Read Online Partners by Contract by Kim Lawrence - Free Book Online Page B

last thing she needed was for Will to decide he wanted Connor back. She was still committed to another couple of weeks at Hayfield.
    ‘I don’t think you should compromise your recovery...’ She forced herself to smile. ‘We’ll cope.’
    The fractional shift of Connor’s powerful shoulders conceded her point. ‘We should talk about it.’
    ‘Over dinner,’ Will added on cue. ‘At the Royal Pheasant,’ he elaborated with his most cajolingly helpless look.
    Phoebe’s suspicion sharpened into outright distrust. The whole conversation had taken on a distinctly unspontaneous quality. She might only have been in the area a few weeks, but she knew the Pheasant wasn’t the sort of hotel you could just walk into and demand a table on the off-chance. Its reputation meant you needed to book in advance.
    ‘I’ve a prior engagement,’ she responded warily. She didn’t know what they were up to but she had a gut feeling that delving any deeper into this conspiracy wasn’t a good idea.
    ‘That’s a pity,’ Will moaned. ‘After Con put Ellen off, too...’
    ‘Anyone we know?’ Connor asked, shooting his partner a silencing look before casually manoeuvring himself into a position that coincidentally cut off her access to the door.
    Phoebe, unaccountably warm, began to fiddle nervously with the loose neck of her top, pleating the fabric between her finger and thumb.
    ‘Connor!’ Will remonstrated, shooting Phoebe an apologetic look. ‘The girl is allowed a private life.’
    ‘Private life nothing,’ Con responded scornfully.
    Phoebe’s generous lips thinned into a mutinous line. She was perfectly aware that if his scornful dismissal of her personal life hadn’t been so accurate it wouldn’t have rankled so much.
    ‘I do happen to have one.’ The blue eyes swivelled in her direction and her pulse rate started acting up again. ‘A p-private life, that is,’ she persisted stubbornly.
    ‘Lucky you,’ Con drawled, his eyes not leaving hers. ‘She’s also not stupid, Will, and you, old mate, are not the world’s most subtle negotiator.’
    ‘Thanks for that, Con,’ Phoebe responded indignantly. ‘I have to tell you “quite bright” might have earned you more brownie points than “not stupid”.’
    Connor’s thickly lashed eyes levelled on her indignantly flushed face. ‘Your intelligence has never been in doubt, Phoebe.’ Pity the same couldn’t be said for his own!
    ‘Just my professional integrity!’ she accused belligerently.
    ‘That’s not so, Phoebe!’ Will exclaimed, frustrated that, instead of backing him up, his friend had adopted an inexplicably confrontational attitude. ‘Why, he’s right behind me with this offer...’
    Phoebe’s head came up with a snap. ‘He is?’
    Like a person drowning, her horrified eyes sought and found Connor’s. A shiver chased over her clammy skin as she fell headlong into those blue, blue eyes. She heard Will’s voice as if it were coming from a distance.
    ‘Of course he is!’
    ‘Is that true, Con?’ she croaked.
    Connor didn’t reply. What was he supposed to say? I’d say and do anything to stop you slipping away? How didyou tell someone who thought you looked at them and saw your dead wife that actually the reverse was true. You’d seen her—or had wanted to—everytime you’d looked at your wife, and it had been like that almost from the beginning, although he’d actually refused to acknowledge his mistake until much later.
    ‘I couldn’t talk partnerships without Connor’s agreement.’ Will pointed out the obvious. ‘At least listen to what we have to say, Phoebe,’ he pleaded. ‘They do the very best crème brûlée in the world at the Pheasant. Please.’
    ‘What about Alan?’
    Partnership! This made less sense by the second. Connor knew that such a thing was out of the question! A surge of resentful anger brought a burnished blaze to her golden eyes as she brought her lashes down in a concealing veil. Why was he placing her