by Liz Fielding
‘That’s better. But I’m afraid your clothes are being washed. Perhaps you can have them tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow! But I have a plane to catch—’
‘Had a plane to catch. I contacted the airport and cancelled your booking.’
‘You did what?’ she exclaimed, ignoring the sharp reminder that scythed through her head that anything much above a whisper was inadvisable. ‘You had no right to do that!’ No right to go through her handbag. Look at her personal things.
‘Since you were in no position to use it, and since it’s an open ticket, I thought you might be grateful to have the opportunity to re-book. I suppose I should have known better.’
‘I’m fine!’ she declared, with a careless disregard for the truth. ‘You can keep your washing. I’m leaving.’ She rose a little shakily, hitching-the sheet up and taking a step in the direction of the door only to find him barring her way. ‘Right now,’ she said.
He immediately stood back and offered her the door. ‘As you please. I moved your car into the garage.’
Along with her suitcase with all her clothes. She would have liked to march out, chin high, but the wretched sheet made that impossible. She was all too aware of a mocking little smile twisting his mouth as she edged sideways and backed towards the door. He made no move to stop her but watched her attempt at a dignified departure with scarcely veiled amusement, and suddenly she knew it couldn’t be that easy. She halted uncertainly.
‘But?’ she demanded.
‘But,’ he agreed, his green pirate eyes glinting wickedly. ‘Alas, the keys are not with it. But maybe you’re a dab hand with a hot wire? In your job I imagine it would come in useful.’
‘Of course not!’
‘No? What a pity. Perhaps you should learn. Then again, you would still have the problem of clothes. Because I removed your bag, too. For safe-keeping. Or maybe you don’t mind arriving at a hotel wearing nothing but that rather ineffectual attempt at a sarong.’
She clutched the sheet a little tighter, unwilling to risk dropping it from stiff fingers if she tried to wrap it around her more thoroughly.
‘And since time seems to have passed rather more rapidly than you imagine, I have to inform you that the plane you are so eager to catch left several hours ago.’
Sophie stared at him, then turned to the windows and the light filtering through the shutters. ‘How long have I been here?’ she demanded. ‘What time is it?’ She dropped a glance to her wrist. ‘Is my watch in the laundry too?’ Not waiting for his answer, no longer caring about modesty–after all, he’d already seen a great deal more than her backside–she swept across the room and threw open one of the shutters to admit a whisper of light and stared out. The sea was flat calm, a pale milky blue under a thin veil of mist that curtained the sun. An early-morning sun.
‘I’ve been here all night?’ But it wasn’t really a question. The slightly unnerving answer was confronting her.
‘All night, Sophie Nash,’ he affirmed. ‘Wouldn’t that have made an exciting caption for your photographs? “My night with Chay Buchanan,”’ he offered, with just enough conviction to bring the colour flooding to her pale complexion.
‘Don’t be ridiculous. I didn’t spend the night with you,’ she said, but her mouth was dry and she steadfastly refused to give in to the temptation to turn and check the other pillow for evidence that the bed had been occupied by two.
‘You did, but it’s all a matter of intepretation, isn’t it? And the doctor insisted that someone must keep an eye on you.’
Her eyes flew wide open and this time she could not help herself. But the swift involuntary glance at the huge bed told her nothing. ‘An eye on me?’ she asked huskily.
‘In case of concussion.’ His long fingers combed back the tangle of sun-bleached curls from her forehead and he lightly touched the dark shadow of a bruise. ‘You took quite a knock, Sophie Nash.’
She winced, raised her own hand to the spot and felt the slight swelling. She drew a long shuddering breath, whether from the pain or the cool touch of his fingers she could not have told–perhaps didn’t want to know. But she did know that it wasn’t possible for her to stay a moment longer in Chay Buchanan’s tower. She drew herself up to her full height, and five feet and six inches in her bare feet had never felt quite so insubstantial. ‘Then I really mustn’t put you to any more trouble, Mr Buchanan,’ she said with all the dignitiy she could muster, wrapped inadequately as she was in nothing but a sheet. ‘I should like to go now.’
‘That isn’t possible. Even if I were prepared to let you go, you’re in no fit state to travel. But if you do as you’re told and get back into bed I’ll go and fetch some of the painkillers the doctor left.’
Doctor? It was the second time he had mentioned a doctor, but she didn’t remember one. She must have taken a much harder crack on the head than she had thought. But right now that didn’t matter. There was something far more important to get straight. ‘What do you mean?’ She dug her toes into the rug as he took her arm, resisting his firm urging towards the bed. ‘If you were prepared to let me go…? You can’t keep me here against my will. That’s…’ Her mouth dried. ‘That’s kidnapping.’
‘Is it?’ Heavy lids drooped slightly, concealing the expression in his eyes. ‘Would you like me to ask the local constabulary to despatch an officer to listen to your complaint?’ he offered, with every evidence of civility. But there was a muscle working dangerously at the corner of his mouth.
‘Yes!’ she flung defiantly, daring him to do just that.
He nodded. ‘If you’ll excuse me.’ He gestured vaguely and walked to the door.
‘But…’ She took an uncertain step after him. ‘You’re really going to do it?’
‘Of course. Kidnapping is a very serious charge,’ he said crisply. ‘You should press it home with all the force at your command.’
‘I will,’ she declared. Then her challenge faltered under his unwavering gaze. ‘Why do I feel another “but” coming on?’
‘Could it be that common sense has suggested that you were about to make a fool of yourself?’
‘Why should it do that?’ she demanded.
‘Just think about it for a moment,’ he instructed her. ‘Think about the fact that I rescued you from a very dangerous situation. That I—’
‘I could have managed!’
He didn’t even bother to comment on the absurdity of that remark, but continued as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘That I brought you to my home, bathed your wounds-’
‘And a great deal else.’ She flushed as his mouth curved in a provoking little smile. Stupid. Stupid to have mentioned that. Why couldn’t she have forgotten that?
‘I bathed your wounds,’ he repeated, ‘before I put you into my own bed and sent for a doctor, who advised several days of rest.’ He paused. ‘It doesn’t sound much like kidnapping to me. But—’ and he shrugged ‘–if you think the police will be interested I’ll get them right now.’ He waited for her response—imperious, tyrannical, scornful and infuriatingly right.
She didn’t need to have it spelled out for her in words of one syllable. He would make himself sound like a hero with her playing the role of an ungrateful idiot. If he threw in the fact that she had been trespassing–she didn’t think he would worry too much about the finer details of truth–he would probably be beatified. Given his own feast-day. With fireworks. Damn! ‘Forget the police,’ she muttered. ‘But I don’t want to rest. I just want to leave.’
‘If you think that having you as a house-guest is an undiluted pleasure, Miss Nash, I have to tell you that you’re mistaken. I value my privacy and you’ll go the minute it’s possible. We’ll discuss terms after breakfast.’ He turned abruptly to leave. ‘I recommend a lightly boiled egg.’
‘A boiled egg? I thought bread and water was the traditional prisoner’s fare,’ she threw after him.
His eyes darkened. Sea-green? Maybe. But what sea? The Arctic Ocean in mid-winter, perhaps? ‘If
that’s what you want…’ He snapped the door shut behind him.
‘Wait!’ But she was already talking to herself. Then in a sudden quiver of panic she ran across the room, and ignoring her painful hands almost tore at the door. But it wasn’t locked. For a moment she stood there, in the-open doorway, wondering whether to make a run for it down the thickly carpeted stairway. She glanced down at herself. He wasn’t that careless. He didn’t need a lock to keep her confined. How far would she get in a sheet, without any shoes? Without any money. She retreated into the bedroom and closed the door.
Think, Sophie, she urged herself. You need a plan. Forget the plan, she answered herself a little caustically. What you need first are some clothes. Her glance fell on the chest of drawers and, for the first time since she woke, her mouth curved in the semblance of a smile.
She gripped the brass handle of one of the drawers and pulled, biting back a cry as pain shot through her shoulder where Chay Buchanan had hauled her over the edge of the cliff. She gave up all attempts to cling on to the sheet as she eased it, recalling with a tiny spurt of anger the huge bruise that decorated her back. Monster! He hadn’t needed to drag her up like that. She could have managed. Oh, really? Yes, really, she told the irritating little voice inside her head. Of course she could. But the recollection of that sickening lurch as she had missed her foothold and started to slip made her flesh rise in goose-bumps, and she shivered despite the warmth stealing in through the window as the early morning mist was burned off the sea. She had to get out of here.
She regarded the chest with loathing, but to escape she needed something to wear. This time she grasped both handles and the drawer slid open to reveal piles of beautifully ironed shirts. And this time she really smiled, with an almost irresistible curve of her lips.
She helped herself to a pale blue cotton shirt, easing her painful shoulder up to slide into the sleeve. The shirt was too big, hanging almost to her knees, but that was good. At a pinch, with a belt, she could wear it as a dress. She tried to fasten the buttons, but her fingers were stiff and painful, slowing her down, and she gave up after a couple.
She rifled through the remainder of the drawers, ignoring the ties but helping herself to a pair of thick white socks that would cushion her feet against stone. Pants? She regarded Chay Buchanan’s taste for plain white American boxer shorts with dismay. They would never stay up. What she really needed was a pair of jeans and a belt. Her fingers grasped the handles of the bottom drawer as she heard his voice speaking to someone on the stairs.
She flew across the room to the bed, and as the door opened she was demure beneath the sheet. He backed in with a tray and there was just the slightest hesitation, as he regarded the shirt that now covered her anatomy, before he placed it on the table beside the bed.
‘Feeling a little better?’ he asked.
‘Well enough to leave,’ she replied brightly, ignoring heavy, painful limbs and the overwhelming sense of weariness that her exertions had produced.
‘I think that is a decision for the doctor to make.’
‘Doctor?’
‘He’ll call in to see you later.’ He regarded her thoughtfully as hope betrayed itself in her eyes. ‘He’s a friend, Sophie, so don’t bother to bat those long eyelashes at him. He won’t be impressed.’
‘I’ve never batted an eyelash in my life!’
‘No?’ He sat on the edge of the bed and regarded her impassively. ‘I must have mistaken the signals. I had the distinct impression that you were batting like mad yesterday morning when you asked me to sit for you.’
‘That’s not true!’ she protested. She just hadn’t been prepared for the instant response of her body to the perilous masculinity of the man, the unexpected pull of dangerous undercurrents tugging her towards something new and exciting and wonderful. She swallowed. He had seen it. Was that why his rejection had hurt so much? Because he had quite wrongly assumed that she was offering herself as a reward for his co-operation and had still said no?
He sat beside her on the bed and handed her a cup of tea, holding her clumsy fingers around it with his own. And it was still there. The urgent fire surging through her veins as he touched her. She felt the sudden start of tears to her eyes. It wasn’t fair.
‘Come on, Sophie, drink this,’ he said. ‘It’ll make you feel better.’
‘I doubt it,’ she sniffed. It wasn’t a cup of tea she needed. Her face, her whole body grew hot as she privately acknowledged that what she needed was Chay Buchanan. To be held in his arms, to… Oh, lord! She had always imagined herself feeling this kind of bewildering desire for a man she had fallen deeply, wonderfully in love with.
She buried her face in the cup. She hardly knew this man. And what she knew of him she didn’t like. It was lust, far from pure, and shockingly simple. What she should be doing was standing under a cold shower, not lying in his bed with his warm thigh pressed against hers, separated only by the single thickness of a sheet, his hands wrapped close around hers. Why couldn’t the wretched man wear a pair of trousers instead of those tailored shorts that blatantly offered his well-muscled thighs and beautifully shaped calves to her hungry eyes?
She gulped down the tea and he took the cup from her. ‘Can you eat something?’
‘Bread?’ she asked, making an effort to keep the exchange hostile, but suddenly too weak to care much.
‘The bread, and water will keep,’ he replied a little sharply. ‘Try some toast.’ She shook her head. Then wished she hadn’t. ‘All right. Just take these and lie down.’
She stared suspiciously at the white tablets. ‘What are they?’
‘Paul left them.’
‘Your friendly doctor?’ She withdrew slightly.
‘For heaven’s sake! Do you think I’m trying to drug you? He’s a respected consultant with a wife and considerable quantity of children. These are just something for your headache.’ He glared at her. ‘You have got a headache, I hope?’
Of course she had a headache. She took the pills, swallowed them with the aid of a glass of water that he held for her as if she was an invalid. Then, as the door closed behind him, she gave up the struggle to maintain the façade of defiance, and slid down between the sheets and tried to work out just what kind of a mess Nigel’s ‘little favour’ had got her into.
She hadn’t much relished the task and had left it until the last day…perhaps hoping that he wouldn’t be there. Nigel could hardly blame her for that.
But finally she had driven out along the coast road until she had seen the tower, just as Nigel had described it, four-square and massive, one of the many that had been built on the island to keep watch against pirates. A few in the more built-up areas had been turned into restaurants for the tourist trade. Most were abandoned. This one was surrounded by a garden.
Flowers tumbled from beds raised from the rocky ground and clambered over the walls, making the tower look more like some lost fairy-tale keep. With the impressive golden cliffs at its flanks, and the sea beyond, it had quite taken her breath away.
Close up, the tower had seemed rather more forbidding, despite the softening effect of the flowers, its entrance barricaded by a pair of heavy studded doors. But she had pinned a smile to her lips and lifted the traditional dolphin-shaped knocker.
For a long time nothing had happened. She had been trying to pluck up the courage to knock again when the door had swung open, and the figure that had filled the doorway took Sophie’s breath away for the second time in less than five minutes as every cell in her body had swivelled in his direction and jumped to attention.
She had seen photographs of the man, seen him on the television, but nothing had prepared her for his overwhelming physical presence, a compelling masculinity that drew her to him like iron filings to a magnet.
‘Yes?’ His curt manner released her, her quick step back observed by a pair of knowing eyes that after the most cursory inspection seemed to know more about her than she did herself.
It took every shr
ed of self-possession to keep the smile fixed to her mouth and offer her hand. ‘Mr Buchanan? Mr Chay Buchanan?’ He ignored her hand, and a little self-consciously she pushed back a strand of hair that had fallen over her cheek before letting her own hand fall. ‘My name is Sophie Nash.’
‘Sophie Nash?’ He tested the name, as if trying to recall it.
‘Yes, I—’
‘Maybe my memory is failing me, Miss Nash,’ he interrupted without apology, ‘but I don’t recall an appointment with anyone of that name.’ His tone invited her to prove him wrong, but with the absolute confidence of someone who knew it to be impossible.
‘Well, no, I don’t have an appointment,’ she admitted, somewhat taken aback by this unexpected challenge.
‘In that case…’ He shrugged, stepped back and began to shut the door.
‘But…Mr Buchanan… I’m…’ Almost instinctively she reached out and held his arm. His skin was warm, very brown beneath the whiteness of her fingers, coated with silky dark hair. She snatched back. her hand as if she had received an electric shock, and when she looked up again his eyes taunted her. But he didn’t shut the door. ‘I’m here because—’
‘I know why you are here, Miss Nash,’ he said, confounding her. ‘Or were you deluding yourself that you were the first eager…fan…to find me? I have to admit that you are more appealing than some.’ And his eyes took a slow tour of her body. ‘From the top of your glossy blonde head to your pink-painted toenails,’ he conceded. ‘Although most have the tact to carry a copy of one of my books for me to sign…?’ He raised a querying brow and glanced towards her bag. But she had no book to offer and silently cursed such a stupid oversight. ‘That’s about all I can do for you.’
She was afraid that her cheeks had gone as pink as the despised toenails. They were certainly very hot and she would have liked to cover them with her hands, but that would be stupid. Would only draw attention to them, and to the fact that she had painted her fingernails as well. Because she had taken a great deal of trouble with her appearance.