A Solitary Heart (4 page)

letting her sleep on the couch, then stuffed various toiletries into her

hastily packed overnight bag.

She didn't care if her running away from the party had been

transparent; she had badly needed time to herself. She had pleaded

tiredness as an excuse to escape Matt's tenacious presence. Just

thinking about Joshua's older brother brought her blood to a low

simmer.

It had been no use telling herself that he'd had to hang around while

his shirt tumbled through a wash, then the drying cycle. It had

certainly been no use telling herself that she only had her own hot

temper to blame. For whatever reason, he had been there, tall and

tough and bare-chested, like a great wild tawny animal that had

prowled into the house for a nap. Laughing at the things Jane had

said. Talking quietly at some length to a fuming and subdued Joshua

in one corner.

That she had hated to witness. Joshua had acted as if Matt were his

father or something—rebellious, resentful and still with the

challenging bravado of the male adolescent, yet reined and under

control by his older brother's tough, authoritative presence.

Gone was the delightful young adult, the witty and articulate law

student, and in his place sat a sheepish little boy. Sian had seen

Joshua through Matt's eyes, and she hadn't appreciated the

experience. Matt might feel responsible for his younger brother, but

he was not Joshua's father and could not take the place of that man,

who had died some years ago.

She quickly and efficiently put her hair back into a sleek french

braid, then left her friend's apartment. Sian, Jane, Jane's boyfriend

Steven, and Joshua were going to Lake Michigan for the day, and she

was determined to enjoy the holiday as much as possible.

Chances were that, after her impassioned speech last night, Joshua

would be scared off from proposing for good. His older brother

would have gone back to Chicago some time this morning, and that

would be that. The whole situation was simple, really, just a storm in

a teacup in the cosmic scope of things, and Sian could get back to her

uncomplicated life. By the time she had driven back to her own

place, she had firmly resolved to put the annoying Matt Severn out of

her mind.

The original plan had been that everybody would help clean up, then

take off to the Indiana Dunes in two cars. But when Sian went

through the back gate, the garden was already clean and tidy. She

looked around in surprise. All the signs of the party were cleared

away and several full black plastic bags were piled neatly by the

kitchen door.

The apartment was similarly neat and, after last night, echoed with

emptiness. The muted sound of the shower came from the direction

of the bathroom. Shaking her head in bemusement, for Jane had

never before shown such initiative for housekeeping, Sian travelled

down the hall and put a hand on the doorknob of her bedroom.

The door opened inwards, and it was not propelled by her. Caught off

balance and still in motion, she collided with a very large body. Two

hands shot out to grip her arms; her own, outstretched, splayed flat on

a lean bare torso. For one sulphurous moment she felt surprisingly

silken skin, the sinuous rippling of hard abdominal muscle, and she

snatched her hand back as if she'd been burned while staring wide-

eyed up into Matt Severn's tough, formidable face.

She gasped, as her world tilted, 'You!'

'Me!' agreed Nick mockingly, his hazel gaze snapping with some

volcanic emotion.

His hands were large and warm, and curled easily around the

circumference of her upper arms. He shifted them down to her

elbows, and the sensation of those callused palms sliding along her

sensitive skin was so shockingly intimate that she recoiled violently.

'What are you doing here in my room?' she demanded, feeling

exposed and invaded.

'Making the bed,' he said. Then, at her furious glare, he added with a

careless shrug, 'I had to sleep somewhere, didn't I?'

Sian looked around a broad, tanned shoulder at the neat peach-

coloured bedspread. It looked just as she had left it the day before,

but a mental image of his long male body stretched out between her

sheets, his rather long tawny hair spilling on to the pillow, produced

the strangest reaction in the pit of her stomach. Swallowing hard and

frowning fiercely, she muttered, 'Why didn't you just go home?'

'Temper,' he chided, then moved with silent, menacing deliberation to

shut the door behind her. When she made an involuntary, protesting

movement, he turned to lean against the panels, blocking the exit. 'I

was over the drinking limit. You wouldn't have wanted me to cause a

car accident, would you?'

'No, of course not!' she snapped, throwing her bag down on the floor

in an impetuous gesture, inwardly struggling against a deep sense of

unease at how he had trapped her into this confrontation.

His searing gaze was like two gold coins; he was as angry as he had

ever been with her yesterday, Sian saw, and she was bewildered, for

surely the break from hostilities should have cooled things down.

'Where did you sleep, darling, and with whom?' he queried silkenly.

Match to dry tinder. Sian was bravely aware of what she did, as she

bent with striking speed to snatch up her overnight case and hurl it at

his head. He hardly moved. One powerful arm flexed, and the case

was caught in mid-air.

His expression was frightening. She snarled, 'Get away from that

door!'

'As you wish.' He pushed off from the barrier behind him, and began

to stalk towards her, his half-clad body overwhelmingly powerful,

those deep disturbing eyes of his afire.

She folded her arms tight across her chest, cupping her elbows, and

fought an-instinctive desire to back away from him skittishly. She

would not let him intimidate her, especially here on her own home

territory. It was where people psychologically felt most secure and

relaxed; that was why they felt so violated when their homes were

broken into. Not only were personal possessions lost forever, but

their security was stolen as well. She suspected that his choice of

venue for a private confrontation was made knowing fully well what

kind of advantages he might hope to gain.

But Sian had moved around so much when she was young that she

had instinctive guards erected against that sort of thing. Home and

security were not the walls that surrounded her; home was where the

heart was, and she carried hers with her. People mattered, not places

or things, and, though this had been her bedroom for the last four

years, in the end it was just another room. Sian had her poise back,

and her angry, delicate face was thrown back as she faced him with

an unflinching, unrepentant glare. She could have hurt him with the

heavy case. She didn't care.

Matt murmured speculatively, his attention focused on her like a

spearthrust, 'You weren't with Joshua— you left far too early for

that.'

She sneered at him, 'How do you know we didn't meet later?'

'You ran away from me, didn't you? Coward,' he accused her

mockingly, bringing a hand up to the taut lines of her jaw.

She jerked her face away and spat, 'Don't touch me! My God, you've

got an inflated sense of yourself, and my sleeping arrangements are

none of your damned business! Why don't you go back to where you

came from?'

'But, darling,' he purred from low in his chest, his naked golden chest

that was making her crazy, 'I'm on vacation as well. That's why,

when Joshua told me he intended to marry you, I decided to come

and see how things were for myself.'

'Well,' she drawled, lips curling sardonically while her stomach

turned into a hard rock of nerves, 'we all know how successful
that

turned out to be. And what did Joshua think about all this?'

'He thought it was a good idea, actually,' was Matthew's surprising

reply, albeit said in an extremely dry tone of voice. His eyes were all

over her. She felt as if she were being eaten alive. 'Obviously one

look at you was supposed to dispel all my preconceived notions.'

Sian's jaw flexed against a furtive, psychic bruise and the expression

in her own gaze went flat and dead. The implication that even in

person she did not meet up to his high standards was insultingly

obvious, and she absolutely hated her own inability to prevent this

man from so casually hurting her. She said, choked, 'I've had enough

of this abuse.'

'I haven't finished yet.'

He held her, two hands on her slim shoulders, with damnable ease.

There was a high flush under her creamy skin, a tight line to her

normally soft mouth, an unconscious shift to defensiveness in her

posture.

Matt frowned. He said clearly and forcefully, 'Listen to me. For some

time Joshua has been coming home full of admiring stories in which

a certain Sian Riley figured largely. He talked about Sian's poise and

wit, and the clever way she could manoeuvre a situation to gain the

advantage. Sian had travelled all over the world, and had famous

rock-star friends and midnight swims off private yachts in the

Mediterranean. Sian was the life and soul of the party. Sian told him

just exactly how to manipulate a difficult professor. Sian cleaned out

all his friends in a poker game, so that he had to ask for an advance

on his next month's allowance.'

Her eyes grew gradually larger and more bewildered as he spoke, for

the person he was talking about wasn't her. Everything he said had an

element of truth to it, but the emphasis was all wrong.

Was that really how Joshua saw her? What about all the

characteristics
she
considered important, like her sense of humour,

compassion, and caring? The picture Matt was portraying was a

figure made of cake icing, all soft and frothy and without real

substance. When at the last he mentioned the poker game, she could

no longer remain silent.

'That stupid game!' she cried angrily, moving under his grip with

sharp impatience. 'I didn't even want to play but they were so

insistent, so determined to pit their wits against someone who had

been taught by a legend— my father! You don't know what it was

like.'

'I have been to university myself, once upon a time,' he reminded her

drily. 'I know what kind of idiotic macho stunts get pulled. So you

took all their money from them.'

'What was I supposed to do—give it back?' she retorted. 'That might

have been convenient for
you,
but their pride would never have

allowed it! It was better they were taught a lesson by somebody who

knew when to stop, instead of meeting up one day with a card shark

who would get them into real trouble.'

'Such a hard woman,' he drawled, one corner of his mouth pulled in

deep, scoring that dimpled crease into one lean cheek.

If only she was! If only she could find some way to unmake that

deep-seated need of hers to be accepted and become entirely self-

sufficient, so that people like Matthew could never find their way

past her defences to wound her with careless words! A dark shadow

of self-mockery crossed her face and she said bitterly, 'Is that how

you see me?'

'I didn't say that I didn't agree with you, or that I wouldn't have done

the same under the circumstances,' he pointed out impatiently. 'I'm

merely explaining how you come across, from what Joshua was

telling me.
That's
the person I was warning away yesterday, don't you

understand? Whereas in reality you turned out to be something—

quite different.'

She didn't understand the strange note in his voice. All she could

grasp was that his explanation was nearly an apology. She was

staggered, and, to 'cover up her reaction, said quickly, 'Ouch!

Admitting that must have hurt. And how did Joshua take it, when you

told him?'

Matt raised a single, haughty eyebrow and laughed so softly that

Sian's colour rose again as she realised what she had betrayed by her

question. If he'd had suspicions before about her implication that

she'd spent the night with Joshua, now he knew for sure.

His hands relaxed and caressed her shoulders. He told her with