; her reputation for being able to deal with ‘uncooperative’ patients was the reason there had been no shortage of work since she had opened her small clinic.
‘Can I take it from that remark it’s your intention to present him with a fait accompli?’
He grimaced. ‘Either way, he’s as likely to tell you to go away—impolitely—as he is to let you anywhere near him.’
Stephanie pursed her lips. ‘If you engaged me we would just have to make it impossible for him to tell me to go away—impolitely or otherwise. I believe you said that the house where he’s staying in Gloucestershire is actually owned by you?’
Lucan eyed her warily. ‘It’s part of an estate owned by the St Claire Corporation, yes.’
‘Then as the head of that corporation you obviously have the right to say who does and does not stay there.’ Her gaze was very direct.
He looked at her appreciatively, those dark eyes gleaming with hard humour. ‘You wouldn’t have a problem just turning up there and facing the consequences?’
‘If my patient leaves me with no other choice, no,’ she assured him bluntly.
He smiled slowly. ‘I do believe that Jordan may have more than met his match in you!’
Stephanie brightened. ‘You’ve decided to engage me to work with your brother?’
‘Working with Jordan might be an exaggeration,’ Lucan drawled ruefully. ‘He’s been very vocal in not wanting anyone else “poking and prodding” him about, as if he’s a specimen in a jar.’
‘I never poke or prod, Mr St Claire,’ Stephanie said dryly, her interest in the case deepening as she considered the hard work ahead of her. ‘I can begin next week, if that would suit you?’ She had absolutely no intention of allowing this man to even guess how relieved she felt at the thought of getting out of London for a while.
Away from Rosalind Newman’s nasty—and totally untrue—accusations that Stephanie had had an affair with her husband.
‘Very much so.’ He looked relieved that nothing he had told her about his brother seemed to have succeeded in deterring her.
Stephanie understood that relief only too well—knew that very often a patient’s inability to deal with their illness affected close family as much as it did them. Sometimes more so. And, for all that Lucan St Claire was known for his coldness and arrogance, he obviously loved his brother very much.
‘I will need a key to the house where he’s staying, and directions on how to get there,’ she said. ‘What happens next you may safely leave to me.’
Jordan St Claire didn’t know it yet, but the immovable object was about to meet the unstoppable force!
CHAPTER ONE
‘WHO the hell are you? And what are you doing in my kitchen?’
Stephanie had arrived at the gatehouse of Mulberry Hall an hour or so ago, and had rung the bell and knocked on the door before deciding that either Jordan St Claire wasn’t in or he was just refusing to answer. Either way, it left her with no choice but to let herself in with the key Lucan St Claire had given her. Once she had walked into the kitchen and seen the mess there she hadn’t bothered going any further. The dirty plates and untidiness were a complete affront to her inborn need for order and cleanliness. She doubted Jordan had bothered to wash a single cup or plate since his arrival here a month ago!
‘This is a kitchen?’ She continued to collect up the dirty crockery that seemed to litter every surface, before dropping it gingerly into the sink full of hot, soapy water. ‘I thought it was a laboratory for growing bacterial cultures!’ She turned, her gaze very direct as she raised derisive dark brows at the unkempt man who stood in the doorway, glaring at her so accusingly.
Only to feel the need to steady herself by leaning against one of the kitchen cabinets as she instantly recognised him. Despite the untidy overlong dark hair, the several days’ growth of beard on the sculptured square jaw, and the way the black T-shirt and faded blue jeans hung slightly loose on his large frame, there was no mistaking his identity.
It took every ounce of Stephanie’s usual calm collectedness to keep her expression coolly mocking as she found herself looking not at Jordan St Claire but at the world-famous actor Jordan Simpson!
Admittedly, the shaggy dark hair and the five o’clock shadow that looked more like an eleven o’clock one managed to disguise most of his handsome features—which was perhaps the intention. But there was no mistaking those mesmerising amber-gold eyes. Reviewers’ descriptions of the colour of those eyes differed from molten gold to amber to cinnamon-brown—but, whatever the colour, the descriptions were always preceded by the word mesmerising!
As a fan of the English actor, who had taken Hollywood by storm ten years ago when, as a relative unknown, he had been given the starring role in a film that had been an instant box office hit, Stephanie knew exactly who he was. She should do, when she had seen every film this man had ever made—twenty or so to date. A couple of them had even resulted in him winning Oscars for his stunning performances, and she would have recognised those chiselled features in the dark. In her many fantasies involving this man it had always been in the dark.
Added to which, she knew Jordan Simpson had fallen from the top of a building six months ago, whilst on the set of his last film. The newspapers had been full of sensational speculation at the time, hinting that Jordan had been severely disfigured. That he might never walk again. That he might never work again.
No doubt about it, Stephanie accepted, as her heart continued to beat rapidly and her cheeks started to feel hot, he might be walking with the aid of a cane, but the man in front of her really was the incredibly handsome actor she had obsessed over for years. A little fact that Lucan St Claire had forgotten to mention to her the previous week, she thought with annoyance. She’d rather have been forewarned!
‘Very funny!’ Jordan rasped in response to her remark about the kitchen. He stood in the doorway, leaning heavily on the ebony cane he had necessarily to carry around with him everywhere nowadays if he didn’t want to end up falling flat on his face. ‘That still doesn’t tell me who you are or how you got in.’
Jordan had been in an exhausted sleep, lying on the bed that had been brought down to the dining room because he could no longer walk up the stairs, when he’d heard the sound of someone moving about in the kitchen. His first thought had been that it was a burglar, but intruders didn’t usually hang around long enough to wash the dishes!
‘I have a key.’ The redhead shrugged.
His eyes narrowed. ‘Given to you by whom, exactly?’
A slight indrawn breath and then another shrug. ‘Your brother Lucan.’
Jordan’s glare turned to a scowl. ‘If my interfering brother sent you here to act as housekeeper, then I think you should know I don’t need one.’
‘All evidence is to the contrary,’ the redhead drawled, and she turned her back on him to once again move efficiently about the kitchen, collecting up yet more dirty plates and stacking them on the draining board. Giving Jordan’s narrowed gaze every opportunity to notice how a short white T-shirt clung to the firmness of her breasts and flat stomach, ending a couple of inches short of the low-slung jeans that moulded to narrow hips and the perfect curve of her bottom.
Great—the only part of his body that didn’t already ache from his injuries was now engorged, throbbing and ached like hell!
It was the first time Jordan had felt the least bit of sexual interest in a woman since the accident six months ago—but, considering the pitiful condition the rest of his body was in, it wasn’t an interest he particularly welcomed now. ‘Most of that stuff will go into the dishwasher, you know,’ he muttered resentfully as the redhead began to wash the dishes already in the soapy water in the sink.
‘They could have gone in the dishwasher after they were first used,’ she corrected without turning. ‘Now they need to be soaked first.’
‘Implying that I’m a slob?’
‘Oh, it wasn’t an implication,’ she commented pertly.
‘It may have escaped your notice, but I’m slightly impaired here!’ Jordan defended angrily; he didn’t have much of an appetite nowadays anyway, but on the occasions he did feel hungry his hip and leg ached so much by the time he had finished preparing the food and eating it that he didn’t feel up to doing the dishes.
The redhead stopped washing up to slowly turn and look at him with wide green eyes. ‘Wow.’ She gave a rueful shake of her head. ‘I have to admit I didn’t expect you to play the “I’m crippled” card right off the bat! ‘
Jordan drew in a harsh, disbelieving breath even as his fingers tightened about his cane until the knuckles showed white. ‘What did you just say?’
Stephanie’s gaze continued to calmly meet Jordan’s fierce amber eyes even as she quickly registered the way his already pale cheeks had taken on a grey tinge, along with the resentful stiffening of a body that obviously showed the signs of being ravaged by pain and illness.
Normally a complete professional when it came to her job, Stephanie was finding it difficult to deal with Jordan’s dark and sensual good-looks with her usual detachment. In fact, she had deliberately not looked at him for some minutes in an effort to regain her equilibrium! Usually level-headed when it came to men, Stephanie had dragged her reluctant sister along to see every film Jordan Simpson had ever made, just so that she could sit in the impersonal darkness of the cinema and drool over the big screen image of him before she was later able to buy the film on DVD and drool over him in private. Her sister Joey was just going to fall over laughing when she learnt who Stephanie had taken on as her patient!
Her expression remained outwardly cool as she inwardly acknowledged that thankfully the sexy and ruggedly handsome actor was barely recognisable in the gaunt and pale man in front of her. Except for those eyes!
‘I’m sorry. I thought that was how you now thought of yourself? As a cripple,’ she said evenly.
Those eyes glittered a dangerous gold. ‘Forget who you are and what you’re doing here, and just get the hell out of my home!’ he ordered furiously.
‘I don’t think so.’
He frowned fiercely at the calmness of her reply. ‘You don’t?’
Stephanie smiled unconcernedly in the face of the fury she could see he was trying so hard to restrain. ‘This is your brother’s home, not yours, and the fact that Lucan gave me a key to get in shows he has no problem with me being here.’
Jordan drew in a harsh breath. ‘I have a problem with you being here.’
She smiled slightly. ‘Unfortunately for you, you aren’t the one paying the bills.’
‘I don’t need a damned housekeeper! ‘ he repeated, frustrated.
‘As I said, that’s questionable,’ Stephanie teased lightly as she moved to dry her hands on a towel that also looked as if it needed to come face to face with some hot soapy water—or, more preferably, disinfectant! ‘Stephanie McKinley.’ She thrust out the dry hand. ‘And I’m not a housekeeper.’
A hand Jordan deliberately chose to ignore, breathing deeply as he looked down at her from between narrowed lids. Probably aged in her mid to late twenties, the woman had incredibly long, dark lashes fringing eyes of deep green, and the freckles that usually accompanied hair as red as hers were a light dusting across her small uptilted nose. Her lips were full, the bottom one slightly more so than the top, above a pointed and determined chin. She also had one very sexy body beneath the casual white T-shirt and denims, and—as he was now all too well aware—a tongue like a viper!
No one—not even his two brothers—had dared to talk to Jordan these last few months in the way Stephanie McKinley just had.
‘How do you know Lucan?’ Jordan probed suddenly.
‘I don’t.’ With a shrug, the woman allowed her hand to fall back to her side. ‘At least, not in the way I think you’re implying I might.’ She gave him another mocking glance.
Jordan had been standing for longer than he usually did, and as a result his hip was starting to ache. Badly. A definite strain on his already short temper! ‘Is paying a woman to go to bed with me Lucan’s idea of a joke?’
Stephanie smiled in the face of the deliberate insult—at the same time as she wryly wondered whether the coldly remote man she had met the previous week even had a sense of humour! ‘Do I look like a woman men pay to go to bed with them?’
‘How the hell should I know?’ Jordan scorned.
‘Implying you don’t usually need to pay a woman to go to bed with you?’ That was something she was already well aware of—Jordan Simpson had trouble keeping women out of his bed rather than the opposite!
‘Not usually, no,’ he ground out.
Stephanie realised that he was deliberately trying to unnerve and embarrass her with the intimacy of this conversation. He was succeeding, too—which wasn’t a good thing in the circumstances.
She raised an eyebrow. ‘I assure you I would have absolutely no interest in going to bed with a man who is so full of self-pity that he’s not only shut himself off from his family but the rest of the world, too.’
Jordan’s face darkened ominously. ‘What the hell would you know about it?’ he snarled viciously. ‘I don’t see you suffering pitying looks every time you so much as go outside, as you stumble about with the aid of a cane just so that you don’t completely embarrass yourself by falling flat on your backside!’
Stephanie hesitated slightly before answering. ‘Not any more, no.’
Those golden eyes narrowed to dark slits. ‘What exactly does that mean?’
Stephanie calmly met that furiously glittering gaze. ‘It means that when I was ten years old I was involved in a car crash that left me confined to a wheelchair for two years. I couldn’t walk at all for all of that time, not even to “stumble about with the aid of a cane”. You, on the other hand, still have mobility in both your legs, which is why you won’t be receiving any of those pitying looks from me that you seem to find so offensive from the rest of humanity!’
Ordinarily Stephanie didn’t tell her patients of her own years spent in a wheelchair. She saw no reason why she needed to, and wouldn’t have done so now, either, if the challenge in Jordan’s tone hadn’t touched on a raw nerve.
‘You were lucky enough to get up and walk so now you think anyone else who finds themselves in the same position should do the same?’ he said.
‘So you’ve had the bad luck to receive injuries that have left you less than your previously robust and healthy self. Either live with it, or fight it, but don’t hide yourself away here, feeling sorry for yourself.’ She was breathing hard in her agitation.
Jordan looked down at her with sudden comprehension. ‘If Lucan didn’t send you here to go to bed with me, then who the hell are you? Yet another doctor? Or perhaps my arrogant big brother now thinks I’m in need of a shrink?’ His top lip turned back contemptuously.
Stephanie McKinley quirked dark brows. ‘I had the impression from reading your medical notes that your skull escaped injury when you fell?’
‘It did,’ he bit out tightly.
She raised auburn brows. ‘Do you think you’re in need of a psychiatrist?’
He scowled darkly. ‘I’m not playing this game with you, Miss McKinley.’
‘I assure you I don’t consider this a game, Mr Simpson—’
‘You know who I am?’ Jordan interjected.
‘Well, of course I know who you are.’ Irritation creased the smooth creaminess of her brow. ‘You’re a household name. Obviously you’re feeling less than your usual … suave and charming self,’ she concluded tactfully, ‘but you’re still you.’
Was he? Sometimes Jordan wondered. Until six months ago he had enjoyed his life. Living in California. Doing the work he loved to do. ‘Suave and charming’ enough to be able to go to bed with any woman who took his interest. Since the accident all that had changed. He had changed.
‘In that case, Miss McKinley, what I need is for someone to find a screenplay that calls for a male lead who limps! Know of any?’ Jordan growled his frustration as he moved away from her, favouring his right side as usual, as the damaged muscle and bones in his hip and leg protested at the movement. Hell, he hurt no matter if he moved or not!
‘Not offhand, no,’ the redhead said tartly. ‘And you wouldn’t need one if you concentrated your energies on getting back the full use of that leg instead of wallowing in self-pity.’
‘Damn it to hell!’ Jordan gave a groan of disgust, his eyes lifting to the heavens in supplication. ‘You’re another sadistic physiotherapist, aren’t you? Come to pound and massage until I can’t stand the pain any longer.’ It was a statement, not a question; Jordan had had one physiotherapist or another working on his leg and hip for weeks, months, since the surgeon had finished putting his shattered bones back together. None of them had succeeded in doing more than sending him to hell and back.
‘The fact that the leg still hurts could be a positive thing, not a negative one,’ Stephanie McKinley retorted.
‘I’ll be sure to think of that at two o’clock in the morning, when I can’t sleep because the pain is driving me insane!’
When Lucan St Claire had warned Stephanie that his brother was ‘a lot aggressive’, he had forgotten to add that he was also stubborn and unreasonable! ‘In this case pain could be a good thing—it could mean the muscles are regenerating,’ she explained patiently.
‘Or it could mean that they’re dying!’
‘Well, yes.’ No point in trying to deceive him concerning that possibility. ‘I’ll be able to tell you more once I’ve worked with it—’
‘The only part of my body I would be remotely interested in having any woman work with is a couple of inches higher than my thigh!’ he shot back wickedly.
There was no way, complete professional or not, Stephanie could have prevented the heated flush that now coloured her cheeks. Or the way her gaze moved instinctively down to the area in question. That particular part of his anatomy certainly seemed to be working normally, if the hard and lengthy bulge she could see pressing against his jeans was anything to go by!
Jordan St Claire—no, Jordan Simpson—was obviously physically aroused. By her.
No, not by her in particular, Stephanie rebuked herself impatiently. She very much doubted that this man had allowed a woman within touching distance since his accident, and after six months of celibacy she was probably just the first reasonably attractive female he had seen in a while—consequently he would have been aroused by a nun, as long as she had a pulse and breasts!
‘If you’re trying to embarrass me, Mr Simpson—’
‘Then I’ve succeeded.’ He eyed her flushed cheeks triumphantly.
‘Perhaps,’ she allowed briskly. ‘Does knowing that make you feel good?’ She eyed him speculatively as he gave a hard and unapologetic grin. A slow and sexy grin that reminded her all too forcibly that this man was the actor she had lusted after for years.
Oh, help!
He gave a casual shrug. ‘It doesn’t matter whether it did or it didn’t. I intend to forget you even exist as soon as you’ve walked out the door.’
This time it was Stephanie’s turn to smile slowly. ‘You’re an altogether arrogant family, aren’t you?’
Jordan gave a huff of laughter. ‘How many of us have you met?’
Stephanie blinked. ‘Just Lucan and you.’
‘And you think we’re arrogant?’ He snorted. ‘Believe me, you don’t know what arrogance is until you’ve met Gideon.’
‘Your twin?’
That golden gaze sharpened. ‘You seem to know a lot about me.’
She shrugged. ‘I believe it’s public knowledge that Jordan Simpson has a twin brother.’
He grimaced. ‘Gideon and I are only fraternal twins, not identical ones.’
Thank goodness for that! Stephanie wasn’t sure the world—or she—could stand there being two men in the world with Jordan’s devastating good-looks.
She had yet to decide whether or not this man posed a problem as regarded her working with him—other than the need she felt every time she so much as looked at him to rip his clothes off and jump into bed with him, of course. But surely that was normal? Hundreds—no, thousands of women must feel the same way about the actor Jordan Simpson. Except none of those women were supposed to act the complete professional and treat this man like any other patient—which he most certainly wasn’t to Stephanie!
She gave a weary sigh as she pushed back some loose tendrils of hair that had escaped the plait down her spine. ‘Look, Mr Simpson, I’ve had a long drive up here from London, and on top of that I could do with something to eat, so do you think we could call a truce to this argument long enough for me to cook us some dinner?’
Jordan’s eyes narrowed contemplatively. On the one hand he wanted this woman gone from here, but on the other the mention of food had reminded him that he was hungry—a side-effect of those damned sleeping pills he had to take in order to get any rest at all. ‘That depends,’ he finally murmured slowly.
Deep green eyes looked across at him suspiciously. ‘On what?’
‘On whether or not you can actually cook, of course,’ Jordan drawled. ‘Put another plate of baked beans on toast in front of me and I may just throw it at you!’ He had been living off something on toast since he’d moved here a month ago, in too much pain and lacking the appetite to bother to cook anything else.
Lucan had gone to the trouble of sending this woman here, but Jordan had no intention of even allowing her to look at his injuries. Sex didn’t appear to be on her agenda either. So she might as well make herself useful in some other way—before Jordan went ahead and threw her out anyway!
‘I think I can do better than that,’ Stephanie McKinley told him. ‘I wasn’t sure what the situation was for having groceries delivered, so I brought some things with me,’ she continued brightly. ‘I’ll just go out to the car and get them.’ She collected her black jacket from the back of one of the kitchen chairs and slipped it on, releasing her braid from the collar before moving towards the door. ‘I hope you like steak?’
Just the mention of red meat was enough to make Jordan’s mouth water. ‘No doubt I could cope,’ he said gruffly.
Stephanie was smiling slightly to herself as she went out to her car. He was allowing her to stay long enough to cook dinner, at least. Unsurprising, when she knew from the dirty plates she had collected up earlier that Jordan hadn’t been exaggerating about the amount of baked beans on toast he had eaten since coming here. What happened after Stephanie had fed him was still in question, of course; she wasn’t fooled for a moment by his sudden acquiescence in allowing her to cook dinner for them both.
She was going to have dinner with Jordan Simpson!
Admittedly he was a Jordan Simpson much changed from the charming, sensual man she had read about so much in the newspapers over the years. Or the one she had gazed at so longingly on the big and small screen, but still.
Stephanie had barely had time to open her car door when she heard her mobile ringing. Bending down to pick it up from where it lay on the passenger seat, she checked the number of the caller. ‘Joey?’ she breathed thankfully as she pressed the receiver to her ear and took her sister’s call. ‘I’m so glad you rang! I think I might be in trouble. Big trouble! ‘
CHAPTER TWO
‘I THOUGHT you had decided to get in your car and leave after all,’ Jordan rasped when Stephanie McKinley finally came back into the kitchen, carrying a box of groceries.
She put the box down on the kitchen table before answering him, her face slightly flushed, and even more of that long fiery-red hair having escaped the confining plait. ‘I stopped to admire how beautiful the big house looked in the distance, with the sun going down behind it.’
‘Mulberry Hall?’
She nodded. ‘Is it a hotel, or something?’
‘Or something.’ Jordan nodded tersely. He had sat down at the kitchen table while he waited for her to return, and stretched his leg out in front of him now as he watched Stephanie take steak, potatoes, asparagus and salad from the box with hands that were long and slender, the nails trimmed capably short. No doubt in readiness for the sadistic pummelling she gave her patients!
‘Either it is a hotel or it isn’t,’ she reasoned with a slight frown as she paused in the unpacking.
‘It isn’t,’ Jordan supplied unhelpfully. The sight of all this fresh food reminded him of just how long it had been since he had last eaten. Yesterday some time, he thought. Maybe.
Besides which, he had absolutely no intention of talking about Mulberry Hall, or its function, with a woman who was going to be gone from here in a few hours.
‘Your brother Lucan said this whole estate was owned by the St Claire Corporation.’
Jordan’s mouth twisted. ‘Did he?’
She raised dark brows. ‘If you don’t want to talk about it then just say so.’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
Well, she had definitely asked for that one, Stephanie acknowledged ruefully. ‘I was only trying to make polite conversation.’
Jordan looked at her coldly. ‘I agreed to let you cook dinner, not talk.’
Stephanie bit back her angry retort as she resumed unpacking the box of groceries. Maybe he would be more amenable after he had eaten? And maybe he wouldn’t! she thought dryly.
His medical file had stated that the broken bones in his arm and ribcage had knitted back together well, but the lines of strain grooved beside his mouth and eyes were evidence of the pain he still suffered in the hip and leg that had been fractured and obviously hadn’t healed as well. Stephanie’s fingers itched to explore that damaged leg and hip, to check for herself what could be done about restoring this man to full mobility.
Or maybe they just itched to touch all six foot four inches of lean, male flesh that was Jordan Simpson.
Her sister had been first incredulous and then amused when Stephanie had explained her dilemma to her, dismissing her misgivings regarding having the actor as her newest patient.
Joey had also reassured Stephanie concerning her worry over her unwilling involvement in the Newmans’ divorce. Her lawyer sister had advised Stephanie to ‘just get on and do what you do best, sis, and leave me to deal with the Newman situation.’
That the ‘Newman situation’ even needed dealing with still rankled with Stephanie.
‘Could you lay the table while I cook?’ she prompted sharply.
His jaw clenched. ‘I’m not a complete invalid, damn it.’ He gritted very white teeth as he rose awkwardly to his feet before grasping the ebony cane to balance himself.
‘It was a request for you to actually lay the table, not a question as to whether or not you’re capable of doing it,’ she elaborated.
‘Of course it was,’ he said sarcastically.
Stephanie watched him as he limped across the kitchen to open the cutlery drawer, determinedly keeping her gaze professional. The muscles in his leg were obviously weakened from months of disuse, but that didn’t explain the amount of pain he seemed to be suffering. It might be an idea to have someone else look at him—
‘What the hell are you looking at?’
Stephanie raised her gaze to find Jordan scowling across the kitchen at her, and the look of savage anger on that handsome face warned her to opt for honesty. ‘I was wondering if you should have that leg and hip re-X-rayed.’
‘Forget it.’ He threw the cutlery noisily back into the drawer before slamming it shut. ‘And while you’re at it take your food and just get out!’ He walked stiffly towards the door that led back into the hallway.
Stephanie frowned her dismay as she realised his obvious intention of leaving. ‘What about dinner?’
Those amber eyes were glittering furiously as he turned to glare at her. ‘I just lost my appetite.’
‘Just because I talked about your leg?’
‘Because you talked at all, Jordan told her insultingly. ‘Men just shut up and get on with it—whereas women, I’ve learnt, feel the need to dissect everything.’
‘If by that you mean that men prefer to bottle up their anxieties rather than—’
‘The only anxiety I have at this moment is you!’ he cut in viciously, able to feel the nerve pulsing in his tightly clenched jaw. ‘A situation that will resolve itself the moment you walk out the door.’
This man really was an immovable object, Stephanie recognised in sheer frustration. Well, two could play at that game! ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ she told him levelly.
Those glittering amber eyes turned icily cold as his gaze raked over her from head to toe and back again. ‘No?’
‘No.’ She stood her ground. ‘And I very much doubt that you’re capable of making me leave, either.’
His face was once again unhealthily pale as his mouth tightened to an angry grim line. ‘You don’t pull your punches, do you?’ he muttered harshly.
Stephanie sighed. ‘It isn’t my intention to upset you, Mr Simpson—’
‘Then get the hell out of my house! ‘ He turned and left the room without a backward glance, his dark hair long and unkempt on his shoulders, and his back stiff with the fury he made no effort to hide.
Leaving Stephanie to sink down wearily into the kitchen chair Jordan had just vacated. She was used to difficult patients—actually relished the challenge of working with them. But dealing with Jordan Simpson was going to be so much harder than Stephanie could ever have imagined a week ago, when she had unknowingly agreed to help Lucan St Claire’s brother.
‘Changed your mind?’ She looked up hopefully an hour later, when she heard the slight unevenness of Jordan’s gait as he walked back down the hallway.
‘No.’ Jordan couldn’t say he hadn’t been tempted by the delicious smells emanating down the hall from the kitchen and into the study, where he’d sat as this stubborn woman obviously prepared her own dinner. Or that his mouth hadn’t watered at the thought of sinking his teeth into a medium-rare steak and a fluffy jacket potato smothered in butter, possibly with a nice light French dressing on the green salad on the side. Tempted, maybe, but there was no way he would give Stephanie McKinley the satisfaction of joining her. ‘I thought I told you to leave?’ The pristine tidiness of the kitchen showed that she had finished cleaning before even attempting to cook her meal.
She remained comfortably seated at the kitchen table, where she had obviously just finished eating her meal—washed down by a glass of decent-looking red wine if the label on the open bottle on the table was anything to go by. ‘Your brother wants me to stay.’
Jordan clenched his jaw. ‘You’ve spoken to him?’
‘Not since last week, no.’
‘Well, it may have escaped your notice, but Lucan isn’t here right now.’
‘I have no doubt that he could be here in a matter of hours if I should decide to call him,’ Stephanie McKinley came back unconcernedly.
Knowing his arrogant brother as he did, Jordan had no doubt, either, that Lucan was quite capable of climbing into his private helicopter and flying up here if he felt there was a need for him to do so. If Lucan thought that Jordan was being difficult. Which he undoubtedly was!
Jordan limped over to get a glass out of one of the cupboards, poured himself a glass of red wine from the open bottle and then took a sip before answering this increasingly annoying woman. ‘If that was a threat then I’m not impressed.’
‘It wasn’t, and you weren’t meant to be.’ She grimaced. ‘And should you be drinking wine if you’re taking medication for pain?’
‘This is my medication for the pain!’ One thing Mulberry Hall did have was a decent wine cellar, and Jordan had helped himself liberally to its contents this past month. A cripple and a drunk; how the mighty had fallen! he thought derisively.
Stephanie McKinley eyed him frowningly. ‘Alcohol causes depression—’
‘I’m not depressed, damn it! ‘ The glass landed heavily on the table-top as he slammed it down, spilling some of its contents over his hand and onto the wooden surface.
‘Okay. But you’re angry. Frustrated. And rude.’
‘How do you know that I wasn’t angry, frustrated and rude before the accident?’ Jordan asked.
‘You weren’t,’ Stephanie said quietly as she looked up at him. ‘The press would certainly have made something of it if the famous Jordan Simpson were known to be any one of those things.’
Instead of which the media had always written glowing reports of the handsome and charming actor as he escorted leggy blondes to film premieres, or out to dinner at one exclusive LA restaurant or another. Usually looking devastatingly handsome in a black tuxedo or casually tailored clothing, his dark hair still overlong but expertly styled to make the most of his hard and chiselled cheeks and jawline, and the lazily sexy smile that curved those sculptured lips. Not to mention, of course, those mesmerising amber-gold eyes!
A complete contrast to this savagely acerbic man, in the crumpled T-shirt and denims he wore this evening, with that growth of beard on his chin and his too-long untidy hair.
‘When did you last go to a barber or have a shave?’ Stephanie asked.
Jordan picked up the glass and took another long swallow of red wine. ‘None of your damned business,’ he growled.
‘Taking a pride in your appearance—’
‘Isn’t going to make a damned bit of difference to the fact that my leg is shot to hell.’
‘We need to find out why that is,’ she pressed.
‘No, Stephanie, you need to find out why that is if you want to keep what I have no doubt is a very well paying job,’ Jordan pointed out. ‘But, as I have no intention of letting you anywhere near me or my leg, that’s going to prove rather difficult, don’t you think?’
Impossible, actually, Stephanie admitted with frustration. Being able to actually assess a patient’s disability was more than half the battle. It also affected any and all treatment. Treatment this man had assured her he definitely wasn’t going to allow her to give him. She stood up to collect her dirty plates, and carried them over to begin loading them into the dishwasher. ‘Would you like me to cook your steak for you now?’
‘Tell me, Steph, which part of get the hell out of my home didn’t you understand earlier?’ Jordan St Claire snarled cruelly.
Stephanie drew in a controlling breath. ‘As I am neither stupid nor deaf, I understood all of it. I also prefer my. my clients to call me Stephanie or Miss McKinley,’ she added primly. Only her family and very close friends were allowed to shorten her name in that way. Besides which, the formality of her full name sounded more professional. And she freely admitted she was having more trouble than usual in keeping her relationship with Jordan Simpson on a professional basis.
Considering the threatened scandal of what Joey called the ‘Newman situation’, Stephanie definitely needed to keep her relationship with this man—with all her patients—on a completely professional basis. If Rosalind Newman’s accusations concerning her husband and Stephanie had been true, she knew she would deserve the other woman’s vitriol. As it was, she had actually found Richard Newman one of her least likeable patients.
Unlike Jordan Simpson, despite his disgraceful temper.
Jordan eyed her mockingly as he refilled his wine glass. ‘Why won’t you just accept that you’re wasting your time with me, Stephanie? That I don’t want or need you here?’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘I agree with the first part of that second statement, at least!’
Jordan’s jaw tightened as he saw the challenge in the slight lift of her pointed chin and sparkling green eyes. As he acknowledged once again that his mouth and brain were pushing this woman away at the same time as his body wanted to pull her into his arms and kiss her senseless. He hadn’t so much as felt a flicker of physical interest in a woman these past six months, and had wondered in some of his darker moments if perhaps the accident had robbed him of that ability too. The stirring of his thighs just looking at this woman had at least reassured him that wasn’t the case, he thought ruefully.
Jordan wondered just what the determinedly professional Stephanie McKinley would do about it if he were to follow through on his instinct to kiss the hell out of her? Run screaming bloody murder into the night, probably, and never darken his door again!
Which, thinking about it, was precisely what Jordan wanted her to do.
He carefully placed his cane against the kitchen table before turning to walk—damn it, hobble!—the short distance that separated them, so that he stood only inches away from the suddenly wary Stephanie McKinley as she pressed herself back against the kitchen cabinet to look up at him with wide apprehensive eyes. ‘Not so confident now, hmm, Stephanie?’ Jordan deliberately moved closer still.
Stephanie inwardly panicked. She could actually feel the heat of Jordan’s body as he stood mere centimetres away from her. She instantly responded to that heat, her breasts seeming to swell, and the nipples becoming hard and full against the thin material of her T-shirt, to her dismay.
Shaved or not, untidy overlong hair notwithstanding, he was undoubtedly every inch the sexually mesmerising A-list actor at that moment!
Stephanie moistened dry lips with the tip of her tongue, at once realising her mistake as she saw the way that seductive golden gaze followed the movement. ‘This isn’t funny, Jordan—’
‘It isn’t meant to be.’ He moved the small distance that separated them. The aroused hardness of his thighs pressed against Stephanie’s own, causing that heat to flare into an uncontrollable flame. ‘Is this natural?’ Jordan lifted a hand to touch the deep red hair at her temple.
Stephanie frowned. ‘You don’t seriously think any woman would deliberately dye her hair this colour?’ she scorned, in an effort to dispel her discomfort at his close proximity. At having Jordan Simpson touch her in this way.
‘It’s beautiful,’ he murmured appreciatively as he caressed several silky tendrils against his fingertips. ‘Unusual.’
Stephanie knew exactly what Jordan was doing. She’d already realised that he was deliberately playing with her as another tactic in getting her to leave. But knowing that didn’t make the slightest difference to the way she was responding to his closeness and the light caress of his fingertips as he touched her hair. She could barely breathe—didn’t dare breathe—when her aroused breasts were already brushing against the hardness of Jordan’s chest and making her ache for even closer contact! ‘It’s just plain old red.’
‘No,’ he murmured huskily. ‘I’ve never seen hair quite this colour before. It’s auburn and cinnamon, with highlights of red and gold.’
The colour of Stephanie’s hair had been the bane of her childhood, and certainly wasn’t the feature to mention if he was serious about this seduction. Which he obviously wasn’t! ‘It’s red,’ she insisted flatly.
That golden gaze moved slowly over the fullness of her breasts, lingering appreciatively on those hardened nipples before travelling over the flatness of her stomach and down to her thighs, to linger there speculatively. ‘Are you the same—?’
‘Don’t even go there!’ Stephanie interjected sharply, the heat having burned up her cheeks now. ‘Just step away from me, Jordan,’ she warned.
That golden gaze taunted her. ‘Or …?’
She met his gaze challengingly. ‘Or I’m afraid I’ll have to make you.’ Stephanie had taken Ju-Jitsu lessons in self-defence several years ago. She had no doubt she could make him stop, but she wouldn’t enjoy doing it to this particular man.
Unnerving Stephanie McKinley, making her too uncomfortable to want to stay on here, had started out as a game to Jordan. It didn’t feel like a game any longer, as he saw her physical response to his deliberate seduction. As his erection literally throbbed, so full and hard that it actually hurt as he imagined stripping those figure-hugging jeans from her shapely bottom and thighs, sliding her panties down her long legs before releasing himself, pushing her back against one of the kitchen cabinets and sinking his fullness into her hot and welcoming warmth!
Jordan wanted to do those things so badly—wanted to hear Stephanie McKinley screaming in ecstasy rather than bloody murder—and he could feel the sweat dampening his forehead as he fought against giving in to that impulse.
This physical response to her—the second in an hour or so—had to be because Jordan had been too long without a woman in his bed. With that long red hair, impishly attractive face, and slender if curvaceous body, she wasn’t in the least his type, damn it!
Jordan’s gaze was deliberately mocking as he looked down into her overheated face. ‘You just might have been amusing to have around, after all, Stephanie.’
She arched dark brows. ‘Might have been?’
‘Hmm.’ He deliberately moved away from her to limp across the room and pick up his cane. ‘Despite your pert little breasts and curvaceous bottom, I still want you out of here,’ he bit out contemptuously.
Stephanie eyed him in frustration. Although she had to admit she was relieved Jordan was no longer standing quite so close to her. Or touching her. Or making her completely aware of the thick hardness of his arousal. A physical response that had been undoubtedly because of her!
She ran the dampness of her palms down denim-clad thighs. ‘I’m still willing to cook you that steak if you’re hungry?’ she said huskily.
‘That would just be feeding the wrong appetite, Stephanie,’ he jibed back.
‘Your brother is paying me to take care of your leg, not to go to bed with you!’ she exclaimed.
He shrugged. ‘That’s a pity, when I’ve decided that right now I need a woman in my bed more than I need a physiotherapist.’ Jordan knew he had never needed physical release more than he did at that moment!
‘Don’t you have a girlfriend you could call?’ Stephanie asked curiously.
His face hardened. ‘Not any more, no.’
Stephanie looked at him searchingly. Because his parents had divorced when he was a child, Jordan Simpson had never made any secret of his own aversion to the married state. But that hadn’t prevented him from having a constant stream of women in his life. Beautiful women. Sophisticated women. Women as unlike Stephanie as it was possible for them to be. Which was the reason she knew that his interest in her wasn’t genuine.
‘Why not? There must be plenty you could call who would come running.’
He gave a humourless smile. ‘Look at me, Stephanie,’ he demanded. ‘Really look at me,’ he pressed.
Stephanie had already looked. Several times! And, yes, he was obviously thinner, gaunter, grimmer than he had been six months ago, but as far as she was concerned none of that detracted from the fact that he was a compellingly handsome man.
‘What am I looking for?’
Jordan gave an impatient snort. ‘What was it you called me earlier? A cripple, wasn’t it?’
She gasped at the bitterness in his tone. ‘No, what I actually said was that you obviously believe yourself to be a cripple,’ she corrected firmly.
‘Maybe because that’s what I am?’ he said harshly. ‘I certainly don’t want any woman to be with me just because she feels sorry for me.’
‘That’s ridiculous—’
‘This from the woman who just refused me?’ he taunted.
Stephanie rolled her eyes. ‘We both know you weren’t being serious.’
‘Do we?’
‘Yes,’ she snapped. ‘You were just trying to make me leave.’
‘Is it working?’
‘No,’ she told him firmly, determined to ignore the traitorous responses of her own body to this conversation; her breasts felt full and aching, and there was a burning warmth between her thighs.
Knowing that this man was deliberately playing with her in an effort to make her leave made absolutely no difference to the way Stephanie’s body responded to him. ‘How do you think Lucan will react if I have to call him and tell him I had to leave because you were sexually harassing me?’ She looked at him challengingly.
Jordan gave a feral grin. ‘He would probably be relieved to know that something has aroused my interest at last.’
Remembering how deeply concerned Lucan St Claire had been about Jordan the previous week, Stephanie thought that might be the case, too!
‘Aroused being the operative word,’ Jordan jeered, and had the pleasure of seeing the blush that re-entered those creamy cheeks.
Stephanie McKinley was really quite beautiful, he realised with a frown, her face impishly lovely, her body feminine and shapely. And his fingers actually itched to release that red-cinnamon-gold hair from its confining braid. He could imagine all that hair splayed out across her luscious nakedness as he feasted hungrily on the fullness of her breasts, before going lower.
He wasn’t going to get any sleep tonight, either, if he continued to allow his imagination free rein. In fact a cold shower sounded as if it might be a good idea! ‘I’ll wish you goodnight, Stephanie.’ He gave her another lazy grin before he turned and left the kitchen.
Heading straight for that cold shower.
CHAPTER THREE
‘WHERE have you been?’ Jordan demanded the following morning, as Stephanie unlocked the kitchen door and let herself back into the house accompanied by a gust of chilling wind, the plastic shopping bags she carried in her hands necessitating she gently nudge the door closed behind her with her foot.
The cold shower Jordan had taken the night before had briefly succeeded in dampening some of his arousal. Unfortunately that arousal had returned with a vengeance the moment he had heard Stephanie making her way up the stairs to use one of the bedrooms for the night.
Because Jordan could no longer negotiate the stairs, Lucan had had the dining room converted into a bedroom before Jordan had moved in, and he’d lain on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, aware of nothing but the throb of his own arousal and easily able to imagine Stephanie McKinley stripping off in the room above his. Jordan had got up to impatiently pull on his clothes before going back out to the kitchen. In the circumstances, the nearly full bottle of red wine on the table had seemed very appealing!
Which had turned out not to be such a good idea on an empty stomach. Consequently, Jordan was like a bear with a sore head this morning, his temples aching almost as much as another part of his anatomy had continued to do for most of the night.
He had already made a pot of strong coffee and brought it to the kitchen table, and had drunk half a cup of the rich and flavoursome brew before he’d become aware of the silence in the rest of the house. Unable to go up the stairs himself, to check on whether Stephanie had left or not, he had instead looked out of the kitchen window to see that her car had gone from the driveway. Leading Jordan to believe that she had taken his advice and left, after all.
Which, strangely, hadn’t given him as much satisfaction as he had thought it would. Making him wonder if Lucan could be right when he said Jordan had been here on his own for too long. And now, if he actually felt pleased at the return of the physiotherapist his interfering big brother had hired without even consulting him, he knew he probably had!
‘Where does it look like I’ve been?’ Stephanie said sarcastically—a question that required no answer as she dumped the heavy bags of shopping on top of the wooden table before removing her jacket to reveal she wore a yellow fitted T-shirt today, with those low-slung faded blue jeans.
Another short T-shirt, that once again revealed a tantalising glimpse of her flat abdomen and clung to what Jordan was pretty sure were completely bare breasts above …
‘Why don’t you pour me some of that delicious-smelling coffee while I find the croissants I bought for our breakfast?’ she suggested lightly, and she began to look through the bags, that thick braid of red- cinnamon-gold hair falling forward over her shoulder as she did so.
‘Yes, ma’am,’ he murmured dryly, and he leant back in the wooden chair to snag a clean mug from the side before sitting forward to lift the coffee pot and pour the hot and aromatic brew into both mugs.
‘It was a request, not an order,’ she sighed.
Jordan raised dark brows as he placed her mug down on the other side of the table, frowning his irritation as he realised he was actually enjoying having his verbal sparring partner back in the house. ‘I telephoned Lucan last night,’ he informed her coolly.
She continued to search through the bags for the croissants. ‘I know.’
Jordan became very still as his gaze narrowed on her suspiciously. ‘You know?’
‘Yep.’ Stephanie smiled her satisfaction as she found the box of freshly baked pastries and took it out of the bag, putting it on the table along with the butter and honey she had obviously bought to go with them. ‘I telephoned and spoke to him before I went out shopping. He didn’t seem too happy about the fact that you woke him up at two o’clock this morning to tell him how much you didn’t appreciate him sending me here.’
She lifted the rest of the bags unconcernedly down onto the floor to be unpacked later, moving to take out the plates and knives they needed to eat the croissants before sitting down at the table in the chair opposite his.
Jordan’s already frayed temper hadn’t been improved the night before by his consumption of two-thirds of a bottle of red wine, and he hadn’t even noticed what time it was when the idea to telephone Lucan and take his temper out on his brother had occurred to him. Lucan’s growled responses to Jordan’s complaints had left him in little doubt as to his big brother’s displeasure at the call.
‘Then maybe he should have thought of that before he sent you here without asking me!’ he snarled.
Stephanie gave a dismissive shrug as she helped herself to one of the deliciously buttery croissants. ‘He obviously completely underestimated just how rude and unreasonable you’ve become.’
Jordan’s mouth twisted derisively. ‘No doubt you took great pleasure in enlightening him.’
‘I didn’t need to after you had called him at such a ridiculous hour to complain.’ Stephanie took a bite of the butter-and honey-covered croissant, almost groaning at the sensory pleasure she experienced. After being assailed with the delicious aroma of the croissants, first in the supermarket and then on the drive back to the gatehouse; they tasted just as wonderful as she had imagined they would. ‘Try one of the croissants, Jordan,’ she advised him. ‘They might help to get rid of your hangover,’ she added naughtily, before taking another delicious bite.
It had been obvious from the used wine glass and the completely empty bottle of red wine she had found left on the table this morning that Jordan must have returned to the kitchen some time during the night. From the look of the dark shadows under his eyes and the pallor in his cheeks the red wine had done little to dispel whatever pain had been keeping him awake.
Although he had at least brushed his hair and shaved this morning, his cleanly shaven jaw revealing its perfect squareness and the beguiling cleft in the centre. A beguilement that Stephanie resisted responding to by concentrating on the fact that he was also wearing a clean white T-shirt and faded jeans, hopefully meaning he wasn’t completely bereft of the social niceties, after all. Although she wouldn’t like to bet on it!
Stephanie hadn’t slept that well herself the night before, aware as she had been of Jordan’s presence somewhere in the house, and discovering this morning that there was nothing she could eat for her breakfast—not even bread for toast!—hadn’t improved her mood.
A quick telephone call to Lucan St Claire, to confirm that she had arrived safely and so far hadn’t been bodily thrown out into the Gloucestershire countryside, had resulted in his informing her that Jordan had already telephoned him during the night with the same news. Although in Jordan’s case it had obviously been in the nature of a complaint. A complaint that the older St Claire brother didn’t appear in the least concerned about. In fact, his comment had been the one Jordan had predicted—that any response from Jordan was better than the uninterest he normally showed to everything and everyone nowadays.
Stephanie waited until Jordan had taken one of the croissants onto his plate, smothered it in butter and taken a bite before speaking again. ‘I decided to refrain from telling your brother that you had decided on sexual innuendo as the best way of getting rid of me.’
Jordan continued to slowly chew the first mouthful of food he’d had for a couple of days, swallowing the buttery pastry before answering her. ‘Only because you knew Lucan wouldn’t be interested.’
She shrugged. ‘Or maybe I’m just saving that complaint for another day.’
Jordan decided there was a lot more to Stephanie McKinley than that unusually coloured hair and a taut and supple body. It surprised him how curious he was to know exactly what that lot more was.
He leant back in his chair. ‘I should have asked last night whether or not there’s a Mr McKinley waiting for you at home.’
She glanced down at her bare left hand. ‘No ring.’
‘Not all the married women I know wear a wedding ring,’ Jordan drawled.
‘That’s probably because the married women you meet don’t want you to know that they’re married,’ Stephanie pointed out.
Jordan’s eyes narrowed. ‘I don’t get involved with married women.’
‘No?’
His mouth firmed. ‘No.’
‘Because of your parents’ divorce?’
Jordan drew in a sharp breath. ‘And what do you know about my parents’ divorce?’
She shrugged as she stood up to place her empty plate neatly inside the dishwasher. ‘Only that during interviews you use it as an excuse for never having considered marriage yourself.’
‘It happens to be a fact, not an excuse.’ He pushed his empty plate away to stand up abruptly.
Stephanie knew she had annoyed Jordan intensely with her mention of his parents’ divorce. Not quite the reaction she’d wanted from him, but it was probably better than no reaction at all!
She gave a knowing smile. ‘I can’t imagine any woman ever daring to be unfaithful to the famous Jordan Simpson.’
His eyes glittered a bright, intense gold. ‘My father was unfaithful, not my mother.’
Reason enough, Stephanie decided, for Jordan never to know that she was being named—albeit completely falsely—as the ‘other woman’ in an ex-patient’s divorce!
He thrust a hand through his hair. ‘I’ll be in my study for the rest of the morning.’
‘Doing what?’ She moved so that she was standing in front of the door that led out into the hallway.
He frowned at her. ‘None of your damned business!’
‘Maybe I could help?’
‘And maybe you could stay the hell out of my face!’ He glared down at her.
Maybe getting in his face hadn’t been such a good idea, Stephanie recognised uncomfortably, as she became aware of the heat of Jordan’s body and the glittering intensity of those mesmerising gold-coloured eyes. ‘When I spoke to Lucan this morning, he mentioned that there’s a heated indoor pool at Mulberry Hall …’
Jordan raised a brow. ‘And?’
‘And a swim might be fun.’
Those gold eyes hardened. ‘Am I right in thinking it might also be regarded as good exercise to strengthen the muscles in my leg?’
Stephanie felt the guilty heat of colour in her cheeks and her expression became defensive. ‘What’s wrong with that?’
He shrugged those wide and powerful shoulders. ‘Absolutely nothing.’ His mouth thinned. ‘If I wanted to exercise the muscles in my leg. Which I don’t,’ he added emphatically.
She sighed. ‘Why don’t you?’
A nerve pulsed in his tightly clenched jaw. ‘Get out of my way, Stephanie.’
She gave a firm shake of her head, her chin raised. She refused to move. ‘Not until you explain to me why you don’t even seem to want to try to get back the full mobility of your leg.’
A red haze seemed to pass in front of Jordan’s eyes as this woman’s persistent questions managed to pierce his armour once again. ‘Don’t be so stupid!’
‘So you do want to get back the use of your leg?’
‘What I want and what I’ve got are two different things,’ he said pointedly.
Stephanie put a hand on his arm. ‘Then prove me wrong and come swimming with me this morning.’
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Кэрол Мортимер
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: Jordan St Claire: Dark and Dangerous, электронная книга автора Кэрол Мортимер на английском языке, в жанре современные любовные романы