She pushed the question away, unwilling and unable to deal with the distraction or for that matter the answer it might produce.
The silence that built seemed to have a life of its own and a heartbeat that she could feel pulsing. Her fingers plucked fretfully at the knot of bright fabric at the base of her throat until she blurted with more force than she intended, ‘I don’t want you in our life!’
Well, that came from the heart, he thought, directing a slow, sardonic, mirthless smile her way. ‘You should have thought of that before you put yourself in mine.’
She shivered. It was a comment she felt in whole-hearted agreement with; she was living with the consequences of her own actions. The knowledge did not make it easier.
‘Why would you help my brother if you don’t think you’re responsible? You expect me to believe that you’re some sort of altruistic saint?’
His rebuttal was immediate. ‘My offer is not inspired by guilt.’ Not his guilt, but his tender-hearted sister was showing a tendency to beat herself up about things, and if her ex-boyfriend ended up in a wheelchair that situation would not improve. He would do everything in his power to make sure that didn’t happen.
Mari remained suspicious of this very expensively packaged gift horse. Though in the equine world, of course, he would be a thoroughbred, sleek and muscled— With a tiny shake of her head she closed down the thought. ‘So what do I have to do? What’s the catch?’
‘There is no catch, no strings. As I said, I have already spoken to the clinic and your brother will be transferred tomorrow once the paperwork is done. My lawyer will send you the details of an account I have set up in your name for the purpose. I think the funds are adequate, but if there is not enough you simply have to let him know. As I said, it is up to you what you tell your brother. If you’d prefer he remains in ignorance from where the money is coming that is no problem.’
‘I will know!’ Mari always paid her debts—how was she going to pay this one? Submerged by a massive wave of sheer helplessness, she lifted her face to the leaden sky, letting the rain wash over her face.
Seb dragged a hand through his drenched hair and gave a grunt of irritation; the rain was now drumming on the roof of the car.
‘This is ridiculous.’ He wrenched open the car passenger door and walked around to the driver’s side, yelling over to the slim figure who had made no effort to take advantage of the shelter, ‘Personally I’ve nothing against the wet-shirt look, but...’
She glanced down and let out a horrified gasp.
A moment after he had slammed the door she slid into the passenger seat and sat there staring straight ahead, her arms folded across her chest.
A grin split the severity of his lean features. ‘Very modest, but you see a hell of a lot more on a beach.’
She lowered her hands defiantly. ‘I’m not embarrassed,’ she lied. ‘I’m cold.’
He let his eyes drop. ‘I’d noticed.’
Longing to slap the lopsided grin off his too-handsome face, she balled her hands into fists. ‘Smutty schoolboy innuendo. I’d sort of expected something a bit more...’
The grin faded and it was replaced by something far more dangerous, far more... She felt her insides quiver helplessly in response to that nameless thing.
‘Is that a request?’ he asked smokily.
On the brink of succumbing to the heat of his hypnotic stare, her blue eyes flew wide open. It was definitely time to change the subject or at least remember what it was!
‘No, not...’ Definitely not.
‘So no work today?’ he asked casually.
Suspicious of his sudden question, she shook her head. ‘No.’
‘One of those consequences you didn’t consider?’
Mari maintained a tight-lipped silence.
‘I can’t imagine that exclusive school you work for liking the idea of its employees’ sex scandals being made public.’
Bristling with suspicion, she turned in her seat. ‘How do you know what I do or where I work? Have you had my phone bugged or something?’ It was as likely as any of the other wild, nausea-inducing possibilities whirling through her head.
‘That would be illegal.’
She gave a scornful snort. ‘And you have never broken a rule.’ Rules and a thousand hearts, she thought, glad that she was not the sort of woman who had ever had a thing for bad boys.
‘I have my resources.’
Seb’s resource in this instance had been the family lawyer who had witnessed firsthand the wedding drama. It had been the one call that Seb had taken on Saturday night, assuming, wrongly as it happened, that it concerned the possible legal ramifications of the incident.
‘I had no idea you even knew Miss Jones, Sebastian. Let alone—!’
The lawyer whose services he had inherited when his grandfather died had sounded as unhappy as Seb had ever heard him, a situation brought about not by any sense of indignation for his client but the disruption to his granddaughter’s schooling.
‘You do know she’s the first teacher that has understood Gwennie? The child actually wants to go to school and you know what that place is like—they justify their ridiculous fees by claiming they provide a wholesome learning environment, and they have a very good reputation. Hypocrisy, I know, but from a business standpoint they can’t afford a sniff of anything...sexual, not with the sort of parent the place attracts. The best the poor girl can hope for is suspension after this gets out.’
Listening to the woman who had lied through her teeth, sabotaged his marriage, dragged his reputation into the gutter and in the process endangered the deal he had worked so hard to pull off being spoken of as a victim, described as poor, had been as hard for Seb to swallow as visualising the red-headed virago as an empathic teacher.
Would she be as empathic in the bedroom?
‘Your resources?’ His cryptic comment sent a shiver through her. ‘Well, that sounds suitably sinister.’
She gave a laugh, which missed ‘bring it on, I don’t care’ by several thousand miles. Nonetheless, he picked up on it.
‘But you’re not about to be intimidated.’ Seb felt a fresh stab of reluctant admiration; whatever else she was this woman was not gutless. Right or wrong—actually wrong—she had gone out on a very precarious limb to fight for her brother, and, having met the guy again, he doubted that he appreciated how lucky he was to have someone like her in his corner.
If the situation had been reversed would Mark Jones have put himself on the line for his sister? Seb doubted it. Nothing he had seen had given him any reason to alter his initial assessment of Mari’s twin.
Mari ignored the comment.
‘I have spoken to the head, and he was very understanding,’ she retorted, putting a positive slant on a situation that when she allowed herself to think about it looked very black indeed.
‘But you’re not in work today? He was not that understanding?’
She slung him a look of seething dislike. ‘All right, you were right. My life is a mess, people who I’ve never met are discussing surgery I never had and it’s my own fault.’ Which of course made it worse. ‘I achieved nothing and now I’m likely to lose my job, too.’
She closed her eyes, feeling herself falling into the relentless cycle of self-recriminating circles that she had spent