A Passionate Protector

By Maggie Cox

Charming, wealthy and smolderingly attractive,Kyle Hytner could have an international playboylifestyle—and any woman he wanted. So why hadhe fixed all his attention on Megan Brand?
Megan was rebuilding her life, step-by-step. But thefrighteningly intense passion she shared with Kyle wasmore like a giant leap! And she wasn't sure she had thecourage to take it…Kyle needed this beautiful woman by his side and inhis bed. He would set her free from the past.But first he had to persuade Megan thather future lay with him!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Aug 1, 2010
• ISBN: 9781426873041

Maggie Cox

The day Maggie Cox saw the film version of Wuthering Heights, was the day she became hooked on romance. From that day onwards she spent a lot of time dreaming up her own romances,hoping that one day she might become published. Now that her dream is being realised, she wakes up every morning and counts her blessings. She is married to a gorgeous man, and is the mother of two wonderful sons. Her other passions in life – besides her family and reading/writing – are music and films.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

SITTING on a wrought-iron bench in Hyde Park, Megan Brand was uninterestedly nibbling at a cheese and ham sandwich when it started to rain. At first she couldn’t be bothered moving. It was almost surreal to stay put as the rain gathered strength, streaming in rivulets down her hair and face, drenching her thoroughly as people scurried to and fro before her eyes. Opening umbrellas, pulling coats up over their heads, suddenly directionless, they were like lots of little mice scuttling round a cage, desperately doing their utmost to avoid getting wet.

At some point, almost as if coming out of a trance, Megan decided that being cold and wet and soaked right through to the skin didn’t have a lot to commend it and, shivering, she got up and resigned herself to heading home. So much for her grand plan to while away the rest of the afternoon just sitting. Breaking up her sandwich, she threw the remainder to the little grey squirrels that had been keeping her company while she ate. She looped her damp ebony hair behind her ears and strode as purposefully as her limp would allow off towards the park exit and home.

As she turned into the Bayswater Road her eyes scanned the array of art displayed against the railings, a ritual that had taken place every Sunday for as long as she remembered, with artists of every ilk, nationality and diversity displaying their wares to the interested public. As she stopped to stare at an oddly appealing seascape that somehow tugged at her heart, a strong resurgence of need and longing rose up inside her.

Ten years ago Megan had secured a place at one of London’s top art colleges. Her whole future had lain before her: an unknown, exciting, soon-to-be experienced realm of limitless possibilities… But that had been before she’d run into Nick. Confident, good-looking, and a charmer to boot, he had had no hesitation in applying some of his ruthless ambition in pursuit of the shy art student who’d never been the object of such persistence until Nick Brand clapped eyes on her. Eventually she’d been worn down by his relentless tactics. He’d charmed Megan into his bed, then marriage, and finally—his pièce de resistance—into surrendering her precious place at college.

‘Time you got into the real world, my love,’ he’d said confidently, secure in the knowledge that his malleable little wife knew better than to argue.

It hadn’t been easy, relinquishing her dream, but in those days she had operated on the belief that loving someone ultimately meant making sacrifices. Compromising your own needs to keep your partner happy. Funny, though, how it had been her that had done all the compromising. Nick hadn’t sacrificed anything that you could honestly notice. He’d still acted as though he was a free agent even after they’d married. What a twenty-four-carat fool Megan had been.

Her breath escaped in a little cloud of steam as she hovered in front of a seascape, her presence alerting the young woman with the silver star-shaped nose-stud who was running the display. The girl turned away from adjusting the tarpaulin she’d been trying to fix in place to protect her work and placed her hand confidingly on Megan’s arm.

‘I did that down in Cornwall last winter,’ she explained, gesturing towards the scene. ‘A place called Rock. Smashing surf, if you like surfing.’

Megan felt the heat rise in her cheeks, immediately ill at ease with the unexpected attention. She felt like the proverbial drowned rat, painfully aware that her hair must look like rats’ tails while her inadequate skirt and jacket were plastered to her body as if she’d just crawled out of a river.

‘How much is it?’

She’d already decided she wanted to buy the picture. She’d put it in her room at Penny’s flat and maybe think about visiting that place at the end of the summer. Rock—it sounded romantic. As far as Megan was concerned, the coast—any coast—was always best visited out of season. There was a kind of magic about it then, when all the tourists had finally gone and the beaches were more or less bare.

The girl named a figure that was about what she had expected to pay. She slipped her bag off her shoulder and reached in for her chequebook.

‘A present for someone, is it?’ the girl asked cheerfully.

‘For me.’ Megan smiled briefly back and refused to feel guilty that for once in her life she was spending her money on herself.

Penny Hallet stirred the pasta again, gesturing towards the postcard she’d left on the kitchen worktop with the long wooden spoon she’d been using to stir. ‘I really think you should give him a ring. It could be just what you need.’

Picking up the plain white postcard to examine it, Megan cautiously turned it over to read the advertisement printed on the back.

‘Where did you get this?’

Penny’s blue eyes were mutinous. ‘I borrowed it from Mrs Kureshi’s noticeboard at the newsagents. I didn’t have a pen, so what’s a girl supposed to do?’

Glancing up, Megan pinned her friend with a slightly disapproving gaze. ‘You mean you stole it. How is the person who put it there supposed to get any business if you come along and steal his postcard?’

Penny’s face was a picture. ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Megan! Don’t you ever break the rules?’ Rolling her eyes heaven-wards, she shook her head and shrugged. ‘Never mind. Don’t answer that question. I already know what the answer is.’

‘Hmm, no name.’ Megan’s attention was back on the postcard. ‘Just initials. KH. Could be a woman.’

‘Could be.’ Penny sucked in her cheeks and blew them out again. ‘But my money’s on a man. Anyway, male or female, what does it matter as long as they know their stuff?’

‘But going back to painting—it’s been so long… And this—Let painting open the way to healing and inner peace—what do you think it means?’

‘Why don’t you just give the number a ring and find out some more? What harm could it do? If you want things to change you’ve got to start helping yourself. This could be a good thing for you, Meg, I’m sure of it. You need some pleasure in your life again and I know you’d love to get back into some painting. Besides…’ Penny caught the doubt flitting across Megan’s face and decided to push her advantage home. ‘You hate that tedious job at the bank, working for Misery Guts, and all you do after dinner each night is go to bed with a book. I know sixty-year-olds who have more fun! Right now you’re twenty-eight going on ninety!’

‘I’m handling things in my own way Pen.’ Megan’s softly mobile mouth thinned with anxiety.

‘Cobblers!’ Penny thwacked the wooden spoon on the side of the stainless steel pan that contained the pasta, emotion straining her temper. ‘I know you. I don’t want to hear excuses. I’ve been hearing excuses for the last six months as to why you can’t do something! Hard as it is for you to hear, sweetheart, your ex-husband’s quite happy with What’s-her-face, damn him, while you’re still walking around like an extra on Return of the Living Dead! I’m not trying to be mean to you, Meg, but you’ve got to realise what you’re doing to yourself. Don’t write off everything as useless or pointless. Just give things a chance.’

Megan glanced down at the postcard in her hand, staring at the large bold print through eyes that were suddenly stinging with tears. How the hell was she supposed to make such a momentous decision when it was all she could do to decide what to have for breakfast each morning? Pain of one kind or another had dogged her for so long it was hard to see her way clearly. Even harder was finding the energy to take action. She’d racked her brains to find something, some way she could help the healing process, but instead felt as if she was running into brick walls ten feet high.

Well… Perhaps this would be different? Perhaps the mysterious ‘KH’ and his painting class really did have the answer to all her woes? Yeah. And world peace would suddenly descend on the planet tomorrow—some time around lunch. She sniffed, rubbing at her eyes with the too-long sleeve of her knitted burgundy sweater. Stop clutching at straws Megan… It’s a waste of energy you don’t have.

Crossing the black and white tiled floor to the stainless steel pedal bin on the other side of Penny’s immaculate modern kitchen, she put her foot down hard on the pedal. She was about to drop the postcard inside, and almost jumped out of her skin when Penny snatched it from her fingers and tucked it safely into the vee of her powder-blue designer shirt.

‘No, you don’t! It’s my postcard. I pinched it from Mrs Kureshi’s and I’ll decide when or if I want to get rid of it!’

‘All right, keep your hair on.’ Biting back a helpless grin, Megan watched her elegantly tall friend stalk mutinously back to the cooker. To some, she might look like an aloof catwalk model, in her designer label clothes and her hand-made Italian shoes, but to Megan she was the salt of the earth. And they didn’t come much saltier than Penny Hallet when the mood was upon her.

‘And if you won’t ring the blasted number, Megan Brand—then I will!’ said the blonde, returning to her stirring of the now bubbling pasta with a vengeance…

Taking her finger off the bell, Megan was immediately consumed by an overpowering urge to turn and run. Not that she could physically run anywhere these days, after what had happened, but still the desire was there. She just prayed this ‘KH’, whoever he was—Penny had more or less convinced her the initials belonged to a male—was not some crank. At least her friend had the address and telephone number should anything go amiss.

Her heart fluttered a little as she heard the distinct tread of footsteps behind the big black door with the gilded knocker, and she knew with a deepening sense of dread that it was too late to flee anywhere. Instead she took a step back, glancing up the smart little street in a quiet corner of Notting Hill, with its well-tended window-boxes, as if to reassure herself. She told herself the mysterious ‘KH’ couldn’t be a crank because only people with money could afford to live in this area these days. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t be a wealthy crank, did it?

A frown was creasing her brow as the door swung open, and her unprepared glance collided with the most piercing hazel eyes flecked with gold that she’d ever seen in her life. Astonishingly intense, indisputably sexual, they were the kind of eyes that made a woman sharply, even forcibly aware of the essential basic differences between a man and a woman.

Like a laser beam that could sear through solid metal, that hot glance went straight to the core of Megan’s femininity, shocking her with the power of its intimacy. Such a toe-curling glance simply left her with nowhere to go. Which wasn’t a bad summation when her feet felt as if they were stuck to the concrete she was standing on.

Her ‘Hello there’ was slightly breathless—the rapid acceleration of her heartbeat had made her feel suddenly giddy.

‘I’m Megan Brand. I believe we have an appointment? If you’re KH that is? You didn’t put your full name on the postcard.’

To her consternation, he merely smiled enigmatically, placed his hands on either side of lean, tight hips, then stepped back into the shadowy recess to let her enter. ‘Come in. I’ve been waiting for you.’

The unexpectedly husky timbre of his voice was like being sensually massaged all over with warm scented oil. Megan tingled with unexpected pleasure. It wasn’t just the suggestion of sex in his voice either. The man’s appearance rocked her to her toes as well. He was lean, dark and downright dangerous-looking. With his tousled chestnut hair, un-shaven chiselled jaw and long angular cheekbones to die for, just looking at him seemed to flout all the rules of convention—because Megan’s reaction to him was anything but impersonal. Everything about the man seemed to suggest dimensions of possibility and excitement that a woman could only dream about.

Anxiety locked her throat. ‘I’m sorry I’m late but I had a little trouble finding you.’ Liar. You mean you had a little trouble plucking up the courage to come.

‘Don’t worry about it. You’re here now and that’s all that matters.’

‘You are the person who’s doing the art tuition?’ she checked, because just now she barely trusted herself to get anything right.

‘Call me Kyle.’ He raked a hand through his already mussed hair, a brief flash of amusement lurking in the mesmerising golden depths of his eyes. ‘Now the introductions are over, why don’t you come inside?’

‘Right.’ Megan fingered a button on her jacket, pressed her brown leather tote bag reassuringly to her chest and forced a shaky smile.

‘Some time today would be good,’ Kyle drawled lazily, holding the door wider.

Her face suffused with heat. She willed herself to make a move. As soon as she did her senses were assailed by the strongly hypnotic scents of sandalwood and patchouli incense. She was instantly transported. The aroma wove its mystery around her, adding to the illusion of somehow stepping into another world. A world of intriguing unknowables, none more intriguing then the man who was currently leading her casually through the portals of the smart terraced house, his long leather-clad legs striding ahead with a compellingly masculine grace that sent a little shiver of exquisite anticipation darting up her spine.

After the contrasting dimness of the hallway, Kyle’s living room was an unexpected surprise of light and colour, with patio doors opened wide onto a long deeply verdant garden that, once glimpsed, had Megan longing to explore it. He couldn’t be all bad if he loved gardens, she thought wistfully. One day—when she got herself together again, when and if she got her share of the house value from Nick—she’d have a place of her own with a garden, even if it was only the size of a postage stamp.

‘Why don’t you sit down?’

‘Oh. Yes. Of course.’ Unbuttoning her cream linen jacket with fingers that shook a little, she lowered herself carefully down onto a large couch draped with an eye-catching terracotta and yellow Moroccan-style throw. The muscle in her thigh was throbbing like a sore tooth with the effort of trying to accommodate her physical discomfort, and she felt awkward and ungainly in front of this disturbing dark Adonis, ill equipped to field her vulnerability the way she needed to. Kyle, meanwhile, had dragged a huge yellow beanbag across the floor, dropping down into it opposite Megan with ease. He positioned himself just bare inches from her sandalled feet, causing her heart to take a slow elevator ride to her stomach when she realised he had no intention of widening the distance between them any time soon.

‘So.’ The piercing hazel gaze examined her features closely, hovering for a disconcerting length of time on her mouth before returning at leisure to her startled brown eyes. ‘What sort of a day have you had so far?’

The question, so casually asked, put her in a spin.

‘What sort of a day have I had?’

‘It wasn’t meant to be a difficult question.’ Humour surfaced, making his eyes glint more like gold than ever.

In need of rescuing, Megan let her gaze gravitate longingly to the lush beautiful garden that beckoned through the patio doors. ‘Well, I’ve been to work, come home, prepared some tea and got ready to come to my appointment. I don’t know what else to tell you.’

‘How was your day at work? Did you enjoy it? Did it give you satisfaction?’

‘It’s just a job.’ Flustered, Megan tried hard to concentrate. ‘I don’t know what you want, what you expect me to—’

‘What I want or expect is neither here nor there.’ Kyle honed in on her discomfort with the relentless precision of a crack marksman lining up his target. ‘What I need from you is for you to be honest with yourself. I’m not expecting you to furnish me with answers you think I might be looking for. So I’ll ask you again, Megan. What sort of day have you had?’

Megan squirmed. There was obviously going to be no easy way out of her little interview with Kyle. No quick exit route. He had her trapped as surely as if she were a paper butterfly beneath a net. He wanted honest. Okay, she’d give it her best shot. Work was a blur. All she’d done for most of the day was stare at a computer screen. Most of the time she’d been