Vacation with a Commanding Stranger

‘If your cousin really wants to find an explanation for the breakdown of her marriage, she should look to her own behaviour and not try to blame it on someone else…’

The flat, dead tone of his voice made Livvy focus on him; his reaction was so very different from the charged, intense response she had had from him earlier that it took her several seconds to recognise that she had nothing to fear; that he was not going to reach for her and take hold of her, subjecting her to the kind of physical domination and punishment he had inflicted on her before.

‘I am not going to discuss my cousin’s marriage with you,’ she told him. ‘Your criticism of Gale is unfair and ill-judged, but then…’

She paused, recognising that there was little point in telling him that he was as wrong about Gale as he had been about her. The man plainly had a bias against the female sex, despite the fact that the aura of intense, raw sexuality which surrounded him must surely attract women to him like moths to a flame.

‘Yes?’ he prompted broodingly, watching her with a concentration that made her shiver again. ‘But then what…?’

Livvy shook her head. What was the point in entangling herself in another confrontation with him? She picked up her parcel of books off the table and turned away from him.

It was barely nine o’clock, and yet her body ached as though she had been up far longer and worked much harder, Livvy recognised as she showered tiredly. Her muscle-tension was no doubt the result of the strain Richard Field’s presence was imposing on her.

She was beginning to regret giving Gale her promise to stay, and yet there was also a small, stubborn part of her that would have been reluctant to retreat and leave Richard Field in victorious possession of the day—and the farmhouse.

It had been unfair of him to make those accusations against Gale. After all, what did he know of her? Gale had known nothing about him… Which meant that he could only have drawn his conclusions about her from things George had said to him.

Livvy paused as she got out of the shower, frowning as she turned this knowledge over in her mind,

ignoring the damp, naked state of her body as she worried at her thoughts.

Used to living on her own and the privacy of her small home, where she was accustomed to padding naked from her bathroom to her bedroom, it had never occurred to Livvy to lock the bathroom door.

In fact she was so disturbed by the issues raised by her thoughts that, when the bathroom door first opened and Richard Field walked in, she simply stared at him blankly until he drawled unkindly, ‘If this is meant to be some kind of invitation, then the answer is no…’

Flushing hotly, Livvy reached for her towel, wrapping it quickly round her naked body, outrage battling with embarrassment.

‘You had no right to walk in here without knocking,’ she protested huskily.

‘You should have locked the door.’

‘If I’d known you were going to come creeping in here like a…like a voyeur, I would have done,’ she retaliated.

She felt flustered and angry, thrown on the defensive and still embarrassed. Surely he must have realised as he opened the door that she was in here… Why hadn’t he simply closed it again and gone tactfully away?

Because he just wasn’t that kind of man, she reflected bitterly, because he was enjoying goading and humiliating her. She could just imagine how she would have felt had their positions been reversed; no way would she simply have stood there and stared, the way he had been staring at her…

It was on the tip of her tongue to resort to childhood and ask what was wrong, hadn’t he seen a naked woman before? But she suspected that to do so would be very dangerous indeed, and highly provocative as well.

She could see already that she had angered him by her earlier accusation. He confirmed it as he leaned towards her, blocking her exit, asking her softly, ‘What is it exactly you’re trying to do? I’ve already told you I’m not interested. Still, I’ll give it to you…you don’t give up easily. What is it? Does the thought of having sex with a man whom you know despises you excite you so much that it overcomes the potential humiliation of being rejected, or is it just that you’re so desperate for sex that you don’t care who you have it with?’

Livvy gave a small, choked gasp of shocked fury. There were a hundred things she wanted to say, denials she wanted to make, feelings she wanted to give vent to, but stronger than any one of them was her need to escape from him and from the humiliation scalding her.

Before she had met him, she would have laughed in disbelief at the idea of any man saying such things to her. She was simply not that kind of woman. She was quite reticent and even a little remote with the opposite sex, and she had certainly never, ever felt the remotest need to behave in any of the ways he was suggesting.

She could feel her legs starting to tremble and she was afraid that if she didn’t get away from him soon she would disgrace herself completely by either fainting or bursting into tears.

Her heart was pounding as though she had run a mile; she felt sick, tense and very, very vulnerable.

He moved slightly away from the door and she took her chance, almost running through it as she told him through gritted teeth, ‘You were the one who came barging in here. I did not invite you. If one of us is looking for sex, it certainly isn’t me…’

She shot past him and into her bedroom without allowing him to make any response and then stood leaning against the door while her body trembled with shocked reaction.

Beneath her towel she could feel the too-fast beat of her heart—and the taut stiffness of her nipples.

CHAPTER SIX

LIVVY didn’t sleep well. Her dreams were disturbed by vague images of a tall, dark-haired, hard-mouthed man who pursued her relentlessly, threatening her in some nerve-jarring, insubstantial manner that brought her abruptly out of her sleep, her mouth dry and her heart pounding heavily.