He was everything she had ever fantasised about. Everything she had never thought to encounter in her quite frankly boring academic life, she told herself wryly.
Maybe.
But for her to have totally lost all inhibition with a man she knew nothing about was seriously worrying.
She knew Rogan had kissed her as if he’d wanted to devour her. As if he’d wanted to taste and touch every part of her. As if he’d wanted to bury himself deep inside her and—
She knew nothing positive about the man!
Rogan had arrived in the middle of the night. The only way of contacting him was through a PO Box in New York. He had used her laptop, somehow bypassing the security code, without even bothering to check who it belonged to. He had totally dismissed the need to contact his girlfriend.
Worst of all, he was mysterious about his past, and obviously had no intention of sharing any important details about himself with her.
Elizabeth hadn’t just been stupid when she had responded so wantonly to Rogan, she had behaved totally recklessly. And reckless was something that she never was where a man was concerned. Let alone a man who had so reminded her of her father, with his claim of wanting no permanent ties in his life…
Leonard Brown. Handsome. Charming. Secretive. And totally immoral…
Leonard had been working for industrialist James Britten as one of the man’s senior managers when he had first seen Stella Britten. A tiny red-haired beauty of only twenty-one. Adored by her father, and surrounded by dozens of young men who wished to capture her heart, Stella had barely noticed thirty-year-old Leonard on the occasions when she visited her father at his office.
Then Stella’s father had died unexpectedly, and suddenly Leonard was there, offering comfort, a shoulder to cry on, someone to lean on. Offering to help her deal with everything that needed to be dealt with now that her father was dead. James Britten had left no son to inherit. Only Stella, his beautiful, oh-so-grateful and very quickly so much in love with Leonard and pregnant daughter.
The two had been married within six months of James Britten’s dying, and, although the company had had to remain in Stella’s possession, Leonard had taken over as chairman within three months of their marriage. Something that had suited Leonard perfectly, as he had been able to leave the work to others whilst he wined and dined and travelled abroad ‘on business’.
Over the years Leonard had found a woman, or women, in every foreign city he visited—despite the fact that he’d had a wife and daughter waiting for him at home in London.
A wife who had loved him so much she had been willing to overlook Leonard’s affairs as long as he always came home to her. But as the years had slowly passed she had become more and more disenchanted and bitter over the man who simply couldn’t, or wouldn’t, remain faithful to her. To the extent that Stella had eventually begun drinking whenever Leonard was away from home, in an effort to block out all thought of him with those other women.
Stella had been drinking heavily the night she had driven into a brick wall and been killed instantly…
Eighteen-year-old Elizabeth had stood beside her mother’s newly covered grave only days later, and had watched as her father wept for his dead and disillusioned wife. She had sworn to herself there and then that she would never, ever love someone in the same helpless way that her mother had loved her father.
In the same way Maggie Sullivan had loved her husband?
It was ironic—unbelievable, really—that two people who were as unalike as Elizabeth and Rogan undoubtedly were had both been shaped into the adults they now were by the unhappiness of their parents’ marriages.
Elizabeth: solitary, serious and academic, determined never to fall in love.
Rogan: just as solitary, but wild and untamed—untameable!—and just as determined never to fall in love…
‘Glass of red wine?’ Rogan indicated the glass he held. ‘Elizabeth?’ he prompted with a frown as she made no effort to move away from the doorway of the drawing room.
But for the moment Elizabeth couldn’t move. In fact, she had been rooted to the spot from the moment she had first entered the room and seen Rogan.
A Rogan who looked so handsome this evening he literally took her breath away!
Over the last twenty-four hours she had become accustomed to seeing him in the black clothing and boots he habitually wore, and which somehow seemed to suit the aura of danger that always surrounded him.
Tonight he wore a silk shirt the colour of freshly brewed espresso coffee that hinted at the muscled chest beneath rather than emphasised it, and a pair of expertly tailored trousers in the same dark coffee colour. With his long hair brushed back from that intelligent brow, and those dark, enigmatic eyes, Rogan appeared every bit as threatening, if not more so, as he had in the black clothing he preferred.
‘Elizabeth?’ Rogan pressed again impatiently; what on earth was wrong with the woman?
After her earlier comments concerning the clothes he wore, he had decided to change before dinner. But as the time to eat had drawn nearer, with no sign of Elizabeth, he had been starting to wonder if she was going to join him after all. If he hadn’t frightened her off completely earlier this afternoon after almost taking her on top of his father’s desk!
Only to turn a few seconds ago and see her standing in the doorway. Unmoving, and warily silent. So far in their acquaintance Elizabeth had seemed to have plenty to say about everything. Including himself.
Not that it was any chore to just look at her. Her auburn hair was arranged in its usual perky style, those sooty lashes perfectly framed the deep blue of her eyes, and she had brushed a peach gloss onto the fullness of her lips. In a fitted knee-length sleeveless dress of midnight-blue silk, Elizabeth was certainly easy on the eye.
Who would ever have guessed that, beneath those unflattering cotton pyjamas and the tailored trousers she had worn today, Elizabeth Brown had the most gloriously sexy legs Rogan had ever seen? Lightly tanned, they were slender and shapely, the ankles appearing delicate above the two-inch heels of the strappy dark blue sandals she wore.
Dr Elizabeth Brown wasn’t just beautiful; she was hot!
‘No red wine for me, thank you.’The snappy anger in the deep blue of her eyes as she walked further into the room told Rogan that she had noted his admiring gaze and didn’t appreciate it.
Well, that was just too bad. If she didn’t want anyone to look—didn’t want Rogan to look—then she should have stayed in the safe businesslike black trousers and blouse!
Rogan looked amused. ‘Is that because you would prefer white wine, or would you like something else instead?’
‘No, thank you. I don’t drink alcohol,’ Elizabeth answered abruptly as she sat down in one of the armchairs. ‘At all,’ she added, just so that there should be no more confusion.
‘Good for you,’ he drawled, before moving to sit in the armchair opposite hers, that dark gaze narrow and enigmatic. ‘Do you smoke?’
‘No.’
‘Take drugs?’
Her mouth thinned in distaste. ‘Certainly not!’
‘Sleep with married men?’
Her gaze narrowed impatiently. ‘Rogan—’
‘Just kidding!’ He grinned, even as he held up his hand in apology. ‘So, you’re a woman without vices… ’
It was a statement rather than a question, and Elizabeth didn’t bother to answer. How could she when this afternoon she had literally melted in this man’s arms?
‘How about you, Rogan? Obviously you drink alcohol.’
‘In