rolling the urge to pull her into his arms and just kiss the pain away for her.
Not the wisest course of action to take when the woman in question had the clever knack of falling into a deep faint if he so much as touched on intimacy. He grimaced, clenched his jaw firmly shut, and watched in grim silence as she placed her foot on the ground then carefully transferred her weight onto it. This time it remained there, and the grip on his arm slackened. She released a sigh, then let go of his arm altogether.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘If you could just pass me my stick…’
It was like moving from a rock to a very hard place. No sooner had he managed to contain one set of angry emotions than another set erupted inside him. This new set having something to do with that damn stick and his fierce resentment of it.
‘You will lean on me,’ he determined.
‘Not while I still have another alternative.’ She hit back with throbbing venom.
‘My God.’ His breath left his lungs on a hiss of impatience. ‘Why do you insist on seeing me as some kind of monster?’
She flushed, not with guilt but with anger. ‘You were already out of this country within a month of my disappearance,’ she charged. ‘How else am I supposed to translate that?’
He refused to answer, withdrawing from the fight by flattening his mouth into a tight line as he shifted his attention away from her and with a snap of his fingers brought a blue-liveried doorman running.
End of discussion, she noted angrily, listening to him snapping out instructions to the doorman about her suitcase before he leaned past her to retrieve her stick. In grim silence he offered it to her and in grim silence she took it. Then in the same grim silence they began walking towards the hotel entrance—together but separate, like two polite strangers, with her challenge still hanging in the air between them like an omen of whatever was to follow.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE hotel interior was more or less what she had expected for a deluxe-class establishment. No garish splashes of yellow on purple here, but a soft blend of creams and greens, which contrasted beautifully with a subtle placing of a dark wine-red colour, set against the kind of unashamed luxury which made an absolute mockery of what they had just come from.
Though the quality of her surroundings was the last thing on her mind when, only a few minutes later, she found herself standing inside a suite of rooms with this man and at last began to feel the vulnerability of her situation.
Maybe he was beginning to realise the same thing, because he released a small sigh, then turned to face her. ‘Okay?’ he asked guardedly.
No, she wanted to reply. I’m not okay and I want to go back where I came from. But common sense, or stupidity—she wasn’t sure which—stopped the words from coming.
‘You’ve already been using this suite,’ she remarked instead, having noticed the signs of habitation in the few personal items she could see scattered about.
‘I arrived late last night,’ he confirmed, ‘in time to come up here and sleep off some of my jet lag before I came to find you.’
The late London train, as Freddie had suggested, Samantha realised, and smiled a little wryly as she turned away from him to pretend to take an interest in her surroundings—mainly because she couldn’t think of another thing to say.
Another silence formed. She sensed him watching her as she moved around the suite, opening doors and closing them again before moving on to the next one.
‘Found what you’re looking for?’ he enquired eventually, though he was sardonically aware of what it was, she was sure.
Well, the suite comprised two bedrooms with their own en suites, she confirmed. So there was no need to fight for her privacy. ‘Yes,’ she said—and diverted her attention to the view beyond the window, with her chin up and her green eyes definitely telling him he could mock her all he liked.
The telephone began to ring then. Samantha was never so relieved to hear the sound. While he strode over to a desk standing at the other end of the room, she reached for the handle and opened a French window that led out onto a large, private balcony. Stepping outside, she walked over to lean on the balcony rail and, after a tense little sigh, allowed herself the luxury of a few deep breaths of fresh air, only realising as she did so that it had been a long time since she’d breathed in and out properly.
Stress, tension. Tension, stress. Was there a difference between the two of them? she wondered bleakly, and decided that even if there was a difference the two had become one tight sensation to her.
Oh, why did I let myself be talked into coming away with him like this? Samantha asked herself, as the full weight of her own vulnerability tumbled down upon her head.
Then, You know why, she told herself grimly. He knows who you are. He’s the man who holds the key to all of your problems.
Or is he my problem? she then suggested, and felt a cold chill touch her flesh, as if fate itself was offering her an answer. She was married to him, she’d seen firm proof of that, so why didn’t she feel married? Glancing down at her left hand, she saw no sign that a ring had ever resided there.
So, where was her ring? If she’d been wearing one at the time of the accident, it certainly hadn’t been on her finger after the crash.
‘I have to go out.’
His deep voice coming from behind her made her turn warily. He was standing, propping up the opening, studying her through heavily lashed hooded dark eyes. His hair was short and neat and black and he wore his clothes with a casual ease that belied their sophistication. Nothing wrong with his body, nothing wrong with his face. So what was it about him that she found so upsetting? She gave her own answer. The inner man. The inner man worries you; the outer one simply disturbs you.
‘Business,’ he explained, making her blink her eyes into focus on him. ‘I should be back in a couple of hours. But I’ve ordered some lunch for you. Then I suggest you take a rest.’ His black lashes flickered as he ran his gaze over the way she was leaning so heavily on the stick. ‘Nathan said you spend every evening standing behind the bar at the Tremount; was that wise considering how weak that knee actually is?’