you say.’ He waved aside her choked denial with languid disinterest. ‘And actually, Tara is still in love with another man—the same man. Tara’s carrying around a burden of guilt about leaving me and Thomas. It’s that guilt that’s stopping her from finding happiness. I care a lot about Tara and I want her to be happy.’
‘Am I supposed to believe you’re some sort of altruistic saint?’
‘Frankly, I don’t give that—’ The pistol-crack of his long fingers indicated the depth of his disinterest ‘—about what you think about me. I’m just asking you to remember you’ve left your broomstick at home tonight.’
Broomstick? The cheek of the man! ‘I’ll be sweet and submissive, just the way you like it,’ Holly agreed, all humble co-operation and saccharine smile. She’d never let a man do the talking for her throughout her entire adult life, and she had no intention of starting now! She swivelled slightly to look directly up at the big man who sat beside her in the taxi.
He was straightening the dark tie set against the brown column of his strong neck. The subdued light emphasised the sharp angles and planes of his intimidatingly handsome face but, after her silly gobsmacked behaviour in the bedroom, Holly wasn’t about to be intimidated by his blue eyes and sexy mouth. She chose to ignore the sudden painful clenching of her disobedient stomach muscles.
Niall stopped what he was doing and slanted her a worryingly ambiguous look. ‘You’ve absolutely no idea about “the way I like it”.’ The sensual gleam in his eyes as they rested on her defiant face caused more damage to her nervous system than an electrical storm.
Stubbornly, she didn’t scuttle to the opposite corner of the taxi and hide her face in her hands like she wanted to. There ought to be a law about any one male wielding this much in-your-face masculine virility, she thought.
‘I’ll be hanging on your every word, darling,’ she promised insincerely, batting her lashes at him.
‘And for God’s sake,’ he warned, taking her provocative sarcasm in his stride, ‘don’t drink too much!’
Holly’s mouth tightened as he threw a ‘that’s all I need’ look in her direction. The righteous feeling of ill use swelled in her chest. He seemed to have conveniently forgotten that she, out of the goodness of her heart, was helping him out of a sticky situation.
‘You’re assuming I’m an indiscreet drunk.’ Did two white wines make her a drunk? The way she recalled it, drinking wine after an exhausting weekend on call had made her extremely sleepy not the life and soul of the party.
‘Well, if your eye is anything to go by, you’re definitely a clumsy drunk.’ He reached out towards her face but didn’t make contact.
Holly closed her eyes, wondering what he was making of her instinctive and embarrassingly dramatic recoil from his extended hand. The shivery hot flesh of her bare shoulder was reacting as though his fingers had made contact.
‘Actually, I didn’t fall over.’
‘Then how did you get it?’
‘I was slow to duck…’ His blank expression indicated Niall was a bit slow too…on the uptake, anyhow, so she casually elaborated. ‘A fist did the damage,’ she recalled ruefully.
He sat very still during the lengthy pause that followed her startling but matter of fact statement.
‘A man did that to you?’ There was icy distaste in his voice.
‘It wasn’t as bad as the last time,’ Holly continued cheerfully, blissfully ignorant in the dim light of the growing shocked revulsion in his eyes.
‘And you went back for more…?’ he asked with hoarse incredulity.
Holly gave a small wry grin. She hadn’t wanted to. Her first impression of emergency medicine had been far from favourable, but in the end she’d rather enjoyed the experience, though not the occasional physical intimidation.
‘Well, I didn’t actually have much choice,’ she began to tell him, only he jumped in, his deep voice vibrating condemnation before she had an opportunity to explain farther.
‘No choice! Good God, woman, you always have a choice not to stay in an abusive relationship,’ he told her contemptuously. ‘At sixteen I put your choice of boyfriend down to inexperience!’ Even amid this bewildering tirade of condemnation, his brief allusion to their last mortifying meeting made her blush. ‘But you obviously get some sort of perverted kick out of being knocked around.’
It finally dawned on a mystified Holly how he had interpreted her words. She opened her mouth to tell him just how wrong he was—it would be nice to see the smug, sanctimonious snake squirm a bit—when she stopped.
She didn’t owe Niall Wesley any explanations! How dare the man even think she was some sort of victim? Willing a cool mask of composure to obliterate the wrath that was almost choking her, she smiled with serene disinterest back up at him.
‘I had no idea that you were so…straight!’ she remarked with wide-eyed wonderment.
‘If by straight—’ grimly, he mimicked her derisive tone ‘—you mean I can’t abide men who consider a casual left hook an acceptable display of their affection, then I am just that. And if you think you can change him—forget it! Men like that don’t change.’ Ironically, in his present mood he looked far more daunting than any brutish drunk she’d ever had to deal with in the line of duty.
Part of Holly wanted to applaud his statement, but another part of her wanted to punish this man for having the temerity to think even for one second…!
‘Why, you old softie you,’ she pouted prettily up at him as she daringly placed an affectionate hand on his thigh.
Niall’s lips curled with distaste as he forcibly removed her gently curling fingers as though she were contagious, but not before she had been able to note that his muscular thighs were rock hard. There was a sickening lurch in the pit of her belly.
‘Don’t wind me up, Holly,’ he warned darkly.
Meeting the warning glimmer in his eyes, Holly felt even dizzier. ‘For a gentle soul,’ she told him, in a voice that emerged disastrously shaky, ‘you have a firm grip.’ She looked pointedly at her fingers crushed in his ruthless grasp. She despised herself for the unmistakable sensations the contact was sending through her tense body.
He released her with a selfconscious grimace. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t worry,’ she told him flexing her fingers to encourage the circulation. ‘I’m yours—why, hell! I’m anybody’s—to crush and maim.’ This time she wasn’t able to hide her simmering anger and he saw it too in the over-bright feverish glint of her dark, spikily fringed eyes.
If she hadn’t known for sure that Niall Wesley was unacquainted with the emotion, she’d have thought that there was a flicker of uncertainty in the blue eyes that skimmed over her face.
‘You seem an intelligent girl…’
‘Why, thank you!’ she gushed insincerely. Did this man practise being patronising?
His lips thinned. ‘I know you’ve got some sort of chip on your shoulder, Holly…’
There he goes again with this chip thing, she fumed silently. He’s got me down as the original inadequate.
‘…and I appreciate that Rowena must be a hard act to follow…’
As if I need it spelled out that I’m never going to be able to hold a candle to Rowena!
‘But your self-esteem must be in a sorry state if you allow…’ He gritted his teeth as disgust threatened to overcome him at the thought of some guy… ‘You like to give the impression you’re something of a free spirit, but can’t you see there’s nothing particularly liberating about letting some bully push you around…?’
Holly