Taming the Last St Claire Read Free Page B

head to his eye level.
    Gideon dearly wished he had never started this conversation. That he had just picked up one of the boxes from the boot of this woman’s bright red Mini and travelled up in the lift with her, before shutting himself away for the day in Lucan’s office.
    He was thirty-four years old, successful in his chosen career, and the brief and businesslike affairs he occasionally indulged in rarely even registered on the scale of his emotions. Other than the affection Gideon felt for his two brothers and his mother, he preferred to keep a physical and emotional distance from the rest of humanity.
    It was difficult to do that around the forceful Joey McKinley. Especially when she was now so close to him that he could smell the lemon of her shampoo, and see the auburn, gold and cinnamon highlights in that glossy red hair. An unusual colour that Gideon knew didn’t come out of a bottle, because her twin sister had hair with exactly the same beautiful autumn shades.
    What would that hair feel like to touch? As soft and silky as it looked? Or as brittle and defensive as the woman herself—
    Gideon took an abrupt step back, shutting down his thoughts as he realised what he was doing, his jaw tight as he looked down the length of his nose at her. ‘Joey, I appreciate the fact that your sister being married to my brother puts us in the position of being almost related.’
Almost
being the operative word! ‘But let me state here and now that I have absolutely no interest in knowing anything about your sex life.’
    Joey’s eyed widened at the vehemence she heard in Gideon’s tone. She had no doubt that he genuinely respected and liked her sister, and that he approved of Stephanie’s marriage to his brother. So why had he decided he disliked Joey from their very first meeting?
    Maybe he had disliked and disapproved of her
before
that first meeting, if his assumptions about her friendship with Jason Pickard were any indication, she mused. She was well aware of the rumours that had circulated about herand the junior partner at Pickard, Pickard and Wright for the past six months. Erroneous rumours, as it happened.
    Oh, Jason was incredibly handsome, and the two of them went out to dinner at least once a week. Joey always enjoyed herself on those evenings as she found Jason good company. But their friendship wasn’t based on either sexual attraction or love.
    In actual fact their friendship had become more in the nature of a smokescreen, because Jason was really in love with a man he had met at university and had shared an apartment with for the past ten years. Unfortunately his parents, Pickard Senior and Gloria, had no idea that their son’s relationship with the other man was anything more than friendship, and would have vehemently disapproved if they did.
    Joey had been thrilled the first time Jason had asked her out—after all, he was the second Pickard in Pickard, Pickard and Wright. But it hadn’t taken her long to realise that Jason wasn’t in the least sexually interested in her. With her usual straightforwardness she had asked a couple of blunt questions, and eventually received a couple of straight answers. The revelation about Jason’s sexuality hadn’t changed anything as far as Joey was concerned; she liked him and enjoyed his company. Enough to agree to go out to dinner with him often—and why not, when there was very little happening in her own love life at the moment! And so the myth of their having a relationship had been born, a myth, it seemed, that even the coldly aloof Gideon St Claire was aware of.
    Joey gave him a cool smile. ‘Then why are we still standing here discussing my sex life?’
    ‘You—’ Gideon broke off in obvious frustration, choosing instead to exercise rigid self-control. ‘Shall we just take your things upstairs and get to work?’ He moved to pick upone of the boxes from the boot of her car before walking stiffly over to the private lift.
    Joey picked up the other