Fire in the Blood

'This is my office, Sean!' protested Larry.

'I'm borrowing it.' Sean's voice was at its most arrogant. 'Get out.'

Larry got up, shuffled to the door looking uneasy but made a last effort to intervene before he went. 'Now, Sean, don't bully Nadine any more. She's done us the most enormous favour and you ought to be grateful, not bellow at her...'

'Get out!' Sean roared.

Larry gulped and vanished, banging the door behind him.

Sean turned his dangerous blue eyes on Nadine and a quiver ran through her. 'Now... as I was saying... if I take your money, you come with it.'

CHAPTER NINE

'DON'T be ridiculous!' Nadine darted towards the door but he got there first, barring her way, too tall, too powerful, for her to push him aside, so she stopped and lifted her chin defiantly. 'And don't you threaten me, Sean!'

'I'm keeping my temper,' he said, incredibly, because he was looking like a volcano about to erupt. 'But I can't promise to keep it for long, so tell me what I want to know before I get really angry. I know you left the island to do some TV show in Miami. I found out that Greg Erroll had booked the private plane that picked you up, and I rang him and Greg told me about the show, but he thought you were coming back to the island when you'd done it. So I waited for you.' His blue eyes burnt down into her like branding irons. 'But you didn't come back, did you? Instead, you spent time in Miami with Jamie Colbert—did you sleep with him?'

Very flushed, she crossly shook her head. 'I told you once, I have never slept with Jamie and I never will! I'm very fond of him and I know he's fond of me, but we're friends, not lovers.'

'Hmm.' Sean didn't sound convinced. 'But you spent several days in Miami alone with him!'

'Sightseeing. We were sightseeing! Jamie had his camera; he took endless photographs. If he has a mistress, that's it—his camera, not me! He'd hired a car, we drove around the Everglades, right down the Keys to Key West, we drove around Miami, I shopped and we swam in the hotel pool and sunbathed on the beach. We had a few peaceful days' holiday...'

'Together!' Sean made the word sound like an accusation, his face tense.

'Yes, together,' she agreed impatiently. 'Friends do go on holiday together, all the time.'

'If you wanted to continue your holiday why didn't you come back to the island?'

She laughed disbelievingly. 'With you there? Peaceful? Are you kidding?'

His face tightened as if she had hit him. 'So you admit it—you didn't come back to the island to avoid me!'

She didn't answer that, her lashes lowered over her eyes, her hands restless.

Sean waited, then said harshly, 'You stayed on in Miami alone with him, and then you flew back with him to London. I might be sitting in the West Indies now, waiting for you, if I hadn't got tired of waiting and rung your hotel. You weren't in, but I did find out that you were due to check out next day and fly back to London. I thought the hotel might have made a mistake about your flight, so I checked up with the airport and found out that you were booked on a London flight. So I got a plane back myself, intending to meet you at Heathrow when you arrived.'

'I saw you,' Nadine muttered. 'Don't think I didn't see you lurking there! So if you'd come to meet me, why did you rush off without a word?'

His blue eyes glittered at her. 'Why do you think?'

She refused to answer on the grounds that it might incriminate her.

'Yes,' Sean said. 'Because Colbert was with you, wasn't he? Whether you say he's a friend or a lover, there he was, with his arm around you in a very possessive way—so I left.'

'Well, if you were going to talk to Jamie the way you've been talking to me I'm glad you did! He would have thought you were crazy if you'd rushed up and made angry noises at him over nothing! That's just why I left the island. I was having a wonderful time learning to paint, I liked Luc and Clarrie Haines, the food was delicious, the island a dream... but once you arrived I never had a minute's peace, did I? You were like a wasp at a picnic on the beach. You buzzed around all the time, making me nervous; I couldn't relax or enjoy myself. As you wouldn't leave, I decided I had to.'

He watched her, his brows very black above those bright blue eyes. 'If you hate me so much, why are you here?' he bit out, and she jumped, her face white then red.

'Hate you? I didn't say I hated you!' She saw his eyes narrow and gleam, and hurriedly went on, 'And anyway, I told you, Larry rang me and asked me to help—what was I supposed to do? Refuse point-blank?'

'Larry had no business asking you for money! I made it crystal-clear to him that I did not want him involving you!'

'How can I not be involved?' she flared. 'The company means something to me, too, you know. I've been in on it from the beginning, I don't want to see it going bankrupt if there's anything I can do to stop it.'

'But this isn't simply a question of money, is it?' Sean murmured softly, and her mouth went dry at the way he looked at her. 'The real question is... are you coming back to me or not? If you're not, you can take your money away, I don't want it.'

'I'd have to be insane to come back to a man who gets jealous over nothing, won't listen to reason, wants to control my entire life!'