fact, the only thing wrong with it was the colour. It was so bright. And she never wore bright clothes. She preferred to blend into the background.
With a short laugh, Katie looked in the mirror and shook her head.
No chance of blending in dressed in yellow. Slipping her feet into a pair of pretty flip-flops, she walked back onto the terrace feeling as conspicuous as a sunflower in a vegetable patch.
Nathaniel had stripped off his shirt and was sprawled unselfconsciously on the white sun lounger in nothing but a pair of low-slung board shorts that showed off his rippling abs. ‘It’s going to be hard to swim in a dress, wardrobe.’
Feeling about as appetising as a piece of uncooked pasta, Katie sat down neatly on the sun lounger furthest away from him. ‘I’m not swimming.’ Strip almost naked and parade in front of a man who was fed a daily diet of size-zero women? Please.
He glanced up from his phone. ‘You can’t swim?’
‘I can swim if I want to. I don’t want to.’
‘Why not? Swimming is the only way to stay cool.’
Katie slid off her sandals. ‘Actually, I’m not hot.’ A sardonic smile touched the corners of his mouth. ‘You look hot to me.’ Leaving that ambiguous com ment floating in the air, he leaned across and passed her a glass of chilled lemonade. ‘What was wrong with the selection of bikinis Rosa bought you?’
‘Nothing was wrong with them.’
‘Then why aren’t you wearing one of them?’ Abandoning subtlety in favour of honesty, Katie glared at him. ‘Because there is no way I’m wearing a bikini in front of you!’
‘Why not?’
‘Is that a serious question?’ Judging from his blank expression, she decided it was. ‘Nathaniel, there are basically two types of women—the padded version and the unpadded version. You hang out with the unpadded version. I’m the padded version. You’ve probably never met one of me before.’
‘The padded version?’
‘I’m designed with extra cushioning,’ she muttered, ‘built for comfort, not speed. And now can we please talk about something else?’
‘That’s why you won’t wear the bikini?’ A slow smile spread across his face. ‘Because you’re worried about your body?’
‘Call me vain, but I don’t want to spend the whole day sucking in my stomach.’
‘So don’t.’ Smiling, he leaned back against the lounger and closed his eyes. ‘Women have such a distorted view of what a guy finds sexy. If the rest of you is anything to go by, I’m sure you have a very sexy stomach. Put the bikini on, and I’ll give you my verdict.’
Her gaze drifted to his wide shoulders and hard chest. He had the body of a man who lived a physical life. ‘I’d rather boil alive than let you see my stomach.’
‘Sweetheart, if you’re going to spend two weeks on a tropical island, fully clothed, then you will boil alive.’ The fact that he was laughing at her doubled her tension.
‘Don’t make fun of me.’
‘For what it’s worth, I think you’re extremely pretty,’ he drawled, ‘so all this insecurity about yourself is misplaced.’
‘Nathaniel, I saw your leading lady in Alpha Man. She was a sex goddess.’
‘She was a spoiled princess with a vicious temper.’
Katie remembered the high-octane sex scenes that had held the entire audience gripped. ‘You didn’t seem to mind her too much on screen. I seem to remember that the chemistry between you was described as “superexplosive.”‘
‘I’m an actor.’ His tone was flat. ‘It’s what I do.’
‘Kissing the most beautiful women in the world? Tough job.’
‘It can be.’
And he was acting now. She didn’t think for a moment that the man lounging across from her was the real Nathaniel Wolfe. ‘So how does it work, preparing for a part like that? Did you have extra training for the part of Alpha Man?’
‘I spent two months with the Special Forces.’
‘You ran around the countryside with a big pack on your back?’
‘Amongst other things.’
She could imagine him, hair cropped short, pushing himself to the limits. Nathaniel Wolfe, bad boy. ‘Which Special Forces? U.S. or the UK?’
‘If I told you that I’d have to kill you.’ He spoke with that light, mocking tone that made her stomach curl. ‘Let’s just say it was the only time I’ve never been bothered by the press. Those guys are the definitive alpha man. And they’re a team. Better than any family.’ Something in his voice made her glance towards him but his profile revealed nothing.
Better than family.
Apart from briefly mentioning his brother Sebastian, he’d already banned that topic, hadn’t he? ‘You’re not the only one with a complicated family. When Dad died and I discovered all his gambling debts—to start with I was so upset. And angry. I couldn’t believe he’d led this whole secret life. I kept thinking of all those years Mum had kept it to her self—we had no money as kids and twice we lost our home.’
Nathaniel tilted his head. ‘So basically we agree that families suck.’
Katie thought about her sister. About the way she’d divorced herself from her family.
‘I don’t think families suck.’ She dragged her eyes from his mouth, horrified to find herself thinking about sex. Again. ‘But sometimes they’re messy. I still think you should stick together. Is your brother older than you?’
His gaze was watchful. ‘If you don’t want to end up in the pool, you should change the subject.’
‘Sorry. I’m not used to having banned topics of conversation. I’ll try and talk about the weather. Or the gardens. This place is truly beautiful.’ Katie looked around her and saw a mesh of palm trees and foliage, the green broken up by splashes of bright tropical colour. Spotting a large green gecko basking in the sun by the pool, she reached in her bag for a sketchbook.
‘You’re drawing him?’
‘Why not? He’s lovely.’ Her pencil flew over the page and she took out a box of pastels and played with colour combinations. ‘I love the mix of turquoise and tropical green. Those colours would be gorgeous in silk.’ She narrowed her eyes, imagining it, spinning designs in her head.
‘If you like colours so much, why do you always wear brown.’
Her pencil stilled. ‘I like brown.’ And she was invisible in brown. Katie tightened her grip on the pencil. Just holding it soothed her. ‘I still love the feel of my pencil. It reminds me of when I was a child. I used to watch all the Hollywood movies and redesign the costumes.’
He
