“I don’t think so.” Kane mounted the stairs and stood only a few feet from Lee. His gray eyes glinted like steel, and though his voice was outwardly calm and solicitous, his clenched fists and hardened jaw reinforced his words. “Do you have a hearing problem?” he asked. “I told you to let her go!”

Reluctantly Lee stepped away from Erin and glowered menacingly at Kane. “Just who the hell do you think you are?” he snapped, while Erin crumpled in the doorway. The smell of a fight was in the air.

“I was just about to ask you that same question,” Kane’s calm, hard voice rejoined.

“I’m her husband!” Lee snarled, tossing a look of red-hot anger and rage toward Erin.

“Ex-husband,” Kane corrected. “And what sort of power does that title give you? The right to rough up the lady?”

“I wasn’t…”

Kane’s fury snapped and his eyes sparked disgusted fire. “Don’t bother with any of your explanations. Just get out before I throw you over this railing!” Kane’s voice had risen with his anger, and Erin saw Lee gulp and hesitate, casting a final threatening glance in her direction.

“I’d just like to see you try,” Lee warned back to Kane. A light of grim satisfaction warmed Kane’s face. Lee saw the reaction and slowly, carefully backed down the stairs.

“And just one more thing, Sinclair,” Kane cautioned with an evil smile. “If I ever so much as hear that you’ve been bothering Erin again, I won’t wait for you to show up. I’ll come looking for you!”

Lee hastened down the remainder of the stairs, the front door crashed closed, and for a few seconds there was silence. Only the feeling of electricity crackling in the air disturbed the tranquillity of the moment until the noise of a racing engine split the silence as it roared angrily down the hill. Erin sighed as she realized that Lee was finally gone.

“I can’t say much for your taste in husbands,” Kane commented dryly. The grim set of his jaw hadn’t relaxed.

“He’s not so bad,” Erin replied uneasily, as if convincing herself. “Not really, he’s just had a run of bad luck….”

“Bad luck?” Kane threw his hands over his head in exasperation. “That gives him the right to come in here and force himself on you?” He regarded her ruefully, since she looked so small and vulnerable this morning. “Erin, you are incredibly naive! What is it with you anyway?”

“What do you mean?” she asked, feeling herself start to bristle, partially because she knew that he was close to the truth.

“I mean, first, Mitchell Cameron—you defend him to the hilt when he’s an A-1 jackass—”

“Now, wait a minute,” Erin gasped.

“No, you wait a minute! And now your husband, pardon me, your unfortunate ex-husband who’s had ‘a run of bad luck,’ so he takes it out on you by almost…” His pause was effective, and Erin’s face flooded with color. “Erin, don’t you see? Sinclair’s a bastard, a loser. You should know that better than anyone. As far as I can see, so far you’ve had a pretty poor track record of picking male companions!”