Free A Delicious Deception by Elizabeth Power

right, are you?’ she asked uneasily, having sensed a flicker of interest from the man beside her since uttering that apology, even though he still appeared preoccupied with the obvious running of his business.
    ‘Of course I am,’ Cynthia Hardwicke assured her, although there was a curious note in the disembodied voice. ‘But are you? You don’t sound yourself, darling. Is anything the matter?’
    ‘No, of course not.’ She laughed to try and convince her parent that everything was as it should be, to try and behave normally.
    ‘Are you with someone?’
    Rayne could feel herself growing hot and sticky from her toes upwards.
    ‘Who is it?’ Her mother persisted in wanting to know.
    Rayne hesitated before replying. ‘It’s just a friend.’ Involuntarily, her gaze strayed to King and his heart-stopping profile. It exhibited forcefulness overlaid with unstinting sensuality. Authority and energy, harnessed with a magnetism that had the drawing power over a woman that the moon had over the tides. But he had obviously picked up the gist of the conversation because his mouth was twitching now in what she could only describe as sensual mockery. He clearlydidn’t regard her as a friend, any more than she considered him one. Though for plainly different reasons where she was concerned!
    ‘I thought I knew all your friends,’ Cynthia pressed. Which was true, Rayne thought. She did. ‘You’re sounding pretty secretive. That’s not like you.’
    ‘It’s no one of any significance,’ Rayne stressed, already regretting the comment when she saw the way King was looking at her as she wound up the conversation and rang off.
    ‘Why didn’t you tell her about us?’ he enquired, turning all his attention towards her now.
    ‘There is no “us”,’ she reminded him tartly, feeling the heat of shame creeping up her neck and into her cheeks when a masculine eyebrow lifted in obvious dispute.
    ‘No? Not when I only have to touch you to send your hormones rocketing through the roof? I’d say that was significant enough to constitute an “us”.’
    He’d also taken her out to breakfast that first morning. Showed her around Monte Carlo and bought her lunch today. Not to mention making his credit card available to pay for her mother’s birthday bouquet!
    ‘I’m sorry about the way I described you,’ she felt she had to offer, even if his reasons for helping her might be purely self-motivated. ‘But I had to put her off the scent.’
    ‘The scent of what?’ he asked smoothly.
    ‘That I’m here.’
    ‘In Monaco? Or with me?’
    ‘Both,’ she answered truthfully now. ‘She thinks I’m staying with my friend in Nice. If I told her I was in Monte Carlo on my own, she’d worry.’
    ‘And if you said you were with me?’
    ‘Then I’d have to explain how I came to be in Mitch’s house in the first place, and she’d worry even more.’ No, more than that. She’d have a fit, Rayne thought, shuddering to think what Cynthia Hardwicke would say if she knew that her daughterwas hobnobbing with the family who had ruined her husband. Another shiver went down her spine as she thought of how easily she could become involved—especially with King—if she didn’t watch her step.
    ‘You don’t think she’d approve of you picking up older men?’
    ‘I didn’t pick him up,’ she reminded him, stressing the point. ‘I meant I’d have to tell her how I’d had my belongings stolen. With losing Dad so recently, Mum gets worked up about things and imagines something terrible’s going to happen to me. If she thought I needed her in any way, she’d be over here like a shot, and I couldn’t risk letting her do that.’ Even if the Claybornes hadn’t been in the picture. ‘She needs her holiday a hundred times more than I need mine. I don’t intend doing anything that would spoil it for her.’
    ‘That’s very commendable,’ he murmured, the sound rumbling deeply from his chest. ‘You love her very much, don’t