'I mean it, Quinn.' She could feel his fingertips against her lower ribs through the long-sleeved jersey top she was wearing, and the strength and warmth of his gentle force-fulness was seductive, much, much too seductive for her fragile equilibrium.
'Absolutely,' he agreed with suspect meekness.
She drew in a deep breath, wondering how on earth she had been so criminally insane as to think this idea could ever have worked in the first place. A platonic friendship with Quinn? You might as well ask a girl to stop breathing.
'Good.' She pushed away from him but he wasn't quite ready to let her go.
'Harper must have been crazy,' he said softly, looking down into the brilliant blue of her eyes.
'Yes, well, he obviously didn't think so,' she returned weakly, trying again to ease herself out of his grip but with no success.
'Do Essie and Xavier know about his other women?' He was remembering the note in Xavier's voice earlier and thinking that it was probably just as well Harper wasn't around any longer or else Xavier might be facing a prison sentence!
'No, no one does except you.'
There was a split second's silence and then Quinn said, 'I'm glad you trusted me enough to tell me, Candy.'
'I didn't intend to,' she said tightly, 'and I'm
not at all sure I trust you, if you really want to know.'
There was another silence, and then Quinn began to laugh, really laugh, his head thrown back as he fairly roared.
'You certainly have a way of bringing the male ego down a peg or two, don't you?' he said amusedly when he had control again.
'I think your ego is quite able to look after itself.' Candy's voice was severe and she hadn't laughed. 'Would you let go of me now, please?'
'Why? I think this is rather nice,' he said comfortably.
So did she, and that was exactly why she had made the request! 'Nice isn't always good,' she said firmly.
'True.' His head was tilted now and the ebony eyes were laughing at her again. 'But in this case…'
He didn't prolong the kiss, and it wasn't at all like the other time, but nevertheless Candy's knees were melting by the time he let her go with a casual, 'Go and pack your case, then, and I'll sort out the moggies.'
She wanted to remind him that they were just friends, that whatever he had told his parents it didn't alter the basic rules of their arrangement, but somehow, in the face of his utter nonchalance, she couldn't find any words that wouldn't make her seem prim and gauche and strait-laced in objecting to the kiss. And so she bit her lip, lifted her chin and marched off to pack her case with as much dignity as she could muster.
CHAPTER SIX
Candy liked Quinn's parents straight away. Mary Ellington was a surprisingly tiny, pretty woman, her thick mass of snow-white hair in stark contrast to her face, which was still relatively unlined, and her husband was an older version of Quinn.
Their greeting was warm, too warm for Candy's feelings of guilt, and when Mary said, her voice hesitant, 'I started getting the tea ready, I do hope you don't mind?' the guilt intensified tenfold.
'Of course not.' Candy managed a fairly normal smile. The other woman was obviously nervous of treading on Quinn's 'girlfriend's' toes. Little did she know it was the first time she had been invited to Quinn's fiat above the practice, Candy thought helplessly.
And what a flat it was! Her first impression, as she had stepped into the enormous sitting room, had been one of aggressive luxury and beautiful co-ordination. The deep pile silver-grey carpet, the magnificent charcoal leather suite and no-nonsense furnishings were relentlessly masculine. There were no soft touches, no hint of a woman's taste anywhere. Even the Christmas cards had been slotted into a little cardboard tree that was more practical than festive, and other than that slight concession it wouldn't have been apparent what the season was.
Candy thought of the cottage, and the cards she had strung up round the walls downstairs, and the little pine tree complete with baubles that the cats had been having the time of their lives wrecking as soon as her back was turned, and felt sad. This place screamed aloneness.
And then she reminded herself, very quickly, that Quinn had mentioned on the drive to the practice that the flat was very much as Xavier had left it.
He had been far too busy, Quinn had explained, to bother changing things, besides which he liked Xavier's taste and would probably have chosen the same colour scheme and furnishings himself anyway.
The dogs were apparently all kept downstairs in the back of the house at night, and so when Quinn brought the two cat carriers in there was plenty of oohing and ahhing from his parents when they saw the kittens, which all four cats revelled in. Quinn had even thought to provide a litter tray and feeding bowls in a recess off the kitchen, and before long the four cats had made themselves perfectly at home and were curled up in the wicker basket, which Quinn had also thought to bring, in front of the gas fire.
When Candy followed Mary into the kitchen to help get the meal ready a few minutes later she found it was a chefs paradise, but with a curiously unlived-in air. Everything was immaculate-—and Quinn's mother had clearly been thinking along the same lines because her first words, once they were alone, were, 'Quinn doesn't eat properly, does he? And it does so worry me. Bernard tells me to stop fussing but I can't help it. That's what mothers do, isn't it?'
Mary smiled a smile that begged for understanding of her maternal anxiety, and there was something in the other woman's sweet face that made Candy forgo the polite remark she had been about to make and say instead, 'I don't really know what mothers do, mine died when I was born, but if I was a mother I think I would be feeling the same as you do.'