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‘I booked a room.’
His very low, deep voice had an almost tactile quality and held an intriguing almost accent. A wave of deep sadness tightened her throat—much deeper and harsher, but it reminded her a little of her late brother-in-law, Bruno. But Bruno’s voice had been warm and filled with laughter; the stranger’s voice held about the same amount of warmth as his cold dark eyes as he waited for her to respond.
She gave herself a mental shake, and dug deep into her reserves of professionalism. It wasn’t normally an effort—she’d cut her hospitality teeth working shifts in a bar in Edinburgh when she was working her way through university. Several recent guests had commented online about her ‘friendly efficiency and warmth’.
So why was she standing here like a tongue-tied idiot?
True, to date none of the guests she’d immediately felt at ease with had arrived wearing a suit that screamed designer beneath a long, equally expensive-looking coat that hung off shoulders a mile wide. And none had...no, she decided not to even think about the sexual aura he exuded, hoping that she’d wake up tomorrow after a good night’s sleep and discover it was a sleep-deprivation thing. The odds of this happening were pretty good, because, though her ex-fiancé’s opinion on most things counted for zero with her, on one thing he was probably right—she wasn’t really a sexual person.
* * *
‘Is there a problem?’
Beyond the inescapable fact, Ivo realised, that he had made the mistake of nursing preconceptions, having them challenged made him feel slightly off balance—not something he was accustomed to.
He didn’t intend to get accustomed to it.
He hadn’t even realised until the door had opened that he’d been expecting a tall willowy blonde standing there. He’d not been imagining a petite redhead, a belt holding up her snug-fitting jeans around an impossibly narrow waist.
Ivo dug his hands deep into his pockets as his long brown fingers flexed in response to the mental image of them closing around the circumference. The slight but distinctly feminine sinuous curves above and below the belt sent a fresh slug of scorching heat through his body as he studied them again before he dragged his attention back to her face.
He couldn’t pretend it was a hardship to look at the woman his grandfather had casually suggested he marry.
From nowhere an image of her floating down a church aisle in white came into his head but he pushed it away. The same way he pushed away any thought of marriage. It had seemed like an inevitable prospect, something he owed to the continuation of his name...but the existence of Bruno’s child, the next generation, took the pressure off.
Ivo was here, yes, but not to marry anyone!
Was his alternative plan any less insane? Actually, ‘plan’ might be overstating it—more a play-it-by-ear than actual plan.
So, yes, possibly insane, but less insane than it had seemed around the same time he had seriously contemplated abandoning his car on a section of the road that was underwater about half a mile away.
Ivo didn’t believe in fate, signs or divine intervention, but when you were driving along a road that was rapidly becoming a river a man, even one who prided himself on being rational, did start to wonder: was someone somewhere trying to tell him something?
And it wasn’t the first snag!
Ivo prided himself on being adaptable but today had tested him. Since he’d set out this morning everything that could go wrong had. Engine problems shortly after they had taken off from the private airstrip had forced the pilot to turn back and make an emergency landing in Rome.
When he had finally landed in the replacement jet there had been no driver willing to make the journey up to Skye with weather warnings out advising only essential journeys being made.
Considering that his journey was essential, he had been privately pretty scornful of weather warnings in the British Isles, assuming they’d probably meant heavy drizzle.
His contempt had come back to bite him. He glanced down at his ruined handmade leather shoes—the elderly couple he’d rescued after they’d run off the road had treated him like a hero—not a good fit.
And now he was here and things were still not going to plan. He focused the objectivity he was famed for—some called it coldness—on the heart-shaped face turned up to him.
To suggest that she was not beautiful—even taking into account that his taste in women had never run to petite and fragile—would not have been an objective assessment. He’d met women who were more beautiful, though none had possessed a heart-shaped face framed by wild Pre-Raphaelite curls, the deep titian interwoven with strands of lighter gold.
As unexpected as the vividly pretty heart-shaped face had been was the twist of hard desire he’d experienced when he’d first laid eyes on her.
Setting aside that visceral response, he continued to study the face that had drawn this reaction. It was a face that came complete with tip-tilted nose, a cute, curvy full mouth and wildly sexy and deep kitten-wide pansy-blue eyes framed by spiky, thick, straight lashes. There was the suggestion of a cleft in her pointed, determined small chin.
* * *
In response to his question, Flora lifted her eyes from the relative safety of mid-chest level. His hard stare was disconcerting.
‘You’re wearing a tie.’
She squeezed her eyes closed and thought, Any moment now I’m going to say something that suggests I have more than two brain cells.
Please make it soon!
When she opened them again he’d already unbelted his overcoat and a jacket button. The long brown fingers of his hand were smoothing the already smooth streak of his grey tie that stood out against the spotless background of white, a white made virtually transparent by its saturated condition.
She registered the shadow of dark body hair before she looked quickly away, ignoring the tingling tightness that extended even to the skin of her scalp.
‘You have a dress code?’
Ignoring the sneery sarcasm in his question, though if they had had one it would have been waterproofs and walking boots, she reminded herself that it was her job to make their guests’ stays happy ones, even the ones who were objectionable. Though to be fair she supposed that anyone who had negotiated the single-track-with-passing-places roads to get here, scary for the uninitiated in any weather, might have some excuse for feeling stressed.
Not that he looked stressed, quite the opposite. The aura he projected was of someone in charge, not someone who needed reassurance and sympathy. It was hard to imagine anyone offering him a cup of tea and very much easier, she mused as her eyes drifted to that mouth, to think of them offering him a more intimate form of comfort.
She tried to walk back from the image that flashed into her head—it didn’t help the situation in any way imagining a man naked—and produced a half-decent professional smile. Though the effect was probably spoilt by baby sick on her shoulder...again.
‘No, but we do have drying facilities if you venture out on the hills, though obviously not recommended in this weather,’ she added hastily. It was amazing how sometimes you had to spell out the obvious and amazing how little respect some city types had for either the elements or the terrain of the island.
‘Oh, and there are Ordnance Survey maps in all the bedrooms, though some of guests make use of a local mountain guide service. And if you’re interested in geology there are some fascinating—’
‘I’m not, and I have quite a good sense of direction.’ It had enabled him to be one of only a handful of entrants to complete the arduous desert trek against the clock and the elements for charity, but perversely right now the only place it was taking him was the curve of her lush lips—every road led to the same place.
The awkward silence stretched. Flora filled it with a cheery, ‘So, you’re here for the fishing?’ As much as they desperately needed the money, Flora found herself wishing that he wasn’t here at all.
His jaw clenched. ‘I’m not here for the fishing.’
Fighting the childish urge to tell him she wasn’t really interested anyway, she smiled. ‘Well, I hope you enjoy your stay.’ She hesitated a moment before admitting, ‘The truth is I wasn’t aware we had any bookings. Have you come far?’
‘Yes.’
I’ve had more interesting conversations with a brick wall, she thought, keeping her smile in place until she discovered he was staring at her hair. She fought and lost the impulse to lift a hand to smooth the tangled curls, which at some point today had come free of the tight, efficient ponytail. The time when she was working in Edinburgh and spent the twenty minutes required in the morning to religiously straighten it to a smooth, shiny, straight river seemed a million years ago.
Luxury in this life was applying some lip balm.
‘Well, I think you’re very brave to make the journey in this storm, or possibly very foolish...?’ As the addition slipped past her guard she added a smile, which hopefully robbed the comment of insult.
You did have to wonder, though, who in their right mind made a journey in this weather, ignoring advice from every agency out there including the stretched police force, who were begging people not to make unnecessary journeys until the storm abated.
It took a special sort of arrogance, and on their brief acquaintance Flora suspected this man possessed that quality in abundance.
‘Right, well, if you’d just like to check in? Card, or...’ She looked towards the table where the old-fashioned leather ledger was kept beside a book inviting guests to add their hopefully complimentary comments.
The book and the flowers and twigs she’d arranged in the old zinc jug the previous day were there, but not the leather ledger.
Ivo watched as she pressed a finger to the groove above her nose, her smooth brow puckering in concentration, but it was the dark purplish smudges beneath her blue eyes that drew his attention. He pushed away a waft of feeling that fell short of being empathy but nevertheless was distracting.
And he didn’t need any more distraction, he decided, the initial gut-punch reaction when the door had opened to reveal a diminutive flame-haired figure still raising some uncomfortable red-line-crossed feelings that he felt the need to rationalise. He had clearly subconsciously been expecting a replica of her sister, the tall willowy blonde who had bewitched his brother, and he was still adjusting to the reality. Add that to him not factoring in the possibility he might find the woman that stood between him and his nephew attractive.
He had acknowledged it now and moved on... It would only be a problem if he allowed it to be.
And he wouldn’t.
His confidence was justified: the last time Ivo had allowed his libido to rule him he’d been a teenager and his brother had not yet abandoned everything for a woman. Ivo had been in lust a number of times but had so far avoided anything that could be termed in love. He’d never been in what people would call a long-term relationship, because, in his experience, before he’d ever got close to long term the woman in his bed, who had begun by telling him how much she loved him the way he was, had begun chipping quietly away, trying to change what she had claimed to like about him.
A massive red line of a deal breaker; the woman did not exist that he would change for. The woman did not exist that he could not live without. Even the thought drew the corners of his lips into a cynical smile.
‘You are the person in charge?’
His words brought Flora’s chin up. Obviously this guy’s personality was not as perfect as the rest of him.
‘I am the person in charge,’ she confirmed, sounding a lot calmer than she felt while she wondered what sort of write-up punching him on his nose would earn her.
Actually, during the past nightmare weeks, in charge was the last thing she had felt, but luckily she could put on a good act. She did so now as she walked confidently across to the bar, as if there were no doubt in her mind that she would find the old-fashioned bookings diary where it lay concealed on a shelf.
Luck was on her side.
‘Here we are,’ she said, laying it on the reclaimed wood surface.
The satellite dish meant to connect them to the Internet and the twenty-first century was arriving next week, which might make this old-fashioned ledger redundant. It was another of the outstanding bills that was keeping her awake nights.
She turned from the back where the restaurant bookings were written down, all this evening’s cancellations highlighted by a red line drawn through them, to the front where room bookings were recorded. Sure enough, above one of the cancellations one of the rooms had been booked out for tonight.
She looked up, struggling to feel the professional warmth she had infused her smile with. ‘I’m sorry I missed this one, Mr...?’ She shook her head unable to decipher Fergus’s scrawl or throw off the peculiarly strong antipathy the man had evoked in her.
‘Rocco,’ Ivo responded, giving his middle name as he had on the telephone when booking. He hadn’t wanted to commit himself to a course of action before he’d read the situation.
‘Right, Mr Rocco, sorry about the miscommunication and the welcome.’
‘Or lack of it,’ he inserted smoothly.
‘Just so, afraid I’d assumed that everyone had cancelled due to the storm.’
His dark gold-flecked gaze slid to the window where relentless rain was lashing. ‘You mean it’s not always like this?’
The comment was delivered without the leavening humour which would have made it acceptable. Flora resisted the impulse to rush to the defence of her beloved home.
Her smile frayed a little at the edges as her sister’s face floated into her head. Sami would have had this man eating out of her hand by now. She flinched at the physical impact as the fresh loss hit her all over again. She almost wished that Jamie would wake up so that she would have something practical to focus on to dull the pain. Maybe being too tired to think was not such a bad thing, she mused, ignoring the bleak voice in her head that told her she was only delaying the inevitable, she’d have to feel at some point.
‘Would you like a wee dram to warm you after your journey?’ She bent down to reach the forty-year-old single malt they kept behind the bar for occasions such as this.
The bottle of last resort, Bruno had called it, to be used when everything else failed with awkward or upset customers. They had very few of those, and so far it had been brought out to toast special occasions, like newly engaged couples.
Ivo watched, with what he told himself was academic interest, as the denim of the redhead’s jeans stretched attractively over her taut, rounded rear as she bent over. There was nothing academic about the flash of heat down his front.
Flora straightened up, planted the bottle on the bar so that he could see the label, but his expression did not melt... Could granite melt? ‘On the house, of course,’ she added hastily.
‘No.’ The guest responded to the generous gesture with a look that flattened her smile. ‘If I could see the menu?’
Her expression fell. ‘Menu...?’
He arched a sardonic brow and watched the angry colour wash over the fair freckled skin.
She bit her lip. ‘Fergus, the chef, has gone home actually...’ She stopped. Was it such a good idea to tell this bad-tempered beautiful stranger with his indefinably menacing air that they were alone but for a baby lying asleep upstairs? Feeling ashamed of the sudden flurry of fear, she lifted her chin, squared her shoulders and added a very unconvincing, ‘Sorry.’
‘So your kitchen is closed?’ Of course it was. Ivo had stopped trying to imagine the urbane sophisticated brother he remembered living in this cold, misty, uninviting backwater. He sent up a silent apology to his grandfather, who he had assumed was guilty of over-exaggeration when he’d described the place his great-grandson needed rescuing from. Ivo no longer needed convincing.
From his expression she could see there was no five-star rating heading their way. ‘I could make you a sandwich?’ It wasn’t that she couldn’t cook, but Flora was intimidated by the restaurant’s industrial-looking catering kitchen with its shiny stainless-steel surfaces and latest top-of-the-range gadgets.
She didn’t ask for a translation of the sound he made in his throat, quite happy to take it as a rejection.
‘Right, then,’ she said briskly. ‘Shall I show you to your room? We’re having a little storm-related problem with the heating,’ she explained putting an awful lot of effort into the lie. It was glaringly obvious by his attitude that he didn’t actually believe a word she was saying. ‘But I’ll bring up an electric heater and you’ll be toasty in no time.’ She crossed her fingers while making the over-optimistic prediction. ‘If you’ll follow me?’
One foot on the bottom step of the staircase, she stopped as the fire chose that moment to belch a fresh flume of acrid smoke that filled the entire room. Flora stopped cursing long enough to cough. ‘The wind must be in the wrong direction,’ she excused hoarsely.
‘There is a right direction?’ he asked sardonically.
Before she could react to the sarcasm she was distracted by a sighing sound broadcast from the baby monitor, followed by a sleepy murmur.
Ivo watched as the redhead literally held her breath for a full thirty seconds before her tense shoulders sagged with visible relief.
CHAPTER THREE
‘YOU HAVE A CHILD?’
He watched the shock widen her eyes. Fascinated, Ivo observed the play of emotion across her fine-boned features. His fascination was mingled with disquiet that anyone could wear their emotions so close to the surface; the idea of exposing your vulnerabilities to the world the way she appeared to was anathema to Ivo.
When her reply came a moment or so later it was tinged with surprise underlain with a hint of defiance evident in the straightening of her slender shoulders.
‘Yes, that is my child.’
Flora had accepted the doctor’s verdict. It hadn’t been easy, and for a time she had been angry, but she had come to terms with the fact her endometriosis was so bad that her fertility was severely impaired.
She could have carried on being angry and bitter or hoped for a medical miracle. She supposed it was one of those events in life that everyone reacted to differently. Her way had been to accept what had happened, and save her energy for fights she could win, not lost causes.
That didn’t mean she hadn’t dreamt of saying those words...my child.
Ironic that when she got to say them it wasn’t because of a miracle or a dream-come-true scenario but because she was living a waking version of a nightmare Flora would have given everything she possessed not to be saying those words now, but when she did verbalising them brought home the full reality of the situation crashing in.
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