Taming the Last St Claire by Carole Mortimer Read Free Book Online Page A

her? Thinking? He hadn’t been thinking at all as he gazed down at her soft and moistly parted lips!
    ‘Personally, I think we’re better off just forgetting about it,’ Joey said with a shrug. ‘It’s been my experience that people will carry on thinking what they want about you, no matter what you might have to say on the subject, so it’s better not even to bother to offering explanations in the first place.’
    Gideon frowned slightly as he heard the underlyingthread of cynicism in her voice. Was it because most people—including him—tended to judge her on that let-people-think-of-me-what-they-will attitude? It was an opinion Gideon knew he was guilty of harbouring towards her, and it had already been made something of a nonsense of earlier that morning. And yet it was an opinion he had to continue to maintain if he were to have any defences against the attraction he obviously now felt for her—perhaps always had?
    ‘Maybe you don’t care what people think about you, Joey, but I do,’ he said coldly. ‘Especially people I have to work with on a daily basis.’
    Bright wings of angry colour heightened her previously pale cheeks. ‘You’re working with
me
on a daily basis at the moment, Gideon—perhaps you would be interested to know what
I
think of
you?’
    No, he really didn’t care to hear what Joey’s opinion of him was!
    She had made it obvious from their very first meeting in her office two months ago that she didn’t like his high-handed attitude, or him—that in fact, she resented his interference in solving the problem of Stephanie having been wrongly accused of being ‘the other woman’ in the divorce of Richard Newman, one of her male ex-patients. An accusation Newman, for reasons of his own, had been happy to allow to continue.
    Gideon had only stepped in at Jordan’s behest, when his brother had become worried about the mental stability of Richard Newman’s wife Rosalind, who had come dangerously close to causing Stephanie physical harm in her distress over the divorce. Maybe Gideon
could
have been a little more tactful in the way he had resolved the situation. Maybe he
should
have consulted Joey, who at the time had been acting on Stephanie’s behalf, before instructinga private investigator to follow Richard Newman and ascertain who the man was really having an affair with. That it had turned out to be his boss’s wife explained the man’s reluctance to clear Stephanie of blame!
    Gideon hadn’t hesitated in using that knowledge to extract Stephanie from all involvement in the divorce, and he hadn’t felt any guilt when Richard Newman had deservedly lost his job, as well as his wife and family.
    Yes, Gideon accepted that he might have handled the situation more tactfully than he had, by including Joey in what he was doing, but he liked and respected Stephanie, knew how much Jordan loved her, and at the time hadn’t thought of how Joey might interpret his behavior. He had only been concerned with extricating her sister from what had rapidly been becoming a dangerous situation.
    He realised now—although Joey had obviously been relieved to have her sister removed from that tangled web—she had every reason to resent the arrogance of Gideon’s abrupt intervention. The resentment had been there in Joey’s manner towards him every time the two of them had spoken since…
    He owed this woman an apology, Gideon acknowledged. An apology he daren’t even
think
of offering at this moment, when emotions had been so heightened between them a few minutes ago.
    ‘Only if I can return the favour and tell you what I think of you too,’ he said.
    Perhaps not, Joey acknowledged. Earlier fantasies of being held in Gideon’s arms aside, they obviously just didn’t like each other.
    ‘I’ll pass, thanks,’ she replied in a bored voice.
    ‘Then perhaps we should both just get back to work?’ He raised dark brows in mute query.
    No, they didn’t like each other at all!
    ‘Yes, sir!’