Nia looked down at their knees, almost touching, and frowned. ‘We should probably get out of these damp clothes.’
He knew what she meant, but it didn’t stop a tug of longing, sharp like hunger, from pulling at him inside. Or keep her eyes from jerking away from his.
‘Good idea,’ he said, letting her off. ‘We can dry them by the fire.’
He unlaced his boots and yanked them off. Straightening up, he reached for his belt, his fingers suddenly clumsy as he realised it was still undone.
Their eyes met.
‘Don’t worry, I trust you not to take advantage of me,’ he teased.
She smiled then, as he’d hoped she would, and began pulling off her trousers.
The kitchen was well-stocked.
‘Well, we won’t starve anyway,’ he said, holding up a tin of caviar and a jar of Fortnum and Mason porcini and truffle tomato sauce.
‘I’ll put some pasta on,’ she replied.
As she bent down to pull out a pan, his eyes were drawn irresistibly to the length of her legs—more specifically to where the hem of her jumper rode high on her thighs.
He felt the muscles in his arms twitch. If he was on set, he would be yelling Action! right now. Suddenly, the urge to reach over and pull her against him was almost overwhelming.
‘There might even be some parmesan,’ she said.
Dragging his gaze away, he opened the fridge.
There wasn’t. But there was a bottle of Bollinger champagne.
‘Nia—’ he began.
Turning, she caught sight of the bottle, and then his face, and burst out laughing. ‘I suppose we do have something to celebrate.’
Farlan felt his blood lighten. He liked hearing her laugh and watching her smile. It made him think about something other than making movies. It made him forget the past.
They had a picnic by the fire. Sitting cross-legged, they ate caviar with crackers, followed by pasta and then to finish, figs in port.
‘That has to be one of the best meals I’ve ever eaten,’ he said, bouncing a smile across the space between them.
He leaned back and let his gaze slowly track around the room. Bothies were supposed to be basic. Just four walls and a roof to give temporary shelter to a hiker or a hunter stranded by dangerous weather.
That had been his experience anyway, the one and only other time he’d stayed in one.
His shoulders tensed. He’d been with his brother Cam, camping. The tail-end of a hurricane had dumped a month’s worth of rain in a matter of hours.
It had been the last summer before his brother had left to go on the oil rigs.
Before Farlan’s life had imploded again.
Before Cam had become the latest in the ever-lengthening line of people who had made a choice that wasn’t him.
Heading off the traces of fear and misery that always accompanied those memories, he glanced past Nia at the plum-coloured chenille sofas that sat on either side of the huge log burner, wondering why the sight of them made a beat of anger pulse down his spine.
‘This is a nice place,’ he said tightly. ‘Maybe a bit spartan for my tastes—’
A flush of cochineal spread slowly over her cheeks. ‘It was one of my mother’s projects. She had a very specific vision.’
The fine hairs rose at the nape of his neck. He knew all about the Countess of Brechin’s vision—insofar as he knew he hadn’t ever been a part of it. But Nia’s parents had intruded in his life anyway. They had taken away the girl he’d loved, deprived him of the future he’d planned, and he wasn’t going to let them get inside his head again now.