will know!’ Mari always paid her debts—how was she going to pay this one? Submerged by a massive wave of sheer helplessness, she lifted her face to the leaden sky, letting the rain wash over her face.
Seb dragged a hand through his drenched hair and gave a grunt of irritation; the rain was now drumming on the roof of the car.
‘This is ridiculous.’ He wrenched open the car passenger door and walked around to the driver’s side, yelling over to the slim figure who had made no effort to take advantage of the shelter, ‘Personally I’ve nothing against the wet-shirt look, but...’
She glanced down and let out a horrified gasp.
A moment after he had slammed the door she slid into the passenger seat and sat there staring straight ahead, her arms folded across her chest.
A grin split the severity of his lean features. ‘Very modest, but you see a hell of a lot more on a beach.’
She lowered her hands defiantly. ‘I’m not embarrassed,’ she lied. ‘I’m cold.’
He let his eyes drop. ‘I’d noticed.’
Longing to slap the lopsided grin off his too-handsome face, she balled her hands into fists. ‘Smutty schoolboy innuendo. I’d sort of expected something a bit more...’
The grin faded and it was replaced by something far more dangerous, far more... She felt her insides quiver helplessly in response to that nameless thing.
‘Is that a request?’ he asked smokily.
On the brink of succumbing to the heat of his hypnotic stare, her blue eyes flew wide open. It was definitely time to change the subject or at least remember what it was!
‘No, not...’ Definitely not.
‘So no work today?’ he asked casually.
Suspicious of his sudden question, she shook her head. ‘No.’
‘One of those consequences you didn’t consider?’
Mari maintained a tight-lipped silence.
‘I can’t imagine that exclusive school you work for liking the idea of its employees’ sex scandals being made public.’
Bristling with suspicion, she turned in her seat. ‘How do you know what I do or where I work? Have you had my phone bugged or something?’ It was as likely as any of the other wild, nausea-inducing possibilities whirling through her head.
‘That would be illegal.’
She gave a scornful snort. ‘And you have never broken a rule.’ Rules and a thousand hearts, she thought, glad that she was not the sort of woman who had ever had a thing for bad boys.
‘I have my resources.’
Seb’s resource in this instance had been the family lawyer who had witnessed firsthand the wedding drama. It had been the one call that Seb had taken on Saturday night, assuming, wrongly as it happened, that it concerned the possible legal ramifications of the incident.
‘I had no idea you even knew Miss Jones, Sebastian. Let alone—!’
The lawyer whose services he had inherited when his grandfather died had sounded as unhappy as Seb had ever heard him, a situation brought about not by any sense of indignation for his client but the disruption to his granddaughter’s schooling.
‘You do know she’s the first teacher that has understood Gwennie? The child actually wants to go to school and you know what that place is like—they justify their ridiculous fees by claiming they provide a wholesome learning environment, and they have a very good reputation. Hypocrisy, I know, but from a business standpoint they can’t afford a sniff of anything...sexual, not with the sort of parent the place attracts. The best the poor girl can hope for is suspension after this gets out.’
Listening to the woman who had lied through her teeth, sabotaged his marriage, dragged his reputation into the gutter and in the process endangered the deal he had worked so hard to pull off being spoken of as a victim, described as poor, had been as hard for Seb to swallow as visualising the red-headed virago as an empathic teacher.
Would she be as empathic in the bedroom?
‘Your resources?’ His cryptic comment sent a shiver through her. ‘Well, that sounds suitably sinister.’
She gave a laugh, which missed ‘bring it on, I don’t care’ by several thousand miles. Nonetheless, he picked up on it.
‘But you’re not about to be intimidated.’ Seb felt a fresh stab of reluctant admiration; whatever else she was this woman was not gutless. Right or wrong—actually wrong—she had gone out on a very precarious limb to fight for her brother, and, having met the guy again, he doubted that he appreciated how lucky he was to have someone like her in his corner.
If the situation had been reversed would Mark Jones have put himself on the line for his sister? Seb doubted it. Nothing he had seen had given him any reason to alter his initial assessment of Mari’s twin.
Mari ignored the comment.
‘I have spoken to the head, and he was very understanding,’ she retorted, putting a positive slant on a situation that when she allowed herself to think about it looked very black indeed.
‘But you’re not in work today? He was not that understanding?’
She slung him a look of seething dislike. ‘All right, you were right. My life is a mess, people who I’ve never met are discussing surgery I never had and it’s my own fault.’ Which of course made it worse. ‘I achieved nothing and now I’m likely to lose my job, too.’
She closed her eyes, feeling herself falling into the relentless cycle of self-recriminating circles that she had spent the entire weekend trying to escape.
‘Self-pity doesn’t suit you.’
She opened her eyes with an outraged snap and snarled, ‘Go to hell!’ Then she closed them again.
Her moment of madness still seemed unreal; when she thought of it now it felt like some sort of out-of-body experience.
It made no sense. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t been painfully aware of the dangers of reacting in the heat of the moment—two foster families had felt unable to cope with the twins after she had reacted.
It was a lesson Mari had learned well. In the short term there was immense satisfaction in making the boy who stole your brother’s lunch money cry and walloping the bully who shut a puppy in a telephone kiosk—the black eye had been so worth it—but there were consequences.
There always were, which was why she no longer reacted before she thought—she considered consequences to the point where Mark frequently complained about her lack of spontaneity. But on Saturday she’d not just been spontaneous, she’d been... She shuddered and shook her head, bringing her chin up. She’d done the crime so now it was about taking the punishment—whatever that might be...
‘I know of a job vacancy that might suit you.’
She opened her eyes and turned her head, still nestled on the leather headrest, to face him, not bothering to hide her suspicion. ‘You suddenly became Santa Claus?’
‘No, I suddenly became in need of a wife.’
She struggled to match his flippancy. ‘Is that a proposal?’
‘Yes.’
The colour flared hot and then faded pale in her cheeks as she sat bolt upright and reached for the door handle. ‘I’m assuming this is some sort of joke. Word to the wise—don’t give up your day job. Stand-up is not your thing.’
‘What I am suggesting is a business arrangement.’ Only his long fingers silently drumming on the steering wheel suggested he was not as relaxed as he appeared.
Mari’s