to stand up and offer a gentlemanly handshake as if the two of them were at some blinking garden party. “Wondered where you’d got off to.”
Lachlan gave Grantham’s hand one quick shake and dropped it. “Some of us have work to do. I can see you’ve been busy.” He turned the sarcasm on Fiona.
She blinked, puzzled, then managed a quick dazed smile. “Oh, you saw The King of the Beach? Yes, he’s back up and overlooking the cricket field. I even added some new bits today. What did you think of the inner tube?”
Lachlan, who hadn’t seen the inner tube and hadn’t been talking about The King of the Beach at all, scowled. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Oh?” She looked momentarily blank again, then said brightly, “You mean the school applications?” She picked up the papers that she’d dropped when she’d spilled the tea, waving them cheerfully. “I’m just getting on them. David brought these over for me to fill out. Isn’t that lovely? He’s found three schools in England he thinks I should apply to.”
“Has he?” Lachlan said through his teeth.
“Indeed,” David agreed cheerfully. “Two in the south and one up north. I was just about to offer to help her fill them out and get her portfolio together…” He smiled and let the sentence dangle unfinished, waiting expectantly for Lachlan to do the polite thing and leave.
Lachlan looked at Fiona. She wasn’t inviting him to stay, either.
“Fine,” he said through his teeth because he was damned if he was going to beg to be invited to stick around. “You do that. I’ll be back,” he promised her. “At the regular time.”
Grantham’s brows shot up.
“See you then,” Lachlan said flatly. It wasn’t a question.
They both knew it.
IT WAS JUST AS WELL David stayed until nearly midnight helping her get together her portfolio. It kept her occupied, kept her focused, kept her from thinking about Lachlan every second.
As it was she thought about him every other second.
What was she going to say to him in the morning?
Should she say something before morning? Should she call him and tell him the rumor that was going around? Tell him he should stay away or he’d be feeding it.
But she couldn’t call him right away because David had been there. And after David left it was too late.
All she could do then was pace the floor or go to bed and toss and turn. She did first one and then the other. Neither helped. Neither banished him from her mind.
Nothing banished him from her mind because, heaven help her, she was in love with him.
The tossing and turning stopped abruptly and Fiona lay very still and stared at the ceiling and made herself say the words out loud. “I’m in love with him.”
And how foolish and stupid and senseless was that?
Very. But it was also very true.
The truth of it had hit her right in the gut when the gate had opened tonight and Lachlan had strode into the yard and announced he was back.
Until that moment she’d told herself what mattered was moving on, developing her talent, getting a life, meeting a man to fall in love with. A man like David, perhaps.
David liked her. She liked him. If she went to England, who knew where it would lead?
And then the gate had opened and Lachlan had walked in, and Fiona had known the answer to that: it wouldn’t lead anywhere.
She’d already met the man she was in love with—for all the good it did her.
LACHLAN HAD NEVER HAD TO WORK very hard to get a woman’s attention. He had certainly never had to compete for it.
And why should he? He was healthy, wealthy, and not half bad looking if the enthusiasm of the women of the world was to be believed.
And that was just the point! There were plenty of bloody women in the world who would be only too happy to be pursued by the likes of Lachlan McGillivray.
But there was only one Fiona Dunbar, damn it to hell.
And all Fiona Dunbar wanted him to do was stand still!
Lachlan didn’t want to stand still!
He wanted to grab her and kiss her senseless when she opened the door to him that morning. He wanted to yank her T-shirt over her head instead of shedding his.
He wanted to strip those clay-streaked shorts off her and learn all the secrets of her body—secrets that had been plaguing him ever since the night he’d spent watching her sleep.
And instead here he was, stripping his