Defying the Billionaire's Command

‘Oh, now I understand.’ She laughed softly and Dare thought in the case of her smiles DMR didn’t apply at all.

‘What are you two grinning at?’

Grinning?

Dare frowned at his mother’s smiling face. He wasn’t traditionally a ‘grinner.’

‘Coffee,’ Carly answered, her face carefully blank. ‘And whether it keeps you up all night.’ She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. ‘And on that note I might go up to bed. I hope you don’t think I’m rude if I call it a night?’

‘Of course not,’ Rachel said. ‘All that walking today must have made you tired.’

‘Yes.’

Carly smiled but it didn’t reach her eyes and Dare had no idea what had just happened. One minute they were having a nice time together and the next she was giving him the cold shoulder and brushing him off. Acting as if he didn’t exist.

Tension coiled through him tighter than the screws on his Kawasaki. ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’

‘Perfectly fine,’ she said briskly.

Dare gave himself a mental shake. If she wanted to go to bed when the night was only half over it was no skin off his nose. He had no hold on what she did. Certainly he had no cause to be irritated by it.

‘Sweet dreams, Red,’ he said, settling more comfortably in his chair. There was no way he was going to bed at ten o’clock. He wasn’t a child.

He lifted the bottle of wine from the bucket. ‘More wine, Mother? Benson?’

* * *

Carly felt infinitely better after brushing her hair and putting on her pyjamas but, good God, if Dare had touched her leg with his one more time she thought she might have attempted heart-removal surgery with her butter knife.

And not because he had been deliberately awful to her, but because he hadn’t! Up until now she hadn’t experienced a relaxed Dare and it only made it harder to remember how rude and egotistical he could be.

Her mother had always said that if a man was good to his mother he’d be good to his wife but she didn’t want to think of Dare like that. She’d been obtuse in a relationship with a man once before, ergo she could easily fall into the same trap again.

Not happening, she told herself.

Once Dare left in the morning it would be as if they had never met; two strangers who had passed like ships in the night and destined to be nothing more.

A good thing, since she wasn’t the casual-sex type and by his own admission he didn’t let women get close to him.

And, yes, jumping into bed with Dare James might be utterly thrilling on one level, but what if he was just another mistake waiting to happen? Another bad judgment call? Hadn’t she made enough of those already? And not just with men...

Frustrated with the way her thoughts kept veering back to all her failings, she grabbed her computer and placed it on her lap. She logged on and checked her emails. The one from her agency caught her attention and she reopened it.

The job they were offering her was in Kent where a small clinic needed a temporary doctor to fill in while someone went on maternity leave. Would she do it?

Carly bit her lip. A small clinic could be interesting but speaking with Dare tonight had reminded her how much she enjoyed working in a large, thriving hospital. And okay, they were often cesspits for gossip, but it wasn’t as if she’d be fool enough to fall for one of the head doctors again.

The question was whether she wanted to re-enter that life again. And where? Then there was the question of her flat; the one she’d bought with Liv. She really needed to do something about that.

Oh, Liv, why couldn’t I have saved you?

A fist felt as if it had just closed around her heart. What good was a medical degree if you couldn’t save people? Anger rose up inside her. Anger at herself. At life. Liv had trusted her and Carly had let her down.

Feeling the threat of tears clog the back of her throat, Carly fell back against her pillows and took her computer with her. Neither dwelling nor crying had ever brought Liv back to her so Carly didn’t let herself do either now.

What she did do was click on a well-known job site and start scrolling down the entries under medical doctors. Don’t make a mountain out of a molehill, she told herself.

Lost in thought as she was, she started when there was a thump on her door. She knew immediately who it would be. The Baron was much too circumspect to bang like that, and Rachel would bruise a knuckle if she knocked that hard.