He didn’t want thanks. He wanted a solution as to what he was going to do next. Glancing at Eve in search of inspiration, he found himself looking at a wilting flower again, only she was a slender white lily this time, covered as she was in the cotton sheet.
A sad and helpless slender white lily, he elaborated, and the image locked up a blistering kind of anger inside his chest. ‘How are you feeling?’ he asked gruffly. ‘Do you think you can manage to get yourself dressed?’
‘Yes,’ she whispered.
‘Good.’ He nodded. At least she was managing to stand unsupported at last. ‘Do that, then I’ll walk you up to the main house,’ he decided, aware that there was a small army of live-in staff up there to watch over her.
‘No, not the house.’ Once again she vetoed his suggestion. ‘The staff will report to my grandfather and…’ Her voice trailed away, and those big eyes were suddenly pleading with him again. ‘Could I come and stay with you?’ she asked. ‘Just for the rest of tonight. I promise I won’t be any more trouble, only…’
Again that voice trailed away to nothing, and that dark, sad, vulnerable look cut into him with a deeply painful thrust. Hell, how was it he seemed to attract these kind of situations? he wondered, racking his brain for an alternative solution only to find there wasn’t one. Beginning to feel a bit as if he’d been run over by a bus, he lifted up a hand in a hopeless gesture. ‘Sure,’ he said.
Why not? he asked himself fatalistically. He had conceded to just about everything else.
He was just about to leave her to it when he saw her mouth open to offer yet another pathetic thanks. ‘Don’t say it,’ he advised grimly.
‘No,’ she mumbled understandingly. ‘Sorry,’ she offered instead.
His shoulder muscles rippled as they flexed in irritation. ‘Don’t say that either,’ he clipped out tightly. ‘I don’t want your thanks or your apologies.’ What he really wanted, he thought as he turned for the bedroom door, was to close his hands around Aidan Galloway’s throat.
He was angry, Eve realised. She didn’t blame him. She had probably managed to thoroughly ruin his holiday with all of this. Feeling sick to her stomach, as weak as a kitten, and still too shocked and dizzy to really comprehend even half of what had happened to her tonight, she turned away from him with the weary intention of doing as she’d been told and finding some clothes to put on—only to go still on a strangled gasp when she found herself confronted with her own reflection in the mirror on the opposite wall.
The sound brought Ethan’s departure to a halt. Glancing back, he followed her gaze, found himself looking at her reflection in the mirror and instantly understood.
She’d seen her swollen mouth, her chafed skin—had caught sight of the telling discolouration on the side of her neck that Ethan had been trying very hard to ignore from the moment he’d seen it himself. And perhaps most telling of all was the pink hibiscus still trying its best to cling to her hair.
The tears bulged in her eyes. ‘I look like a harlot,’ she whispered tremulously, lifting shaking fingers to remove the poor flower.
A sensationally beautiful, very special harlot, he silently extended, and on that provoking thought he threw in the metaphorical towel. ‘Blow the clothes,’ he decided harshly and walked back to her side. His arm came to rest across her sheet swathed shoulders. ‘Let’s just get you out of here.’
With that he grimly urged her into movement. Still shocked at the sight of herself, Eve tripped over the trailing sheet. On a muttered curse, Ethan went the whole hog and scooped her up high against his chest.
‘I can walk!’ she protested.
‘Enjoy the ride,’ was his curt response, as he began carrying her out of the bedroom and out of the house with his cast-iron expression brooking no argument.
Neither saw the dark figure standing in the shadows, whose eyes followed their journey from one beach house to the other by the conventional route of paths and gates. Eve’s attention was just too occupied with that old fascination, which was this man called Ethan Hayes and the structure of his—she was thinking, handsome, but the word was really too soft to describe such a forcefully masculine face. His chin was square and slightly chiselled, his eyelashes long and thick. His eyebrows were two sternly straight black bars that dipped a little towards the bridge of his nose and added a disturbing severity she rather liked. She liked his eyes too, even with that a dark steely glint they were reflecting right now, and she loved his mouth, its size, its shape, its smooth firm texture—Her lips began to pulse with the sudden dark urge to taste him in that same wild, uncontrolled way she had done a few minutes ago.
Had she really done that? Shock ricocheted through her. Why had she done it? What kind of substance could Raoul have stirred into her drink that had had the power to make her do such an outrageous thing? She shifted uncomfortably, disturbed by the knowledge that such an out-of-control person could actually be lurking inside her, seemingly waiting the chance to leap out and jump all over a man. What must he be thinking about it, and her, and—?
‘About that kiss earlier…’ she said, approaching the subject tentatively.
Long eyelashes flickered, steely grey irises glinting as he glanced down at her upturned face. ‘Forget it,’ he advised, and looked away again because Ethan was trying not to think at all.
It was hard enough trying not to be aware that what he was carrying was feather-light and as slender as a reed, and that the warm body beneath the sheet was shapely and sleek. He didn’t need the added provocation of looking into her beautiful face, nor to be reminded of that unexpected kiss.
So he concentrated his mind on the different ways he could make Aidan Galloway sorry for what he had done to Eve tonight. Date rape—for want of something to call it—and the use of sexually enhancing drugs to get what he desired, made Galloway the lowest form of human life.
That was where Eve’s kiss had come from, he reminded himself. Nothing more, nothing less, therefore not worth a second thought.
So why can you still feel the imprint of her mouth against your own? he asked himself grimly.
Because she was beautiful, because she was dangerous, and—heaven help him—he liked the danger Eve Herakleides represented. It was called sexual attraction, and he would have to be a fool not to be aware that Eve felt the same pull. That little wriggle she’d just performed had been full of sexual tension—though he had to concede that the drink probably had had a lot to do with it too.
Either way, it was a danger he could not afford to be tempted by. His life was complicated enough without the tempting form of Eve Herakleides.
So what do you think you are doing now? he then scoffed to himself as he carried Eve in through his own front door. And discovered it was not a question he wanted to answer right now, as he lowered her feet to the floor then turned to close the door.
CHAPTER FIVE