A virgin…now pregnant with his baby. It was too ludicrous to even be laughable. Was he actually expected to swallow such a preposterous story?

He picked up a paperweight off his desk and rubbed the smooth stone over the palm of his hand, flexing his fingers and frowning as he replaced it.

The truth in this case was that he had been stupid, but not criminally so. They might never have made it to a bed, but he’d always had safe sex—why, even when they’d ended up on the floor…

Severo froze, every muscle in his body tense as he tried to remember.

He shook his head—was it possible?

Stranded, Seduced…Pregnant

By

Kim Lawrence

www.millsandboon.co.uk

About the Author

KIM LAWRENCE lives on a farm in rural Anglesey. She runs two miles daily, and finds this an excellent opportunity to unwind and seek inspiration for her writing! It also helps her keep up with her husband, two active sons, and the various stray animals which have adopted them. Always a fanatical consumer of fiction, she is now equally enthusiastic about writing. She loves a happy ending!

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Chapter One

HOLDING the steaming mugs high to avoid collision, Neve smiled an apology as she backed cautiously around a large, noisy family group who had bagged a much coveted table. One of them moved a bag out of her way as Neve continued to look around for Hannah, who was not where she had left her.

The mistake, she recognized, had been saying, ‘Don’t move,’ before she went to queue at the bar for hot drinks.

She gave a silent sigh and thought, When will I learn?

Any instruction, no matter how innocuous, and Hannah could be guaranteed to do the exact opposite—the possibility that this half-term break might be a bonding experience had never been exactly realistic, but at that moment it seemed laughable.

Neve paused, her narrowed eyes moving across the heads of the people crammed into the low-beamed room, people like herself, stranded travellers who had found sanctuary in this remote coaching inn. Her glance strayed to the leaded window, and she shivered; the blizzard that had embarrassed the weather forecasters and brought the West Country to a halt continued to rage unabated.

She breathed in to let someone squeeze past and out of the corner of her eye she caught a flash of blue. The controversial streaks in the dark glossy hair identified the head as that of her stepdaughter, who had taken possession of a wooden settle by a window.

Neve took a deep sustaining breath and began to weave her way through the crowd. She managed to reach the window without scalding anyone with their hot drinks.

‘Nice work—you found a better seat.’ Keep it light, Neve. ‘I thought I’d lost you,’ she added, placing the mugs of cocoa beside the pot of fragrant blue hyacinths on the slate window sill before pulling the hat crammed down on her auburn curls from her head.

She shook back her hair, easing free the strands that had insinuated themselves down the neck of her sweater, and peeled off her jacket. The room heated by roaring log fires at both ends was warm. ‘I thought cocoa might complete the warming process, topped with cream and marshmallows—I couldn’t resist!’ Even to her own ears her attempt at camaraderie sounded unconvincing and slightly desperate.

Hannah clearly thought so too. Her stepdaughter flicked her a look of shrivelling contempt, of the type that it seemed to Neve only a teenager could pull off, before shrugging and ignoring the drink with a muttered, ‘Do you have any idea how many calories are in that? You should be fat as a pig.’

So no lull in hostilities.

With her smile pasted in place, Neve wondered if putting on twenty pounds would make Hannah dislike her less.

Probably not. Also it would be pretty difficult: no matter what she ate her figure remained painfully skinny. She would have traded her boyish figure for feminine curves in a heartbeat, but it just was never going to happen.

The moment she sat down Hannah shuffled to the far end to avoid any possibility of physical contact. Giving her aching cheek muscles a break, Neve let her smile slip.

‘Look, don’t worry, I’m sure the snow will stop.’

Though it showed no sign of doing so yet, and until it did they were well and truly stuck here. Though admittedly, Neve conceded, looking around the crowded bar, there were worse places to be stranded—like outside in the snow-covered Devon moor. She shivered as she slid another look through the misted pane of the window. This was not exactly roughing it.

Hannah bounced around to face Neve and so did her glossy dark hair, complete with the blue streaks that were responsible for Neve’s recent summons to the Devon school where Hannah was a weekly boarder.

Neve had responded dutifully to the summons and had sat, hands neatly folded in her lap, and listened feeling more like a pupil than a parent as the headmistress had voiced her concern—concern Neve shared.

‘It’s not just the hair, Mrs Macleod, or the cigarettes.’ She dismissed the most recent episodes of rule breaking with a wry smile and consulted the file on her desk. ‘But I do feel this situation requires attention—a united approach?’

Wondering if she looked as inadequate as she felt, Neve had nodded agreement, too worried to feel patronized. She needed all the help she could get; her parenting skills, it turned out, were zero.

‘There have been any number of incidents and, as you know, not all so minor. We were very lucky that the owners of the delivery van did not choose to press charges. You do know that if it wasn’t for the sad circumstances that would have been an automatic expulsion?’

‘And we’re very grateful,’ Neve had promised her earnestly. She saw no need to mention that Hannah’s ‘gratitude’ had taken the form of sulky silence and poisonous glares.

‘It is Hannah’s attitude that concerns us most. She is very confrontational.’

Tell me about it, Neve thought. ‘I’m sure it’s only temporary.’

‘And her grades have slipped.’

‘She’s had a tough time. She was very close to her father.’

‘I know she was. It is sad for you both,’ the older woman continued.

Neve was horrified when without warning her lower lip started to quiver dramatically—so much for projecting calm maturity!

The genuine kindness in the other woman’s voice had pricked the hard protective shell she had developed and done what all the sneers, sniggers and tabloid cameras had failed to do.

She took the tissue from the box pushed her way and blew her nose loudly.

‘Thanks,’ she said, not meaning the tissue.

Kindness was not something that she had been on the receiving end of much, actually not at all, once the tabloids had portrayed her as a cold-hearted, manipulative, gold-digging bitch who had married a wealthy dying man for his money. The scarlet widow, they had labelled her. It could have been worse, her brother Charlie had joked at the time—they could, he pointed out, have called her ginger.

Initially there had been a few people inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt, but they had faded away after an enterprising journalist had dug deeper and found out about the money Charlie had embezzled from James’s firm.

Neve had not tried to defend herself. How could she? The fact was she had married a dying man who had left her pots of money and Charlie had embezzled a small fortune.

Nobody wanted to know she had not touched the money or that she’d agreed to James’s proposal as a way of finally repaying the incredible kindness he’d shown both her and Charlie.

‘And we have all made allowances for Hannah, but there is a limit. A child needs boundaries to feel safe.’

Neve accepted the not-so-subtle reprimand and gave a guilty nod, thinking boundaries only worked if the child involved listened to a word you said. If she had half the natural authority that this woman projected there wouldn’t be a problem.

‘I have the impression that Hannah views this new suspension before the holidays as a joke. May I make a suggestion?’

‘Of course.’

‘She will be spending the holidays skiing with the Palmer girl and her family?’

Neve nodded cautiously, because she was pretty sure she knew where the older woman was going with this and it would not make her life any easier.

It hadn’t. Her stepdaughter’s response to news that she was to spend the holiday at home with Neve and not in a fashionable ski resort with her friends had gone down pretty much the way Neve had anticipated—namely there had been shouting, abuse and finally sulky, sullen silence.

She had become enemy number one—so no change there—and the cause of every bad thing that had ever happened in her stepdaughter’s life, responsible for everything, it seemed, including the weather.

She had to be doing something wrong. It wasn’t meant to be this difficult, was it? Neve wondered wearily.

What had James said?

At twenty-three you haven’t forgotten what it’s like to be a teenager.

Well, she hadn’t, but she had never been a teenager like Hannah.

I’m not asking you to be her mother, Neve. Be her friend. She’ll need one.

Need maybe, but not want! Not sharing James’s optimism, she hadn’t really expected Hannah to look on her as a best friend, but she hadn’t anticipated being the unwavering focus of all that youthful frustration and simmering hatred.

It was grueling, exhausting, and deeply depressing.

She thought things might not have been so bad if it hadn’t been for the generous provision James had made for her in the will. She knew he was only trying to be kind, but that kindness had backfired big time even before the press got hold of the story.

Hannah had already considered her young stepmother a gold-digger, and the money had merely confirmed her suspicions.

Neve felt like a total failure. James had trusted her, God knew why. The truth was she wasn’t qualified to look after a puppy, let alone an adolescent girl, and goodness knew what had made her agree to this in the first place.

‘Worried? I’m not worried, I’m bored. With you,’ Hannah added just in case Neve had not got the message.

It would have been hard not to. It was becoming clear to Neve that the cheek-turning she had been doing was not working, but the tough love alternative wasn’t exactly proving to be a massive success either. There had to be some middle ground of parenting…didn’t there?

‘I’ve got some things planned for your break. I thought we could go shopping, and maybe if you like we could—’

The teenager cut across her. ‘Thanks, but I’m not into charity shops,’ she drawled, rolling her eyes. ‘You do know that shocking pink clashes with ginger hair.’ She gave a visible shudder as her contemptuous glance moved from Neve’s sweater to her unruly auburn curls.

Neve, who owned a shop selling vintage clothes—the sweater, which she had loved on sight, had never made it to the shelves—refused to take offence. The criticism was to some extent valid: before her marriage she had shopped in charity shops, developing what kinder friends called an individual style and the less kind called weird.

Her style had not changed even after her finances had. James had given her credit cards and a very generous allowance, but she had always felt uneasy accepting his generosity. It wasn’t as if they had had marriage in anything but name.

‘Vintage is very in, haven’t you heard?’ Her customers had—business was thriving.

‘That was never in.’

Encouraged by the grin Hannah visibly fought as she looked at the sweater in question, Neve smiled and suggested, ‘You could always show me what I should be wearing?’

‘Look, there’s no one here to see your saintly act so why don’t you just drop it, Neve? It’s not as if you’re fooling anyone anyway. Everyone knows why you married Dad.’

‘I was very fond of your father, Hannah,’ Neve said quietly.

‘Fond of his money, you mean,’ the youngster hit back. ‘Or are you trying to tell me you’d have married him for love?’

Neve’s eyes dropped guiltily. ‘Your dad was a lovely man.’

‘And you are a gold-digging bitch!’

This last observation was made loudly enough for the people at the next table to hear it. While her stepdaughter stormed off, she sat wishing the floor would open up and swallow her.

When it became clear that nothing short of a miracle was going to get him to his meeting on time Severo was irritated but philosophical. The very real possibility he would be forced to spend the night in his four-wheel drive was not a pleasant one, but to his mind it constituted inconvenience rather than disaster.

He rounded a bend and swore softly under his breath as he just managed to stop before he collided with the car that was slewed half across the road. Dark head bowed against the driving snow, he got out to check out the abandoned vehicle. The fact the car was locked made it seem likely that the occupants had escaped relatively unscathed.

Continuing in these weather conditions was clearly no longer a viable option. According to the last news bulletin he had heard half of the West Country was snowed in and the police were appealing to motorists to make only urgent journeys.

Stay at home, they urged. You had to get there first, he mused as he tramped back to his own vehicle. He had almost reached it when he spotted the lights in the distance. It took him another ten minutes of painful progress before he reached them.

From the look of the snow-covered vehicles in the car park of the roadside inn he had not been the only snow-bound traveller that had chanced upon this sanctuary in the middle of the bleak moor.

He was reaching for the door when his phone rang. He glanced at the caller ID and was tempted not to respond; the last time his stepmother had contacted him she had just been arrested for shoplifting.

The time before when he hadn’t picked up she had raised the money she had wanted him to supply by selling off a piece of family jewellery that wasn’t hers to sell, and buying it back discreetly had been time consuming.

His stepmother was time consuming, but it was dangerous to ignore her.

When he’d been young and Livia had been making a fool of his father while doing her best to turn him against his son, Severo had comforted himself with thoughts of the revenge he would one day be in a position to exact.

Now he was in that position, but Severo’s priorities had changed. His father was in a place where his gold-digging wife could no longer hurt him, and the only power the woman who had once made his life hell wielded was to embarrass him. Actually not him—more the family.

When it came to embarrassment Severo was pretty much bomb-proof these days. As for pride in an old name, he took the view that less pride, less romanticising on past triumphs, and less being worried about getting their aristocratic hands dirty and the fortunes of the Constanza family would not have been so sadly depleted when he had been passed the mantle of power by his father.

The truth was Severo had simply lost his appetite for revenge. Not because he’d forgiven his stepmother or even that he had grown to pity her—and Livia Larsen, one-time IT girl and society hostess, had become an object of some people’s pity.

Why waste time and energy when Livia was doing a pretty good job of messing up her own life without any help from him? All Severo wanted these days was for her to stay long enough in one of the expensive clinics she frequently booked herself into to actually clean up her act.

‘Livia.’

He held the phone a little way from his ear, wincing at the sound of his stepmother’s shrill voice berating him for his lack of feeling.

‘How am I expected to live on the pittance you give me?’ she demanded. ‘You have more money than you need!’ she complained. ‘Everyone knows you’re disgustingly rich. Everything you touch turns to gold.’

Severo rubbed his hand across his eyes—they felt gritty with exhaustion—and continued to listen with half an ear. It was a familiar tirade and one that did not alter no matter how much money he gave Livia, but what was the alternative?

Livia’s voice became a coaxing whine. ‘Just a loan?’

Severo sighed. There had been many loans and he had no doubt there would be many more.

‘I’ll pay you back—with interest. I know it’s what your father would have wanted. Your father would have—’ Her voice was drowned out by loud static before the line went dead.

He slid the phone back into his pocket, not feeling unhappy that the signal had been lost.

He was approaching the entrance to the inn when a small figure exploded from the double doors, barrelling straight into him. Coatless and hatless and seemingly oblivious to the arctic blast of air howling down from the surrounding hills, the slim jean-clad female wearing a bright pink sweater covered with yellow daisies righted herself before running past him, then stopped and turned.

‘Did you see her?’

Her eyes were wide, anxious and blue—very blue. So blue, in fact, that for a split second he registered nothing but the colour and then the moment and the opportunity to respond was gone. She was belting on and past him out into the snowy car park.

Her figure stood out, a dark blur in the swirl of white, still managing to emanate high-voltage anxiety across the space that separated them. Through the howl of the wind he heard her dismayed exclamation at the sight of a car pulling out onto the road.

‘Oh, God, no!’

Severo was not a man who felt impelled to ride to the rescue of maidens in distress—such actions were open to misinterpretation and it was his experience that distress could be easily and often artistically feigned. Yet he found himself responding, albeit with reluctance, to some dormant protective instinct.

He was still a few feet from the flame-haired figure when her slumped shoulders straightened and she jumped into one of the parked vehicles and pulled away at a reckless speed. There was a time lag of several seconds before Severo realised that the lights receding into the distance belonged to his own car.

He had not only left the keys in the ignition and a laptop containing extremely sensitive information on the passenger seat, he had stood there and watched while someone stole his car, oblivious to everything except the brilliance of a pair of electric-blue eyes and a desire to offer his assistance.

He closed his eyes, called himself several rude names, not having any cathartic effect, then took a deep breath and strode into the inn.

Chapter Two

THERE was a lull in the buzz of conversation and laughter inside the crowded bar as the door was flung open. The lull lengthened into a silence as people absorbed the details of the new arrival’s appearance.

Tall enough to be obliged to duck his head to avoid collision with the top of the doorjamb, the dark-haired figure who stood framed in the doorway appeared utterly oblivious to the stares directed his way.

Most of his fellow stranded travellers had arrived at this sanctuary feeling to varying degrees stressed and dishevelled. This man did not look stressed, he looked irritated, and, as for dishevelled, he looked like a walking advertisement for what a glossy magazine might suggest a well-heeled, fashion-conscious business executive—always supposing he had a profile like a Greek god and a body like an Olympic rower—should aspire to achieve.

The only clue to the blizzard conditions he had just driven through was the sprinkling of rapidly melting snow on his dark mohair overcoat, open at the neck to reveal the white collar of a pristine shirt and a perfectly knotted silk tie, and the slightly wind-ruffled quality to his well-cut hair that was jet black, had outgrown a crop and was beginning to curl into his neck.

His deep-set dark eyes, fringed by long curling lashes set beneath dark well-defined brows, swept the room before they narrowed as he headed for the bar and the man who stood behind it.

The hum of conversation began once more as people melted away automatically to clear his path.

Severo got straight to the point. ‘My four-wheel drive has been stolen from your car park by a woman—a redhead.’

‘Well, she won’t get far, will she?’

A man who sat nursing a pint piped up with a cheery, ‘As far as the nearest ditch, I would think.’

Severo shook his head to dispel the unbidden slow-motion image complete with sound effects of the redhead hitting his windscreen—had she belted herself in?—and flashed a cold look at the wit sitting at the bar. The man quickly lowered his gaze into his pint glass.

‘Not a lot we can do, I’m afraid,’ the landlord said, still projecting what in the circumstances seemed to Severo a quite inappropriate level of optimistic cheer. ‘Was there anything valuable in the car?’

Severo shook his head in a negative motion even as he listed his possessions still sitting on the passenger seat: passport, credit cards and all that information on the proposed takeover that several rivals would consider, if not priceless, certainly of extreme value.

‘That’s good, then.’

Severo, the strong, sculpted lines of his angular face taut with annoyance, ran a hand across the fresh stubble on his jaw before pressing a finger to the small permanent groove above his aquiline nose. He refused the drink offered by the man behind the bar and rotated his head to alleviate the knots of tension in his neck.

‘You say she’s a redhead?’

Severo nodded, an image of the snow-dappled copper tresses flashing into his head.

‘Someone might know her but, as you can see, we’ve had a lot of people in…’ He banged a tankard on the bar and raised his voice above the loud hum of conversation in the crowded room. ‘Did anyone notice a redhead?’

It was no surprise to Severo that a number of men indicated they had—the car thief had not been the sort of woman to pass unnoticed by men—but no one, it seemed, knew who she was.

The landlord continued to be sympathetic but philosophical. ‘We can’t offer you a bed, but there’s a fire and blankets and a well-stocked larder and bar.’

Severo, who did not share the landlord’s laid-back attitude, shook his head when his host produced a bottle of malt and added, ‘Like Jack here said, she can’t have got far.’

Severo was seeing an image of a still body hunched lifeless over a steering wheel, snow drifting in through a smashed windscreen.

It was not his responsibility if the crazy woman had already written off his car and probably herself. He had not asked her to steal his car!

‘Tomorrow when the roads clear you can—’

That might be too late. ‘We should inform the authorities.’

The landlord watched as Severo fished out his phone, only to grimace at the lack of reception.

‘Before you ask, the landlines are down too, have been all morning, and all the mobile signals have crashed. Have a drink. There’s nothing you can do now,’ he advised comfortably.

Severo accepted a coffee and considered his options. There were always options.

‘Those skis I saw in the porch—who do they belong to?’

The landlord pointed out a group of young men at the far end of the room. ‘Students on their way up to Aviemore,’ he added by way of explanation.

Some bright spark suggested putting together a ski posse. The suggestion was made jokingly but it fed the embryo of an idea in Severo’s head.

Fifteen minutes later, having resisted the well-meaning attempts to dissuade him from his course of action, Severo was strapping on a pair of borrowed skis. The borrowed ski gear was a slightly snugger fit than he would have liked, but more than adequate.

The snow still fell from rapidly darkening skies, but the wind had dropped and he made quite good time down the road, following it in the direction he had seen his car vanish.

He might have missed the abandoned vehicle had he not paused at the top of the incline to scan the horizon; if he had not he would undoubtedly have missed the light.

Changing direction, he followed the eerie beam to its source: the headlights, or at least the one not buried in the snowdrift, of his own off-roader, which was well and truly off road now!

It was the scene lifted direct from his imagination minus, thankfully, the lifeless body slumped over the wheel. The door was open but the thief had already gone, proving that she was as criminally stupid and suicidal as she had appeared; anyone with half an ounce of sense would have stayed with the vehicle and the shelter it afforded.

His belongings were still where he had left them. The sensible thing would be to gather them and make his way back to the inn. An insane woman was not his responsibility. It would serve her right if she did end up a statistic of the freak weather conditions—and he’d end up beating himself up because he could have saved her, or killed himself trying.

After a brief internal struggle he sighed. It would do his reputation no good at all if people suspected he had a conscience.

He permitted himself a grim smile when, after a quick reconnoitre of the immediate area, he discovered the imprint of footsteps that the falling snow was already beginning to cover—his thief was not far ahead.

It was not difficult to follow the footsteps. The thief, who appeared to have stumbled several times, was apparently walking in a series of ever-decreasing circles.

All sounds were muffled in the white landscape except the hoarse rasp of her own laboured respirations as she forced herself onwards. Neve’s reserves of energy were totally depleted; it was sheer desperation now that drove her on. The dread lodged in her chest felt like a stone; total panic was a heavy heartbeat away.

‘I like snow,’ she reminded herself, panting as she added, ‘I love snow.’ Before falling flat on her face for the fifth time—she was counting.

If she ever had grandchildren she was going to bore them silly with this story, though stories that began with the day Granny stole a car might not be setting the best example!

She lay there and closed her eyes; she would just rest for a moment. Then she would get up because if she didn’t there wouldn’t be any grandchildren to set a bad example to.

She would get up because James had trusted her and she couldn’t let him down.

She lay there hearing his voice.

‘I have a favour to ask you, Neve.’

‘Anything,’ she had replied, meaning it.

James Macleod had been at college with her dad and because of that he’d given Charlie a job. Her brother had then proceeded to repay the kindness by embezzling from clients’ accounts to pay for his gambling habit.

Knowing he was about to be found out, Charlie, planning to flee the country, had confessed all to Neve. She had gone to James and begged him not to bring in the police.

Amazingly he hadn’t. Instead James had covered the theft using his own money, with the one proviso that Charlie seek help for his gambling addiction.

As far as Neve was concerned she was not about to refuse any favour James asked of her.

‘Marry me.’

Any favour but that one.

‘I’ve shocked you.’

‘No, no,’ she lied, closing her mouth. Nothing in the way James had treated her had led her to think he thought of her that way.

She certainly had never considered him in a romantic light. She wondered uneasily if anything she had done or said had made him think…? Blushing madly, she fumbled for a tactful way of responding without hurting his feelings.

‘That’s very nice of you, but it’s just…I—’

‘You don’t love me—of course you don’t. I’m old enough to be your father—’

‘It’s not that, it’s—’

‘But this wouldn’t be permanent, Neve. Yes, I know that sounds strange, but bear with me, don’t say anything yet, just let me explain. You see, it’s back,’ he revealed.

Neve knew the ‘it’ James referred to was the disease he had been battling for years.

‘And this time the prognosis is not good. I have two months tops. Don’t cry, Neve, I’ve had time to come to terms with it and, to be honest, I’m pretty tired. My only regret is leaving Hannah.

‘She will be alone and vulnerable, the target of unscrupulous people more interested in her money than her welfare. She will be a very rich young woman, Neve. If you and I marry on paper, and you adopt Hannah, become her legal guardian, nobody will be able to dispute your legality when I am gone. I can trust you. I know you will protect her.’

The tears began to seep from beneath Neve’s closed eyelids. ‘And a great job I’m doing of that!’ she mumbled bitterly into the snow. She hit the powdery white surface with her closed fist and hissed, ‘Come on, Neve, you’re being pathetic. Stop wallowing and get up.’

Teeth gritted, she fought the growing compulsion to just close her eyes. She rolled onto her back; the effort exhausted her. It was while she was lying there gathering her strength that she heard the noise—yes, it was a noise, not the wind. Someone was shouting.

‘Here!’ she croaked. ‘I’m here!’

Energising relief rushing through her body, she struggled to pull herself into a sitting position before drawing herself up onto her knees. Then, hand held above her eyes to shade them from the falling snow, she directed her hopeful gaze at the shadow emerging through the snow. ‘Hannah?’

She felt a stab of disappointment. The figure outlined against the sky was not a girl, but a man, an extremely tall man on skis. A man who, from the speed he was approaching, appeared to know what he was doing.

Not Hannah, she thought, refusing to be disheartened, but someone who could help her find Hannah.

For a horrid split second she thought the figure on skis hadn’t actually seen her—he hadn’t changed direction. Her heart sank, and panic set in as she imagined him passing by. She began to shout and wave her hands, but her words were whipped away by a sudden strong gust of wind. Then just as she was sure he was going to vanish he veered and came to a stop that sent a puff of fresh snow into the air a few feet away from her.

Almost sobbing with relief now, she waved at him and opened her mouth to call a warning that the ground fell away steeply, and closed it again. He was unclipping his skis and walking the last few feet. Unlike her he was not sliding and stumbling, but moving instead with an almost panther-like grace. The figure clad from head to toe in black approached.

Neve willed him to hurry. She was impatient to explain the situation and renew her search for Hannah.

‘I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you.’

He stood there for a moment. He might have been happy to see her too, or surprised or any number of things, but it was impossible to tell because his face was covered by a black ski mask. All she could see was the gleam of his eyes through the slits of the mask.

Without saying a word he extended a gloved hand and she took it, her eyes widening as she registered the steely strength of the man who dragged her to her feet.

‘Thank you so much.’ She tilted her head back to look her rescuer in the face. She had to tilt a long way; he was seriously tall. The overall effect of the mask and the all-black outfit was sinister, but, she was willing to admit, practical.

Her own face was numb but she was sure it was going to sting like crazy when the circulation returned to it and her frozen extremities.

‘Have you seen anyone else? A girl about fourteen?’

He didn’t respond to her anxious query, just carried on staring down at her.

‘Dark hair, she’s wearing a red duffel coat.’ A warm colour but the coat wasn’t—it was thin and not waterproof. She caught her wobbling lower lip between her teeth and said with determined optimism, ‘Which will be useful—we’ll be able to spot her miles away.’

Her tone invited him to come back with something appropriately upbeat, but when all he did was carry on staring at her with the same unnerving intensity, Neve gave him a gentle nudge.

‘I mean, red stands out for miles, ask any ginger person.’ She tried, but Neve couldn’t force the laugh past her tight, aching throat muscles. ‘We will find her, won’t we?’

‘Find who?’ His narrowed eyes scanned her face. The freckles across her nose stood out in the ghostly pallor that was alleviated by the patches of colour where the driving snow had chafed the soft skin of her cheeks to a painful pink. More worrying was the bluish tinge of her lips, a warning sign he might have noticed a precious minute earlier if he had not been transfixed by the brilliance of electric-blue eyes. In his defence they were extraordinary.

‘Who?’ Had he been listening to a word she’d said? ‘Hannah, of course.’

He unzipped his jacket and draped it around her narrow shoulder. ‘She’s a redhead too?’

‘No, red coat.’ The heat embedded in the padded fabric was tempting, but as much as she appreciated the gesture she couldn’t let him. ‘That’s really kind of you, but I can’t allow you—’

‘Allow implies I asked permission.’

The irritation in his deep voice was echoed in the dark eyes that meshed briefly with her own.

‘I didn’t.’

‘But you’ll get cold…’

Ignoring her protest, he took her right wrist.

She was too surprised to resist as he threaded it into the sleeve as if she were a child and then took her left hand and did the same.

‘But—Ooh!’ He drew the two sides of the jacket together so forcibly he almost jerked her off her feet. Teeth chattering violently, she looked up at him. His dark eyes glittered back at her through the slits in the mask, projecting a level of anger that was bewildering.

‘I really don’t need your—’

Severo swore and grabbed her by the shoulders. This was no time for tact and diplomacy. He studied her upturned features with a baffled expression. She couldn’t take his jacket, but this was the same woman who had taken his car without a second thought?

What she needed, in his opinion, was therapy, and so did he for being out here.

He pulled the zip all the way up until just her small tip-tilted nose peeped out over the top.

‘I’d love to chat with you, but we have no time for a debate. Also, for the record, I am not being chivalrous, this is purely practical. I’m wearing layers.’ And even through them the bite of the cold went bone deep.

The chill went deeper still when he thought of what sort of condition she would have been in if he had not found her when he had. How long would she have lasted—another hour…less?

He felt his anger surge. She seemed utterly oblivious to the danger she was in.

‘You are dressed for a stroll along a beach.’ The harsh condemnation in his voice made Neve take an involuntary step backwards. ‘It is people like you,’ he continued, warming to the theme, ‘people who have no respect for nature and the elements, who wander into the mountains ill equipped and expect other people to risk their lives to save them for their foolishness.’ He shook his head and searched the pale face tilted up to him; it felt like yelling at a kitten. ‘You’ve no idea what I’m talking about, have you?’

‘I’ve never tried to climb a mountain.’

He released a hissing sound of irritation and said, ‘The subject is closed. We are wasting time.’

‘You’re right.’ Neve was relieved he understood the urgency of the situation. ‘I was thinking if we found some high ground—’

What school of survival had she attended? ‘We need shelter, not high ground.’

‘No, that won’t work, we need to see—’

Sounding annoyed at the interruption, he cut across her. ‘See what exactly?’

‘Hannah,’ she said, finally placing the accent that had intrigued her since he began to speak: Italian.

There had been several Italian waiters in the restaurant they had stopped at for lunch. It would be a coincidence if he had been one of them. Though now that she thought about it, she did not remember any of them being this tall.

He shook his head. ‘Hannah?’

‘I was heading towards…’ she made a vague gesture behind her with her hand ‘…That way and she was just in front of me in a blue—’ Neve shook head crazily; she couldn’t recall the make of her own car ‘—car. Which way did you come? Did you see her?’ He shook his head and turned away, scanning the horizon, sizing up the most direct route back to the road.

Neve caught his sleeve and tugged hard. He turned his head, his glance drifting from the fingers curled into the fabric of his sweater to the tumble of wild copper-gold curls around the heart-shaped face turned up to his.

‘But you must have. Were you on the road?’

‘I saw no one.’ Severo struggled to contain his escalating impatience. ‘We are not equipped to undertake a rescue operation.’ Bit late in the day to realise this, and for all he knew this Hannah might be a figment of this woman’s imagination. If not he hoped she had already found safety, but the brutal truth was if she hadn’t adding to the casualty list with their own lives was not going to help. ‘This woman, if she exists, will have to take care of herself.’

‘She’s not a woman, she’s a child! What do you mean if? We have to—’

‘We?’

Neve grimaced as she realised she had been presuming he would be willing to help her. Clearly she had been wrong; she didn’t usually judge, but it was hard not to feel contemptuous of someone who looked after number one.

She began to unzip the jacket.

‘Fine, I’ll find her myself. But when you’re able, could you inform the authorities that a fourteen-year-old is missing? If that’s not too much bother?’

As it was nobody even knew Hannah was out there somewhere. ‘And that’s my fault too, for not thinking,’ she mumbled as she tried to shrug off his jacket.

Severo swore under his breath and, leaning down, pulled the two sides of the jacket together. ‘You can tell them yourself when we get back to civilization,’ he said as he pulled the zip all the way up to her chin again.

Neve zipped it down far enough to speak. ‘No you don’t understand. I can’t go back. I have to find Hannah. She was—’

‘No, you don’t understand.’ The woman had the survival instincts of a lemming.

‘Hannah—’

Severo gritted his teeth and tightened his grip on her shoulder as she struggled desperately to pull free. ‘What we have to do is find shelter.’ It would not be as easy as it sounded; in the last few minutes the snow had begun to fall heavier than ever.

Severo lifted his narrowed eyes to the leaden sky. Another half-hour and the light would be gone. Their best bet, he reasoned, was to head back to the abandoned off-roader. That would provide at least some shelter from the elements. Even retracing his footsteps in this near white-out was not, he recognized, going to be easy in the unfamiliar terrain. He had a good sense of direction, but in these conditions it would be all too easy to become fatally disorientated.

‘No…no!’ Neve panted, struggling wildly but with little effect against the steely restraint of his grasp. ‘You don’t understand, I have to—’

Severo, his voice harsh with impatience, cut across her shrill impassioned plea. ‘You may have a death wish, but I do not.’

Neve regarded him with contempt and set her jaw. ‘Fine, you go back or wherever, but I’m going on.’

Severo watched her lips, seeing them move, tuning out the hysterical babble, but unable, even at a moment when all his attention needed to be concentrated on the crucial matter of survival, not to appreciate the lushness of the pink outline.

Under the ski mask a fleeting grimace twisted his wide sensual mouth. As he acknowledged the male weakness a moment later it was replaced by an expression of steely resolve. Time was of the essence; to be out here when darkness fell was not a good idea.

‘What are you—?’ Neve let out a startled yelp as she found herself heaved casually off the ground a moment later and slung over a male shoulder. ‘Put me down!’ she shrieked.

He grunted in response to the kick she landed, but did not reply to her demand. He just carried on walking, head bent against the driving snow.

Chapter Three

SEVERO placed his burden down on her feet.

He shot out a steadying hand when her knees sagged. ‘You are all right?’

He sounded more irritated than concerned, and Neve weakly batted his gloved hand away. All right? Just her luck to get rescued—or was it kidnapped?—by a man of few words and all of them stupid!

‘No, I’m not all right!’ she panted.

She had been hauled cross country against her will with all the dignity of a sack of coal, she was exhausted, she was cold, she was paralysed with fear and guilt every time she thought of Hannah!

All right?

She bit her quivering lip, resisting the strong temptation to lie face down in the snow and cry. She took a deep sustaining breath and reminded herself she was not a wimp—she just had wimpish tendencies.

Severo took her reply at face value and chose not to notice the quivering resentment in her voice. He flexed his shoulders, aware that she was struggling not to fall apart; nine out of ten people already would have. The redhead might be stupid but she was also gutsy.

‘Well, you’re alive.’ Alive was something she might not be if he had not found her. Severo felt his anger mount as he considered her criminal stupidity. ‘So stop moaning.’

The terse direction made her blink.

‘I don’t know who you think you are—’ She stopped, realising that she didn’t have the faintest idea who he was or what he was except selfish, insensitive and extremely fit. The latter was a given—after the fifteen-minute slog through the snow carrying her he had to be exhausted, but there was nothing to suggest even slight fatigue in his manner. Her glance slid to his broad chest; he was not even breathing hard under the black fleece.

‘Just who are you anyway?’

‘I’m the man who saved your life. You can,’ he added sardonically, ‘thank me later, when I will happily give you my life history.’

‘A name would be quite sufficient, and I didn’t ask to be saved.’ Neve knew that she sounded quite unbelievably childish and ungrateful, but her frustration at being forcibly brought here when she ought to be searching for Hannah made it hard for her to be gracious. ‘I didn’t need saving.’

His lips twisted into an ironic smile as he fished out his mobile and tried for a signal: nothing. ‘Yeah, I could see that you had the situation under control.’

Neve, who had held her breath while he tried his phone, watched him slide it back into his pocket, barely registering his sarcasm.

‘No signal?’

He shook his head.

Neve pulled her spirits out of the depressing downward spiral they had taken since Hannah had run out of the inn, and straightened her shoulders. This was not the time to get negative. Looking around, she finally took in the lit building behind her. Lights meant people, and this place was lit up like a Christmas tree.

‘What is this place?’ Other than the answer to her prayers. The people inside would be able to raise the alarm, finally. Of course, the search parties would already be out if she had thought before acting, and Hannah might already be safe, not out there somewhere, lost, cold…Neve shook her head, refusing to follow the thought to its horrid conclusion.

Stay positive.

She would find Hannah, and her stepdaughter would be all right.

She had to be all right!

Severo watched with growing fascination as the flicker of expressions moved across her pale face. In a matter of seconds he registered a gamut of emotions, all extreme, from deep despair to steely-eyed determination.

Born in another age she would have made a great silent-screen actress—that face could convey more than several pages of dialogue.

When he didn’t respond Neve brushed a wet strand of hair from her cheek and angled a questioning look up at him.

‘A barn conversion, I’d say, and a safe haven.’ He was beginning to wonder if this woman had at any point had the faintest idea of how much danger she had been in. Her attitude certainly made it seem unlikely.

Lucky for her she led a charmed life and he had developed a fascination for red hair and electric-blue eyes.

Neve took a deep breath. She didn’t want a safe haven while Hannah was still out there. ‘Hopefully the people here will not be too worried about their own skins, unlike some, and—’

Without turning, he cut her off. He did not need to be hailed a hero—in fact he would have run a mile to avoid such a scenario—but a simple thank-you might be nice.

‘Can you save the reading of my character until we get out of this? We cowards do not have conversations in the middle of a blizzard—and don’t try to run because I will find the necessity to catch you irritating.’

In the act of turning, Neve froze. ‘Is that a threat?’ she demanded through teeth that were now chattering from a combination of cold and shock.

‘It is an understatement,’ he corrected, throwing the comment over his shoulder as he negotiated the snow-covered flight of steps.

Light streamed from the glass panel that led down to the big entrance door, and the slits cut deep into the blocks of stone, but it was the apex wall that appeared to be formed totally of glass panels that had made the place visible from the other side of the valley.

Severo banged on the door. When there was no reply he alternated banging and then ringing the bell. He made enough noise to rouse the dead but nobody inside stirred—were they deaf, or possibly just cautious of strangers appearing from nowhere?

The question was academic. If he was terrifying someone he would make his apologies. He did not need a thermometer to tell him that the temperature was dropping. Right now his main priority was getting inside before things got serious.

How much more serious do you want, asked the voice in his head, stuck in the middle of a blizzard with some felonious madwoman?

To look at her standing there in the jacket that reached her knees she looked cute and fragile, the sort of woman that aroused protective instincts in men—the ones who had not been kicked by her, at any rate.

He was not one of them. She had landed a couple of hefty kicks before she had quietened down, which would have caused a lot more damage had her footwear not been woefully inadequate for the conditions.

‘Stay there!’ He flung the terse instruction over his shoulder before working his way around the side of the building. He almost missed the side entrance, a glass-panelled door that was half obscured by a drift that had formed up against the side of the building.

A quick survey revealed it did not look nearly as substantial as the oak-panelled main door. His luck was turning, and not before time. All he had to do now was get to it, which required shifting the several feet of snow that blocked it.

Using his gloved hands, Severo began to clear a path to the door, building up a steady rhythm as he made a narrow slippery corridor through the snow.

‘I said not to move.’

It was spooky. He had not even turned around. The man clearly had eyes in the back of his head.

His manner suggested he was not accustomed to people ignoring his instructions. ‘Yes, you did,’ she agreed, unable to repress a sharp intake of breath as she plunged her hands into the snow.

He stopped shovelling and turned his head. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Other than shaking so hard he could hear her teeth rattle from feet away.

Neve exhaled a gusty breath that froze white in the air between them. Through the fog she could see the glittering slits of his eyes and ice crystals on the lashes that fringed them.

The man had the most ludicrously long eyelashes. Irritated she was storing such irrelevant information, she brushed the snow from her own eyes and retorted, ‘Helping.’ Aware this claim was something of an exaggeration—this wasn’t nearly as easy as he had made it look—she was unable to keep the defensive note from her voice.

Severo expelled an irritated sigh through clenched teeth. At least she had followed him and not run in the opposite direction. He bent across to where she knelt and pulled her small hands from the snow. Her fine-boned wrists were incredibly narrow and her slender fingers were not just tinged with blue, they were blue.

Their glances locked, and he thought, Not as blue as her incredible eyes—but then nothing he had ever seen was.

Clicking his tongue with exasperation that was partly reserved for his continued fascination with her cornflower-blue stare, he hauled her to her feet and pulled the sleeves of his borrowed jacket over her freezing extremities before returning to his task with renewed energy. A frozen felon on his hands would be bound to mean a lot of questions.

‘I am perfectly capable of—’ A sudden lull in the wind meant that her words emerged as a forceful yell.

He placed a gloved hand to her lips. ‘I have witnessed your capabilities.’ Unlike her, he had adjusted the volume. This did not make his delivery any less forceful, but it did reveal an attractive gravelly rasp in his deep accented voice.

‘I was only trying to help.’ Most people would have been grateful, but this man was clearly not a team player.

‘It will not be helpful if you get frostbite.’

Her rescuer had a point, Neve conceded, aware that she had lost all feeling in her fingers. Had Hannah been wearing her gloves? A mental image of her stepdaughter, a small figure at the mercy of the elements, flashed before her eyes, and the fear rose like bile in her throat.

She took a deep breath and fought down the panic. ‘What shall I do?’ If he wanted to be in charge, fine, she could live with that, but she couldn’t stand there and do nothing now.

He flashed her a look over his shoulder. ‘I think nothing would be safest.’

Nasty sarcastic rat, Neve thought, watching as he rapidly completed his task. She did not have to wait for long—it took him another two minutes to access the door.

He gave a satisfied grunt and looked around for a suitable blunt object; unlike the large panelled areas in the front of the building, this glass panel was not of the same impregnable quality.

Severo quickly found a suitable smooth stone. ‘Turn around and cover your face.’

Her eyes widened as she realised his intentions. ‘You’re going to break in?’

His hand lowered. ‘A nice touch of moral outrage, but a tad, shall we say, hypocritical?’

The cryptic comment sailed over Neve’s head; the thought of being party to breaking and entering made her deeply uneasy.

‘Couldn’t you try knocking again?’ she suggested, forcing the words past her chattering teeth.

‘Or we could go away and come back tomorrow?’ he said sardonically.

Neve loosed a cry of alarm as he raised his arm again. She covered her face with her hands, watching through parted fingers as his hand moved in a smooth arc towards the glass panel in the door.

She had tensed in anticipation of the sound of smashing glass when he stopped just short of impact and, as she watched, tried the door handle.

The door swung inwards and she heard him laugh; it was not an unattractive sound.

Grinning to himself behind his mask, Severo dropped the stone and stepped inside, trying not to bring in any more of the small avalanche of snow that had fallen inwards when he’d opened the door—it was already beginning to melt on the surface of the black and white chequered floor tiles.

Unlike the rest of the house, this room was in darkness, though not really dark—the light from the snow reflected off the pale shiny surfaces. It appeared to be a laundry room of sorts, with stainless-steel work surfaces above white storage units; a power switch glowed red on the panel on a washing machine but it stood silent.

Stamping his feet on the tiled floor to knock the snow from his boots, he reached for the light switch, blinking when the room was flooded with harsh light. The small figure swamped in the borrowed ski jacket stood framed in the doorway.

‘Are you coming in or what?’

The choice being to freeze to death or accept the invitation, Neve stepped inside wishing she could be as totally at ease with the entire breaking and entering situation as this man appeared to be.

Maybe he’d had experience with similar situations, she speculated uneasily, but on the plus side he did seem like a person who might be useful in hazardous situations. Though she couldn’t imagine, given his initial reaction, that he’d think it a good idea to go back out there and search for Hannah, it was possible he’d warm to the idea more if she offered to pay him.

Well, with or without his help she was going back out. Once I’ve thawed out a little, she thought, rubbing her numb fingers together. She didn’t need him.

You carry on telling yourself that, Neve.

Ignoring the voice in her head, she glanced towards the sinister figure of her rescuer.

Outside in the harsh and unforgiving landscape, although she had been unwilling to admit it, his undeniable physical presence and strength had been comforting. Inside the confines of the room they were almost oppressive. Even if the face that was hidden behind the mask was pleasant or plain, with a body like his he was never going to fade into the background.

Long of limb and broad of shoulder, he looked all hard bone and lean muscle. It was as her slightly unfocused gaze drifted upwards from his feet that she became aware of his questioning posture.

‘What?’ she said, embarrassment making her voice accusing. Well, it was extremely embarrassing to be caught ogling a man’s body even if the scrutiny was totally objective.

‘I said would you close the…?’ Emitting an irritated sound, he clicked his tongue and leaned in towards her.

Neve instinctively shrank back, a strangled cry escaping her lips before she realised that he was just closing the door.

His hand still resting on the wall beside the doorjamb, he swept a concerned downward glance at her upturned features.

Neve looked at her feet and heard him say, ‘What’s wrong?’

She shook her head, still avoiding the dark gleam of his eyes through the slits of the mask. She felt deeply embarrassed by her stupid instinctive reaction.

Her instincts were still embarrassing her.

It was bizarre. She had to make a conscious effort to put one foot in front of the other; she was unable to stop shaking, half dead with cold and, despite all that, or hopefully because of it, she was conscious of the weirdest tug.

She had this insane impulse, not to draw back, but to lean into him. She was drawn to his sheer physical presence, his strength and the warmth of the big body. The longer he stayed curved over her, projecting this testosterone force field, the more difficult it was to resist the bizarre compulsion.

‘What did you think I was going to do?’

Neve shook her head mutely. He’d put his own interpretation on her silence, but what could she say? I thought you were going to kiss me.

What would it have felt like?

Appalled by the dreamy question that surfaced in her head, she gave a fractured sigh of relief when he straightened up.

Her hands, still crossed in a protective gesture over her heaving chest, fell limply to her sides. She watched through the screen of her lashes as he walked across the room.

There was something totally riveting about the way he moved.

Neve pushed the thought away and lowered her gaze to the chequered floor tiles. ‘You…you startled me.’

‘Relax, you are quite safe.’

The mockery in his deep voice made her squirm. ‘Nice to know.’

‘I admit you might scrub up well,’ he said, sounding insultingly doubtful, ‘but right now, cara, you are not, believe me, going to drive any man wild with lust.’ No man in his right mind, certainly, but Severo was beginning to doubt his own mental health.

The question was not why on earth did he want to kiss the tip of her red nose, it was why on earth was he here? He valued logic; he prided himself on his judgement—what sort of judgement had made him risk life and limb in a blizzard?

Did he really think she needed him to point out her deficiencies? ‘I suppose you like your women to be decorative and dumb.’ It was not a question, just a fact of life.

‘I can see you find my sex life fascinating, but can we leave this discussion for later?’

Struggling to maintain the illusion of dignity, she followed him through the door muttering under her breath. ‘It’s always nice to have something to look forward to.’

One thing that really got under his skin was the sort of woman who always had to have the last word.

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