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Leaving the house was out of the question. She had no transportation and only a vague idea of the general location of the place. She was at least an hour’s drive away from her barn, not a distance she could walk. Calling Beth, her friend, or her mother in the dead of night to come and get her was asking no small favour, but it would do no good because she couldn’t give any directions. This left her with only one possibility.
She’d have to make her presence known and ask for help.
Help from Chase Montana, who was asleep somewhere in this sprawling plantation house.
For obvious reasons three o’clock in the morning was not a good time to go in search of him and awaken him. Closing her eyes, she visualised him asleep in a big bed, wearing black silk pyjamas, or maybe nothing. Probably nothing. She imagined touching his arm, trying to stir him from sleep. In her mind she could just see him leap, naked from the bed, growling. She grinned to herself. Well, she could still laugh.
There was no good time for this confrontation, but the morning was better than now. She sighed and smoothed the fabric of her dress. Silk dresses were not meant to be slept in. She groaned. She would look a disaster in the morning.
Her eyes caught a framed photograph on the desk, captured by the moonlight, and she could not resist having a closer look. It was a starchy family portrait: father, mother and two young teenage sons. One of the sons was Chase—a much younger version of the one she’d met last night. The other was obviously his younger brother. The portrait was agonisingly formal. The father wore a pin-striped suit and looked grim. The mother’s dress was conservatively elegant and she wore a strand of pearls and a stilted smile. Both boys wore jackets, shirts and dark ties, and their hair had been slicked back. The younger boy’s smile was a frozen grimace, much like Chase’s. Yet there was a difference in their expressions. Chase’s eyes had a devilish gleam in them. She’d seen that same gleam last night. A sudden little shiver ran down her back. She wasn’t looking forward to facing him in the morning.
She went back to the sofa, lay down and closed her eyes. She might as well sleep some more. There was nothing else to do. If only she could pick up the phone and talk to Beth. Beth would die laughing, but not at three in the morning. Sky felt a spasm of pain and pushed it away. Beth and Kevin were moving to North Dakota in a couple of months. They’d been part of her life for a long time, ever since college. They were her only two close friends who had known Josh. Their departure would leave a terrible hole in her life.
She awoke to a grey morning and a sense of doom. No sunlight streamed through the uncurtained windows and it did not look like a spring morning. She grimaced. She could have done with a little sunshine to give her courage. It was just after seven, according to her watch.
Coffee. Her body was begging for a cup of strong coffee. Quietly she moved to the door and carefully opened it a crack. Muted noises reached her ear. Somebody was stirring around somewhere on the ground floor.
Chase Montana?
With her heart in her throat, she slipped back into the bathroom and washed her face and hands. She rubbed at the remainders of mascara and eyeliner with a tissue and some hand lotion that was thoughtfully provided. She had a comb in her bag and she pulled it through her hair. There was nothing she could do about the dress. It was a sorry sight. Quickly, noiselessly, she went back into the office and slipped on her shoes. She straightened herself to her full five feet two inches and took a deep, fortifying breath. It was time to face the tiger.
First, of course, she had to find him. She knew where the kitchen was. Platters of food had emerged from it last night. It was the logical place to start the search.
The kitchen door was closed, but it opened before she could reach to do so herself. And there he was, Chase Montana himself, wearing casual cotton trousers and an open-necked shirt, a cup of coffee in his hand.
His dark brows arched in surprise, then settled in their natural place again. His eyes narrowed and his mouth curled in a predatory grin and the silence crackled with tension.
‘Well, well,’ he drawled. ‘Look who’s here.’
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_37fe6c7f-0433-5952-9936-36ed9687d695)
SKY’S heart sank at the tone of his voice and she felt a nervous wobble in her knees. Since she wasn’t given to wobbly knees, this was not promising.
She had decided that the only way to deal with this most embarrassing situation was to come right out and tell it the way it was. His tone of voice, however, was not encouraging and did not help her confidence. The man had a terrible effect on her equilibrium, physically as well as emotionally, and she couldn’t help feeling swamped with trepidation.
‘I fell asleep in your office,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry.’
He put his coffee down and thrust his hands in his pockets, surveying her with narrow-eyed suspicion. ‘It’s an interesting technique,’ he said calmly. ‘Do you do this sort of thing often?’
‘"Technique"?’ she echoed, uncomprehending.
He nodded. ‘I’ve been told that meeting available men is difficult these days. Entire books are written on the subject.’
Words failed her. She had seen those books. How to Catch a Rich Man, Loving a Wealthy Man is Easier. Fury and humiliation washed over her. It took all her strength to calm herself enough to speak.
‘I’ve never found it necessary to resort to those techniques, Mr Montana. And if I did, may I assure you that I wouldn’t choose you as my victim. You’re not my type.’
He was absolutely, positively not her type. He was too arrogant, too smooth, too sure of himself. He ravaged beautiful rainforests.
He quirked a mocking brow. ‘Is that right?’ he asked slowly.
She straightened her spine and stared hard into his cool green eyes. ‘Yes, that’s right.’ It was difficult to look dignified in a wrinkled jungle dress, and she was well aware of it, but she’d be damned if she’d let him intimidate her.
His gaze skimmed over her from top to toe. ‘Then please enlighten me as to why you ended up stowing away here.’
‘I didn’t stow away! I simply lay down on the sofa in your office. I had an excruciating headache.’ And I felt miserable and exhausted, she added silently.
‘A headache?’ You’ve got to be joking, his tone said.
‘Yes. A real blaster.’ She looked at him contemptuously. ‘Believe me, seducing you or any other male was the last thing on my mind. All I wanted was to get rid of the pain.’ She swung around and marched determinedly to the door. She was leaving. She would walk. She would hitch a ride on a manure truck—anything to get away from this insufferable male who thought she’d hid in his office for some devious purpose.
She was not fast enough.
He caught her by the wrist. ‘Where are you going?’ he demanded.
‘I’m leaving!’ His big hand encircled her wrist in a painful grip. ‘Let go of my hand!’
‘You have a car here?’
‘No! I’ll walk!’
He released his grip on her. ‘I don’t think that would be wise.’ He looked meaningfully at her wrinkled party dress and her high-heeled shoes. ‘It’s going to rain and I don’t think you’re dressed appropriately for a hike in the country at seven o’clock on a Saturday morning.’
She wasn’t. Of course she wasn’t. She glared into his cool green eyes. ‘You owe me an apology,’ she said between clenched teeth.
‘Not until I know why you are here.’
‘I told you!’
‘Why do I have trouble believing this headache story?’
‘I have no idea!’ She had no idea what the matter was with this man. Why he looked at her like this. Why he had this devastating effect on her nerves.
He leaned casually against the door-post and crossed his arms. ‘Well, let’s go over the facts. Your name is Sky Malone and you’re a photographer.’
‘Yes,’ she said, staring straight into his eyes.
‘And supposedly you came here with Sean Kendall.’
‘Not supposedly. I did.’
He nodded. ‘All right, you did.’
She gave an exasperated sigh. ‘Would you please explain to me what this is all about? I don’t feel like being interrogated at seven in the morning!’
He nodded agreeably. ‘I suppose it would be civil of me to offer you a seat and a cup of coffee. Come along.’ He held the kitchen door open for her and waved her in. He offered her a chair. The perfect gentleman, he was. She sat down at the scrubbed wooden table. She didn’t have a choice.
It was a big, yet cosy country kitchen and empty of other people. The coffee smelled heavenly. She watched as he poured her a cup. His arm was tanned and muscular with a light sprinkling of dark hair. His hand was big and strong. She felt a tiny twinge of…excitement, apprehension. She drew in a slow breath. It was just a man’s arm, a man’s hand.
‘Sugar? Cream?’ he enquired politely.
‘Both, please.’
He put the cup in front of her as well as a sugar bowl and a small carton of cream from the refrigerator. He refilled his own mug and sat down opposite her.
‘You told me you didn’t stay the night because you had designs on my body,’ he stated casually. ‘So what else could it be?’
‘Your silver,’ she said promptly. ‘Maybe I wanted to steal you blind and escape in the middle of the night.’
‘Only we have a burglar alarm system and all hell would have broken loose if you’d tried to leave.’
She shrugged.
He took a swallow of coffee. ‘Did you find any silver that looked interesting?’ he asked with mockinterest.
‘None.’ She put three generous spoonfuls of sugar in her cup.
‘Well, that’s a relief.’ He looked pointedly at her stirring her coffee. ‘You have a sweet tooth?’
‘Not normally, but it appears I need the energy.’ She drank greedily, feeling the sweet, rich mixture slide comfortingly into her system.
He leaned back in his chair. ‘So it wasn’t my body and it wasn’t the silver. Interesting.’ He drank his coffee and studied her over the rim of his cup as if she were some fascinating but dangerous insect.
She gritted her teeth. ‘Are you always so suspicious of people? Do you have some sort of paranoia?’
‘Not until recently.’ He smiled. It was not a friendly smile and she felt her apprehension grow. She fortified herself with another deep drink of coffee.
‘And what happened recently?’ she asked, trying to sound casual.
He gave her a penetrating stare. ‘Somebody brought a lawsuit against me.’
She took in the hard line of his jaw. ‘Oh, really? Are the environmentalists after you?’ A smile escaped her at the thought. She couldn’t help it.
‘You find this amusing?’ he asked coolly.
Her smile widened. ‘Actually, yes, I do,’ she said recklessly. ‘That hotel in Ecuador is a terrible idea.’
‘So you told me yesterday.’
‘And that makes me a criminal?’
‘No, that does not make you a criminal.’ He came to his feet, picked up the coffee-pot and refilled both their cups.
She added four spoons of sugar while he watched. He made her uncomfortable. The uneasiness crawled through her blood. Maybe he thought she was here to find out more about him as a person, to infiltrate the lair of the money-hungry tiger and dig up some dirt. Character assassination was a popular technique in court cases. She looked up from her cup and met his eyes.
‘If you’re accusing me of something, I have the right to know.’ She clenched her hands. ‘All I did was fall asleep on your sofa and now you interrogate me as if I were a common criminal! I don’t know anything about that lawsuit and I am not here to dig up dirt on you, if that’s what you’re thinking!’
He eyed her narrowly. ‘Unfortunately, I don’t feel reassured.’
‘You think I’m lying?’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know you, do I? I find it very suspicious to find you here in this house. I’m simply trying to ascertain what the reason might be.’ He paused fractionally. ‘Apart from that headache story.’
She covered her face with her hands and moaned. There was no way she was going to convince him of her innocence.
‘What happened to Sean last night?’ he continued. ‘You said you came with him to the party.’
‘Yes, I did.’ She lowered her hands and clasped them together on the table in front of her.
‘But you didn’t leave with him.’
‘No, I did not.’ In the circumstances, maybe that was suspicious. He didn’t like Sean; she was quite sure of that.
‘Why not?’
Well, what could she say? The truth and nothing but the truth: He dumped me.
‘He left without me,’ she said, which sounded a bit more dignified. She tried not to look at the small wisp of dark chest hair that peeked out from his open-necked shirt. Everything about him seemed to disturb her—his eyes, his voice, his damned chest hair.
His brows arched. ‘That would indicate a certain lack of manners, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Absolutely.’ She could only agree. ‘I think he was having a tantrum.’ She swallowed a nervous chuckle. The situation was beginning to take on farcical overtones.
‘A tantrum? I thought children had tantrums.’
‘Some men have them too,’ she said lightly. ‘When women don’t fall all over themselves pleasing them.’
‘I see. So he was having a tantrum because you were not falling all over yourself pleasing him.’
She nodded, trying not to smile. ‘You could say that, yes. I’m going to Mexico for a month and we had an argument about it in your lovely garden.’
‘Ah, after which you threw yourself into my arms. You fit quite nicely actually; did you notice?’
She gave him a withering look, and his mouth twitched.
‘Just a casual observation. When I hold a woman close in my arms I can’t help noticing the feel and shape of her.’
Her heart began to race at the image and she remembered very well the feel of his hard chest against her cheek and the warm male smell of him. Oh, God, this was insanity. ‘I hope it was a big thrill for you,’ she said caustically.
‘It was.’ His smile showed even white teeth. ‘Now tell me, what’s the problem with your going to Mexico?’
The question was posed casually. They were having a casual conversation, were they? She didn’t believe it for a minute.
‘As far as I am concerned it’s not a problem at all. I consider it a wonderful professional opportunity.’
He nodded. ‘But Sean found it a problem,’ he surmised.
‘Yes, he did, and it’s none of your business.’ He was beginning to annoy her severely. She didn’t like that gleam in his eyes—an odd mixture of amusement and suspicion. She couldn’t figure out what he was thinking and feeling about her and it threw her off-balance.
