Page 13 of The Couple Behind the Headlines

CHAPTER FOUR

NOW what was she doing?

Jack frowned as he stared at Imogen, who was sitting with her head bent, pinching the bridge of her nose and muttering to herself.

She really was peculiar. Intriguingly peculiar, but peculiar nonetheless. He didn’t think he’d ever met anyone so mercurial, who smouldered and sizzled one minute and bristled and bridled the next. No wonder he found himself caving in to the compulsion to needle her; her mood swings were enough to drive a man to drink.

Was she meditating? Or mentally preparing herself for battle?

Whatever it was, maybe he ought to cut his losses and leave her to it, because intentions were all very well, but forgetting about the frantic urge to run his hands over her curves when she was sitting a couple of feet away was proving harder than he’d anticipated. Especially now that, thanks to the taxi driver’s desire to get going, he knew what she felt like.

But when she eventually opened her eyes and gave him a serene smile his senses tumbled into such chaos that any idea he’d had of cutting and leaving completely vanished.

‘You really want to know what my problem is?’ she said silkily.

‘I do,’ he said, vaguely wondering why he was so keen to know when every instinct was telling him it wasn’t going to be good.

‘Well, this is exactly it.’

‘Exactly what?’

She gave him another beguiling smile and his stomach clenched. ‘There’s so much I barely know where to start.’

‘You could always try the beginning.’

‘You’re right. I could.’ She nodded and he had the unsettling feeling he’d just handed her a knife with which to eviscerate him. ‘OK, well, for a start you have a seriously over-inflated ego.’

An over-inflated ego? Jack felt his eyebrows shoot up. Of all the accusations she could have hurled at him that was the most inapplicable. ‘What makes you think I have an over-inflated ego?’

‘Outside the realm of this evening’s conversation, you mean?’

Now why did that sound as if she knew something he didn’t? Jack tilted his head as he regarded her, and racked his brains. ‘Have we met before?’

‘No.’

‘I thought not.’ If they had, he’d definitely have remembered. And come to think of it— ‘Why not?’

‘Oh, just lucky I guess.’

‘Ouch,’ he said, muttering and rubbing his chest. ‘Tell me, what precisely do you have against me? Or do you have it in for men in general?’

‘No, no,’ she said with a dazzling smile. ‘At the moment, just you.’

‘I’m flattered.’ He tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. ‘So?’

Imogen arched an eyebrow. ‘Greatsexguaranteed?’

‘What?’ His jaw dropped and his pulse spiked. ‘Are you offering?’

Her eyes flashed for a second and relief spun through him because all that cool detachment had been faintly disconcerting. ‘No, of course I’m not offering,’ she said witheringly. ‘I’m referring to the eBay incident.’

Ah, that. Four years ago he’d prodded Luke into getting over the death of his first wife by entering into a bidding war over the woman who eventually became his second. Interesting how, of all the things Imogen could have started with, she’d chosen to focus on the user name he’d chosen in a moment of flippancy. Almost Freudian. ‘Oh, yes, I remember.’

She sniffed. ‘An over-stated claim if ever I heard one.’

Jack grinned, fascinated despite himself. ‘What makes you so sure?’

He’d never received any criticism of his performance in bed and Imogen was just too easy to wind up. Steam was whooshing out of her ears and she was rolling her eyes.

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