Holiday with a Stranger

‘I’m fine,’ she muttered, putting her mug carefully onto the table before she did any more damage to herself.

He took advantage of her weakened state to launch his attack. ‘So, Josie, when are you leaving?’

His tone was even, as if he were making polite conversation, but she felt the power behind the words. Oh, he was good, all right.

Drawing her shoulders back, she gave him her fully-in-control face before answering, noting with satisfaction that he’d leant further back in his chair and broken eye contact, dipping his gaze to somewhere below her neck.

‘In a week or two. Abigail offered this place to me and I accepted in good faith.’ She looked at him hard, determined to keep it together. ‘I haven’t had a holiday for three years and she thought I could do with the break.’

That was understating the facts a little, but there was no way she was admitting the whole truth to him. She was too proud. Plus, it was none of his damn business.

He rubbed his hand over his eyes, obviously still tired after travelling and then sleeping on the less than man-sized sofa.

She actually felt her insides softening. ‘Look, I know this is your place, and you probably want to relax in peace, but you can’t just kick me out.’ She jabbed a finger at him. ‘This house is just as much Abigail’s as yours, and you weren’t supposed to be coming back any time soon. Why didn’t you let her know?’

He leant in towards her and she couldn’t help but move away from the overwhelming force of his sudden proximity. ‘I don’t answer to anyone—especially not my damn sister.’ He tapped his finger hard on the table. ‘She knows this is where I base myself when I’m not travelling, she never comes here, and I don’t see why I should put up with her waifs and strays when the whim takes her.’

His voice was low and steady, all cool control and understated power, but she refused to be scared off.

‘I’m not a waif or a stray, and I’m not going anywhere.’ She crossed her arms and bit down hard on her lip. His eyes dropped to her mouth and she shifted self-consciously in her seat. Blood pulsed through her veins as his eyes slowly returned to hers, his pupils large and dark against his irises.

She released her lip and rubbed her tongue over it in response. What had made her do that? She needed to argue her case convincingly here and keep focused on her goal. Instead her body seemed intent on deliberately provoking a physical reaction out of him. This was really unlike her. She rarely flirted. She didn’t have time for it.

‘What do you propose I do? Sleep on the couch until you decide to leave?’ he said, a smile twitching at the corner of his mouth.

She spread out her hands on the tabletop and took a steadying breath before spearing him with her sternest stare. ‘As far as I understand it, Abi has as much right to this place as you do. This is supposed to be my holiday—a chance to get some peace and quiet. It’s not my fault you two can’t communicate properly.’

His smile faltered. ‘You expect me to leave?’

That awful softening thing was happening again. Ignore it, Josie. Stand firm. ‘Yes.’ She waited for his response, her fingers now drumming a soft beat on the table.

‘Why would I do that?’ His expression was impassive.

‘Because I was here first.’

He barked out a laugh. ‘You’re calling dibs on my house?’

‘It’s a perfectly valid negotiating technique.’

He considered her for a moment and she shifted in her chair, straightening her back in readiness for his next move.

‘Do you cook?’

What the hell?

‘Not unless you count microwaving ready meals or sloshing milk over cereal.’

Connor raised his eyebrows. ‘I don’t.’

She crossed her arms. ‘Then, no, I don’t cook.’

Connor gave her a questioning look and she flushed under his scrutiny.

She shrugged, fighting the heat of her discomfort. ‘My job’s demanding. The last thing I want to do when I get in is cook.’

‘Really? I find it relaxing.’

His eyes searched her face and her skin heated in response.

‘What do you do to relax?’

There was a hint of reproach in his expression as his gaze locked with hers. She shifted in her chair, looking away from him. Why was he making her feel so uncomfortable? She had nothing to be ashamed about.

‘I go to the gym sometimes.’ She racked her brain, trying to find something to impress him with, but nothing came to mind.

Connor shook his head slowly, radiating disapproval, but his expression softened as he leant in closer to her. The hairs on the back of her neck lifted in response and her heart pummelled her chest as his gaze roved her face before dropping to her lips.

‘I’m sure we can think of some way to work this out.’

His voice was low and the double meaning was not lost on her. He stood suddenly, pushing his chair away from the table and grabbing their plates, turning to dump them next to the sink. He stilled, staring down at the counter, before turning back. There was a challenge in his expression now.

‘You can cut my hair.’

Josie blinked at him in surprise, her body a tangle of confusion and lust. What was he doing to her? The mixture of forceful self-confidence and provocative teasing was disorientating her, turning her insides to mulch and her brain to jelly.

‘Did you say you want me to cut your hair?’

‘Yes.’

She gave him a stunned smile. ‘What’s wrong with going to a hairdresser?’

‘A waste of money. Anyway, I’m not losing a morning driving to Aix just to get a haircut. I’m sick of it hanging in my face—you just need to chop a couple of inches off all round. Then I’ll be ready to face the world.’

Relaxing her arms, she dropped her hands into her lap and tapped her fingers together. ‘If I do it will you let me have the house?’

He shrugged. ‘Depends on how good a job you do.’

She snorted. ‘What if I make a mess of it?’

‘I’m trusting you not to. Come on, Josie, it’s not rocket science. You know the general principle, right? Look, I can’t get my fingers in those piddly little nail scissors, and the only other sharp things I have in this house are the kitchen knives and the garden shears.’

‘I may end up needing those. It looks like you’ve been washing your hair with engine oil.’

That tantalising smile played about his lips again and her stomach flipped over.

‘Yeah, well, it’s tough finding a power shower in the middle of a rainforest.’

He flicked his hair out of his eyes with those long, strong-looking fingers and her hands did a nervous sort of skitter in her lap. What would it feel like to be in such close proximity to that powerful frame and all that hard muscle? Blood rushed straight between her legs, causing a hard ache there, and before she could stop herself she rocked forward in the chair to try and relieve the pressure.

Clearing her throat to dislodge the strangling tension, she tore her gaze away from him to scan the kitchen cupboards, the dresser, the patio doors—anywhere but his irresistible body—while her heart thumped against her chest. She needed to stand up and move around before she started rutting the chair. What the hell was going on with her crazy body?

‘So where are these scissors, then?’

He was smiling when she looked back at him and the victory on his face made her frown. How had he managed to talk her into this? But then what the hell? If that was what it took to get rid of him, so be it. She’d never been one to walk away from a challenge. She’d also never cut hair in her life. Still, it wasn’t her problem if he ended up looking as if a child had got busy with the scissors while he was asleep. Maybe she should make a mess of it just to pay him back for that supercilious expression.

Despite being rather taken with the idea, she knew she wouldn’t. She was too much of a good girl, and she wanted him gone.

‘They’re in the middle drawer of the dresser,’ he said, nodding towards the grand piece of furniture at the back of the kitchen.

‘Okay. You get them and I’ll grab a towel.’

He gave her a quizzical look, but there was a twinkle of mischief in his eyes. ‘You want me in just a towel for this?’

From his expression she guessed he was quite taken with the idea, and her insides twisted in a strange, excited sort of way.

‘That won’t be necessary. It’s to keep the hair off your clothes,’ she said through oddly numb lips.

‘You’re the boss,’ he said, getting up and striding over to the dresser.

She legged it out of the kitchen and up the stairs, taking her time to find the oldest-looking towel out of the linen cupboard and sucking in deep breaths until she felt composed enough to be in the same room with him again. At least he’d be leaving after this, she told herself, ignoring a niggle of disappointment that came out of nowhere. She needed alone time right now.

Right?

Returning to the kitchen, she found he’d dragged a chair into the middle of the floor and was seated, waiting patiently for her to get back.

‘Not too much off the top,’ he said as she approached him and laid the towel gently over his wide shoulders.

It wasn’t long enough to meet across his chest and after a moment of fussing with it she left it to hang there.

God, the size of him.

She wasn’t going to have to bend down far to get on a level with his head. Nerves jumping, she picked up the scissors and tentatively ran her hands through his mop of hair, gauging the best place to start.

He groaned gently in response and she almost jumped away in fright.

‘I can already tell you’ve got magic hands,’ he said.

From the tone of his voice he was clearly enjoying winding her up, and she kicked herself for allowing him to make her so jittery. Putting her fingers back into his hair, she pulled it harder this time, in an attempt to show him who was in charge.

He chuckled: a low, seductive sound that made her mouth water.

Flipping heck, Josie, pull it together.

After taking a first tentative snip—and finding it actually seemed to look okay—she worked her way around his head, cutting the top first, to reveal the smooth, darker underside of his hair.

Heat rose from his scalp as she worked and her stiff fingers warmed up, allowing her to cut faster. She pictured her own hairdresser, Lenny, and focused on what he did when cutting her hair, working her way carefully.

It felt odd not to talk while she worked, and the silence lay thick and heavy in the large kitchen. What the hell was she supposed to talk about? What would Lenny do?

Make small talk. You can do that, right? Just say something, Josie. Anything.

‘You know, you look nothing like I expected,’ she said.

‘No?’ His voice was infused with amusement.

‘You’re so...’ She willed her addled brain to come up with any word except the one fighting to get out.

She lost.

‘Big.’

He turned to catch her eye and she looked away quickly, so as not to get sucked into flirty banter with him—not when she was so close she could inhale the minty aroma of his toothpaste and the dark undertones of whatever product he used on his body that made him smell so—what was the word? Appetising...

Thank God for the soothing action of lifting and snipping at his hair. Mercifully, it helped her maintain focus, although her cool was shot to pieces.

‘Judging by your complexion and the size of your frame I’m guessing there’s some Scandinavian blood in there somewhere?’ she barrelled on.

‘Icelandic.’

‘I’d never have guessed that from your sister—she’s so dark. Hair and complexion.’ Okay, this was good. Well, better. Sort of...

‘She got the French blood.’

‘On your mother’s side?’ Lift, pull, snip.

‘Yeah, my paternal grandmother was French. This was her home. She left it to me and Abi when she died.’

There was a change in his posture and a new tension in his jaw that made her wonder what he’d omitted from that statement. A memory of Abi telling her their grandmother was the only person Connor had ever cared about swam into her mind.

She paused, not quite sure how to frame her next question. ‘Abi says she hasn’t seen you in a long time?’

His head moved up a notch as his shoulders stiffened. ‘No.’

She waited for him to elucidate but the silence stretched on.

‘I think she’d like to see you sometime.’

‘Hmm...’

She’d hit a conversational roadblock. Another approach, maybe? ‘So what keeps you so busy?’

‘I travel a lot.’ His tone was dismissive, as if he were closing down this conversation too.

Don’t give up, Josie.

‘You’ve just got back from somewhere?’

‘South America. I’m leaving for India in a few days.’

Abi hadn’t told her much about Connor—only that he was always on the move and never came to England to see her. They’d been on a rare night out and three cocktails down when she’d talked about him. There had been a heavy sadness to her tone, and an unhappy resignation to his snubbing of her. His name hadn’t been mentioned since and Josie had tactfully avoided mentioning him again.

From Abi’s description of him she’d expected a self-aggrandising playboy with power issues—not this challenging, provocative giant of a man.

Moving round to the front of him, she made sure to keep looking only at the long fringe of hair left to cut. The heat of his gaze burned her skin as she shuffled between his spread thighs to get close enough to reach in. With shaking hands she took hold of the front of it, the backs of her fingers gently brushing the warm skin of his forehead. His heat invaded her and she experienced a whole body flush which concentrated into a core of molten lava in the depths of her pelvis. She wished her hair wasn’t pulled back so severely so she could hide her fiery face in the safety of its protective curtain.

After snipping at the length of hair until she was satisfied, she took a step back away from his weird vortexlike pull and dropped the scissors onto the kitchen table.

‘You’re done.’

He was looking at her with a curious expression. ‘You know, there’s something very familiar about you.’

Dammit. Just when she’d thought she’d got away with it. She really didn’t want to talk about her sister right now.

She shrugged. ‘I have one of those faces. You’ve never met me before.’ He seemed satisfied with this answer, thank goodness, and threw her a quick nod.

Pulling off the towel, he dropped it onto the floor. ‘How does it look?’

Meeting his gaze, she willed her cheeks to deflame. ‘Actually, it looks pretty good.’ She was oddly pleased with how successful a cut it was, considering she’d never done it before in her life.

He nodded, releasing his slow grin, then turned abruptly and walked out of the room and up the stairs—she guessed to check his new haircut for himself.

Grateful for this small reprieve, she grabbed a dustpan and brush from under the sink and swept up the hair that had landed on the floor, her body humming with alien sensations. She hoped to goodness her face would return to some kind of normal colour by the time he got back.

She’d cleared up every bit of hair and made herself another drink by the time he returned, his face now scrupulously clean-shaven.

What a transformation. All her blood dashed south to pulse wildly between her thighs as she took in his new, clean-cut appearance. He’d pulled his shorn hair into messy spikes, and now his bristles weren’t obscuring it his bone structure seemed ridiculously and beautifully chiselled. He was the picture of pure, healthy, brute strength.

‘Okay. So we’re good here,’ he said, apparently unaware of the catastrophic effect he was having on her. ‘You’ve earned your right to stay.’

Sucking in a deep breath, she attempted to jump-start her brain into functioning. ‘So that’s it? Negotiation over? You’re leaving?’

He laughed and stepped closer to her. She took half a step back before checking herself.

Hold steady there, Josie.

‘You’re not getting rid of me that easily. You seem to be a useful sort of person to have around. I’m only going to be here for a few days, but I’ll take the sofa since you won dibs.’

Before she had a chance to protest he spun round, pulling open the patio doors and exiting onto the terrace, shouting, ‘Dinner at eight!’ over his shoulder as he strode away.

TWO

After making his sharp exit Connor wandered down to the bottom of the farmhouse’s land and along the perimeter. In front of him the sun-washed landscape throbbed with colour, the vibrant greens and yellows of the rapeseed crops standing stark against the sea of lavender in fields that stretched for miles. In the distance chalky white mountains broke against the azure-blue of the sky.

It was his idea of heaven on earth.

He loved this place. It felt as far away from reality as you could get. That appealed to him. That and the simplicity of it.

He leant on the wooden fence and assessed what had just happened.

Josie Marchpane was seriously disturbing, that was for sure. He wasn’t easily impressed, but this woman—oh, man, did she have something. There was something familiar about her too, but he couldn’t put his finger on it and that bothered him.

When he’d found out she was here at Abigail’s invitation his instinct had been to try and get rid of her as quickly as possible. He wasn’t interested in ever seeing his self-serving sister again, and even less willing to entertain one of her friends in his house. But the more he’d talked to Josie, the more he’d come to like her. She didn’t buckle easily and he respected that.

Despite the dark circles under her eyes and the ghostly pallor she was hot. It wasn’t the delicate contours of her heart-shaped face that got to him, or even the endless expanse of leg hiding beneath those expensive-looking jeans. It was her almond-shaped hazel eyes that flashed with fire when she was on the defensive. He wasn’t used to being stood up to, let alone put in his place, and he found he kind of liked it.

He knew he had an effect on her too, no matter how hard she was trying to disguise it. It was visible in the flare of her pupils and the flush of colour on her cheeks; in the way her body turned towards him even when she fought against it. It would be hard to convince her mind to submit to him, but not her body.

He hadn’t needed her to cut his hair—he could have quite easily visited a barber the following day—but he’d wanted to see if he could get her to do it. He’d been in a playful mood and it had amused him—until she’d been right there, touching him, invading his space and warming his skin with her nervous heat. Then he’d realised it had been an excuse to get closer to her. He’d wanted to know whether she smelled as good as she looked and he hadn’t been disappointed.

The fact that she’d risen to his challenge despite her initial reticence intrigued him. She hadn’t been able to resist it.

He recognised an urge on his part to break through her carefully constructed wall of cool just for the satisfaction of melting her. He craved it. Just as he’d craved coming back here, to the one place that felt vaguely like home. It wouldn’t be long until he’d had his fill of sitting still, but at the moment it was necessary—imperative, even.

That was why he couldn’t pick up and stay at a hotel for the few days he had left before his next project started. He’d been aware of an unusual yearning for this place for the past few weeks, as if it had called to him. Something akin to nostalgia, or what he thought that might feel like; he’d never experienced it before. Usually he actively moved away from the past.

Wandering back up to the house, he parked himself on a lounger on the terrace and leant back, willing his overworked muscles to relax. He needed this peace and calm and nothingness for a few days before he rejoined the hurricane of his life.

The bathroom window above him slammed shut, jarring him out of his relaxing state and setting his teeth on edge. She must be about to take a shower. The thought of hot water sluicing over that curvaceous body and those heavy, rounded breasts was enough to give him an erection.

The trouble was, the last thing he needed right now was another woman problem. It had been soul-destroying breaking up with Katherine and persuading her he wasn’t the right guy to make her happy, then spending months avoiding her angry, pleading phone calls and sudden appearances out of the blue. She didn’t understand that the lifestyle he’d chosen wasn’t conducive to settling in one place and playing house. It had been an exhausting time. He was afraid that even a short, sharp affair now could leach the remaining life out of him, and he needed his mojo intact if he was going to keep the momentum of his projects going.

But it didn’t mean he couldn’t have fun playing with Josie. He’d be out of here in a few days, so what harm could it do to spend a bit of time figuring her out? There had to be more to her story than she was letting on. She didn’t seem like the kind of woman who could fritter away two weeks in the middle of nowhere. She had a nervous sort of energy about her that gave the impression she had more important things to be doing than just sitting and relaxing.

He wanted to know why.

* * *

She’d been well and truly had and it didn’t feel good.

Josie squeezed shampoo hard into her hand and thumped the bottle down onto the shower shelf in her anger. How could she have allowed him to talk her into embarrassing herself like that? She was clearly off her game because she was tired and stressed about the business. There was no way he would have tricked her like that ordinarily. In retrospect, she wished she’d given him a bald spot and an extra short fringe, just so she’d have something to mollify her.

What was she going to do now? He clearly wasn’t going to budge easily. She’d have to make as much of a nuisance of herself as possible and hope he’d get fed up and decide he’d be better off somewhere else.

She could phone Abi and explain the situation, of course, but she didn’t want it to look as though she couldn’t fight her own battles. And her business partner had enough on her plate as it was.

Shutting off the shower, she stepped carefully out of the tray and towelled herself dry.

The pile of dirty clothes on the floor gave her an idea.

After dressing in a light floral sundress, and drying off her hair so it swung around her shoulders, she gathered up her dirty laundry and dumped it on the bed, ready to take downstairs. Her laptop was sitting on the windowsill, where she’d left it in the hope that the sun would help dry it out, and she went over and tapped the power button again, praying that it would suddenly spring to life.

No dice.

A sharp pain throbbed in her skull and she massaged the sides of her forehead to try and relieve the pressure.

‘Join me for a drink on the terrace?’

She jumped at the sound of Connor’s deep voice, twisting round to see him slouched against the doorjamb of the bedroom. He filled the doorway with his immense physique.

‘I got the impression you wanted me to keep out of your way,’ she answered, nonchalantly flicking her hair over her shoulder. She wasn’t going to show him how nervy she was around him. All she had right now was her self-control, and she was damned if she was going to let that slip away from her too.

‘I changed my mind. I could do with some company and you could do with some sun.’ His gaze rested on her pale shoulders. ‘Do you spend any time outside?’

Truthfully, she didn’t tend to spend much time outdoors. She’d been too busy with work and had often ended up working at weekends to keep up with her heavy workload. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d just sat in the sunshine.

‘The sun’s very damaging to your skin, you know. You’ll be old before your time.’ She pointed towards his tanned forearms in a vain attempt to shut him up.