A Convenient Proposal

'Right.' A small prickly sensation ran up and down her spine as she glanced at the two-seater settee in front of which he had placed the occasional table, but she put her unease to one side for a moment as she said, 'Quinn, I didn't know your parents would be here so I haven't bought them anything.' She nodded at the parcels in her hands. 'They haven't…?'

The black eyes flickered briefly.

'They have, haven't they?' she pronounced, horror-stricken. 'Oh, Quinn!'

'Don't panic,' he said soothingly. 'As you said earlier, I think of everything.'

She thought she had said he had an answer for everything, and she had not meant it to be laudatory, but now was not the time to split hairs.

'All you have to do is sign your name with your own flourish on their gifts,' he said smoothly, 'Okay? Everything is ready for you to write the little cards. Here—' he walked across and picked up two parcels and brought them over to her, '—I'll just get a pen.'

'What are they?' she asked suspiciously as she glanced down at the beautifully wrapped perfume-sized packages in her hands.

'Chanel No. 5, my mother has worn nothing else since she was a young girl, and Ralph Lauren for my father. He'll like it, I assure you.'

'Thank you.' It was grudging. Somehow here she was, giving his parents Christmas presents and spending the next couple of days in Quinn's guest room, none of which had been on the cards first thing that morning. What she had first thought of as a simple one-night piece of pretence to get Quinn off the hook with the local femme fatale some weeks ago had turned into a tangle with more threads than the average spider's web.

After something of a fight she persuaded Quinn to accept payment for the perfumes, and after she had written the little cards attached to the presents— 'The shop wrapped them, not me,' Quinn admitted cheerfully—she placed them next to the other parcels.

'Here.' As she turned from the cardboard tree Quinn patted the space beside him on the settee. 'Come and relax a while and put your feet up; Christmas starts right now.'

His handsome and slightly cynical face was trying to look innocent but she would as soon have trusted a cobra.

She stared at him before kneeling down on the rug in front of the gas fire next to the kittens, who were playing with rapt enjoyment with a woollen pom-pom she had made for them some days earlier, and holding out her hands to the heat. 'I'll have mine here, please.'

She turned as she spoke, holding out her hand for the glass of wine, but Quinn was already in the process of joining her on the rug. 'Good idea.' His voice was lazy and amused, and it stroked over her taut nerves with unbearable sensuality.

Candy took a big gulp of the wine before she realized

the effect of its hot potency. There followed a brief but intense battle not to gasp and choke in front of him, but her eyes were watering as she fought for control. It was some moments before she felt sufficiently composed to turn her head and look Quinn's way, and then she wished she hadn't.

He was smiling, the hard lines of his handsome face mellowed in the attractive rosy glow from the fire and the lamp at the other side of the room. 'Got quite a kick, hasn't it?' he said in a tone of deep satisfaction. 'Have a mince pie.'

She didn't want a mince pie. She glanced at his big lean body stretched out in comfortable indolence—and in stark contrast to her tense frame—as she acknowledged what she wanted definitely couldn't be voiced.

'No, thanks,' she said tightly. Why did he have to prop himself on one elbow like that? It seemed to emphasise his aura of raw masculinity a million-fold, and he was far too close again.

He shrugged, reaching for one of the pies on the plate next to him and biting into it with strong white teeth. 'Delicious,' he pronounced appreciatively, 'which is just as well. With the amount of these Marion has made added to my mother's stock I'll be eating mince pies at Easter. Philippa insisted on baking me a couple of dozen too. Do I look that hungry?'

Candy bit back the hot retort which had sprung to her lips on the lines of doubting whether it was feelings of benevolence which had prompted the beautiful blonde's generosity, and smiled sweetly instead. 'Not to me,' she said coolly. She hoped he choked on the rotten pie! And then she couldn't resist adding stuffily, 'Not that I've particularly noticed one way or the other.'

The black eyes were dancing. 'No, of course not,' he agreed soothingly.

There were a few moments' silence, which only the faint hiss of the gas fire and the kittens' mad scramble after the pom-pom broke, and then Quinn said softly, 'I didn't know girls still had freckles till I met you.'

'What?' Candy had just been wondering how soon she could drain the glass of wine and rise to her feet with a casual comment about going to her room, and now she cleared her dry throat as she said, 'Lots of girls just cover them with foundation, that's all, but there are thousands of women who don't.'

'Really?' he murmured huskily. 'Perhaps I just haven't been looking.'

Now that she did doubt!

'They're very…sexy anyway.' And then as her eyes shot to meet his he raised his eyebrows and added, 'What's the matter? Aren't I allowed to notice that?'

She wasn't sure just what little game he was playing, but it was dangerous without a doubt. 'You're allowed to notice anything you like, Quinn,' she said quietly, but with an edge. 'You're a free agent after all. And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm tired and I'd like to go to bed.' She finished the wine in two gulps, warning herself fiercely not to splutter as it burnt a trail down her throat.

'Me too.' His voice had a smoky tinge as he watched her rise gracefully to her feet.

'I'll put the cat basket in the recess in the kitchen, shall I?' she asked sternly, absolutely refusing to dwell on the connotations of the softly drawled words.