“Wouldn’t she?” he growled. “Surely you noticed the way she stared at me during Easter? An Easter I’d have preferred spending alone with my family,” he added with a cruel smile. “Mother should have had another daughter to keep you company, then maybe you wouldn’t spend your life picking up strays!”
Teddi’s face went white. She stood there like a wounded little animal, her huge eyes misty with the hurt, and Kingston turned at that moment and saw her. The expression on his broad, hard face was almost comical.
“Oh, Teddi,” Jenna wailed, grimacing as she, too, caught sight of her and realized that her friend had heard every harsh word of the conversation.
Teddi straightened proudly. “Hello, Jenna,” she said softly. “I—I just wondered if you wanted to have breakfast with me. I’ll be at the dining hall.”
“King came early,” Jenna said helplessly, with a shrug. “We were talking about vacation.”
“You’ll enjoy yours, I’m sure,” Teddi said, forcing a smile to her full, faintly pouting lips. “I’ll go ahead...”
“I want you to come to the ranch for the summer,” Jenna said with a defiant glance at Kingston.
“No, thanks,” Teddi said quietly.
“King won’t even be there part of the time,” the smaller girl said sharply, tossing her long, pale blond hair.
Teddi glanced at the taciturn rancher, whose jaw was clenched taut. “I’ve spent quite enough of my holidays being treated like an invading disease,” she said deliberately. “I’d rather spend this one alone, and I’m sure your brother will be delighted to have his family to himself,” she added venomously.
“Teddi—” Jenna began.
“I’ve got modeling assignments lined up, anyway,” Teddi added truthfully with a last, killing glare at Kingston as she turned. “Why spend my vacation on a ranch when I can seduce half the men in New York while I make my fortune?” Her lower lip was trembling, but no one could see it now. “Thanks anyway, Jenna, thanks a lot. You can’t help it that you’ve got an insufferable snob for a brother!”
And on that defiant note, she stormed out of the dormitory into the sunshine, her back rigid, the tears welling up in her smoldering eyes.
She walked over the cobblestones numbly, the tears coming in hot abundance, trickling down into her mouth. How could he be so cruel, how could he? The conceited ass! As if any woman would be stupid enough to get herself emotionally involved with that arrogant Australian...the gall of him to accuse her of making cow’s eyes at him! She flushed at the memory. He’d never let her live down her foolish behavior at Easter; if only she’d realized that he was teasing....
She fished in her pocket for a tissue. As usual, there wasn’t one. She brushed the back of her hand angrily across her cheeks, hating her own weakness. She’d write to Jenna, he couldn’t stop her from doing that, and they’d be together when the fall quarter started. Kingston couldn’t keep them from being friends, after all. He’d never had a chance once they’d enrolled at the same college.
She passed a couple of her classmates and tried to smile a greeting just as a lean, commanding hand caught her arm and jerked her around, marching her to the shade of a nearby oak.
“Running again?” Kingston Devereaux asked curtly, his glittering eyes biting into hers. “You’ve done a lot of that.”
“Self-preservation, Mr. Devereaux,” she replied coldly, brushing wildly at one stray tear. “You make me forget that I’m a lady.”
“A lady?” he drawled. “You?” His eyes ran down her slender body, over the high young breasts and down the tiny waist and sweetly curving hips to her long, graceful legs in their clinging cover.
“Oh, excuse me—in your exalted opinion, that’s a title I don’t deserve,” she replied coolly.
“Too right,” he ground out. He lifted his broad shoulders restlessly. “Jenna’s back at the dormitory crying her damned eyes out,” he added roughly. “I didn’t come all this way to upset her.”
“Upsetting people is one of your greatest talents,” Teddi told him, glaring back.
One eyebrow went up as he studied her face. “Careful, tiger,” he drawled. “I bite back.”
Teddi wrapped her arms around herself, turning her attention to passing students. “You’ve done nothing but attack me for the past five years,” she reminded him. “And for your information, Mr. Devereaux,” she added hotly, “if I stared, it was out of apprehension, wondering what minute you were going to start something!”
“You started it the last time, darling,” he reminded her, smiling coldly at the blush she couldn’t prevent. “Didn’t you?”
She didn’t like being reminded of that fiasco, and her eyes told him so. She turned away.
“How long did it take you to perfect that pose of innocence?” he asked.
“Oh, years,” she assured him. “I started while a baby.”
He looked down his arrogant nose at her. The sunlight made gold streaks in his dark blond hair. “You didn’t get to your particular rung on the modeling ladder without giving out a little, honey. You’ll never convince me otherwise.”
“Why bother to try?” she countered. “You’re so fond of the playgirl image you’ve foisted on me. And you’re never wrong, are you?”
“Not often,” he agreed. “And never about women,” he added, with just a trace of sensuality in his deep drawl.
She supposed that he’d had his share of women. Her own small experience of him had been devastating. He had an eye-catching physique and when he liked, he could be charming. Teddi, having seen him stripped to the waist more than once, couldn’t find a fault in him. A picture of his bronzed, hair-roughened muscles danced in front of her eyes, and she shook her head to get that disturbing memory out of her mind. Kingston disturbed her physically, he always had, and she disliked the sensations as much as she disliked him. He was the enemy, she mustn’t ever lose sight of that fact.
“You know very little about the type of modeling I do,” she said numbly.
“More than you think,” he corrected. “We have a mutual acquaintance.”
She let that enigmatic remark fly right over her head as she started walking.
“Going somewhere?” he challenged.
“To inflict myself on someone else over breakfast,” she agreed cheerfully. “Strangely enough, there are people who don’t think of me as a walking, talking 8 x 10 glossy photograph.”
“Fair dinkum?” he murmured, falling into step beside her.
She glared at him. “Believe what you like about me, I don’t care.” But of course she cared, she always had. She’d gone out of her way to try to make Kingston like her, to earn even the smallest word of praise from him. But she’d never accomplished that, and she never would.
“You can have breakfast with Jenna and me,” he said after a minute, as if the words choked him. They probably had, she thought miserably.
“No, thanks,” she said politely. “I can’t eat wondering if you’ve had time to sprinkle arsenic over my bacon and eggs.”
A chuckle came out of his throat, a surprising sound. “You never stop fighting me, do you?”
She shifted her shoulders lightly. “I’ve spent most of my life fighting.”
“Poor little orphan,” he murmured coldly.
She glared at him. “I loved my parents,” she said curtly. “Shame on you for that.”