Relentless by Cherry Adair Read Free Book Online Page B

and headed for the elevator.
    Jabbing the button, she shook her head. He’d kissed her into complete delirium, leaving her hot and bothered, then practically shoved her out of the cab before she knew what hit her. The fact that she’d called a halt a nanosecond before that was immaterial.
    Before she realized that he wasn’t getting out with her, she was looking at the back of his head as the taxi sped away.
    She touched her mouth as the elevator dinged. “Chicken.”
    Picking up a London street map in the lobby, she set out to explore the city. Isis kept to main thoroughfares, and happily window-shopped for several hours. The brightly lit shops beckoned, but she didn’t buy anything, just looked, and smelled, and tasted. She popped into an ice-cream shop and ordered a banana split, inhaling it while talking to a young mother and her two ice-cream-smeared little boys.
    She took hundreds of pictures—of buildings, and people, and flower boxes and anything else that struck her fancy. When she was taking photographs she totally lost herself. She finally realized how much time had passed, only because her feet were starting to hurt. Theshops were starting to close and there weren’t as many people on the street. It was too early to go back, so she decided to see the comedy she’d been dying to see at a fifties-style movie theater a few blocks from the hotel.
    It was well after eleven when she let herself into her room and kicked off her shoes. She frowned just inside the door as she tried to remember where the light switch was. She was sure she’d left the light on before she—
    The bedside lamp flashed on. “Just call me Thorne” was lying on the bed, hands stacked behind his head. “Where the bloody hell have you been all night?”
    Isis gave him a cool look. He looked delicious, his hair rumpled, a pillow crease across his cheek. “Would you like to rephrase that?” she asked pleasantly as she put her bag on the desk and started removing her coat. His cane leaned against the back of the chair.
    “Where have you been, and with whom?”
    “Camilla and Charles invited me for dinner. I hated to say no.” She walked to the narrow closet and hung up her coat and scarf. “And how did you get into my room? I locked the door when I left.”
    He sat up, swinging his bare feet to the floor. He had huge feet, even for a man over six foot three. Just looking at his feet turned her on. “To go where ?” he demanded tightly. “You didn’t bother leaving a note, or a phone message. For all I knew, you were abducted.”
    Isis sat in the chair by the desk, out of his pacing path, and shot him an amused look. He was mad. She could see that as he limped-stalked, limped-stalked. But his anger was over-the-top and totally illogical. “Really?By whom?” She toed off her shoes. Damn, her feet were cold. She rubbed them together as he prowled.
    Raking his fingers through his short hair, he glared at her.
    Amused, she grinned. Her smile slipped a bit as she said casually, “I might ask the same question. Were you with a woman?” She didn’t like the idea that her Thorne had been out carousing with another woman, but she was hardly going to tell him that. Nor, quite frankly, did she want to claim ownership, even to herself. He wasn’t hers. Would never be hers. She cocked her head, considering how she might just borrow him for a while.
    He arched a brow. “If I was, it would have absolutely nothing to do with you. We’re here on business, remember? We go to the museum tomorrow; maybe we’ll find something, maybe we won’t. If we do, I’ll give you the location. I’ll go back to Seattle and you can go and find this tomb that no one has any interest in.”
    No longer amused, she felt her entire body bristle at his condescending, supercilious tone. “That suits me just fine. The museum opens at ten. We’ll leave the hotel at nine forty-five.”
    He closed the gap between them in two long strides to close his fingers