The girl’s pale face lit up. ‘It’s Uncle Nik.’
Chloe already knew that. As he got out of the car her minor palpitations suddenly became critical.
‘He’ll understand.’ The relief in the girl’s face faded away to uncertainty as she realised what Chloe already had. The man striding towards them was furious.
His face set in hard lines, his dark brows drawn into a straight line above his hawkish nose, he stopped a couple of feet away from them. He was breathing hard and looked like a well-dressed version of a dark avenging angel as the wind caught the hem of his long coat, making it billow out behind him.
‘What the hell did you think you were doing?’
As the teenager shrank into her side Chloe wondered if Nik knew he had gone from hero to villain in just one short sentence.
Nik’s narrowed eyes followed the protective hand Chloe slid around the girl’s shoulders, and his jaw tensed as he flashed her an arctic glare.
‘Thank you for your...help.’ The word emerged reluctantly through his clenched lips. ‘I’m assuming that Tatiana contacted you?’
Her chin lifted in challenge. He had managed to make the statement sound like an accusation. No, I just happened to be passing.
It took an effort but she managed to keep her lip buttoned on the snarky retort that hovered on the tip of her tongue, and she dipped her head in acknowledgment, reflecting that surely one of them had to act like an adult in front of Eugenie.
‘Well, I’m here now.’
As if that could have slipped anyone’s notice! So this was Nik in business mode; impressed hardly covered her reaction. His designer-cut business suit didn’t disguise the hardness of the body it covered, but it did emphasise the effortless power he exuded.
Nik dragged his eyes away from the outline of the lacy bra covering Chloe’s breasts, clearly outlined beneath the drenched silk, just in time to see her roll her eyes at him. He wondered why, of all the people she could have turned to for help, his sister had chosen this woman, who was nobody’s idea of a responsible adult. Hell, she didn’t even have the basic sense to leave the house with a coat in a storm!
‘Get in the car,’ he ordered his niece.
‘I’m not going anywhere with you!’ was the response.
If his scowl was any indicator, he only saw the surly expression on Eugenie’s face, and not the fact that her defiance only went about a cell deep despite the dramatic pronouncements. Clearly it wasn’t his incredible insight into female behaviour that got him the girls, Chloe thought sourly.
‘I hate you!’
Chloe sighed. It was a long shot, but she felt obliged to at least make an attempt to smooth things over.
‘Look, clearly you’re both feeling pretty intense...’
Two pairs of antagonistic eyes zoomed in on her face.
She cleared her throat and attempted a smile. As far as feelings went, her own were pretty much all over the place and had been from the moment she’d identified the person getting out of the car and her heart had started fibrillating madly. It had not even begun to calm down when he’d stalked towards them looking deliciously sexy, hard and... She gave her head a tiny shake. This wasn’t about her, or her hormones; it was about Eugenie and Tatiana.
‘Maybe now...’ she continued, channelling sweet reason and calm while wondering if it was all right secretly wanting to do the wrong thing just so long as you actually resisted the weakness.
‘Now what?’ he bit out.
She dragged away her eyes, which were showing a disastrous tendency to drift up and down his long, lean, loose-limbed frame without her permission, and cleared her throat. What she needed right now was cool thinking, logic and maybe a bit of inspiration. What she didn’t need or, for that matter, want was this animal attraction, insane sexual chemistry or a vivid imagination supplying her with memories of how he’d looked naked.
‘Now is not the right time to—’
The teen shrugged off the arm across her shoulders and, with hands on her hips, took a defiant step towards her uncle. ‘It wasn’t my fault.’
Chloe sighed and wondered why she had even bothered to try. If she had any sense, which she did, she would get in her car, drive off and let these two slug it out, but then she reminded herself that Tatiana was her friend, and she had promised her she’d look after Eugenie.
Nik felt his grip on his temper slipping, but he breathed through the moment.
It had not been a good morning. He’d had a breakfast meeting with a guy the normally reliable firm of headhunters had sent, and in the space of thirty minutes the candidate had broken every unwritten rule in the book: drunk too much, confided personal problems, bad-mouthed colleagues and talked politics. Then Nik had returned to the office and found all the messages on his machine his stand-in secretary had not seen fit to respond to.
But compared to his present situation, faced with a niece who appeared to loathe him while challenging his authority, and the woman who hadn’t been out of his head for more than three consecutive seconds ever since they’d parted company nearly forty-eight hours ago, he was extremely frustrated and close to snapping point!