to be a useful sort of person to have around. I’m only going to be here for a few days, but I’ll take the sofa since you won dibs.’
Before she had a chance to protest he spun round, pulling open the patio doors and exiting onto the terrace, shouting, ‘Dinner at eight!’ over his shoulder as he strode away.
TWO
After making his sharp exit Connor wandered down to the bottom of the farmhouse’s land and along the perimeter. In front of him the sun-washed landscape throbbed with colour, the vibrant greens and yellows of the rapeseed crops standing stark against the sea of lavender in fields that stretched for miles. In the distance chalky white mountains broke against the azure-blue of the sky.
It was his idea of heaven on earth.
He loved this place. It felt as far away from reality as you could get. That appealed to him. That and the simplicity of it.
He leant on the wooden fence and assessed what had just happened.
Josie Marchpane was seriously disturbing, that was for sure. He wasn’t easily impressed, but this woman—oh, man, did she have something. There was something familiar about her too, but he couldn’t put his finger on it and that bothered him.
When he’d found out she was here at Abigail’s invitation his instinct had been to try and get rid of her as quickly as possible. He wasn’t interested in ever seeing his self-serving sister again, and even less willing to entertain one of her friends in his house. But the more he’d talked to Josie, the more he’d come to like her. She didn’t buckle easily and he respected that.
Despite the dark circles under her eyes and the ghostly pallor she was hot. It wasn’t the delicate contours of her heart-shaped face that got to him, or even the endless expanse of leg hiding beneath those expensive-looking jeans. It was her almond-shaped hazel eyes that flashed with fire when she was on the defensive. He wasn’t used to being stood up to, let alone put in his place, and he found he kind of liked it.
He knew he had an effect on her too, no matter how hard she was trying to disguise it. It was visible in the flare of her pupils and the flush of colour on her cheeks; in the way her body turned towards him even when she fought against it. It would be hard to convince her mind to submit to him, but not her body.
He hadn’t needed her to cut his hair—he could have quite easily visited a barber the following day—but he’d wanted to see if he could get her to do it. He’d been in a playful mood and it had amused him—until she’d been right there, touching him, invading his space and warming his skin with her nervous heat. Then he’d realised it had been an excuse to get closer to her. He’d wanted to know whether she smelled as good as she looked and he hadn’t been disappointed.
The fact that she’d risen to his challenge despite her initial reticence intrigued him. She hadn’t been able to resist it.
He recognised an urge on his part to break through her carefully constructed wall of cool just for the satisfaction of melting her. He craved it. Just as he’d craved coming back here, to the one place that felt vaguely like home. It wouldn’t be long until he’d had his fill of sitting still, but at the moment it was necessary—imperative, even.
That was why he couldn’t pick up and stay at a hotel for the few days he had left before his next project started. He’d been aware of an unusual yearning for this place for the past few weeks, as if it had called to him. Something akin to nostalgia, or what he thought that might feel like; he’d never experienced it before. Usually he actively moved away from the past.
Wandering back up to the house, he parked himself on a lounger on the terrace and leant back, willing his overworked muscles to relax. He needed this peace and calm and nothingness for a few days before he rejoined the hurricane of his life.
The bathroom window above him slammed shut, jarring him out of his relaxing state and setting his teeth on edge. She must be about to take a shower. The thought of hot water sluicing over that curvaceous body and those heavy, rounded breasts was enough to give him an erection.
The trouble was, the last thing he needed right now was another woman problem. It had been soul-destroying breaking up with Katherine and persuading her he wasn’t the right guy to make her happy, then spending months avoiding her angry, pleading phone calls and sudden appearances out of the blue. She didn’t understand that the lifestyle he’d chosen wasn’t conducive to settling in one place and playing house. It had been an exhausting time. He was afraid that even a short, sharp affair now could leach the remaining life out of him, and he needed his mojo intact if he was going to keep the momentum of his projects going.
But it didn’t mean he couldn’t have fun playing with Josie. He’d be out of here in a few days, so what harm could it do to spend a bit of time figuring her out? There had to be more to her story than she was letting on. She didn’t seem like the kind of woman who could fritter away two weeks in the middle of nowhere. She had a nervous sort of energy about her that gave the impression she had more important things to be doing than just sitting and relaxing.
He wanted to know why.
* * *
She’d been well and truly had and it didn’t feel good.
Josie squeezed shampoo hard into her hand and thumped the bottle down onto the shower shelf in her anger. How could she have allowed him to talk her into embarrassing herself like that? She was clearly off her game because she was tired and stressed about the business. There was no way he would have tricked her like that ordinarily. In retrospect, she wished she’d given him a bald spot and an extra short fringe, just so she’d have something to mollify her.
What was she going to do now? He clearly wasn’t going to budge easily. She’d have to make as much of a nuisance of herself as possible and hope he’d get fed up and decide he’d be better off somewhere else.
She could phone Abi and explain the situation, of course, but she didn’t want it to look as though she couldn’t fight her own battles. And her business partner had enough on her plate as it was.
Shutting off the shower, she stepped carefully out of the tray and towelled herself dry.
The pile of dirty clothes on the floor gave her an idea.
After dressing in a light floral sundress, and drying off her hair so it swung around her shoulders, she gathered up her dirty laundry and dumped it on the bed, ready to take downstairs. Her laptop was sitting on the windowsill, where she’d left it in the hope that the sun would help dry it out, and she went over and tapped the power button again, praying that it would suddenly spring to life.
No dice.
A sharp pain throbbed in her skull and she massaged the sides of her forehead to try and relieve the pressure.
‘Join me for a drink on the terrace?’
She jumped at the sound of Connor’s deep voice, twisting round to see him slouched against the doorjamb of the bedroom. He filled the doorway with his immense physique.
‘I got the impression you wanted me to keep out of your way,’ she answered, nonchalantly flicking her hair over her shoulder. She wasn’t going to show him how nervy she was around him. All she had right now was her self-control, and she was damned if she was going to let that slip away from her too.
‘I changed my mind. I could do with some
