Emma Darcy - The Father Of Her Child

Tasha was now putty in her hands. Evan’s fears were demolished. It was perfectly plain he was tickled pink by the attention Lauren Magee was giving to both of them. And it was such clever attention, striking the right note of caring and liking for Tasha and a delightfully open camaraderie with Evan.

Michael had clutched at cynicism to reduce her effect on him. Lauren Magee was exerting control over her impact, exercising manipulative skills, showing she was a superior being who could handle anything and anyone. Not him, he had fiercely vowed as she had turned to encompass him in her powerful radiance. He knew her for what she was!

With every atom of his brain and will he had penetrated the deceptive mask of polite interest, denying the distraction of her stunning blue eyes, seeking for the truth, scouring her soul for it. There had to be some trace of antagonism towards him, some sense of malicious triumph. She knew who he was now. She had to know what part she had played in ending his marriage.

Nothing! Nothing except a mesmerised wonder that tugged at his heart, making him feel like a marauding savage for not treating her tenderly. That had to be wrong. She was tricking him somehow.

He took hold of her hand, grasping it firmly, expecting at least a twinge of recoil. If she was true to her inner beliefs and judgments she had to react negatively to his touch. Yet her hand lay submissively in his, soft, delicately boned, seductively feminine, stirring sensations he didn’t want to acknowledge.

Still that clear luminosity in her eyes. Nothing to hide. But there had to be. Unless.

She didn’t know he was Roxanne’s ex-husband.

It seemed incredible to Michael that Lauren Magee was ignorant of the connection, yet it was the only answer that made sense of her total lack of any discernible rejection of him. Had Roxanne been so disaffected that she hadn’t bothered to identify him as the husband she sought advice about?

Keeping her precious maiden name of Kinsey might have muddied the tracks, or Roxanne could have assumed it was common knowledge she was married to Michael Timberlane. She had been proud to own him for the first year or two, though by the time Lauren Magee arrived in Sydney from Melbourne, the shine had worn off that pride under the burden of trying to make their relationship gel in a workable fashion.

Easier for Roxanne to slide out of putting the effort in, Michael reflected cynically, and Lauren Magee had given her all the excuses to justify doing so. Yet she looked at him so innocently, so openly and honestly, waiting for him to write on the blank sheet that the meeting of strangers always offered, to give her a cue for what might develop between them from this moment, a moment cut free of any past and offering all the choices of possible futures.

He was tempted.

In any rational, objective sense, Lauren Magee was an anathema to him.

Yet he wanted her.

He wanted to empty her mind of all its clever reasoning and drive her insane with desire for him. He wanted to unpin the fiery mass of curls she had swirled into a topknot and see them spilling over a pillow in riotous abandonment. He wanted to tear off her sweater and fill his hands with the lush softness of those delectably rounded breasts that were thrusting so provocatively against the stretchy knit fabric.

And that sexy belt accentuating the feminine smallness of her waist and the sensual curve of her hips. He imagined stretching her white-skinned arms above her head, winding the wide black elastic around her wrists with the gold bow on top, holding her hands together so she couldn’t weave her female magic on him while he took his fill of her.

Lauren Magee, submitting to the man she had reviled, giving herself to him, her long, elegant legs wrapped around him in supplication, in need, wanting him. Oh, yes, that would be sweet vengeance. And ravishing her luscious mouth, purging it of all the unjust words she’d said against him, replacing them with the intensely satisfying sounds of cries and gasps of pleasure.

His loins tightened. His heart thudded with the violent force of the warring feelings she stirred. His body zinged with shots of adrenaline as his mind played through one scenario after another, all of them erotic, all of them feeding the highly aroused savage inside him.

It took all of Michael’s formidable willpower to clamp down on that rampant beast. Basic common sense insisted he play the civilised man. Fantasies were fantasies. Realities wiped out any chance of them happening anyway.

He might be a blank page to Lauren Magee right now, but the moment Roxanne turned up, he’d be history in her book. Roxanne would make certain of it. He only had a very limited time to play the game he had set out to play, getting in a few pointed shots that might just puncture Lauren Magee’s confidence in dabbling with other people’s lives.

It should be amusing to draw her out, to watch her natural response to him before Roxanne’s axe fell. And afterwards she would remember. Oh, yes, that keen, clever mind of Lauren Magee’s would remember everything said between them, spoken and unspoken.

Michael told himself he would be satisfied with that. The trick was to keep his mind focused on the desired result, the only result that was really open to him.

“I’M IMPRESSED.”

Michael Timberlane’s voice seemed to harmonise with the feelings he stirred, sliding to Lauren on a low, penetrating, intimate level.

“What by?” The words tripped from her tongue, breathless, husky, unconsidered, revealing how deeply she was caught in the thrall of possibilities pulsing between them.

“Your professionalism,” he answered.

Did he know intuitively what was important to her? Excitement tingled through a welling of intense pleasure. Lauren wished she knew more of him. Was he married?

“Thank you,” she returned warmly. “I do my best. As you do, by reputation.”

“There are some who would say my best falls short of their expectations. Haven’t you heard that, Ms. Magee?”

His hand slid away from hers. The withdrawal highlighted the unexpected formality of his address to her. Lauren felt confused. Why was he suddenly being off-putting?

“I’m sorry if you’ve been a target of ill will, Mr. Timberlane,” she said with a touch of sympathy. “People’s expectations are sometimes unrealistic.”

“And unreasonable,” he shot back.

She hesitated, uncertain of where he was coming from or leading to. Wayne and his unreasonable expectations flitted through her mind. Maybe Michael Timberlane was still smarting from some personal or professional contretemps. With someone at Global? Was that what had made him look so forbidding earlier?

Lauren fell back on one of Graham Parker’s pithy sayings, offering it with an ironic little smile. “Well, Mr. Timberlane, I guess into each life some rain must fall.”

“You being the rainmaker?”

She laughed and shook her head. “I like to think I spread sunshine.”

“The giver of light.” He nodded, his silvery eyes gleaming satisfaction. “Yes, that would be how you think of yourself.”

“And how do you think of yourself, Mr. Timberlane?”

He smiled, but it was a secretive, private smile, not an open, sharing one. “Oh, I’m the sword of justice, Ms. Magee.”

Definitely on some personal high horse, Lauren thought, wanting to pull him down from it. “Then I hope your balancing scales are in good order. Justice is so often blind,” she said, tilting at him.

“How true!” he agreed. “It’s unfortunate that so many people’s eyes aren’t open to both sides of a situation before making judgments.”

“Are yours?”

“I always look at the big picture, Ms. Magee.”