Well, he was certainly able to obey simple commands, she thought with grim amusement as he stood like a statue while she bustled around him with a dustpan and brush, pushing Zorro firmly away and sweeping up the glass and soil, mopping up the remains of the water with an old towel.

‘I didn’t know where you were,’ he murmured as if it explained the mayhem, and perhaps it did. His mind had obviously fixed on Nina as the one constant in a dismayingly unfamiliar world. He must have woken in the dark and reached out for the reassurance of her presence, only to find that it wasn’t there. She guessed from the husk of resentment in his voice that he didn’t like being reliant on a stranger.

‘I was only out in the living room,’ Nina said as she put a fresh glass of water into his hand. ‘Do you know where you are?’

‘With you,’ he said, giving her a look that was simultaneously sly and triumphant.

‘No, I mean this place?’

He rubbed his head. ‘That doctor with the needle—he told me about a bird—no, an island—a little island near Auckland. But the bird was important, too….’ He trailed off, and Nina supplied the detail that had eluded him.

‘Shearwater Island.’ At least he still vaguely remembered Dave amongst the jumble of half-finished thoughts.

‘Shearwater Island,’ he repeated in a dutiful monotone that gave her no confidence that it would stick in his mind.

He raised the glass to his dry lips and drank greedily, the strong column of his throat rippling, drawing Nina’s fascinated gaze down to the hollow just above his collarbone where she could see the steady beat of his pulse.

Karl’s faded, V-necked Auckland University sweatshirt was loose on Ryan’s spare frame, sliding off one shoulder, and the soft, tan corduroy trousers were baggy in the legs and a few inches too short, but instead of making him look comical, the sloppy clothes seemed only to accentuate his air of natural arrogance. He was a man who was comfortable in his own skin, whatever he wore over it.

At first, however, he had baulked at putting on someone else’s clothes.

‘Whose are they?’ he had demanded, glaring at them in suspicion when she had produced the shirt and pants from the chest of drawers in the corner of the room.

Granted, they were a bit shabby and no match for the designer labels on his own clothes, which had raised her eyebrows when she had inspected the washing instructions prior to throwing them into her machine, but there was no need for him to look as if he thought they might be crawling with vermin.

‘They’re perfectly clean,’ she told him, shaking them out to prove it. ‘And the man they belong to won’t mind your borrowing them.’

‘Who is he? Your boyfriend?’ His emphasis made it sound like a sneer. ‘You expect me to wear your lover’s cast-offs?’

Nina tossed the clothes onto the bedspread and put her hands on her hips, annoyed that he seemed to take it for granted that she didn’t have a husband. Although, she supposed, he could have noticed her lack of a wedding ring….

‘He’s not my boyfriend. He’s my foster-brother. And I’m only offering them to you because Dr Freeman said you needed to keep warm—’

‘Your brother?’ he interrupted in tones of harsh incredulity. His olive skin darkened, the flush of colour in his cheeks a startling contrast to their previous pallor.

The angry disbelief in his expression made Nina flush in turn. Now she was really getting annoyed. Did he think she was lying in order to hide the fact she had a lover? Was that why he flashed her that searing look of shocked fury? She never would have guessed him for a prude. No, it was more likely that he had mixed her up in his confused mind with somebody else.

She sighed. It would be best to keep her explanations simple and to the point.

‘My foster-brother, Karl. He and I were brought up by my maternal grandparents. He works for a surfboard manufacturer in North Auckland now, but every so often he comes over to spend the weekend. And these are not cast-offs. He simply forgot to take them with him the last time he stayed. I happen to have bought that sweatshirt for him when he was at university—unfortunately, he majored in surfing rather than graduating with a degree!’

Tags: Susan Napier Billionaire Romance
Source: readsnovelonline.net