to the belief that people were basically good, Anna didn’t want to believe that he’d taken pleasure from her distress. But it was true, and probably the worst part of it was the knowledge that behind the bland and beautiful mask he had enjoyed watching her stutter and stumble. It had been clinical and cruel.
She looked at her hands. They were shaking. She made a decision. They’d arrived at her hotel.
‘Do you mind waiting?’ There was no way she was safe to drive her hire car the forty miles back to Inverness. She didn’t actually care what the taxi there cost her: it would be worth it not to stay another second.
Having reassured the car-hire firm she would be happy to pay the supplementary charge for them to pick up the car, Anna packed her bag in about thirty seconds. She was booked into the hotel overlooking the picturesque working harbour for two nights, but the view had lost its charm, as had the Highlands.
The thought of all things familiar and safe made her chest ache with longing. Everyone had been right. Moving up here had been a stupid idea, not because, as Rosie had suggested, there were no men—that was fine by Anna—but because there was one man. A man she could not even think about without wanting to break things. His head would be a good start.
She climbed back into the taxi. She fastened her seat belt and closed the door with a restrained bang. ‘Inverness station, please.’
Anna was actually in her seat on the train when all passengers were asked to disembark. No trains were running on the line between Inverness and Glasgow due to flooding and stormy weather further down the line.
‘Hail the size of golf balls, they say.’
Those passengers who requested details of bus times were told that bus drivers too were not risking the journey.
Anna normally maintained a philosophical frame of mind when events were out of her control, but if ever there was a day to respond with anger and frustration this was it.
Could this day get any worse?
Of course it could. This was the day that just kept giving and the man who just kept appearing. Twice was not a lot but it felt like more.
The gleaming car Cesare Urquart stood beside did not suggest he came under the category of traditional impoverished laird. It did not come as a surprise to Anna that having money would be the way he got away with being so totally obnoxious.
Human nature being what it was, people were prepared to put up with a lot from people who held the purse strings and the power. And what Cesare had done to her was a classic case of an abuse of power. It was inexplicable to Anna, who hated to see anyone unhappy, that a person could take such malicious pleasure out of causing someone pain, presumably just because he could.
Yet it had felt personal, very personal. That continued to bemuse her; if the man hadn’t been a total stranger she’d have felt the interview had been payback of some sort. Perhaps, she brooded bitterly, he took offence to redheads, who in her opinion got a bad press. Her temper was no fierier than anyone else’s. She pressed her fingers to her drumming temples. She actually considered herself to have quite a placid personality.
As was appropriate, Cesare had paused to congratulate the successful candidate after the interviews finished. The choice had not seemed difficult to him yet some of the panel had agonised over it and in the end the final decision had not been unanimous, even after a few probing questions where the redhead had become almost incoherent.
An image of those big, hurt, cobalt-blue eyes formed in his head and he firmly pushed it away. He was sure that the formula had been working all of her life. One look at those expressive eyes...a suggestion of tears bravely blinked away while she channelled inner integrity...had made his jaw tighten. The panel members, who had still stood by their original choice, would have been less disgruntled if they knew what he knew about Miss Henderson.
‘So you think it’s a good idea to build an office block on the lawn after we’ve bulldozed the—’
Cesare turned his attention to his sister. ‘Fine...fine...’
Her musical laughter drew several stares but then his model sister generally did draw stares.
‘What?’ he asked irritably.
‘You haven’t been listening to a word I’ve said.’
He flashed her an impatient glance and opened the passenger door. ‘Just get in, will you?’
Her delicate brows lifted. ‘You’re in a foul mood, I get that, but don’t take it out on me, big brother,’ she advised.
Cesare scowled at the suggestion and bit back. ‘I am not in a foul mood.’ His conscience was clear when the welfare of impressionable children was at stake. You didn’t give anyone the benefit of the doubt and there was no doubt.
This time his sister’s laughter was drowned out by another loudspeaker announcement explaining once more that, due to flooding on the line, the Edinburgh trains were cancelled. Not good news for the stranded passengers who had began to troop with varying degrees of resignation from the station.
‘Lucky I decided to catch the early train,’ Angel observed.
* * *
In her thin jacket Anna shivered, her throat tightened until she could hardly breathe. The booming noise in her head got louder and louder as she continued to stare at him, standing there as if he owned the place, not getting out of the way because he expected other people to...and they did. He was getting in the way and they were apologising for bumping into him.
And she’d done the same, though in her case it was not just walk around him—she’d let him walk all over her! She had just sat there and taken what he’d dished out during that interview. It was not her finest hour.
If she’d told him what she thought of him she knew she wouldn’t be feeling this awful, instead she felt...
‘Pathetic!’ she exclaimed to the world in general.
‘Are you all right, dear?’
Responding with a forced smile and an embarrassed laugh for the benefit of the concerned elderly couple who had approached her, Anna nodded and lied. ‘Yes, fine, I’m...’
Her voice trailed away and her smile vanished as a tall, hateful figure placed a hand on his beautiful companion’s elbow.
She inhaled and squeezed her eyes closed. Now was her chance to tell him what she really thought of him. She nodded to the couple, lifted her stuffed overnight bag and propelled herself through the crowds.
‘I expected you to bring Jas. Is she all right?’
As his sister looked around as though expecting her daughter to materialise, Cesare opened the passenger door. ‘She’s fine,’ he soothed. ‘I came straight from the school interviews for the new head.’
‘Many candidates?’ Angel glanced down at the file that lay open on the passenger seat and paused, glancing down at the name on the front page. ‘More than one, I hope.’
‘More than one,’ her brother agreed. Snatching the CV from her fingers, he flung it onto the back seat, consigning it and the person who had supplied it to a dark corner.
His
