A Solitary Heart Read Online Free Page A

me the honour of proposing marriage,
    I will accept or reject him strictly on the merits of our relationship,
    and believe me, you have a snowball's chance in hell of being able to
    influence my decision one way or the other! I have not enjoyed your
    company, you may leave at your soonest convenience, goodnight!'
    Oh, the awful nerve of the man; Matt grinned, swift and slightly
    incredulous, shedding his former demeanour of ennui. He looked so
    satirically entertained that Sian's temperature shot sky-high. Her
    vision dimmed and blurred, and, in one beautifully controlled
    expression of purest rage, she dumped her laden plate together with
    the wine down the front of his shirt.
    Someone gasped in the dead silence. Sian suspected that it might
    have come from her. She stared up into the sudden, deadly calm of
    his face and it was like looking down the twin barrels of a shotgun.
    With supreme and enviable poise Matt brought up a hand, and she
    flashed back to the scene by the tree when she'd thought he was
    going to slap her.
    His savage gaze held her prisoner. With one forefinger he hooked
    one dollop of creamy potato salad off his white shirt and brought it to
    his lips to suck it off.
    Shock sizzled down the raw nerve-endings of her every limb at the
    sheer sensuality of the act, while the worldly hazel eyes mocked and
    challenged and baited. He smiled, smoky and satanic; she tossed her
    luxuriant head in disdain and all but stamped her foot. A slight gust
    of wind lifted her hair and blew it across her face in a transparent
    midnight veil, through which could be seen the lovely shape and
    colour of her unwinking eyes.
    The moment of frozen tableau passed. Jane was suddenly present,
    interposing her small body between Matt and Sian while babbling
    about accidents and washing machines and detergents. The world
    moved and breathed and lived again, but Matt and Sian still stared at
    each other with the naked aggression of two boxing opponents,
    insulated in their own electrical current.
    This was war, and Sian no longer cared about the how or the why of
    it; she only knew that it sang a hot fusion to the juddering blood in
    her veins.

CHAPTER TWO
    SIAN had a quick word with Jane and left the party at around two
    o'clock to spend the night at a girlfriend's apartment, frankly running
    from the overwhelming events of the day. Late the next morning,
    which was as bright and promised to be as hot as the day of the party,
    she showered and dressed quickly in a pale rose bikini, over which
    she wore a matching pink vest top and a blue miniskirt, showing a
    good length of the long slim, perfectly muscled legs that Jane
    yearned for.
    Karen, a manager of a local restaurant that didn't close on Memorial
    Day, had already left for work. Sian wrote her a note of thanks for
    letting her sleep on the couch, then stuffed various toiletries into her
    hastily packed overnight bag.
    She didn't care if her running away from the party had been
    transparent; she had badly needed time to herself. She had pleaded
    tiredness as an excuse to escape Matt's tenacious presence. Just
    thinking about Joshua's older brother brought her blood to a low
    simmer.
    It had been no use telling herself that he'd had to hang around while
    his shirt tumbled through a wash, then the drying cycle. It had
    certainly been no use telling herself that she only had her own hot
    temper to blame. For whatever reason, he had been there, tall and
    tough and bare-chested, like a great wild tawny animal that had
    prowled into the house for a nap. Laughing at the things Jane had
    said. Talking quietly at some length to a fuming and subdued Joshua
    in one corner.
    That she had hated to witness. Joshua had acted as if Matt were his
    father or something—rebellious, resentful and still with the
    challenging bravado of the male adolescent, yet reined and under
    control by his older brother's tough, authoritative presence.
    Gone was the delightful young adult, the witty and articulate