The Master's Mistress

‘For God’s sake, give it up, Elizabeth,’ he rasped impatiently. ‘Just accept that you’ve met someone who’s as stubborn as you are!’

Her eyes widened. ‘My refusal of your offer to accompany me has nothing to do with being stubborn.’

‘No?’ he challenged. ‘Then what does it have to do with?’

Delicate colour entered her cheeks even as she glared across at him mutinously. ‘You can’t salve your conscience by forcing your help on me—’ She broke off abruptly, her eyes wide, her breasts quickly rising and falling in her agitation, hands clenched at her sides.

Rogan became very still. ‘What, exactly, do you suppose I should have a bad conscience about, Elizabeth?’ he asked quietly.

She looked flustered. ‘Your mistake about your father, of course.’

‘Really?’ he pressed.

The colour deepened in her cheeks. ‘Yes, really!’

‘Liar,’ Rogan murmured, eyes narrowing shrewdly. ‘Do you regret what happened this morning?’

Of course she regretted what had happened this morning! Just as she regretted falling in love with this man when she knew he was never going to love her back!

‘Let’s not cloud the issue by talking about this morning,’ she dismissed briskly.

‘What issue is that?’ He once again hooked his thumbs into his jeans pockets.

Elizabeth eyed him with frustration as she realised she was becoming distracted herself. But did Rogan have to be so darkly handsome? Did he have to be the one man who had managed to force himself past the barrier she had years ago erected so carefully about her emotions?

She scowled. ‘That I do not need you to accompany me when I visit my own father!’

‘Fine,’ he bit out tersely. ‘I’ll just come along for the ride, then, and wait outside in the car while you go in and talk to him.’

‘You—’

‘Surrey is probably a very nice place to visit this time of year,’ Rogan continued conversationally.

Elizabeth glared at him. ‘Cornwall is nicer!’

He gave an unconcerned shrug. ‘I’ve seen Cornwall. I’ve never been to Surrey.’

Rogan really was determined on coming with her, she realised in frustration.

And, deep inside herself, despite her misgivings, she was secretly relieved that she didn’t have to say goodbye to him just yet…

She wished she never had to say goodbye to him!

Chapter Twelve

‘SO NOW, along with the rest of the guys in my unit who survived that last mission, I run my own business in Washington called RS Security,’ Rogan revealed.

He had been talking without pause for half an hour now, ever since Elizabeth had given him the directions for driving to London. In fact, he hadn’t stopped talking, about everything and nothing, since they had left Leonard Brown’s house in Surrey.

All in an effort to give Elizabeth the time she needed to decide how she felt about that visit to her father…

‘The name RS Security covers a multitude of sins,’ Rogan continued. ‘Business and house security. Computers too, of course. Retrieving lost dogs…’

‘Retrieving lost dogs?’ Elizabeth repeated disbelievingly.

Rogan shot her a grin; it was the first time she had responded to anything he had said since they got back on the road. ‘Well…maybe not lost dogs so far,’ he conceded lightly. ‘But if someone asked I’d probably do it.’

Elizabeth was well aware of what Rogan was doing—knew he was attempting to distract her by talking about anything but the visit she had just made to her father.

At best, it had been a stilted visit. At worst, it hadn’t served to vindicate her father of any of the things Elizabeth had believed concerning his disastrous marriage to her mother.

What it had achieved, however, was to show her that her father had more than met his match in his second wife, Cheryl. Blonde and beautiful, and twenty years younger than her husband, Cheryl obviously kept the wayward Leonard on a very tight leash. So much so that Elizabeth doubted her father ever had the time or the opportunity to even think about straying!

Seeing her father again had helped Elizabeth to view him through the eyes of an adult, rather than the hurt child she had still been ten years ago…

Oh, Leonard was still handsome. Still charming. Still something of a rogue. Still totally engrossed in his own needs rather than anyone else’s. In fact, he was still everything that had made him such a disaster of a husband for Elizabeth’s mother.

But maybe if her mother had been more like Cheryl—forceful, confident of her own attributes, strong enough to go after the man she wanted and keep him—then the marriage might have turned out differently.

Leonard was still all the things Elizabeth had ever thought him to be. But most of all, he was just weak. A man who for years had fed his own ego by having affairs with numerous other women.

It was disappointing, but at the same time this evening’s visit had been a successful one as far as Elizabeth was concerned. It had freed her, and her emotions, in a way she would never have believed possible. It had wiped out the anger and resentment that had coloured her own life and decisions for so long. Now she just pitied her father for the weak and foolish man he undoubtedly was.

Unlike Rogan, so strong and confident of himself, who was everything and more that Elizabeth could ever want in a man…

One thing Elizabeth had definitely learnt from this visit to her father was that she wasn’t about to allow the man she wanted to just walk out of her life. At least, not without first telling him how she felt about him.

‘So.’ She turned in the passenger seat to look at him as he sat slightly cramped behind the wheel of her Mini. ‘What it all comes down to is that you’re not such a bad-ass as you would like everyone to believe you are!’

‘Not such a what?’ Rogan gave a disbelieving laugh as he shot her a sideways glance.

‘Bad-ass,’ Elizabeth repeated lightly. ‘An American term. It means—’

‘I know what it means, Elizabeth—I’m American, remember?’ he pointed out. ‘It just isn’t a phrase I had ever expected to hear coming out of the mouth of the learned Dr Elizabeth Brown!’

She shrugged. ‘I watch television programmes from America, just like everyone else.’

‘And read scary vampire books…’

‘Sexy vampire books,’ Elizabeth corrected ruefully. ‘If we’re going to talk about them, we may as well be accurate.’

‘Oh, I’m all for accuracy. What do you mean, I’m not such a bad-ass as I like everyone to believe I am?’ Rogan asked curiously.

She’d got his attention, Elizabeth recognised with quiet satisfaction. ‘Number one.’ She held up her first finger. ‘When you realised what Mrs Baines had done you quietly and efficiently set about putting the situation to rights by telling the police we had now checked thoroughly and nothing was missing after all.’

‘Thanks for saying I was efficient, at least.’ Rogan grimaced.

Elizabeth smiled, unperturbed. ‘Number two. I’m beginning to suspect your claim that your father had arranged in his will for a pension to be paid to his aged housekeeper was not entirely truthful.’

Rogan’s mouth tightened. ‘No doubt he would have done if he had thought of it.’

‘No doubt.’ Elizabeth nodded confidently. ‘Number three—’

‘Exactly how many numbers are there going to be?’ Rogan cut in.

‘Oh, quite a few,’ she teased.

He nodded. ‘Then I suggest we find somewhere to stop and eat while you go through them. We’ve been travelling most of the day. Your father—who I noticed called you Liza!—and your stepmother didn’t seem inclined to invite us to stay for dinner, and I’m starving.’

As a means of changing the subject it was pretty effective, Elizabeth allowed—she was feeling rather hungry herself. ‘No problem.’ She nodded. ‘There’s a rather good Chinese take-away if you turn right at the next corner.’

‘How do you know that?’ Rogan demanded as he took the appropriate right turn and instantly saw the Chinese take-away on the left-hand side of the road.

‘I live just half a mile away from here.’

Rogan gave her a sharp glance once he had parked the car in front of the take-away. ‘The directions you gave me earlier were to your place?’

Elizabeth raised auburn brows. ‘Do you have a problem with that?’

Yes, Rogan had a problem with that!

Driving with Elizabeth to visit her father was one thing—although she seemed to be bearing up under the strain of that disappointment far better than Rogan had expected she might. In fact, Elizabeth seemed quite perky, considering her father was definitely a rogue and her stepmother was a beautiful harridan, but going back to Elizabeth’s apartment with her definitely hadn’t been in his plans!

Although he wasn’t absolutely sure what his plan had been when he’d insisted on accompanying Elizabeth to Surrey…

‘Just relax, Rogan,’ Elizabeth teased as she moved efficiently about the comfortable kitchen, collecting plates and flatware to go with the Chinese food they had brought in with them.

Elizabeth’s apartment had come as something of a surprise to him, Rogan acknowledged as he absently helped put the cartons of food on the breakfast bar. As she had assured him, it wasn’t a penthouse apartment. Neither was it in a secure and classy apartment building in a prestigious part of London.