Dating the Millionaire Doctor by Marion Lennox Read Free Book Online Page B

I need to clear up here. If Rob agrees to having Rusty and me…’
    â€˜Of course he’ll agree. I’m the owner.’
    â€˜He’s the manager. I’ll phone and check,’ she said, with a touch of reproof. ‘And I’m paying. Let’s make this formal.’
    â€˜You will not pay.’
    â€˜I’ll pay or I won’t come,’ she said with asperity. ‘And don’t look at me like that. I’ve spent almost nothing in six months, and I’m tired of charity. I know that sounds ungrateful,’ she said, suddenly rueful, ‘but there it is. I’ll phone him, I’ll lock up and I’ll come down later this afternoon.’
    He was being dismissed?
    â€˜Can I help clean up?’
    â€˜No,’ she said. ‘Thank you, Dr. Hunter.’
    â€˜Jake,’ he growled. ‘And don’t be pig-headed. I will help you.’
    â€˜Jake, she said, but still with a touch of formality. ‘And pig-headed or not, I’d like to clean up by myself.’
    And suddenly he could see her hidden agenda. He could take offence at her knocking back his help—or he could understand.
    This place was filled with six months’ memories. She needed to say goodbye on her own terms.
    She might well cry again. The thought was bad but he suspected she needed to, and she certainly had the right.
    How could he ever have thought her frumpy? How could he ever have thought she was uninteresting?
    He gazed down into her troubled face and he thought suddenly, I’d like to hold her again. And then he thought…I’d really like to kiss her. It wasn’t sympathy now. She had so many levels. She was such a woman…
    He couldn’t kiss her. Of course he couldn’t; she’d run a mile and the thought was totally illogical.
    And besides, he thought, trying hard for logical, she was too dirty, too tear-stained, too not the sort of woman he kissed .
    But as she turned away, as she knelt to start filling boxes, he looked down at her, in her tight, faded jeans clinging to her neat figure like a second skin, at her torn T-shirt, at the way a curl was wisping down the nape of her neck…and he was aware of a sharp stab of missed opportunity.
    What would she be like to kiss?
    He didn’t know, and he had no business thinking about finding out. He formed relationships with women who knew the rules—independent women who wanted nothing but a lighthearted relationship which went nowhere.
    Would Tori understand those rules? He knew she wouldn’t, and there was no way he was risking giving pain.
    So he wanted to kiss her but he couldn’t. She didn’t even want his help cleaning this house—and he had to respect her wishes.
    â€˜I’ll see you down at the lodge,’ he said, more harshly than he intended. ‘Before dinner?’
    â€˜See you then,’ she said without looking up. ‘Thank you, again, Jake.’
    So that was that. He turned and left, leaving Tori shoving welfare clothes into welfare boxes. Packing up life as she knew it—and moving on.
    While a little dog watched Jake’s car until it disappeared from view.
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    The place was a mess. She gazed around the house and thought she couldn’t just walk out. It wasn’t fair.
    She should have let Jake help, and maybe if it hadn’t been Jake she would have. But then Jake wasn’t anyone else. Theman had her thoroughly off balance. The equilibrium she’d striven so hard to reach had been tossed off course by the death of one little koala—and then by the way she’d reacted to Jake.
    For this was more than grief.
    Barb said she had to move on. Her head told her she couldn’t, but her body was telling her it was more than time.
    So she’d thought he was lovely and she’d sobbed all over him. What a turn-on. She headed into the bathroom to fetch her toiletries. Despite what she’d told Jake there was a mirror there, and