Snowbound Seduction by Helen Brooks Page B

carefree students. She didn’t profess to be anything special, far from it, but she’d thought by the age of twenty-seven she would be married, probably with the prospect of a family high on the agenda. She’d never envisaged a lifetime career in marketing.
    Had she been too choosy with the men she’d dated before Giles? She pictured one or two in her mind. Butif the spark wasn’t there, it wasn’t there, surely? She’d liked them, had had fun and some good times, but she’d never been tempted to think of them as ‘the one’.
    She hadn’t been aware Zac had left the bar but when he slid into his seat, saying, ‘It’s OK, Rachel. Really,’ her head shot up to meet his gaze. His face was impassive.
    She made a gesture of confusion. ‘I’m sorry?’
    â€˜I’m not going to ravish you in the middle of the night when you’re asleep or leap on you the minute we get back to the room. I promise. Now, could you please stop looking as though every moment with me is torture, because you’re making the landlady think we don’t appreciate the luxury of our surroundings.’
    She looked into his eyes, saw the hidden laughter in the golden orbs and wanted to kick him. ‘She does not.’
    â€˜Oh, yes, she does,’ he informed her solemnly. ‘“Zac”, she said—we’re on first-name terms now—“it must be my inn that’s putting that expression on your girlfriend’s face because it couldn’t be you. You’re too charming, too wonderful, too altogether fascinating for it to be you.”’
    â€˜Don’t be so ridiculous.’ She glared at him. ‘And I am not your girlfriend.’
    â€˜Ah, but she doesn’t know that. Your eagerness to share a room with me didn’t help either. In her eyes we’re definitely an item,’ he said with an air of satisfaction.
    Rachel had made the mistake of taking a sip of wine. Now she spluttered and choked a little before banging the glass down on the table. ‘I most definitely was not eager to share a room with you. It just so happens that it’s the only room left in the place and I was tired and cold and hungry.’
    â€˜ I know that.’ His tone was soothing, exaggeratedly so. ‘But the landlady doesn’t. She said—’
    â€˜I really don’t care what the landlady was supposed to have said, and I don’t believe she said anything anyway.’
    He smiled, a genuine smile, one that crinkled his eyes and accelerated Rachel’s breathing. ‘“Oh, ye of little faith…”’
    Trying to maintain a glare, she took another sip of wine. She needed the boost to her system. ‘I’ll sleep in a chair down here tonight,’ she said waspishly. ‘That’ll settle things.’
    â€˜No can do. Fire and safety regulations.’
    â€˜You’re making that up,’ she accused, not fooled by his innocent expression. ‘Like the rest of this silly conversation.’
    â€˜Would I?’ he drawled lazily, not in the least put out.
    Impossible man. Impossible situation. ‘Absolutely.’
    One of the walkers, a healthy, tanned, attractive blonde girl in tight jeans and an even tighter T-shirt, sashayed slowly past their table, staring at Zac with what Rachel considered brazen interest. Suddenly she felt as deflated as a pricked balloon. The girl was brimming over with eager exuberance and self-confidence, and she was lovely. She wouldn’t have any hang-ups about sleeping with a handsome single man; in fact, she’d probably make the first move in the bed department.
    Rachel watched the high ponytail of sleek curls bob as the girl passed, her perfect little derrière displayed to maximum advantage in the snug denim. She didn’t look a day over eighteen and she oozed life and vivacity, a boldness and assurance about her that suggested shewas happily comfortable