The Playboy's Proposal. Amanda Browning

then closed her eyes and sighed heavily. ‘OK, I admit I enjoyed it. But I’m here to work, not indulge in a…a…a liaison with you!’ she continued, with more insistence this time, as her system began to settle down to something approximating normal.

      His brows rose quizzically. ‘Can’t you do both?’

      ‘I don’t want to do both!’ she lied, and they both knew it.

      ‘Sure you do,’ he countered chidingly, and she groaned, realising she was in a hole that would soon be too deep to get herself out of.

      ‘I don’t intend to get involved with you, Joel,’ she insisted, notwithstanding.

      ‘You can say that when not five minutes ago you went up in flames in my arms?’ he charged, and she didn’t thank him for reminding her.

      Kathryn crossed her arms and raised her chin to a defiant tilt. ‘I am saying it.’

      Much to her dismay, he merely smiled. ‘Now that, in my book, constitutes a challenge. It will give me great satisfaction—and you, too—to make you eat your words.’

      Kathryn never had been a woman who knuckled under to attempted male domination—as her brothers could testify. She had a strength of will equal to any man, and if she said no, then no it had to be. ‘I wouldn’t attempt it if I were you,’ she warned frostily, and Joel folded his own arms, mimicking her, and smiled again.

      ‘What will you do to stop me? We’ve already established that when we get into clinches you fight on my side,’ he taunted her, and her eyes narrowed.

      ‘That won’t be happening again.’

      ‘You wish!’ he shot back with a laugh, and she was very nearly tempted to stamp her foot in frustration. She resisted it, however.

      ‘This is serving no purpose,’ she returned, very much on her dignity. ‘You do what you feel you have to do, but you won’t be getting any co-operation from me.’

      ‘Well, we’ll just have to see about that, won’t we? Now, why don’t you slip off to bed? The rest will do you a power of good,’ Joel suggested, and she took umbrage at his tone.

      ‘Don’t order me about. I’m not a child.’

      The glint in his eye deepened. ‘Don’t I know it! You’re very much a woman, Kathryn Templeton.’

      How did he manage to turn the tables on her so easily? ‘You are the most… Oh, I’m going to bed!’ she exclaimed in frustration, needing to put some space between them so she could regain her equilibrium. ‘Goodnight,’ she said as she headed for the door.

      ‘Goodnight, Kathryn,’ he called after her, and the sound of her name on his lips was a seduction in itself. ‘Sweet dreams.’

      Her response to that was to close the door firmly behind her and head for the stairs. She was pretty certain she would dream, but no way would it be sweet. Oh, no. The way things were going, her dreams were more than likely going to be hot and steamy in the extreme. As she mounted the stairs she was very much aware that, for a woman who had no intention of getting involved with a man, the prospect didn’t disturb her the way it ought.