A Convenient Proposal

'I won't.' Her lower lip was wobbling but she was determined she wasn't going to cry as she looked back at him. She couldn't believe she had told him the one thing she had sworn never to tell a living soul, and she would have given anything to take it back now the storm of rage and bitterness had blown itself out. He had told her he didn't want to get involved with her, he had made it so plain she would never have any part in his life beyond that of temporary 'friend', and here she had blurted out her worst humiliation and pain.

'Look, I should have told you straight off. My parents are at my house.' Quinn had called Harper a rat but he was acknowledging if there were any prizes going in that area he'd be first in line. Why hadn't he told her straight away that they wouldn't be alone? he asked himself, already knowing the answer but disliking the bitter taste it left on his tongue. Because she had annoyed him with her obvious distaste at the possibility people might assume their relationship was a serious one, serious enough for her to stay with him for a few days anyway. Pride, stinking male pride, he told himself silently, and the result was he had damn near broken her. But he just hadn't known she was so damaged.

'Your parents?' She was openly astonished and he couldn't blame her. 'You mean they are staying with you?'

'Just for a couple of days.' He had never felt such a heel. 'So if you want to come no one would think anything.'

'But…' She didn't understand any of this. 'Did you know they were coming?' she asked shakily. What was he thinking? What could she say? She had just made the biggest fool of herself ever, revealed all there was to know about herself, including—here she wanted to shut her eyes and sink through the floor—that she was a virgin, and all the time his parents had been sitting back at the practice?

'Yes, I knew they were coming.'

'Why didn't you tell me?' she asked weakly. 'Was it a last-minute thing?'

'No, they've been coming for weeks, but I thought if I told you you would make some excuse not to come, and— and I didn't want you spending Christmas alone.'

Xavier and Essie. The rage that swept through her now was white-hot, and made the anger of a few minutes before seem mild in comparison. They had put pressure on him, no doubt, with this nursemaiding notion that he had to keep an eye on her. It was this very thing that had caused all the trouble in the first place!

She drew herself up now, moving away from the cupboard against which she had been leaning and walking through into the sitting room before turning to face him. 'Quinn, I wouldn't spend Christmas with you if you were the last man on earth,' she said bitterly. Pity he could keep; she didn't want it!

'Wrong.' His eyes had narrowed as he in his turn had moved to stand in front of her, but otherwise his expression had remained exactly the same. 'You are coming.'

'Over my dead body.'

'Don't be childish.' The slanting of her vivid blue eyes told him that was the wrong tack to take, but he wasn't prepared for her hand to come shooting out and hit him hard across the face.

'Get out' She had gone very white. 'Now.' And then she horrified them both by bursting into tears.

Quite how she found herself sitting on his lap in the chair as she wailed against the charcoal silk of his shirt Candy didn't know, and at first it didn't matter. She was too devastated, too shaken by the enormity of the whole scene which had erupted, and especially her actually having had the temerity to strike Quinn, to care, but then, after a few minutes of wild sobbing, she became disturbingly aware of hard muscled flesh beneath the silk, and the soothing, guttural sounds coming from his throat.

He was wearing the clean, sharp aftershave she had smelt before, and it was undeniably sexy. He was undeniably sexy. And the chain reaction his closeness was setting off in her body had nothing to do with comfort and friendship and all to do with something much more base and carnal.

She swallowed hard, forcing the hiccuping sobs to quieten as she raised her head from his shoulder. I've made your shirt wet' She kept her eyes on the damp patch just under his shoulder on his chest as she spoke; she didn't dare to look at him.

'It will dry.' His voice was husky, but as she rose unsteadily to her feet he made no attempt to stop her. Quinn Ellington was coping with feelings new to him, savage, threatening feelings, and they were as emotional as they were physical. He wanted this woman. Physically he wanted her more than he had ever wanted any other woman in his life, and that included Laura. Laura had fallen into his hands like a ripe peach, and at the time he had been arrogant enough to expect it; from puberty he had found the female sex only too willing to jump into his bed.

He had never waited for a woman before, but now he knew that was what he had been doing from day one with Candy. He had pushed the knowledge down deep somewhere, burying it under the guise of getting to know her, but really he had been biding his time. He wanted her in his bed, that was the truth of it, but she was Essie's hurt fledgling, and as such he had told himself she needed time to recover. And then…well, she would be just like all the others, of course. Fool.

He watched her as she walked across the room with a muttered remark about washing her face, and then she had gone upstairs and he was alone.

After all she had revealed he couldn't take her into his bed knowing that in a few months they would be going their separate ways. She was too vulnerable, too insecure after her miserable childhood and painful adolescence to do that.

He rose from the chair; the closeness of her, the scent of her skin and the soft silk of her hair had made him rock-hard and he needed to cool down.

Tabitha wound round his legs as he walked to the door and he bent, briefly stroking the cat and Alfie, who had darted quickly after his mother, before opening the door and stepping outside into the white, feather-soft snow-filled night The snow was falling thickly now, already the ground was a pale, sparkling carpet, and he stood outside drawing in cleansing lungfuls of the bitingly cold air before walking over to the Discovery and hauling the cat carriers he had brought from the surgery out of the back of the big vehicle.

As he walked back into the cottage the telephone began to ring, and, seeing that Candy was still upstairs, he put the carriers by the door and walked across to lift the receiver, stating the number as he did so.

There was a moment's pause the other end, and then a female voice said uncertainly, 'Quinn? Is that you?'

'Essie?'

'Oh, it is you!' Quinn could tell she was smiling by the sound of her voice. 'I'm so glad Candy isn't by herself on Christmas Eve. Is she there?'

'Powdering her nose,' Quinn said shortly. 'Look, I invited her to come and spend a couple of days with me over Christmas—the weather is expected to be bad, deep snow, and as my parents are in residence I thought we might make a little party of it. She's not too keen, so put in your two pennyworth, would you?' Okay, so it was sneaky, but he needed all the help he could get.

'Oh, yes, all right.' There was a slightly longer pause this time, before Xavier's wife said, 'Quinn? There's nothing wrong, is there?'