Needed: One Convenient Husband(7)

She had been shocked to see him pale and still and hooked up to  monitors and drips, then a senior nurse had walked in and she'd had to  leave. That had been just as well, because as she'd walked out the door  Kyle's eyes had flickered open.                       
       
           



       

Dragging pins from her soaked hair and finger combing it out into some  semblance of neatness, she couldn't resist the compulsion to sneak  another glance at the worst of the scars and, inadvertently, found  herself caught out by Kyle's gaze.

"I know that was you, all those years ago at the hospital."

She froze. "Maybe."

He raked wet hair back from his forehead. "I thought I was dreaming, but the nurse confirmed it."

She busied herself picking up her bag in order to drop the pins into  it, but she wasn't paying close enough attention, so some of them  scattered over the pavers. Crouching down, she began gathering them up.  "It was no big deal. I was in town and heard you'd been-hurt-"

"As in, wounded." He handed her a pin that had skittered over by his foot.

She straightened and found herself uncomfortably close to his naked and  still-damp torso. "I didn't want to say that, just in case you had that  condition-"

"Post-traumatic stress disorder. Battle fatigue." His mouth quirked in a  distractingly sexy way. "No chance, since I have no memory of being  hit." He hesitated. "Why didn't you stay?"

Eva, still captured by the sudden intense need to know what exactly had  happened, who had dared to shoot Kyle, took a few seconds to absorb his  question. "You were critical-they wouldn't let me stay."

"I was only critical the night I arrived. I didn't see any family until the next day. So, how did you find out?"

Despite her clothes, which were steadily dripping, and which were now  making her feel clammy and just a little chilled, she found herself  blushing. There was no way she was going to tell Kyle that she had  practically lived on the internet, tracking down Reuters reports, and  that she had made a pest of herself by calling his regimental  headquarters. "I had a modeling friend whose boyfriend was in the SAS."  That part was true enough. She shrugged. "I just happened to mention  that you'd been hurt and she...found out for me."

"But you didn't visit me again."

She straightened, hooking the strap of her bag over her shoulder. "I  was busy. What is this? An interrogation?" Although something about Kyle  had changed. The bad-tempered tension had gone and there was an  undercurrent that made her feel decidedly breathless. She tried walking  in her wet heels to see if they were safe. At the same time she  surreptitiously smoothed her palms down the sodden, clinging line of her  jacket and skirt to press out excess moisture. As a result, water  tickled down her legs and filled her shoes.

Kyle stopped in the process of wringing out his shirt, his gaze arrested. "Maybe you should take the jacket off?"

"No." Eva had routinely taken her clothes off for lingerie ads, but  there was no way she was going to take one stitch of clothing off in  front of Kyle. She suddenly noticed the flatness of her jacket pocket.  Her glasses were gone, which meant they were probably in the bottom of  the pool.

"They can stay there," Kyle said flatly. "You don't need them. You've got the eyesight of an eagle."

"How would you know what my eyesight's like?"

"Remember the archery contests?"

Dolphin Bay, two summers in a row, when she and Kyle would go head-to-head at the archery range. "You always won those."

"I'd been practicing for years. You came second."

The sudden warmth in his gaze made her feel flustered all over again.  She realized that the distance she had worked so hard to preserve, and  which she had been able to maintain quite well if she was angry, had  gone. Burned away in the moment she had realized that Kyle wanted her.

She walked to the edge of the pool and peered in. The glasses, with  their dark rims, were easily visible. "I need the glasses for work."

"Why? They're not prescription, just plain glass." His face cleared. "No, wait, don't answer, I think I can guess."

Over seeing Kyle's buff, ripped, hot torso, she tossed his towel at  him. A split second later the sharp tap of heels on tiles signaled  Jacinta's presence a moment before she rounded the corner into the pool  area.

Her eyes widened when she saw that Eva was soaked. "There you are, the  bride's father wants to give you a check-" She noticed Kyle. "Oops.  Sorry, did I interrupt something?"

"Nothing." Eva seized her chance to end the unsettling encounter and  the crazy, suffocating awareness that had crept up on her out of  nowhere. "Where is Mr. Hirsch?"

"In the lobby." Jacinta glanced at Kyle's washboard abs. "I told him you'd be right along."                       
       
           



       

But suddenly, Eva wasn't going anywhere. She took the one step needed  to place herself squarely in Jacinta's line of vision, so that she had  to stare at her, rather than at Kyle's bronzed, dripping skin. In the  moment that she moved, it struck her that she was behaving like a  jealous girlfriend. Kyle did not belong to her, and yet she was ready to  fight tooth and nail to fend Jacinta off. "I'm wet and my hair's  ruined. You need to go and collect the check."

Jacinta didn't move. "Did you fall in the pool?"

"We both fell," Eva said bluntly.

Jacinta made an odd little noise that sounded suspiciously like  amusement quickly muffled then spun on her heel and disappeared back  inside.

Kyle broke the tense little silence that developed in the wake of  Jacinta's departure by tossing his towel on a recliner and picking up  his soaked shirt. "At least you managed to sell the wedding on. I'm  guessing right about now, you're getting concerned about money."

She met Kyle's gaze head-on. "Without the backup of my trust fund, all money counts."

And that was the other reason she found this whole process of having to  qualify for her own inheritance so hurtful and undermining. All of the  bona fide Atraeus and Messena family members who were born to wealth  received vast amounts of money, and their right to do so wasn't  questioned. She understood what Mario was trying to achieve with the  marriage clause, but that didn't change the fact that the whole process  made her feel separated from the rest of the family, and different.

Stung anew by what she saw as further evidence that, despite adoption,  she had never quite fitted into the Atraeus family, Eva turned on her  heel, intending to make a beeline for her car, where she had a pair of  jeans, a T-shirt and sneakers stashed for the drive back to Auckland.

Kyle caught her arm, halting her. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have mentioned the money."

The tingling warmth of Kyle's palm, even through the barrier of damp  silk, sent a small, sharp shock through her. She jerked free. "I suppose  you think I'm a money-grubbing gold digger who doesn't deserve-"

"I don't think that." His gaze dropped to her mouth. "You deserve your inheritance."

Her chin jerked up. "Then why have you been doing your level best to deprive me of it?"

"Money isn't the issue," he muttered. "This is." Bending his head, Kyle kissed her.

Eva inhaled sharply at the warmth of his mouth, stunned by the brief  caress and the molten heat that exploded from that one point of contact.  When she didn't move, Kyle's palm curled around her nape. The next  minute she was pressed hard against the muscled heat of his body as his  mouth settled more heavily on hers.

The passion was searing and instant and this time, Eva wasn't content  to just be kissed. Palms flattened against the hard muscle of Kyle's  chest, and all too aware that she was making a disastrous mistake, she  lifted up on her toes and angled her head to increase the contact. His  taste exploded in her mouth and the furnace heat of his body warmed her,  so that she wanted to press closer still, to wallow in his heat and  strength.

And suddenly, it registered just how alone and isolated she had been.  Since her teenage fixation on Kyle, she had simply not allowed anyone  else close. She had sidestepped relationships and sex. She hadn't  thought she needed either, until now.

The strap of her bag slipped off her shoulder. She registered the thump  as it dropped onto the ground, and the sound of glass breaking and  dimly remembered the champagne flute. Her arms closed around Kyle's neck  as the kiss deepened, and suddenly the cling of her wet clothes seemed  sodden and restrictive, dragging against skin that was unbearably  sensitive. His hand cupped her breast through the layers of wet fabric.  Eva inhaled at the sharp beading of her nipple, but it was too late as  heat and sensation coiled unbearably tight and splintered.