For Love Alone (A New Adventure Begins - Star Elite 8)

‘Your friends have gone,’ he reported.

‘They are not my friends. I don’t know who they are,’ she snapped before continuing to saw at the freshly purchased loaf of bread before her. She didn’t look up but was painfully aware of him as he crossed the kitchen.

As he passed her he leaned toward her but only so he could whisper into her ear: ‘Liar.’

Carlotta flushed and leaned away from him; from the unwelcome feelings his warm breath shivered down her spine. She wasn’t at all sure why she should find any aspect of this man appealing, but there was something about him that intrigued her. It created a nervous anticipation, a curious worry that was deceptively attractive.

‘Hasn’t anybody told you that you shouldn’t swim fully dressed?’ she asked as she eyed the sodden clothing he didn’t even appear to notice was wet.

‘How do you know I have been swimming?’ Phillip asked, whirling to face her.

‘Well, it isn’t raining and hasn’t rained for the last two days. There is a vast ocean just a few feet away, you know. How else would you get so wet?’ Carlotta lifted her brows at him and smirked.

‘And you have just come from the village,’ Phillip replied. ‘Yet you live here. In this vast mansion.’ His gaze fell to her dress. ‘All by yourself. And are wearing clothing that befits someone who is a villager rather than an aristocrat. Are you a servant? A housekeeper?’

Despite the ache in his shoulders, Phillip folded his arms and rested his hips against the dresser while he waited for her to answer.

‘I don’t think my situation is any of your business. Do you want to tell me why you are here? How did you get in by the way?’ she demanded. ‘I used a key. You didn’t. Hasn’t anybody told you that breaking and entering is illegal?’

Phillip had to admit that she had used a key, which pointed to the fact that someone had given it to her and was allowing her to stay here.

‘Have you left your husband or something?’ he demanded.

‘Husband?’

She stared at him with such horrified eyes Phillip knew she wasn’t married. He contemplated what to do for a moment. They could continue to ask each other questions but would not really achieve anything. What he did know was that she was in trouble of some kind and he was likely to be caught up in it if he stayed in the house with her. When, or if he became embroiled in her problems, he would need her to cooperate with him so they could both escape. He couldn’t achieve that if she didn’t trust him.

‘My name is Phillip,’ he informed her. ‘Phillip Laithwaite.’

‘Carlotta,’ she replied. ‘Carlotta Stoneman.’

Phillip nodded. She replied without hesitation. It assured him that she was being honest. ‘Forgive me for not bowing but it seems a damned foolish thing to do seeing as we aren’t at a ball or social function.’

Carlotta agreed. ‘Don’t you think you should get your wounds cleaned? They are likely to get infected if you ignore them.’ She waved a knife to the hole in his shirt and puckered skin that was visible beneath the sodden material.

‘It is just a graze, and has been cleaned by the sea water,’ he replied only to then realise just how much he had divulged to her without even realising it.

Strangely, though, he suspected that he could tell Carlotta his secrets and she was the very last person who would divulge them to anybody else. There was something almost practical, thoughtful, wary yet honest about her that made him less inclined to want to question her further right now. He would find out everything he wanted to know about her once they had become a little less wary of each other. For now, he had to find out what had happened to his colleagues but stay out sight while doing it, just in case those were Smidgley’s thugs on the doorstep trying to find out who was living here.

‘Who hurt you?’ he asked with a nod to her arm.

Carlotta stared down at her bruised flesh. She shivered and contemplated what to tell him but knew she couldn’t lie so had to tell him the truth. ‘Someone accosted me in the woods. It is why I was panicked when I got back. I have been here for several weeks now and nothing has happened to me before. I thought I was safe, but then this man accosted me.’

‘Is he from the village?’ Phillip scowled.

Carlotta shook her head. ‘I haven’t met everyone in the village, but I haven’t seen him there, I am sure of it.’ She eyed her piece of bread but didn’t bite into it. Instead, she raked him with a worried look. ‘He was just as wet as you as a matter of fact. He was also covered in sand and had a long gash down the side of his face.’

Phillip tensed and immediately straightened. His gaze became stern as he snapped: ‘What did he look like? Describe him.’

Carlotta took a backward step at the intensity on his face. ‘What?’

Phillip strode toward her and grabbed her shoulders in a firm grip. ‘What did he look like? Can you remember? Was he young, old?’

‘Why?’

‘Because I have lost – several – of my friends. They may have been injured. I need to know what the man who accosted you looked like.’ Phillip knew that his friends and colleagues of the Star Elite would never inflict on anybody the kind of bruising Carlotta had sustained.

‘Well, he was not much taller than me, and stocky,’ she replied cautiously.