Holiday with a Stranger

He smiled. ‘Full of vitamin D, though. Good for your happiness levels.’

Before she had time to reply, he pushed himself away from the doorway and disappeared.

After a few moments of arguing with herself about the wisdom of spending more time in his vicinity she grabbed her dirty clothes and a pen and notebook and went down to the kitchen. She shoved her clothes in the washing machine, set it going, then sauntered outside to find Connor reclining on a lounger, his shirt discarded on the floor next to him.

Great.

Josie stared. She couldn’t help it. His body was...well...divine. That skin—the glorious tanned sleekness of it. The way it undulated over the muscles of his stomach and stretched over the peaks of his collarbones. The broadness of his shoulders made her think of a superhero with their almost obscene size. She’d never seen such a magnificent body in the flesh.

Cue whole body flush.

Tearing her eyes away, she sat on the lounger next to him, barely managing to control her limbs.

He turned to look at her, a crooked smile playing about his lips as if he sensed her discomfort. ‘Help yourself to a drink.’ He gestured towards a jug of iced fruit juice and a couple of tumblers on a small table between them.

She eyed it suspiciously. ‘I’m not thirsty, thanks.’ She didn’t entirely trust him. There was something odd about him suddenly wanting her company, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on why it felt so dangerous to be out here with him. She didn’t for a second think he would hurt her, but it was unnerving all the same.

Dropping her notebook casually onto the table between them, she shuffled about on the lounger to try and get comfy. When she glanced up at him, he seemed to be sizing her up.

She raised a questioning eyebrow at him, fighting the urge to look away from his evaluating stare.

‘You work a lot, right?’

She sat up straighter, warming up for what she was sure was about to be some sort of scrap. ‘My job keeps me pretty busy.’

‘Thought so. You have that computer crouch people get when they work at a desk too much. The only time you set your shoulders back and push that magnificent rack at me is when you’re facing me down over something.’

How was she supposed to respond to that little gem? By playing it cool.

‘I don’t suppose you come across many desks on your jaunts around the world.’

He broke eye contact to pick up the jug of iced juice and pour himself a shot into one of the glasses. ‘You’d be surprised what I come across,’ he said, in that low, seductive voice of his.

The hairs stood up on the back of her neck again and she snort-laughed in response, blood rushing straight to her face in embarrassment at the awful noise she’d made. Picking up the jug from where he’d set it down, she concentrated on pouring herself some juice to hide her humiliation. The ice clinked in her glass as she held it unsteadily in her hand, so she rested it on her knee instead.

Connor lay back, linking his fingers together behind his head, a smile playing about his lips. He knew exactly what he was doing to her and he clearly loved seeing her squirm. Bastard.

A minute went by before he spoke again. ‘What do you do that keeps you shackled to a desk?’

‘Shackled? Interesting choice of word.’ She didn’t dare look him in the face in case he saw how much she was floundering.

‘The imagery pleases me.’

He turned in the lounger to face her and her gaze was magnetically drawn to his toned torso. It was unnerving, being faced with a sight like that whilst trying to maintain a polite line of conversation.

‘You have a vivid imagination,’ she said.

‘It’s a prerequisite. I spend a lot of time alone.’

She really needed to get the conversation back on safe ground. ‘We provide software solutions for marketing and research departments.’

‘That must be fascinating.’

His tone was so dry she felt like dousing him with her ice-cold drink.

‘It took us three years to build the business to this point and we’re proud of what we’ve achieved.’

‘Good for you.’

He totally didn’t mean a word of it.

Ignore him, Josie, the guy’s a loser.

Grabbing her notebook and pen from where she’d dropped them on the table, she turned deliberately away from him and began to make some notes, forcing his presence out of her mind.

‘What are you writing?’

Apparently he didn’t like to be ignored. ‘I’m trying to reconstruct my tender document.’

He frowned. ‘I thought you were supposed to be on holiday?’

Josie shuffled uncomfortably on the lounger. ‘I am, but I’m making a head start for when I get back. I was doing pretty well until my laptop died.’ She gave him a pointed stare.

Connor let out a snort. ‘I can’t believe you brought a laptop on holiday. No wonder you’re so...’ He waved his hand in a loose flapping motion at her.

‘So what?’

‘I don’t know...edgy.’

‘I’m not edgy.’ She flicked her hair over her shoulder and scowled at him. ‘I’m diligent.’

‘Really? So you’re not heading off to the nearest computer repair shop later, so you can get right back to work before your head explodes.’ He mimed the explosion he was obviously picturing in his mind.

‘You’re funny. You know that? You’re a very funny man.’

‘I’m right, though, aren’t I? I bet you can’t stand to be without it for one day.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I can.’ She ignored the stutter in her heartbeat and leant back in the chair, gazing up at the slow-moving clouds above her. Her body was drenched in sweat. Had a heat wave descended?

Connor just grunt-laughed in response.

She chose to ignore him.

‘Can’t somebody else write your document?’

After pausing, she chose her answer carefully. ‘They’re working on it at the moment, but I’m the one who has the most experience in writing these things.’

‘So you don’t trust anyone else to do the job?’

Sighing, she put her fingers together, tip to tip, and waited for the irritation to subside. ‘If I don’t work on it now I’m going to have to do it when I get back—edit what the team’s done, that is—which will only allow minimal time to get it up to scratch before the deadline.’

‘And you’re sure they won’t be able to handle it without you?’

‘Based on experience—no.’

He nodded slowly, looking at her intently as if waiting for something more.

‘Why are you looking at me like that?’

‘Like what?’ He was all innocence.

‘You don’t believe me?’

He shrugged. ‘I’m not saying that. I was just wondering why you hired your staff if you don’t trust them to do their jobs properly.’

She really didn’t want to be talking about this. She was hyper-aware of the underlying panic, humming just below the surface, which she’d been struggling to suppress for weeks.

‘We can’t afford to get anything wrong right now. It’s a tough marketplace.’ She hoped the brusqueness of her tone would stop him asking any more about it.

‘So it’s all work and no play for you, right?’

His expression was neutral. She couldn’t tell whether he was teasing her.

Either way, Josie felt her blood begin to boil. How dare he? He didn’t even know her. He had no right to make judgements on her like that. She’d come across these disparaging attitudes to women in high-powered jobs so frequently that hers was a natural response by now.

She glared at him, her eyes narrowed. ‘Just because I work hard—and prefer not to loaf around the world on someone else’s dime,’ she added pointedly, ‘it doesn’t make me some hard-nosed bore. I happen to be very well respected....’ She petered out as the truth of her situation came flooding back to her.

He looked at her with his eyebrows raised. ‘I’ve heard all this before. The crazy working schedule. The inability to live outside of work. One holiday every three years...’

Josie squirmed at this.

‘...the ever-diminishing social life.’ He broke off to take a sip of his drink. ‘Is it really worth it?’

Was he serious? She still couldn’t tell. ‘Of course it’s worth it,’ she said as calmly as she could. ‘Anyway, it’s nothing like that.’ She flapped a hand at him, but the tension in her muscles made the action jerky and over-exaggerated.

Connor looked sceptical. ‘What makes it so worthwhile? Hmm? What are the benefits?’

Josie had no idea how to answer this. She had no desire to talk about what it was that drove her so hard. Not with him. Besides, she’d been doing it for so long it had become part of who she was, who she’d always been and who she always would be.

‘It’s about a sense of achievement. Making something great out of your life. Being respected and...and...’

She realised she was gesturing wildly at him again, like some kind of madwoman, but he’d got her blood up. She was angry at his insinuation that she was somehow making a mistake with her life choices. This was what she’d always wanted. What else could there be?

‘It makes me happy,’ she finished, picking up her drink and taking a long sip to cover her frustration.

‘All right. I was only asking.’ He held up his hands to her in mock surrender, a smile playing about his lips.

‘What makes you such an expert anyway?’ She straightened herself up on her lounger and felt her dress pull downwards, exposing more flesh than she was comfortable with. She adjusted the top hastily, then tugged the skirt back down from where it had ridden up.

Their eyes met and the air crackled between them.

‘Like I say, I’ve seen it all before.’

His voice was low and ragged and sent chills tripping along her spine. Her head spun as she drank in his penetrating gaze.

This time it was Connor who broke eye contact first. He lay back in the recliner and gazed up at the sky, closing the subject and the unnerving connection.

Josie twisted away, lips clamped tight. What had all that been about? Maybe it had just been a fun game for him, to tease and anger her. To see how far he could push her before she snapped. Her sense of frustration increased and she had to consciously release her hands from their rigor mortis clench.

This guy was something else. He knew instinctively how to push her buttons. Well, she wasn’t going to let him do it again, that was for sure.

Dumping her notebook and pen on the table, she forced herself to focus on relaxing into holiday mode to show him she was capable of doing it.

‘You know, you really should put some suntan lotion on. That pale skin of yours is going to fry in this heat. You townies have no idea how to live in the sun.’

He was looking back over at her again. There wasn’t a trace of the intensity that had been there a moment ago. Josie was almost relieved. At least she could deal with him when he was being overtly officious.

‘There’s some in the kitchen cupboard,’ he added, turning away from her.

Again, his suggestion felt more like an order, but she knew he was right.

‘I need to do something inside anyway,’ she said, rising from the lounger and sauntering inside, determined to get her own back.

In the bathroom she took out all the products she’d been storing neatly in her washbag and scattered them around the sink and the edge of the bath, giving her emergency box of tampons pride of place on top of the toilet. After brushing her teeth again, she made sure to leave a good covering of toothpaste scum in the sink. Satisfied with the results, she returned to the kitchen, pulling her now clean clothes out of the washer and draping them all around the room. Her knickers and bra she hung right over the handle of the oven.

That would do for now.

After grabbing the bottle of suntan lotion from the kitchen cupboard she went back outside and returned to the lounger. Taking her time, she smoothed lotion over the exposed parts of her body, then thumped the bottle down onto the table to show Connor he could leave her alone now.

He grinned at her and inclined his head. ‘Want me to do your back?’ he asked, a twinkle in his eye.

‘No, thanks.’ Just the thought of his touch disturbed her. It was too intimate an act to indulge in with him. There was no way she could handle that; she’d be a puddle on the floor. Plus, she wasn’t ready to forgive him for his comments about her career.

She was so sick of people doubting her choices. Her whole life seemed to have been spent proving herself, over and over again, until she felt dizzy with it. But no way was she going to waste her time trying to explain her work ethic to someone who was plainly more than happy to let others do the hard graft while he swanned off round the world having ‘experiences.’

She’d tell him that if he brought up the subject again. No more Miss Nice Girl. The guy had it coming.

She went to pick up her notepad again, then realised she was about to prove his point about not being able to stay away from working. She could do it. Of course she could. Her hands were only shaking because she was so irritated with him.

Right?

She wasn’t planning on sunbathing out here for long, anyway. She would stay long enough to show him he couldn’t intimidate her and then she’d go for a walk or something. Anything to be away from him for a while.

* * *

Connor was aware of Josie fidgeting beside him. He smiled to himself. She was obviously finding it impossible to lie still. Not that he could blame her; he’d gone at her pretty hard—but it was so much fun winding her up.

He’d been comfortably winning the conversation until she’d shifted in her chair, giving him a generous view of the magnificent curves hiding under that dress.

The sight of her long slim legs and the sweeping curve of her breasts had thrown him off balance. A vision of himself running his hands slowly along her shapely calves, up over her knees and between her soft thighs, had hit him like a belt in the face and he’d found himself losing his legendary cool. His hands were still shaking from the effort of keeping them by his sides.

She was clearly trouble—which he should back the hell away from. He had no patience with career women who valued their jobs above everything and everyone else. His mother had been one, and even though he’d resented her in so many ways somehow he’d found himself in relationships with women who turned out to be just like her. But he’d learnt his lesson. Enough was enough. Despite finding himself dangerously attracted to Josie, he wouldn’t allow anything to happen between them.

He watched as she stood up and stretched her arms above her head.

‘Right, I’m off for a walk. See you later.’

She slipped on her flip-flops, pulled on a sunhat and stalked away from the terrace, her sundress swishing around her endless legs. The woman was a bundle of nervous energy.

She could definitely do with having some fun.

THREE

After dozing fitfully in the sun for an hour Connor went back into the kitchen to find it had been turned into a laundry. There was a piece of clothing on every chair, and the pièce de résistance was the array of underwear hung in a neat row over the oven door.

Nice.

He laughed to himself. The woman had balls.

If this was her attempt to make him uncomfortable about staying here she was in for a big disappointment. It was going to take a lot more than parading her knickers in the kitchen to get rid of him.

Lifting a bra from the rail, he rubbed the silky material between finger and thumb. It had been a long while since he’d got his hands on a woman’s underwear; that had to be the reason why he was as hard as concrete again.

Dropping it back onto the rail, he hurriedly left the kitchen and went for a cooling shower—only to find her girly crap spread all over the room up there as well. The fruity smell of her shampoo still hung in the air. He shook his head in wonder; she was a feisty one. Well, two could play that game.

* * *

After a day of lying low and desperately trying to find things to entertain her that weren’t work-related Josie found she was actually looking forward to having some company for supper.

She’d decided to take a short break from writing the tender document just while Connor was here—hopefully that wouldn’t be for too much longer. Abi had wanted her to have a proper break, and she’d promised she wouldn’t work while she was here to placate her. If Connor somehow let slip to Abi that she’d ignored her promise there would be trouble. She couldn’t afford to piss her business partner off any more than she already had. Everything would fall apart if they couldn’t work together any more.

As soon as eight o’clock came around she went down to the kitchen to find Connor stirring something at the stove. Her underwear was still hanging limply on the rail in front of him. As she watched he reached down and grabbed a pair of her knickers, rubbing his hands on them as if they were a tea towel. He turned when she let out an involuntary gasp and nodded to her, as if it was perfectly normal to be cleaning his hands on ladies’ underwear.

Marching over, she snatched her knickers out of his hand and gathered the rest from the rail, bumping her arm into the hard muscle of his abdomen in her hurry.

‘Careful, there, I might start thinking you’re trying to get into my pants, what with all the groping and the exhibiting of your undercrackers,’ he said.

Turning to make eye contact, she found they were so close she could smell the spicy heat of him. There was a strange throbbing in her throat, as if her pulse was trying to break free and become its own entity. Concentrating on the laughter lines at the side of his eyes, she attempted to centre herself. The sun had deepened his tan, which only made the vivid blue of his eyes stand out more.

She opened her mouth to reply but nothing came out.

‘Not lost for words, Josie, surely?’

Before she had chance to pull herself together and form a suitably cutting reply he gave her another blast of that awesome smile and she melted again.

He knew exactly what she was up to; she could see the amusement in the depths of his eyes and in the jaunty angle of his eyebrow. Why the hell had she thought a pair of her knickers would scare off a man like him? What had compelled her to sink so low?

Desperation.

She was a mess. And now so were her knickers.

As all the connotations of that thought hit her she was totally unable to stop a full-blown grin spreading across her face. Then a giggle broke free, and then a great heaving laugh. Once she started she couldn’t stop. Turning away and taking a step back, she steadied herself against the kitchen chair until she managed to get the convulsions under control.

‘My God, you’re a handful.’ She shook her head in bewildered despair, but it felt good to laugh out loud.

He raised an eyebrow. ‘I rather think I am.’ He leant back against the stove. ‘Maybe two handfuls.’

At this, she started giggling again, like a nervous teenager, and he joined in with a deep chuckle.

Why had it been so long since she’d laughed with someone like this?

He moved towards her and her giggle fit subsided. She was acutely aware of how his shorts and T-shirt fitted his body perfectly. How soft the golden skin of his throat looked. How much she wanted to feel the strength of him under her hands.

‘I know you’re trying to get rid of me, Josie, but I’m not budging. You can put up with me for a couple of days, right?’

It was more of an order than a question.

She ran through her options.

There were none.

It wasn’t as if she’d be able to physically chuck him out, and he seemed totally uninterested in her perfectly reasonable points of argument.

Ah, what the hell? She could put up with him for a short while. At least it would help to break the boredom. It was kind of fun, sparring with him. He was stimulating company, and she was rather enjoying just looking at him.

‘Okay. Fine. But the bed’s mine.’

He held his hands up. ‘You women and your passion for beds.’

‘Clinophilia.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Having a passion for beds is clinophilia.’

He gave her a stunned smile. ‘You just pulled that out of the air?’

She shrugged. ‘It’s general knowledge.’

He snorted. ‘Is it?’ He raised a seductive eyebrow. ‘Well, far be it from me to kick a lady out of my bed.’

She shook her head in wonder at his gall. ‘You can’t resist a double entendre, can you, Connor?’

‘I can’t help myself when I’m around you, Josie.’

She was so breathless she had to concentrate hard on sucking air into her constricted lungs. The combination of flirty talk and the proximity of his to-die-for body was having a devastating effect on her.

‘It’s nearly time to eat,’ he said quietly, a mirthful smile in his eyes.

He knew. He knew all too well.

She realised she was gawping at him and dragged her gaze away.

‘Smells great,’ she muttered.

When she glanced back at him the look on his face made her insides flip over. Breaking eye contact, he turned back to the stove and added some herbs to the pan. She felt the loss of his attention keenly, as if the sun had slipped behind a cloud.

Drumming her fingers against her legs, she looked around the kitchen for something to do, her nerves jumping.

‘Do you need any help? With supper?’

He looked back and gave her a lopsided grin. ‘I think it’s probably better if I take care of it.’ He gestured towards the work surface. ‘No microwave,’ he said by way of explanation.

Her hackles rose. ‘Just because I don’t cook at home, it doesn’t mean I can’t be useful in the kitchen.’

He just smiled, not rising to her cross tone. ‘I’ve got this covered—but, thanks.’

She shifted from foot to foot before leaning awkwardly against the chair-back. She was reluctant to be on her own again after spending all day bored out of her brain.

He watched her in bemusement. ‘If you want something to read there are yesterday’s newspapers in the snug.’

He wasn’t making it easy for her to stay and watch him.

‘Okay, then.’ She swung her finger to point behind her. ‘I’ll get out of your hair for a bit.’

‘Okay.’ He waved his hand, as if dismissing her, turning back to the stove without another word.

* * *

Supper was a sumptuously tender boeuf bourguignon with buttery new potatoes and crispy green beans. Josie wolfed it down with barely a pause. Neither of them spoke during the meal except to exchange pleasantries, which suited her fine.

She wasn’t sure why she felt so nervous around him. She’d faced CEOs of multi-million-pound corporations and been less jittery than this. He had some kind of strange effect on her, and she found it distressing. She should be able to handle this, no problem, but just his presence next to her set her mind into a spin. Every movement he made sent vibrations along her nerves. His gestures were precise, but elegant, and she thought she could probably watch him for hours and not grow bored.

‘That was delicious, thanks,’ she said, leaning back in her chair.

‘You’re welcome. Woman should not live on cornflakes alone,’ he said, giving her a look of reproach.

She grinned sheepishly, then tapped her hands gently on the table, beating out a rhythm.

Connor continued to watch her as she battled with the unwelcome warmth spreading through her under his intense gaze.

The silence between them lengthened.

‘So, how do you usually spend your evenings?’ she asked, trying to break the atmosphere.

Connor’s brow furrowed as he gave it some thought. ‘Game of chess?’

‘Chess, huh? Okay. I’ve not played in a while, but what the hell?’

‘I warn you, I take no prisoners.’ He wagged a finger at her.

‘Thanks for the warning,’ she said, going into the snug and grabbing the chessboard.

Neither did she.

* * *