“Sleep,” he muttered to himself as he returned the last book to the shelf. When was the last time his head had spent more than a few hours on his pillow? Not since the day a bold, brazen, red-haired hellion had darkened his door. He needed to sleep, and then he needed to eat, and then he needed to pretend this afternoon had never happened.
He only prayed Joanna would do the same.
Because if she tested his restraint…
James released a loudmeow.
Kincaid looked at the cat. If he didn’t know any better, he could have sworn his pet was smirking at him. “I can still throw you out, you damned bag of fleas,” he threatened. “You think you’re tough now. You wouldn’t last a damned minute on the streets. A rat would eat you for dinner.”
After a cool staring match, the cat lifted his hind leg and began to lick himself.
It was, to Kincaid’s memory, the clearest “fuck you” he’d ever received.
“Sod off.” Kicking off his boots, he headed upstairs.
Chapter Eleven
“What do youdo when a man ignores you?” Joanna asked Evie. She sat on the edge of the sill in their shared room, a warm evening breeze tickling the curls at the nape of her neck. A heavy rain had fallen for most of the day. It had finally subsided after supper and she’d taken the opportunity to pry open a window. The wood had creaked in protest as if it hadn’t been moved in a long while but, eventually, it had given way.
With enough effort, Joanna found most things usually did.
“I don’t understand the question,” Evie replied without bothering to look up from the game of solitaire she was playing by candlelight in the middle of the bed.
Joanna pursed her lips.
Three days had passed since the thing she’d been ordered to forget had occurred in Kincaid’s office. Three days of him barely talking to her, hardly looking at her, and definitelynotkissing her.
It was as if their moment of passion—make thatmomentsof passion—had never happened. And she knew that had been his intention. To pretend he’d never stroked her to orgasm atop his desk. But she’d had no way of knowing he would actually gothroughwith it.
Gone was the man who licked her in places that still brought a blush to her cheeks whenever she thought of them. To her immense frustration, he was as cold and standoffish as he’d been the morning they’d first met.
Oh, he was unfailingly polite. Annoyingly dignified, even. But aside from a few questions about her mother, Kincaid refused to interact, leaving her to organize his shelves and sort his paperwork while he worked silently behind the desk he’d ravished her upon.
She was at her wit’s end trying to make him notice her. Multiple times, she’d caught him staring, his hot gaze skittering across her skin like the lick of a flame. But as soon as she looked up, he scowled and looked away, a pulsing vein in his temple the only indication he wasn’t as immune to her presence as he’d like her to believe.
“Men are complicated,” she muttered, sliding off the sill to pace across the room. Her shadow painted a silhouette of a woman in a flowing nightdress, hair hanging in a thick braid down the middle of her back, narrow shoulders rigid with annoyance.
“Men are simple,” said Evie, still studying her cards. “You’ve just never met one who didn’t fall in love at first sight.”
Joanna’s mouth opened.
Closed.
“That’s not true,” she argued, but even to her own ears her protest lacked conviction.
“It is.” Evie tapped a card against her chin. “For reasons that honestly escape me, you’ve been pursued since you turned sixteen. How many engagements have you turned down?”
“I…” Joanna trailed off as a guilty flush crept into her cheeks. It was shameful to admit, but she didn’t have an answer. How could shenotknow how many wedding proposals she’d received? Maybe because they’d never seemed very meaningful.
A few carriage rides, a walk through the field, and then suddenly her suitor dropped down on bended knee and professed his undying love. Except theydidn’tlove her. Not really. And not a single one had ever made her feel even a whisper of what Kincaid had.
“Six?” she guessed, nibbling her thumbnail.
“Eight, if you include Charles Gaines.”
“It hasn’t beenthatmany.”
“Eight,” her sister repeated. “Eight perfectly acceptable suitors have asked you to marry them, and you refused every single one. Now, for the first time, you’re taken with someone—I’ll refrain from saying I told you so, but, well, Ididtell you so—and he is not interested.”
