Captivated by Her Innocence

Not that that relationship had been a great success!

Taking lust and hormones out of the equation had not saved Anna from making a mistake, but on the plus side that mistake had not involved an unplanned pregnancy, or a suicide attempt. Far better to be dumped by a man you didn’t love, than one you couldn’t live without.

She squeezed her eyes shut. She would never allow herself to be the victim that Rosie had, never allow a man to reduce her to that!

‘My sister appears to trust you.’

Her tightly squeezed eyes opened and settled on his lean dark face before narrowing on the strong, sensual outline of his lips. Anna felt her stomach muscles tighten. Face it, taking lust and hormones out of the equation was not an option with a man who possessed that mouth!

‘If you fail to live up to her expectations you will regret it.’

For several moments Anna remained too shocked by her own thought processes to respond.

‘Is that a threat, Mr Urquart?’ she finally asked quietly.

His dark eyebrows rose upwards. ‘It is a fact, Miss Henderson,’ he responded, without missing a beat.

Anna’s chin lifted, her blue eyes narrowed at the corners, darkening with purpose as she met his stare head-on. Excitement was not a sane response to the warning, yet it was there in the shiver that slid like a silken finger down her spine.

Neither willing to be the first to break that contact, it was Cesare who did so, his glance sliding down the smooth column of her throat. The action bearing all the hallmarks of a compulsion that glittered in his heavy-lidded eyes as they reached the base of her throat where a pulse visibly pounded against her blue-veined skin. Skin that had a translucent sheen. It looked so soft that before he could exert some control he was visualising his open mouth pressed to that pulse spot while he slid his hand over the full provocative curve of her breast. He inhaled sharply, his expression hardening as he snarled, ‘I do not tolerate incompetence in my staff.’

Anna’s chin lifted another notch. It was not his arrogant assertion that sent her stomach into a dipping dive or brought a sheen of sweat to her skin, but the gleam she had seen in his deep-set eyes, a gleam that was sizzlingly hot as his voice was now cold.

‘I’m not your staff.’ She gave a haughty toss of her head. ‘Now if you’d direct me I can get the things I left in the car and start doing what I came here for.’

It was not his words that finally made her pull in a tense breath and blank her expression but her reaction—the rush of excitement she experienced—when he said in a voice like cold steel, ‘You are in my home. The rules are mine.’

He walked straight past her without having directed her anywhere. It was several minutes before Anna moved, before her shaking legs would support her. She had always firmly believed that the entire macho thing masked insecurity and had been mildly contemptuous of women who fell for the chest-beating routine.

But if Cesare had any insecurities he was hiding them well!

CHAPTER FIVE

ON HER SECOND day at Killaran, having dropped Jas off at her friend Samantha’s house, Anna found she had a few hours to herself. She spent them exploring a section of the coastal path that would have been too taxing for Jasmine to cope with, though it was hard to convince the child she had any limitations.

By the time Anna had completed the coastal circuit and Killaran was in view, the exertion had unknotted some of the tension that had built up in her shoulders and brought a healthy flush to her cheeks. She tried not to let the sight of the grey stone monument that dominated the landscape spoil her mood. It was not the building that caused the spring in her step to grow heavy, it was the owner—Mr ‘Lord of all I survey’ Urquart.

At least he wouldn’t be there to appear when she wasn’t expecting it. Yesterday she had felt as though she were taking part in some sort of covert military exercise and she wasn’t discounting the possibility her room had been bugged. Everywhere she went he was there, though what sinful activity he expected to catch her out in she didn’t have a clue. Her relief had been so intense she nearly kissed the stern Mrs Mack when the housekeeper had explained that Monday mornings Cesare flew to Rome, returning in the middle of the week.

A few days a week without him around might just make this bearable. She hadn’t been expecting him to back down, but she had thought he would accept the situation and let her get on with it, contenting himself with throwing the occasional scowl her way when their paths crossed occasionally. But if yesterday was any indicator she’d been wrong on both counts; this was a war of attrition.