took a step closer to the window. It overlooked the same view as the one he’d lifted the blinds to in his bedroom earlier, but from a slightly different angle.
This morning it was easier to see why this island was such a popular tourist destination. There was no doubt the scenery was stunning in an untamed way.
Hard to believe that this was even the same planet, let alone the same godforsaken spot on the map he had driven to the previous night through what had seemed like a barren moonscape of mist and rock.
The crashing waves had gone; the whirls of light mist that, with the curlew cries, had given the scene an eerie quality earlier had gone. Now the tranquil waters of the loch were totally still. The surface so mirror calm that the sentinel purple-tinged mountains to the west were reflected on the surface.
There was little to show that there ever had been a storm except for one of the branches and collective detritus along the middle of the narrow single-track road—presumably the meandering line marked the level the waters had eventually reached last night.
‘Do you ever flood here?’
He was looking at her again but Flora was ready and she gave a smile that was almost cool and collected. She was in charge of very little in her life at the moment but she was damned if she’d allow her renegade hormones to get the better of her.
‘Every ten years or so.’
His elevated brows suggested scepticism but Flora felt on safe ground. Bruno and Sami had needed a report on flooding risks before they’d got planning permission. They had also needed an archaeological survey, which had suggested that people had lived in this spot for centuries.
‘So is there much storm damage to the building?’
‘I haven’t looked yet but the place is pretty solid.’
‘You just took a passing tradesman’s word that you’re missing slates. Did you even get a quote for their work?’ His frown deepened as he considered her appalling naivety. Of course, that same flaw was going to make his task easier. Or maybe not, he thought as he watched her chin go up at a pugnacious angle.
‘He’s not a passing anything, he’s a neighbour and a friend. Not all people put a price on everything,’ she informed him scornfully. Gregory would be offended if she offered to pay him but he would take one of the jars of honey from their bees.
‘Boyfriend?’ he speculated.
The suggestion drew a gurgle of laughter from her throat. ‘Gregory is married,’ she retorted, more amused than huffy this time, and when she grinned the little cleft in her chin deepened in a way he found he quite liked. He couldn’t remember the last time that he’d seen a woman with no make-up at all. He admired her soft creamy skin. He decided that the sheer novelty value alone would account for his fascination with the sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose.
How far do those freckles go? he wondered as his eyes slid as though drawn by a magnet to the neckline of her top, to the striped sweater that clung to her soft curves.
‘Can I get you tea or coffee?’
His eye lifted, the thin stripes of colour banding his cheekbones hardly visible as his nostrils flared as he breathed in the aroma coming from the kitchen.
‘Coffee.’ He watched as she bustled away, enjoying her rear view but in a much less pure way than he had enjoyed the view from the window.
When the coffee came he was prepared for the worst but it was better than awful, which was a plus.
‘I need to talk to you.’
Flora froze in ‘deer in the headlights’ mode, only just biting back the Oh, God, no! ‘Last night was not...me...nothing...’
‘I do not wish to discuss what happened or, rather, didn’t happen last night.’
Flora knew this draw-a-line-in-it attitude should have been a relief, but instead she felt the mortified colour fly to her cheeks. Chances were he’d forgotten last night, not that there was anything to forget. Humiliated, she wished that the floor at her feet would open up to swallow her, or, failing that, that she could think of a flippant comeback line.
‘I wish to discuss why I am here.’
‘I thought that was a state secret, all very “need to know”.’ The irritable retort came out before she could stop it. ‘Sorry!’
‘Once more with feeling...?’ he suggested drily. ‘Has it occurred to you,’ he drawled, ‘that you’re not really cut out for this sort of work?’
‘It’s not the work, it’s—’ She stopped herself, but not soon enough to prevent his smug I-told-you-so retort.
‘Point proved, I’d say and, as they say, the customer is always right.’
‘Or a pain in the—’ She bit her lip and forced a stiff smile while continuing to dodge his eyes. ‘What can I do for you?’
Next time you feel the urge to insult paying guests, Flora, just think of the accounts, she told herself while she waited for his response. The moment stretched.
‘This might be easier if I tell you my full name.’
This conversation, she decided, was getting a bit Twilight Zone. Was she meant to recognise him? Did he have some sort of celebrity status, a Hollywood A-lister she was meant to know? He certainly looked the part.
‘You mean you signed an alias—you’re not Mr Rocco?’
‘My name is Ivo Rocco Greco.’
There was a twenty-second time delay before she sat down with a bump, her eyes not leaving his face as she gripped the edge of the table, not even noticing when the tablecloth slipped and sent a jug of milk onto the stone floor.
‘Bruno’s little brother?’ she whispered hoarsely.
He blinked—no one had called him that in a long time—before tipping his dark head in a slow acknowledgement.
Denial lingered; it still wasn’t sinking in. ‘You...?’ she gasped, her voice breathy and faint as her eyes flickered over his lean muscle-toned six-foot-five frame.
He tipped his dark head for a second time in confirmation.
‘This is...why on earth didn’t you say so earlier?’ she exploded, then a moment later, struggling to channel calm, admitted, ‘This is just so weird. You’re not...’
She was looking embarrassed and anywhere but at him. ‘So, Bruno mentioned me?’ He felt another stab of fresh guilt. From the day he had decided his brother had deserted him Ivo had never spoken his brother’s name again.
She nodded, remembering the underlying protectiveness tinged by guilt in her brother-in-law’s face on the occasions he had mentioned his little brother, who it turned out was not at all little. She sighed and said a silent regretful goodbye to the Ivo who had lived in her imagination—a slender, sensitive geek who was the target of bullies.
‘I’m not what?’
