Darling Enemy by Diana Palmer Page A

admit to herself how much she was hoping that when he helped her down in the stables, he’d kiss her just once more. But when they reached the huge barn where the horses were quartered, Blakely and Jenna were just coming from the house, and Teddi felt her heart sink.
    “There you are,” Jenna said, clinging to Blakely’s hand and laughing as if she had the sun captured inside her. “Some man is here to see you, King. Mother drove into Calgary to pick him up, and they’ve just come back.”
    King nodded. “The accountant,” he said with a strangely secretive glance at Teddi. “Well, let’s go in. You might as well all be introduced at once. He’s going to be here for a few days.”
    Teddi dismounted by herself and fell into step with Jenna and Blakely while one of the ranch hands took the horses away. None of them could keep up with King’s long strides; he was walking like a man with a distasteful goal ahead.
    “Here’s King, now,” Mary was saying as they walked into the living room.
    The visitor stood up, lean and dark and brown-haired, smiling crookedly when he saw Teddi. She got a good look at him at the same time, and all the bad luck in the world seemed to descend on her at once. This wasn’t just any accountant. This was Bruce Billingsly, who’d hounded her so single-mindedly at the beginning of the year that she’d even risked King’s contempt and accepted an invitation from Jenna at Easter. Bruce, who wouldn’t take no for an answer.
    So now she knew who King’s secret informant was, who’d been telling him lies about her life, her work. She knew who’d helped to poison his mind against her. And here was the culprit in person, with a gleam in his eye telling her clearly that he had more mischief in mind.
    Her wary eyes turned to King, who was watching the silent exchange with a cold scrutiny.
    “Small world, Teddi,” Bruce laughed, moving close to bend and kiss her on the cheek, to her amazed indignation. “How do you do, Miss Devereaux, Blakely? Good to see you again, King, but,” he added, with a raised eyebrow as he drew a rigid Teddi to his side, “what’s my girl doing here?”

Chapter Seven
    There was a small flash of emotion in King’s gray eyes that no one seemed to catch except Teddi. When he turned to Bruce Billingsly, there was nothing in his expression except a trace of mockery.
    “As I told you before,” he told Teddi over Bruce’s shoulder, “we have a mutual acquaintance.”
    “Sure. Me,” Bruce said with a grin. “Oh, I’ve been singing your praises for the past several months, honey. King didn’t know much about your modeling career, but I filled him in.”
    I’ll just bet you did, Teddi thought miserably, remembering how she’d tried to elude her aunt’s boyfriend. He was like so many of Dilly’s other pickups, arrogant, a little conceited, and money-hungry as well. Since he couldn’t land Dilly, he’d set his sights on Teddi, with a lot of enthusiasm and no success at all. And apparently when he realized that King had a passing acquaintance with her, he decided to make sure that nothing could develop in that quarter while he was pursuing her. He’d even shown up at college once or twice, and she’d had a time trying to shoo him away.
    Teddi’s apprehensive eyes looked up into King’s and read the disgust and contempt there. Bruce’s arrival had killed the trust that had been growing so delicately between them. The beautiful morning would become a memory, there would never be a repeat of it. She saw that in King’s hard face. It was as if he’d been looking for an excuse, a weapon. And now he had it.
    “Aren’t you glad to see me, Teddi?” Bruce, grinning, hugged her.
    King stabbed his hands into his jean pockets. “You didn’t tell me about your budding romance, darling,” he said, and it didn’t sound like an endearment anymore. “But now that Billingsly is here, perhaps you’ll have time to pursue it. When,” he added with a cold smile