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‘And you’re seriously suggesting that I’m safer with you?’ she exclaimed incredulously

‘I’ here, with me’

Neither of the his hands, he let her go He’d felt her body yielding when he’d held her, and, as he could have predicted, Lizzie wasn’t going anywhere Wound up like a spring, she had to have the fire of the y of the dance to stand any hope of releasing her tension

‘I think you take pleasure in torrily as she came back into his arms

‘You only think?’ he rin ‘I think you love dancing with me, so why pretend?’

She huffed and raised a brow

‘So with ue in cheek

‘While I would simply call it a risk to my toes’

‘We dance too well together for that,’ he said confidently

‘Stop it!’ she warned him in an undertone ‘Don’t you dare flirt with me’

‘Or?’ Pulling her close, he stared into her eyes, and then with every inch of them connected, body and mind, coaxed her back into the dance

‘Don’t you care that we’re being stared at?’ she asked him after a couple of circuits of the floor

‘I doubt anyone has any interest in us,’ he argued ‘And if they do,’ he added, in a whisper in her ear, ‘I don’t care’

Only a fewclose to a member of the Fane family would have been unthinkable for him, but Lizzie Fane was the only woman he wanted in his bed

When the music stopped, he was irritated to see Lizzie’s friend Danny waving ie of the dance floor ‘What does she want?’

‘You’ll have to excuse me—’

‘I will?’

They glared at each other for a moment and then he stood back

‘I’ll watch out for wolves,’ she said, flashing hilance

If she didn’t, he would

Denied Chico’s heat, the enclosing ware he presented every tiether, she felt his loss immediately, but the presentiment of trouble ahead worried her more as she hurried across to join Danny She had to shake this feeling off She was in danger of looking for trouble everywhere She was in the o wrong?

It didn’t matter where she was, Lizzie realised as sheShe felt like that fifteen-year-old girl again, sitting on the stairs listening to her parents fight, and Chico had triggered this uncertainty by re her of the past She still wasn’t sure exactly what part he’d played in the drama, and sometio, as leaning back against the bar and raising his glass to her, and ignored him as she walked on towards Danny By the look on Danny’s face, so

‘What is it? What’s happened?’ she pressed urgently

‘I got a call froed’

‘And?’ The expression in Danny’s eyes was alar her now

‘It was Annie calling me—she needed to speak to you, but your phone was off’

Not just off, ignored while she was in Chico’s bedroom

‘She asked me to be there for you’

‘Annie did? Why?’

‘I think your grandmother’s taken a turn for the worse’

‘Oh, Danny’ Everything seeback to Scotland as fast as she could

‘There’s so else, Lizzie’

‘So else? What else could there be? Just tell , Lizzie realised