Passionate Protectors?

by Anne Mather

  He leapt up with all the lightning agility of a panther and for the first time Megan registered the fact that his own feet were bare. Long and slender and bronzed, like his hands, with perfectly straight toes, they were inexplicably sexy. There was something indisputably arousing about the look of leather next to tanned bare skin.

  ‘Why don’t I make us both a drink? What would you like? I think I have most things.’

  ‘Coffee would be nice,’ she replied, ‘Milk, no sugar.’ Seeing an unexpected reprieve from the butterfly net, Megan eased out a shaky breath. Her gaze settled on a startlingly vivid portrait of a stunning native American Indian in full head-dress with eyes almost the same intense hazel as those of the man she had come to see. An answering tingle ran up her spine as she moved her gaze interestedly round the rest of the room, pleasure throbbing through her as she noted the various prints on the wall.

  Degas and Matisse, Da Vinci and Millais—some of her favourite artists, too. Kyle obviously had very eclectic tastes when it came to what he liked, but he favoured simplicity, too. The beautifully cool oak floor was bare apart from a sensuously patterned killim with hues of the same browns, terracotta and yellows that were picked out in the cushions keeping her company on the couch. The whole effect was seductively comforting—conducive to coaxing secrets not easy in the telling.

  She heard Kyle clattering crockery and spoons from what she presumed must be the kitchen, and allowed herself to take a deeply relaxing breath and close her eyes.

  Bone-deep fatigue washed over her, making her realise she could easily fall asleep at the drop of a hat, and for maybe a minute or two she almost did doze off. Then there was suddenly a touch on her knee and her dark eyes flew guiltily open to stare into a sea of gold. A tantalising waft of some woody male cologne drifted beneath her nose and a sudden wild longing swept through her that almost left her trembling with the ferocity of it.

  ‘Your coffee.’ He placed a bright yellow mug in her hands with a measured, almost detached look, then settled carefully back down onto the beanbag.

  ‘Thanks.’ She sipped the steaming beverage gratefully, stealing furtive looks his way as he imbibed his own drink.

  ‘How did you come by your limp?’

  She almost spilled the contents of her mug into her lap. Nobody ever asked her outright about her limp. Directness like this man’s was simply not something she was used to.

  Studying her reaction, the interplay of startled emotions that crossed her strikingly beautiful fine-boned face, Kyle inhaled softly and waited patiently for her answer.

  ‘I—I had an accident.’

  ‘Recently?’

  ‘About—about eighteen months ago.’

  ‘What happened?’ He leaned forward in his seat, distracting her a little with the sensually strong definition of his jaw, the muscle that jerked a little in the side of his smooth tanned cheek.

  ‘I fell.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I think you ask too many questions.’

  ‘We’re going for honesty here, Megan, remember?’ he suggested gently. ‘I know it might be painful, but sometimes it’s even more painful to live with secrets than share them with someone who might be able to help.’

  ‘You’d make a good interrogator, you know that?’ The urge to come back at him with a taste of his own medicine took her by surprise, but the truth was she was fighting for her life here—did he but know it. She got the decidedly unsettling feeling that he did.

  ‘Yeah, I know. Like a dog with a bone. It’s not one of my more endearing qualities, but you don’t get anywhere in life by giving up. Come on, Megan, I don’t care how long we sit here.’ He glanced down at his watch to emphasise the point. ‘I’ve got no other plans for the evening, and I’d much rather stay here and talk to you than do anything else I can think of right at this moment.’

  It was a terrifying admission for Megan. It meant he wasn’t going to let her off the hook any time soon.

  ‘You’re not going to let go of this, are you?’ Her voice was a husky broken whisper as she finally met his gaze head-on, and was startled to see something akin to tenderness in his eyes. She didn’t see it very often, God knew, but she recognised the response when she saw it. If she’d had a mind to, she could easily have sat there and broken her heart.

  ‘You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to, Megan. As I said, anything you tell me is purely voluntary, and, for the record, will go no further than this room. You have my word on it.’

  It was plain he was telling her the truth. He had integrity written all over him. It was there in every exquisitely sculpted line of his indomitable male visage. A quiet yet profound strength and honesty radiating out. Drawing her in. Her secret would be safe with him.

  ‘Nick and I had an argument one night.’ Megan wasn’t going to tell him that it had been shortly after she’d found him in bed with Claire. That was a wound still too raw to encounter head-on. ‘He’d been drinking. He was yelling, and I was too upset to reply. I made the mistake of walking away, which made him even angrier. Nick hated to be ignored. Unfortunately we were at the top of the stairs at the time, and when he shoved me I went head-first down the whole flight. I ended up with a badly broken leg. It—it wasn’t an accident. He meant to push me.’

  Her throat constricting with pain, Megan remembered the fury and hatred in Nick’s eyes when he’d pushed her. He’d been furious because she’d found him with Claire. Told her she had no right to be upset when it was all her fault in the first place. Her fault.

  Taking a deep, shuddering breath at the shattering memory, Megan glanced at Kyle and managed to force out the wobbliest of smiles. ‘Anyway. I’ve had two operations so far. Unfortunately the bones didn’t knit back as they should have. I could be facing further procedures in the future and it’s left me with this limp. I know it’s not the end of the world, that people recover from much worse…but I’d be dishonest if I pretended life wouldn’t be better without it. Most people are too polite or afraid to ask me outright how I got it.’

  ‘That’s the trouble with me, you see.’ Dry-mouthed, Kyle stared at her, the air between them thick with the tension of mutual awareness brought sharply into focus by Megan’s traumatic revelation. He placed his mug of coffee carefully down on the floor. ‘I’m neither polite or afraid. I won’t pretend that the lack of those things has never got me into trouble, because on occasion it has. But generally speaking I believe in confronting my fears and working through them. As for politeness—pleasing people is a trap, so beyond the usual conventions it doesn’t really signify. But that’s me. I’m sorry to hear about what happened to you, Megan. More sorry than I know how to tell you. It was a dreadful thing for any man to do to his woman. An outrage. How are you dealing with it? Did you talk to anyone after it happened?’

  ‘Counselling, you mean? No.’ Megan moved her head slowly from side to side, her heart constricting with sorrow. ‘I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I felt—I felt too ashamed.’

  ‘Ashamed?’ Hazel eyes alert, Kyle didn’t let his gaze stray for even a second.

  ‘I felt it was my fault.’ Even now, in her mind, she could hear Nick calling her all those dreadful names, culminating in his favourite taunt that she was a frigid uptight tease who drove him to have affairs because she was so inadequate in bed, because she wouldn’t ‘experiment’. She wasn’t in a hurry to confess that to Kyle, honesty or not. She already felt as if she’d said too much.

  ‘Sweetheart, let me tell you something—no one deserves to be pushed down the stairs and suffer injury. It wasn’t your fault, however much you might tell yourself it was. It sounds to me like your husband was the one who had the problems—not you.’

  ‘Ex-husband. Thank God.’

  ‘I stand corrected.’ Kyle’s answering smile was beguiling. Like honey and chocolate. Like a rainbow after a storm, walking on the beach out of season, or listening to classical music with the volume turned up…All Megan’s favourite things rolled into
one.

  ‘So, shouldn’t we be talking about art or something?’ She shifted self-consciously in her seat, because simply gazing at this man was completely unravelling her in every sense.

  Shrugging his shoulders, he seemed inexplicably amused by her suggestion. ‘There are no hard and fast rules about anything, Megan. We can cover just about any topic you want to talk about.’

  ‘I really—’ She swallowed hard across the sudden burning sensation in her throat. ‘I really do want to paint. Can you help me?’

  Riveted by the plea in her voice, Kyle gazed at the lovely brunette, her dark eyes shimmering with hope and longing and everything else in between, and thought fiercely, In a heartbeat, angel. And that’s a promise.

  Chapter Two

  ‘ONE more exhibition. Is it so much to ask?’

  ‘I’ve done the exhibition thing for the last five years, Demi. What does it take to convince you I’m not interested?’ Kyle helped himself to a handful of peanuts from the little dish on the table, silently calling himself all kinds of an idiot for agreeing to this meeting when he’d rather be home painting or catching up on some relevant study.

  But Demitri Papandreou’s powers of persuasion were legendary, and he’d caught Kyle in too good a mood to be churlish. He’d wondered how long it would take the wealthy Greek to show up in the UK and demand a meet—and to be honest he’d been surprised Demi had waited as long as two months…well, eight weeks and one day, to be exact.

  Now, as Kyle sat opposite him in the plush lobby of the Intercontinental Hotel on Park Lane, he mused to himself that his companion must surely be one of the most slickly polished characters that had ever languished in a five-star hotel lounge. In his Armani suits, revelling in his celebrity connections all around the globe, selling oil to the Arabs was child’s play to such a man. He was a natural-born salesman, not to mention an outstanding self-publicist—and, credit where it was due, he’d done an amazing job promoting Kyle’s career.

  But as Kyle’s glance flicked across the tanned broad face, with the deeply liquid eyes that reminded him of two black olives, he knew this time that whatever Demi was selling, however much money it involved, today Kyle had no intention of buying.

  ‘We could have sold those paintings ten times over…ten times! And I know you must have more at home in your studio that you haven’t even let me see!’

  Demi’s jowly cheeks wobbled a little with the force of his feelings, but Kyle was already shaking his head.

  ‘I don’t care. I’m not interested in the money.’

  ‘Are you mad?’ Demi was practically apoplectic. ‘Who in this world is not interested in money? I have made you a rich man, no? Surely you can do me this one small favour? So many people are interested in your work, Kyle. Painting is your life. How can you say you will not paint any more?’

  ‘I didn’t say I wasn’t going to paint any more,’ Kyle replied patiently, running his hand round the faint five o’clock shadow studding his jaw. ‘I said I didn’t want to exhibit any more. I’m tired of doing the circuit. I want to get back to the simple things in life. That last night in Skiathos was one party too many, my friend.’

  ‘But good, no?’ Demi’s black eyes twinkled in merriment. A passing waitress in a tight black skirt and fitted white blouse flitted by with a drinks tray, her black stiletto heels hardly making a sound on the sea of plush indigo carpet, and the Greek’s amused black eyes were instantly diverted.

  Kyle took a sip of his cold beer, then placed it carefully back down on the table. No. Not good. Definitely not good. He was tired of people he didn’t know wanting to be his friend, and he definitely didn’t want to spend his days—or nights, for that matter—making small chit-chat to the great and the good, all for the sake of making a name for himself.

  He’d been so much happier since returning to the UK. Even the rain hadn’t had the power to burst his bubble—not yet, anyway. His decision to come home had had a dramatic effect on his work, too. Somehow his painting had suddenly become so much freer, more expressive—better than it had been in years in his opinion…and, more importantly, there was this new venture he was undertaking…

  During a surreal conversation at that last party, with an empty-headed little blonde who wouldn’t know a Degas from a Da Vinci, with too much champagne coursing through his veins, Kyle had been struck by the awful superficiality of the life he’d been leading. He’d been spending too much time associating with people he didn’t care for, people who bid ridiculous sums of money for art yet who had little appreciation of real beauty—people who’d sold their souls for a lifestyle instead of a life.

  A distinct feeling of unease and regret had crept up on him, rolling over him like a black cloud of remonstration, reminding him that after all this time he still hadn’t fulfilled his promise to his sister Yvette.

  Before the car crash that had ripped away her life, she’d often beseeched him, ‘Don’t waste your talent, Kyle. Do something wonderful with it. You’re a good man. You know how to reach out to people. There must be a way you can do that in your work. Promise me you’ll try.’

  Well, he’d thought teaching was the way. He’d made the discovery that art could offer a place of safety in which to express images that spoke of deep-seated emotions and pain. Images that the artist could reflect on and consider and use as a means of healing even the deepest wounds.

  Teaching at art college had made him so sure that he’d finally found what he’d been searching for. Something that Yvette would have been proud of—something that would help assuage his own dreadful grief and heartache at her loss. But he couldn’t have been as focused as he’d believed, because when Demi Papandreou had arrived on the scene, visiting the college in search of new talent, Kyle had allowed the Greek’s effusive praise of his skill and ability to turn his head.

  He’d let himself be swept along by the illusory allure of fame and fortune, and a different road entirely from the one he’d been envisaging for himself. Truth to tell, it had been the perfect excuse to get out of fulfilling a promise he’d felt woefully inept to realise. Perhaps Yvette had thought too highly of him after all? Just because it had been her personal mission to smooth the path of every wounded soul she came into contact with, it didn’t mean Kyle could do the same…

  God knew, she wouldn’t be very proud of him now, he’d thought. He might have created art that sold for ridiculously large sums of money, but he’d nearly lost his own soul in the process. A throb of shame had washed over him. He didn’t think his beautiful sister had spent one superficial day in the whole of her life. Somehow she’d approached every moment like the miracle it was. And what had Kyle been doing? He’d been behaving as if he was going to live for ever. More to the point—he’d been behaving as if he didn’t give a damn about anyone but himself. Which wasn’t true. Underneath that handsome ‘don’t give a damn’ exterior there was a compassionate heart beating, silently crying out for him to take action.

  That party had given him a wake-up call and he was going to heed it. Perhaps he ought to drop the dizzy little blonde a thank-you note?

  ‘There must be some other reason you suddenly pack up your bags and jump on a flight back to this cold, rainy country! You were just trying to put me off by telling me you wanted a change of direction. If it is not a better opportunity to make money then obviously it must be a woman.’ Demi wagged his finger remonstratively at the younger man.

  ‘Sorry to disappoint you, my friend.’ Kyle shook his head and flashed a rueful grin. Instantly, a vivid picture of one gorgeous brunette with velvet brown eyes and a body that would fuel the fantasies of every schoolboy in England—not to mention their fathers—stole firmly into his mind and planted itself there. Then he thought about what she had told him about that louse of a husband of hers and what he had done to her, and every muscle in Kyle’s undoubtedly fit, strong body turned to iron as a slow rage burned in his gut.

  ‘You can’t fool me, Kyle. I have known you long enough to see when you are
lying. Who is she? Do I know her?’

  Demi had that look in his eye that reminded Kyle of a bloodhound when his scent was up. The flamboyant Greek was notorious for his many liaisons with the world’s most beautiful women—many of whom Kyle also happened to know. It would really stick in the older man’s craw if he thought a woman of their mutual acquaintance had somehow slipped through the net.

  For some entirely inexplicable reason Kyle suddenly felt fiercely protective towards the reclusive Megan Brand—who, God knew, had no reason to trust any man further than she could throw him right now. Least of all him—a perfect stranger who had inadvertently got her to tell him things that he had the distinct feeling she revealed to very few—if anyone else at all…

  ‘Let me get you another drink.’ Kyle caught the eye of another passing waitress, this time a pretty redhead in an equally tight black skirt and white silk blouse, who was only too willing to wait on the two most attractive men in the room. Especially the younger one.

  He reminded her of a poster she’d seen of Jim Morrison, who’d used to be in that American rock group in the sixties—the Doors. He could light her fire any day, and that was a fact. She pulled out her pad and pencil from her pocket then dipped down in a fragrant cloud of sensual perfume, her blue eyes darting flirtatiously to Kyle, the smile that raised the corners of her glossy apricot mouth close to intimate.

  It didn’t take long for Demi to take charge.

  ‘I want a bottle of your best champagne—’ He paused from diverting the pretty waitress to raise one luxuriant dark brow in Kyle’s direction and scowl. ‘Ignore my friend,’ he told her, gesticulating flamboyantly with his hand, ‘he has taken a vow of abstinence or something. He has forgotten how to have a good time. Now, you, my angel…’ He gave the girl the full force of his liquid black gaze. ‘Something tells me you know how to have a good time; tell me I am not wrong hmm?’

  Megan scrunched up the fashionable pink and mauve T-shirt she’d donned on her arrival home, then flung it unceremoniously into the wicker laundry basket. Turning on her heel, she all but glared at her reflection in the gilt-framed bathroom mirror, furious with herself for agreeing to work overtime when her leg had been aching like crazy all day and she really should have asserted herself and said no.