Page 3 of His Best Mistake

“Are you hurt?” she asked, filling with concern and alarm because what if he had cracked some ribs or had a collapsed lung or something? What would she do then?

“I’ll live.”

He tried the ignition again, twice, but still to no avail. “Damn.”

He rubbed his hands over his face and pressed his fingers to his temples and Stella wondered: what were the signs of concussion? “Did you pass out when you crashed?” she asked.

“No.”

“What day is it?”

“Friday.”

“Month?”

“January.”

“Date?”

“The twenty-seventh.”

“How many fingers am I holding up?”

He glanced up into the rear-view mirror then, and their eyes met and held, and for one brief bizarre moment Stella couldn’t move. She couldn’t look away. She could barely even breathe. The bottom seemed to be falling out of her stomach and her heart seemed to be pounding in her ears and, oh heavens, now she was getting dizzy.

“Four,” he muttered with a dark sort of scowl, and all she could think was four what? Four what?

And then he looked away, shattering the connection, and she snapped back only to realise that like a fool she was still holding up her hand.

“Right,” she muttered, lowering it.

“I’m fine.”

He might be, but she wasn’t. What had that been? Had she taken a bang to the head? It couldn’t be attraction, surely? Not from just one look into a pair of albeit lovely deep dark brown eyes. That would be all kinds of absurd.

Swallowing hard, she forced herself to focus. “So what are you doing up here?” she asked. “Are you lost?”

“No.”

“Sightseeing?”

“No.”

“Then…?”

He turned his head and fixed her with those eyes of his, and once again her stomach swooped alarmingly because he was absolutely gorgeous in a tough, rugged, unsmiling kind of a way. His face was all perfect planes and angles, and suddenly – horrifyingly – she could see herself leaning forwards, threading her fingers through his thick dark hair and pressing her mouth to his, all of which seemed to suggest that yes, crazy as it seemed, this was attraction.

Not that she would ever act on it, of course. Not only would it be hideously inappropriate, if there was one thing she’d learned from what had happened with Ben/Brad it was that it would be a cold day in hell before she went anywhere near a man again. Which did kind of put a kibosh on the whole marriage-and-family thing she’d always dreamed of, but who needed the heartache? She certainly didn’t. She didn’t need anything. Or anyone. And that was a good thing too since she was obviously still totally ill-equipped for a relationship, or any kind of actual, long-term commitment for that matter. She was on her own. Again. And she’d be fine. In fact, she was fine.

Nevertheless, whoever this man might be he was rather, well, magnetically compelling.

“I’m looking for you, Miss Grant,” he said, brutally cutting into her thoughts and making her pulse skip a beat.

“Me?” she said, blinking in astonishment as apprehension began to filter through her. “How do you know who I am? How did you find me?”

“I had someone track you down.”

What the hell? “Why?”

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