Читать книгу Prisoner Of The Heart - Liz Fielding - Страница 9
ОглавлениеSOPHIE woke with a throbbing head and dry mouth, every part of her aching. The room was dim, what light there was slanting through two pairs of louvred shutters closed on tall windows. She raised her wrist to see what time it was and heard a groan. It was a moment or two before she realised the sound had come from her own lips.
She stared at bruised, swollen fingers, that looked as if they might have been through a wringer, and winced. Her fingers. And memory began to rush back, a little confused, but with the basic facts intact. The slow motion nightmare as she had tried to make it to the cliff-top. And she had nearly made it. Would have made it. Only Chay Buchanan had been waiting for her.
She looked around her at the strange room and then with a rush of horror she knew. She was in the lion’s den. Worse. She groaned, and this time the response was quite deliberate. She was in the lion’s bed.
The thought was enough to drag her protesting body from the smooth linen sheet, but as she propped herself against the great carved bedhead and the sheet slipped from her body something else became startlingly obvious. She was naked. She gingerly grasped the sheet between her fingers and lifted it. Utterly naked. Someone had undressed her.
Who? It seemed vitally important that she remember. Then, rather hurriedly, she blotted out the thought before she did. She didn’t want to contemplate the possibility of her unconscious body being undressed by Chay Buchanan. Instead she focused her attention on her surroundings.
She was in a long, wide room, the stone walls painted matt white, with two large panels, glowing blue-green abstractions of the sea, the only decoration. The floor was of some dark polished wood. On it were laid rich Bukhara rugs, barred with faint stripes of light that filtered through louvred shutters closed over floor-to-ceiling windows. Apart from the bed, flanked by nighttables and a pair of tall Chinese lamps, the only furniture was an enormous chest of drawers with heavy brass handles and an equally impressive wardrobe. A man’s room. Completely devoid of any woman’s touch.
She rose unsteadily, dragged the sheet from the bed, clumsily wrapped it about her with fingers that refused to bend properly and staggered to the bathroom at the far end of the room. Halfway there she questioned her knowledge that it was a bathroom, but with the question came the all too shocking answer. She remembered. And blushed hot and painfully at the memory.
He had brought her here. She had been dimly aware of being carried up a wide staircase. Then he had propped her up and the sudden rush of water had brought her gasping back to life as he had stood with her in the enormous shower-stall, stripping her while the cascade of warm water had washed away dust and sweat and blood.
She tried to swallow, but her tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of her mouth as she remembered how, too weak to stand unaided, she had simply leaned against him, her head against his shoulder, her breasts startlingly white against the dark tan of his chest. She had been incapable of protest as he had held her around the waist and briskly soaped her with a huge sponge, rinsed her, dried her and wrapped her in a soft white bathrobe and bathed her hands with antiseptic, his fingers gentle, even if the straight, hard lines of his mouth and his angry eyes had made his feelings more than plain.
The mirror alongside the bath reflected bright spots of colour that rouged her cheeks like patches on a rag doll’s face against the whiteness of her skin, the pale gold shock of hair. And he had threatened her with a dungeon. She had the unnerving feeling that his dungeon would be far safer than his bathroom.
But one question was answered. There was no Mrs Buchanan. No wife, however tolerant, would have put up with such goings on. She glanced around, and the lack of feminine accoutrements confirmed the fact that whoever usually shared Chay Buchanan’s king-sized bed she certainly wasn’t a permanent fixture. She forced herself to her feet and opened the bathroom cabinet. Not even constant enough to have left a toothbrush. She quickly closed the door. It was none of her business, she told herself firmly.
But it was too late to blot out the image of his personal toiletries, his exquisite taste in cologne, the fact that he used an open razor.
‘Have you seen enough? Or do you want the guided tour?’
She spun round, then wished she hadn’t as the room lurched sickeningly. She leaned momentarily against the cool richness of Catalan tiles that decorated the wall. Then, as she followed the direction of his eyes, tugged desperately at the sheet, which had shifted alarmingly as she turned, a sudden coolness warned her that it had left her rear exposed. She edged sideways as she caught her reflection in the mirror alongside the bath. How on earth had she got that bruise on her shoulder? She lifted it slightly and the pain brought instant recall of the tearing jerk as he had hauled her over the edge of the cliff to safety.
‘I was looking for some painkillers,’ she said, with a brave attempt at dignified suffering.
His lip curled derisively. ‘Of course you were.’ He took her arm and led her firmly back to the bed. ‘Lie down and I’ll bring you something.’
‘I’m not an invalid.’
‘No, just a pain in the backside. But you’d better lie down before you fall down.’ She sat down abruptly on the bed, but only because her legs were so wobbly. It was nothing to do with his telling her to and she stubbornly refused the cool enticement of a down pillow.
‘If you’ll bring my clothes, I’ll stop being a pain in the—’ she started angrily, then stopped, gathered herself a little. She couldn’t afford to aggravate the man any further. ‘If you’ll bring my clothes, I’ll be happy to leave,’ she said, with exaggerated politeness.
‘Please?’ he suggested.
For a moment her large grey eyes snapped dangerously. ‘Do I have to beg for my own clothes?’ she demanded. He didn’t reply, merely waited. And waited. Apparently she did. ‘Please,’ she ground out through clenched teeth.
‘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 shred 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.
‘Wear something pretty,’ Nigel had advised. ‘And plenty of make-up. He can’t resist a pretty face. All you’ll have to do is use that winning smile of yours and you’ll be in.’ Well, Nigel had been wrong. It was true that she wasn’t wearing much make-up. It was too .warm. But the charcoal smudges on her lids emphasised the size of her large grey eyes; the mascara thickened and glossed the lashes. And she had taken infinite care to outline her lips and colour them.
She had no experience of photographing major celebrities and she had been determined to appear cool and professional. Clearly the white sleeveless jacket with its deep revers and the flirty navy and white spotted skirt had been a misjudgement in some way that totally eluded her. But it was too late to worry about that now.
‘I didn’t come here for your autograph, Mr Buchanan. I’m a photographer. I’m sorry if this is an awkward time. I would have telephoned to make an appointment,’ she rushed on, ‘but you aren’t listed—’
‘That,’ he informed her, ‘is because I don’t have a telephone. It’s supposed to be a strong hint that I have no wish to be disturbed by...casual callers.’
She was missing something. What on earth did he think she wanted? Then, with a shock, she knew. He thought she was some kind of literary groupie! It was awful. Off-the-scale embarrassment. She wanted to turn tail and run but she couldn’t. Now she had found him, she had to give it everything she had got. Remembering Nigel’s advice, she tried the smile. ‘Mr Buchanan,’ she surged on, before he could stop her or finally close the door on her. ‘You’ve made a mistake—’
‘It’s you who’s made the mistake, Miss Nash,’ he said harshly.
‘No,’ she protested hotly, determined to disabuse him of his mistaken notion. ‘Please listen. I simply want to take a photograph of you.’ He said nothing. He didn’t move. Not one muscle. It was utterly unnerving. She ran her tongue nervously over her lips as she fumbled in her bag for a card, any excuse to look away from those disturbing eyes. Her trembling fingers finally found what they were seeking and she held it out and eventually he took it, without taking his eyes from her face. ‘You see?’ she said, encouraging him to look at it. ‘I’m a professional photographer.’
If she had thought that this would clear up the misunderstanding, make everything better, she had been wrong. He didn’t even bother to look at her card, simply tore it in two and handed it back. ‘Goodbye, Miss Nash.’
A pin-prick of anger stirred the delicate hairs on the nape of her neck, darkened her fine grey eyes, but she wasn’t about to give up.
‘A friend of mine is writing an article about you... about your work,’ she rushed on quickly, before he could ask what kind of article. ‘I hoped to persuade you to let me take a simple portrait. It wouldn’t take long. Ten minutes. Less,’ she promised. ‘There’s no need to change. You look fine.’ Much more than fine. He presented a picture begging to be taken. His green T-shirt might be old, faded, but it was a perfect foil for his dark colouring, and the sleeves had been ripped from it, exposing strong, well-muscled arms and formidable shoulders; white tailored shorts displayed an equally powerful pair of tanned legs. He looked more like an athlete than a writer.
Still he didn’t move, apparently waiting for something more. She swallowed. ‘I would, of course, be prepared to pay...’ His eyes darkened slightly. ‘Whatever fee you...think fit.’
‘Anything?’ he asked, finally breaking the ominous silence.
‘Anything,’ she agreed recklessly, as he appeared to weaken. She wasn’t about to lose him for a few pounds. Then, realising how naïve she must have sounded, she added, ‘Within reason, of course.’
‘And if I was...unreasonable?’ Suddenly, without the necessity for words, she knew that this was not, had never been, a discussion about money. He had seen her reaction to him, misunderstood, thought she was actually prepared to go to bed with him to get what she wanted. Then, with a jolt, she realised that it was far worse than that. He believed that she wanted to go to bed with him.
Mesmerised by the idea, she remained rooted to the spot, quite unable simply to turn and walk away. Not because so much depended on getting him to sit for her. But because her legs had apparently turned to rubber. His mouth curled in a cruel parody of amusement as he made a move towards her, forcing her to look up or retreat. Sophie had no choice, and as she looked up he lifted his hand, touched the delicate hollow of her neck with the tip of one long finger, his brows lifting just a fraction as she felt the shock start through her body.
‘Well, well,’ he murmured. ‘Such flattering eagerness.’ Then, as his eyes held her fixed like a rabbit mesmerised by the headlights of an oncoming car, his finger traced the line of her breastbone with agonising slowness, until it came to rest against the white linen where it crossed between her breasts. Her lips parted on a sharp, anguished breath as her nipples tightened against the cloth.
‘Nice try, Miss Nash. But your friend should have warned you that I don’t talk to reporters or photographers. No matter how appealing the inducement.’
With a superhuman effort she raised her hand to slap away the fingers that lingered against the soft swell of her breast. ‘How dare you?’ she croaked.
‘Dare?’ He had ignored the slap, but now he withdrew his hand and she could breathe again. Just. ‘For my privacy I would dare a very great deal. I give you fair warning, Miss Sophie Nash, that if I find you anywhere near my home with a camera in your possession, you’ll discover that the dungeon is still a working feature. And that’s where you’ll remain until I decide otherwise.’
Now, lying in his bed, Sophie almost jumped again as she recalled the slam of the great front door. She knew she had to escape. Get away from this insufferable man as quickly as possible. A yawn caught her by surprise, and her lids, suddenly unbearably heavy, drifted shut. It was important. But she would just have a little sleep first.
