and ‘tell all’ before she had a chance to get him on his own and swear him to secrecy about their brief marriage, it was just possible that she might be able to prevent her career from going down the tubes.
Preoccupied with her overwhelming problems, it was some time before Flora noticed that they had left the coastline of the small island behind them and were now speeding inland along a grass track bordered on each side by shady groves of palm trees. On reaching a clearing, she saw that they faced a large plantation house whose green lawns were surrounded by brightly coloured trees and shrubs. But, instead of driving up to the house, their vehicle veered off to the side, winding its way through yet more palms and banana trees heavy with fruit before coming to a halt outside a small wooden building.
As Ross jumped out, helping Claudia and Helen down from the vehicle before leading them towards the front door, where their suitcases awaited them, Flora studied the tiny cottage. It looked enchanting, with a bright red corrugated metal roof set over white walls, a pale pink front door and window frames, and the whole surrounded by a pretty pink and white wooden veranda. She was just thinking that it must be every little girl’s dream-a large, magnificent dolls’ house of their very own—when Georgie gave her a sharp dig in the ribs.
‘How about this for a taste of luxury! Not bad, huh?’
‘Hmm...?’
‘Come on, Flora! Have you been asleep or what?’ Georgie stared at her in surprise. ‘Didn’t you hear Ross say that we’re all being allocated separate guest cottages?’
‘No, I...”
‘He was telling Claudia that this type of local building is known as a popular house, or “case”,’ Georgie explained quickly as Ross helped the older women with their luggage. ‘Apparently, they were originally designed for families who worked on the old sugar plantations, and are still used throughout the Caribbean. So, Ross decided they’d make perfect guest suites for his visitors and had some prefabricated units shipped over from Antigua,’ she added, peering through the trees towards where other small pastel-coloured buildings were scattered haphazardly amongst the lush vegetation. ‘I can’t wait to see mine.’
However, after Ross had dropped Georgie off at her cottage—which she was apparently sharing with the make-up and hair stylist—the atmosphere within the vehicle became positively glacial. Fully determined to sort matters out as quickly as possible, Flora was thrown completely off-base at being roughly ordered by her ex-husband to sit in the front passenger seat.
‘I don’t mind driving everyone to their cottages. But I’m damned if I’m going to act as a hired chauffeur to some flibbertigibbet model!’ he growled, waiting with barely concealed impatience as she hurriedly changed seats.
‘OK...OK, there’s no need to be so rude,’ she snapped, furious with herself for having so instinctively obeyed his harshly voiced command. ‘I didn’t make the arrangements to stay on this island. So how am I expected to know how you run things? In fact,’ she added grimly, ‘I’d never have come within a mile of the damned place—not if I’d known you’d be here!’
He gave a low bark of sardonic laughter, which only served to inflame her already raw nerves to screaming pitch.
‘Now, now, Miss Johnson,’ he murmured, ‘there’s no need to lose your temper.’
‘Oh, no...?’ she ground out through gritted teeth. ‘Well, that’s all you know! Because it looks as if losing my temper is the very least of my problems. And what’s with this “Miss Johnson” nonsense anyway?’ she added belligerently, turning to scowl at his handsome tanned profile. ‘You know very well who I am.’
‘Of course I know who you are,’ he drawled coolly as he brought the Land Rover to a halt outside a cottage screened from the other small houses by a thick hedge of flowering shrubs. ‘I’ve just been told that you’re Bernie Schwartz’s new Angel Girl. I also have it on good authority—from his own brother-in-law, no less—that Bernie seems to think you’re the best thing since sliced bread. How about that?’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ she exploded as he switched off the ignition. ‘Why on earth are you playing these stupid games?’
“‘Games”, Miss Johnson?’ He raised a dark, satanic eyebrow as he gazed at her with a bland, cool smile on his lips. ‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘Oh, yes, you damn well do!’ she accused him bleakly, grimly aware of the dark, insidious attraction of the man lounging so casually in his seat beside her. Maybe if she hadn’t been feeling quite so tired and exhausted, she would have been better equipped to ignore the muscular shoulders beneath the thin fabric of his short-sleeved cream shirt, and the long-fingered, strong hands lightly grasping the wheel.
Life was so unfair! Surely, if there was any justice in the world, Ross ought to have gone thoroughly to seed over the past six years? Unfortunately—instead of having become seriously overweight, with a paunch and receding hairline—he was still fit, slim, lithe and as diabolically attractive as ever. Besides which, there ought to be a law against allowing men to wear shorts, she told herself acidly. Because the sight of Ross’s bare, deeply tanned and muscular brown legs almost touching her own was definitely not helping her to concentrate on her problems.
Making a supreme effort to pull herself together, Flora took a deep breath.
‘Leaving aside the other interesting questions, such as how a one-time mining engineer has managed to become a best-selling author,’ she told him scathingly, ‘what I really want to know is why he’s also pretending not to know his wife?’
‘You’re right—that’s definitely an interesting question,’ he drawled mockingly as he got out and came around to her side. ‘Maybe the answer, dear Miss Johnson, is that since my wife was such a spoilt and tiresome woman I’m doing my best to forget that I was ever married...’
‘Believe me—your wife feels exactly the same way about her crummy, despicable husband!’ she ground out through clenched teeth, swearing under her breath as she tried to open the passenger door. ‘I really hate these trendy four-wheel-drive vehicles!’ she muttered, savagely banging her fist on the dashboard. Only to find herself becoming even more furious as he gave an infuriating chuckle of laughter.
‘Oh, dear—we really do seem to be losing our temper, don’t we?’ he murmured, calmly opening the door before scooping up her in-flight bag from the rear seat and walking towards the small blue and white cottage.
‘You...you damned man!’ she shouted furiously, tumbling out of the Land Rover and almost running to keep up with him as he strode up the steps to the front door. ‘You always were bloody-minded, and...and as obstinate as a pig!’
Calmly placing a key in the lock, he opened the door before turning slowly towards her. ‘That sounds a fair description of my wife,’ he drawled smoothly. ‘In fact, it seems as if you’ve already had the misfortune of meeting the lady. If so, you’ll know that she’s a bad-tempered, completely self-absorbed person, who’s quite incapable of thinking of anyone or anything—other than her own selfish interests.’
‘That’s a really foul thing to say!’ she cried. ‘I’m not like that. I—’
‘My dear Miss Johnson!’ he interjected swiftly. ‘I was, of course, referring to my wife. Surely you can’t imagine that I was talking about you? Especially since you’re apparently such a very, very good friend of Bernie Schwartz,’ he added, the bland smile on his lips sharply at variance with the bleak,
