She almost said “What?” before remembering her plans. “It will have to hold until I get back. There are some things I need to take care of first.”
“I’m sure they can wait a day or two.”
She didn’t like his dismissiveness; but telling herself not to be oversensitive, she smiled. “Not if I want to have a job when I get back. I need to get in touch with my editor and tell him what’s been going on.”
And what progress she’d made on her article, as wellas get in touch with Mac. But she wasn’t going to tell John about either of those, so he couldn’t object.
He did anyway. “I don’t think that’s a good idea—not without knowing how sophisticated these guys are and how they were tracking you. Let’s wait a few days, and—”
“No,” she said, mentally putting her foot down for the first time since they’d arrived. “I’m not going to let you distract me. Whatever risk there is to someone tracking all the e-mails at work has to be small and...”
Her voice fell off.Distract me.Suspicion flooded through her in a horrifying deluge.
No. That wasn’t what he’d been doing.
Was it?
Her eyes shot to his, catching them just as his gaze shifted. But not before she saw the flicker of guilt that popped the bubble of hope in her chest like a pin on an overstretched balloon.
“Oh my God, that’s it, isn’t it? That’s what all this is about. You’ve been giving me the full-court John Donovan press to keep me from writing any articles.”
And she’d fallen for it hook, line, and sinker.
God, did she have idiot written on her forehead? It sure as hell felt like it.
•••
John took one look at her expression and knew he’d better explain or this conversation was going to go downhill fast. Very fast.
It wasn’t like that.
He winced. Or not exactly like that.
“What happened between us has nothing to do with that.”
So maybe that wasn’t the best thinking on his feet that he’d ever done because she took his words as an admission.
She stood up to face him, her expression incredulous. “So, you admit it? You were trying to distract me?”
He held her by the shoulders, trying to get her to calm down and listen before she started drawing all sorts of wrong conclusions. “I don’t want you to write any articles about this—you know that. And I may have been trying to keep you busy, but with sightseeing, Brit. Not with anything else.”
She drew back, stunned—or maybe the better word was “struck.” Obviously, she wasn’t seeing the distinction. Or if she was, she wasn’t buying it.
“So, the traipsing around town together was all an act, but not the seduction part—is that it?” She put her hands on his chest and pushed out of his hold. “God, you are such an asshole! This is a new low—even for you, John.”
Christ, wasn’t she listening to what he was saying? He gritted his teeth, trying to stay calm. It wasn’t easy. She made him so damned... irritated. “I didn’t seduce you, Brit.”
She sneered with disgust, but he wasn’t sure whether it was at him or herself. “No, of course you didn’t. You didn’t have to, did you? I came to your bed willingly enough. But it was all a seduction, wasn’t it? You pretended to want to be with me and made me care about you again.”
Given how angry she was with him, he shouldn’t be so happy to hear it aloud. “I care about you, too. You know that. And just because I may have had more than one reason doesn’t mean I didn’t want to spend time with you or that I wasn’t having fun. I did and was.”
His words—which were as much of an admission as he’d ever made—seemed not to have had any impact. She had that look of impatience. The kind where she was probably mentally crossing her arms and tapping her toes.
“I’m supposed to believe that?”
Her sarcasm brought out a flare of his own temper.“Yes, you are. And if you had been reasonable about this in the first place, none of it would have been necessary.”
The incredulous look was back. “What is that supposed to mean?”
