who’d been friendly enough before the tragedy avoided her now as though afraid she’d somehow cast an evil spell on her friend and might do the same to them. If there’d been any way to cut her holiday short she’d have done so on the spot, but there were only two flights a week in and out of St. Julian, on Tuesdays and Fridays. Whether she liked it or not, she was prisoner there for another four days.
She spent the afternoon at an orchid farm and returned late to the hotel, leaving herself with barely enough time to shower and change for the evening meal. To her surprise, Dominic was already seated at the table when she went down to the dining room.
“Ah, Ms. Casson,” he murmured, rising smoothly and pulling out her chair, “I was hoping you’d favor me with your presence again tonight.”
He looked quite devastating in pale gray trousers and shirt. Urbane, sophisticated and thoroughly in control of himself and the situation.
Very much on her guard, Sophie said, “Were you? Well, I hate to add to your troubles, Mr. Winter, but if you’re hoping to drive me off again by plying me with insults, I’m afraid you’re in for a disappointment. I’m far too hungry to allow you to get away with it a second time.”
Even after only one day of tropical sun, his olive skin was burnished with color, so it was difficult to be sure but she thought perhaps he blushed a little at that, an assumption that gained credence with his next words. “I’m afraid I behaved very badly last night,” he said contritely. “I must beg your pardon. I wasn’t at my best.”
You don’t have a best! she felt like informing him. Except she didn’t really believe that. She’d thought for a long time that he was far too good for Barbara. She’d even gone so far as to wish....
Conscience-stricken, she picked up the menu and pretended to read it. Bad enough she’d allowed herself to fantasize when Barbara was alive. To do so now was tantamount to dancing on her grave!
Glancing up, Sophie found his gaze trained on her face. He was different tonight. The rage in his eyes had been replaced by a clouded emptiness as though the reality of Barbara’s death had at last sunk in and he realized no amount of ranting or blaming was going to bring her back.
Sophie almost preferred the other Dominic, the one breathing fire and condemnation. That one moved her to anger despite her better nature; this one moved her to pity—dangerous territory at the best of times.
“I really do apologize,” he said.
“Apology accepted.” She shrugged and searched for another subject, one that would draw her attention away from his broad shoulders and the burden they carried. He was a Samson of a man not intended to be broken, but Barbara’s death had brought him perilously close to the edge. “What looks good for dinner, do you think?”
After some discussion, he ordered turtle steak and she the fish caught fresh that morning. “And wine,” he decided, adding with a faint inflection of humor, “Don’t worry, I’ll behave. I’m a man of fairly temperate habits and don’t, as a rule, choose to drown my sorrows in drink.”
He was trying to be charming and succeeding, and she wished he’d stop. It made too great an assault on her defenses, leaving her vulnerable to the most preposterous urge to comfort him. It was a relief when their food arrived. It gave her something else to do with hands that ached to reach out and touch his long, restless fingers; to cup his cheek and stroke the severe line of his mouth. To pillow his head against her breast...
He’d probably deck her! He wanted glamorous Barbara Wexler, not unremarkable Sophie Casson, and would almost certainly view any attempt on the latter’s part to share his grief as unforgivably presumptuous.
“What did you do today?” he asked, interrupting her line of thought and, when she told him, said, “Do you get many ideas from your travels abroad? For your work, I mean?”
He was no more interested in her answer than was she in his question, but meaningless small talk was safer than silence that allowed her mind to stray to thoughts better left unexplored.
“I remember the first time we met,” he remarked later, staring absently into his glass of wine. “You were halfway up a tree on the Wexler estate, wearing dungarees covered in mud and with a camera slung around your neck.”
“And you thought I was trespassing. You were ready to throw me off the property.”
He nodded. “Yes. I knew they’d hired a landscape architect to design a waterfall and lily pond, but you hardly fitted the description. I’d expected—”
“What?” she snapped, welcoming the surge of annoyance his words inspired. “A man?”
“Not necessarily. Just someone more... professional-looking.”
“Tell me, Mr. Winter,” Sophie shot back, “when you first started out in the construction business, did you show up on the job wearing a three-piece suit?”
He smiled, such a rare and pleasant change from his usual gravity. “As a matter of fact, I did. I’d decided to buy five adjacent properties, all very run-down, and wanted to impress my bank manager into lending me the money to complete the sale. And I think we should drop the Mr. Winter—Ms. Casson thing. It seems to breed hostility between us and we’ve got enough to deal with, without that.”
“If there’s hostility,” Sophie couldn’t help retorting, “it’s of your making, not mine, and has been ever since we met.”
She expected he’d argue the point but he didn’t. He merely raised his elegant black brows and shrugged. “I daresay you’re right,” he admitted. “But that was then and this is now. Things have changed.”
His habitually somber expression was firmly back in place. It was hard to imagine him succumbing to flighty Barbara’s charms; harder still to picture him lowering his icy reserves and making love to her.
The audacity of such speculation sent a wash of color over Sophie’s cheeks. “Um...” she said, nearly choking on a morsel of fish, “I wonder if the Wexlers will still want me about the place after this. Have you spoken with them since...?”
His manner became even more guarded than usual. “I called them last night.”
“They must be—”
“They’re devastated.”
Sophie sighed, thinking of the gentle elderly couple whose entire existence had revolved around the daughter who’d arrived on the scene so late in their lives. “Yes,” she said softly. “To outlive your children is completely contrary to the proper order of nature. I can only imagine how difficult they must be finding it.”
“Try ‘impossible’,” he suggested shortly. “Nothing you imagine can begin to equate with what they’re going through. At this point, I doubt they’re fully able to comprehend it themselves.” The animosity that, fleetingly, had faded from his eyes, resurfaced. “And I’m quite sure they won’t want you around to remind them of what they’ve lost. At the very least, stay away until you hear from them—or better yet, from me. In fact, it might be best for everyone if you were to delegate someone else from your company to complete your share of the landscape project.”
Sophie stared at him over the rim of her glass. “It really doesn’t come as much of a surprise that you’d assume I’m too lacking in tact or respect to show any sensitivity
