Page 120 of Her Reluctant Hero
She couldn’t control the flush that crept across her skin. “They’re—not mine. I didn’t have anything suitable to wear under the wetsuit, so I borrowed them.”
Jonathan reached down, twirled the string of the trunks around once. “They’re a bit big.”
She forced a laugh and stepped away, trying to remember the last time she’d felt uncomfortable around Jonathan. “Yeah, well, you should see the wetsuit.”
He studied her before he lifted a finger to her upper lip. “You have blood there.”
She raised the back of her hand to her nose self-consciously, found flakes of dried blood. “It’s stopped now. It’s all right.”
“What do you mean?” Concern creased his brow, and he tilted her chin back.
“When I dive, I get nosebleeds. It’s no big deal.”
She had to wonder why it was so easy for him to touch her and so hard for her to touch him. And not just in front of Adrian. Being near Adrian, who was so physically demonstrative, who she had to stop herself from leaning into, reminded her how she didn’t do that with Jonathan. The problem wasn’t that she was uneasy with him. Maybe she was just keeping her hands to herself because she knew she wouldn’t have a physical relationship with him till she was divorced from Adrian. She didn’t want to give him the wrong idea.
Now she could.
With some effort, she slid her hand down his arm, twined her fingers with his. She didn’t miss the surprise in his eyes and suppressed a niggle of guilt that maybe she was covering up the emotions that had been roused when she was with Adrian on the barge.
Footsteps vibrated on the dock behind her and that damn Scottish burr followed. “Aren’t you going to introduce me?”
Resisting the urge to jump back from Jonathan, she tightened her fingers on Jonathan’s hand as if he could ground her, but he pulled away to shake Adrian’s hand, leaving her to watch the two men measure each other. “Adrian Reeves, Jonathan Montcroft.”
She expected Adrian to be a jerk, but he was his charming, hand-pumping, give-me-the-funding-I-need self. Jonathan, on the other hand, was reserved. She sensed the tension running through his body. As hard as this was for her, it must be harder for him.
“I’ve heard a lot about you, Johnny. Probably not nearly as much as you’ve heard about me.” Adrian clapped her fiancé on the back and turned him toward camp. His burr was thicker than usual. Yep, charming mode. “Can we get you something to eat? I’m starving, myself. Diving does it to me every time.”
“What is it?” Jonathan motioned out past the boat.
Adrian’s eyes crinkled and he tilted his head. She’d never realized Adrian was so much taller than Jonathan. “A ship. An amazing site. Mal is fortunate to get some time on it.”
“Well, her time’s up.” Jonathan forced a smile. “I’ve come to take her home. We have a wedding in a few weeks.”
“Yeah, sure, I know. You’ve come to take her, you say?” Adrian looked from Jonathan to Mallory and she knew what he was thinking. She would never have let Adrian get away with that possessiveness.
“We have a flight tonight at nine.”
“I can’t fly tonight,” Mallory blurted. “I just dived. I can’t fly for twenty-four hours.”
“What?” Jonathan’s tone was sharper than she could ever recall him using.
Adrian countered, inclining his head indulgently. “Well, you see, when you dive, nitrogen—”
“Yes, yes, I know,” Jonathan interrupted in a manner that had Adrian looking at her curiously. She shook her head and gave a small shrug. “Well, all right. I’ll change the tickets to tomorrow night. Mallory, if you get your things and return your clothes to whoever you borrowed them from, I’m sure we can get a room in a hotel in the city.”
“Um.” She cast a look at Adrian, feeling out of control—that roller-coaster thing again. She didn’t want to be rushed off, swept away. She needed some closure here, not with Adrian necessarily, but with archaeology. “We could stay here. We could take you out on the boat and you could see the ship with the VideoRay.”
Both men turned to her, eyes wide, jaws dropped in identical expressions.
Creepy, really.
Then she realized what she’d said. She was forcing the three of them into at least eighteen hours of togetherness.
They both started talking at once.
“We can’t—”
“Mal, I didn’t really want—”
