Tall, Dark And Dangerous

‘You took your time deciding to spurn me,’ he mocked softly as he released her, but there was a slight breathlessness to his words and a trace of bemusement in his eyes.

‘That’s because I shouldn’t drink!’ she exclaimed, then cringed at having come out with so pathetic an excuse.

‘Yes, and you were really knocking it back,’ he murmured. ‘You must have had—well, all of two sips, by my reckoning.’

‘I…What I meant was…’

‘No, Ginny, the damage has already been done to my ego,’ he sighed, walking towards the veranda doors. ‘I’m sure that if I ever took the liberty of trying to kiss you again, I’d get an instant brush-off…And leave that broken glass alone, I’ll see to it in the morning—I don’t want you going anywhere near it in your drunken state.’

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_c6c82493-a4c5-5207-a6d8-978f0e989c01)

WHY she had assumed she would feel any better, having made a phone call to Libby during her visit to the market, was beyond her, thought Ginny irritably. She placed the last of her purchases in the basket of the bicycle she had found rusting in a shed at the villa soon after she had arrived, and climbed on to it.

Of course, she should have known she would end up lying to Libby, she mused dejectedly as she rode along. There had always been a mutually protective element in their relationship which, on her own part, had gone into overdrive now that Libby was pregnant.

‘Ginny, just get the first train you can up here,’ had been Libby’s reaction to the news of the length of her uncle’s proposed stay. ‘Jeanne has plenty of space and can’t wait to meet you.’

‘And then we’d lose the money Michael’s paying, not to mention what we get from my odd gardening contracts—Libby, we can’t afford it.’

Not that long ago it had been a source of hilarity between them, thought Ginny wryly—Libby’s being an heiress and their having to count every penny. But it had been only within the past month that Libby had managed to pay off the small fortune in debts that had littered her life, and now all her generous monthly allowance, together with anything they had left over from their strict budget, was set aside to cover the birth and any related expenses that might crop up—and they kept cropping up.

Of course she had lied, she thought wearily, oblivious of the azure blue of the sea now coming into view, a sight which usually filled her with peace and contentment. Last night, for the first time she could remember, she had gone to bed, her mind and body churning and reeling from the after-effects of what had only been a kiss: this morning she had woken to the same sensation—and it had frightened the wits out of her… Which was one of the reasons it had seemed safer, when talking to Libby, to weave a tale of a pleasantly courteous man who had apologised for the fact that he would be far too engrossed in business matters to be able to pass more than the time of day with her, and who had shown mercifully little interest in his absent niece.

‘That could be the lull before the storm,’ Libby had warned, plainly not altogether convinced. ‘You wait till he gets suspicious and starts turning on the charm.’

It was at that point she had panicked into embroidering with a vengeance. ‘You needn’t worry on the charm score—there’s some woman he’s forever on the phone to. If I’m not mistaken, he’s in love and I’ve a feeling she’s going to join him any day.’

‘Wow, Mikey in love!’ Libby had gasped, unwittingly dispelling Ginny’s immediate panic but also confirming her suspicion that Libby, despite her protestations to the contrary, retained a great deal of affection for her uncle. ‘What I wouldn’t give to see what she’s like! But it’s still not going to be that easy for you. I’ll do what I can from this end, calling and speaking to him from time to time, but, like all the Grants, he has a very suspicious nature where I’m concerned. To be honest, if you had uppped and left, as I suggested, I’d not have put it past him to get the cops out looking for me.’

Ginny cycled up the drive and round to the back of the house.

‘Where have you been?’

Almost falling from the bike with fright, she turned and flung a mutinous look in the direction of the scowling Michael Grant.

‘I really don’t think it’s any of your business where I’ve been,’ she retorted, wheeling the bike to the side of one of the garden sheds.

‘As I see it, it’s very much my business,’ he snapped, dogging her footsteps. ‘I employ you, don’t I?’

‘Indeed you do,’ she replied, her tone saccharinsweet while her blood boiled; this she most certainly could do without. ‘But I wasn’t sure that entailed my reporting my every move to you. But, if you must know, I was at the market, buying the food necessary for the meals my employment requires me to cook for you.’

‘Fine, that’s all I needed to know.’

Ginny flung the bicycle against the shed, fury making her reckless. ‘But this afternoon I shall be elsewhere,’ she announced, unloading the basket. ‘Yours isn’t the only garden I tend.’

‘Well, it is now.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ she enquired icily, while a frantic voice inside her asked just what she thought she was doing. The fact that she hadn’t any other gardening lined up was neither here nor there—her utter stupidity in even mentioning that she did other work was beyond belief.

‘I think you heard well enough,’ he informed her in steely tones. ‘But if you want to play dumb, Ginny, dumb is what we’ll play. So tell me, how many hours would you say constitute a full day’s work?’

She had asked for this, she berated herself angrily, and she would no doubt get it in full.

‘Eight,’ she muttered.

‘I’ll be generous and call it seven…Now, by my reckoning, your only free time from working for me would be between the hours of ten at night and eight in the morning and I don’t imagine too many folks would be lining up to have their gardens messed with during those hours.’

‘I don’t mess with gardens,’ Ginny informed him frigidly, ‘and anyway, I was only joking.’

‘Glad to hear it,’ he drawled, his eyes flickering with barely concealed disdain over her dungaree-clad figure before he turned and walked towards the house. ‘We need to talk,’ he called over his shoulder, ‘so how about if you make us some coffee so we can do it in comfort?’

And how about if you took a running jump? fumed Ginny to herself, convinced he intended complaining about her appearance. What had he in mind—decking her out in a uniform?

Muttering angrily to herself, and convinced she wouldn’t survive two hours of this treatment, let alone a whole month of it, she took herself off to the kitchen. But at least some good had come out of this ghastly encounter, she thought, calming a little as she put her purchases away. Her lying awake half the night racked by memories of being kissed by him had been no more than a stress-induced mental aberration—that was for sure.

She got out coffee-beans and the grinder, her moment of relief swiftly dissipating into frustration. She was beginning to feel as though she had a terrible weight on her shoulders. Libby seemed to thrive on intrigue, whereas she simply wasn’t cut out for it. Perhaps it was because Libby’s background was so steeped in wealth that she had such a cavalier attitude towards money.

‘OK, so I’ll pay it all back once I come into my inheritance,’ Libby had laughed, when Ginny had balked at the idea of their claiming the two salaries—and in Ginny’s name—from the villa. ‘No sweat.’

The idea had disturbed her then, thought Ginny miserably, and now it made her shrivel with embarrassment every time she thought about it. If Michael had fired her on the spot, or threatened her with legal action, she couldn’t honestly have blamed him. But her guilt in that respect didn’t alter the fact that his gallingly high-handed attitude was touching a particularly raw spot in her; she had had enough of being treated like an unpaid skivvy by her aunt ever to take it again—and especially not from this over-prvileged, autocratic American!

‘What are you doing—growing the beans for that coffee?’

Ginny responded to those words from a few paces behind her with a jump that sent the coffee she had just ground scattering everywhere.

‘Now look what you’ve made me do!’ she exclaimed accusingly. ‘I’ll have to grind more!’

‘I’ll grind—you clear up that mess,’ drawled Michael.

‘Excuse me,’ hissed Ginny, her hackles rising, ‘I might be employed by you, but would you mind not issuing me orders as though I were some sort of serf?’

‘OK. Please, Ginny, I’d be terribly grateful if you’d clear up the mess you’ve just made,’ he murmured in a grating parody of an English accent. ‘Tell me, are you always this sensitive?’

Ginny’s unladylike retort was drowned by the shriek of the coffee-grinder he switched on just as she uttered it.

‘You’ve over-filled it!’ she yelled over the din.

‘What?’

‘I said…Oh, forget it!’

He switched off the grinder. ‘I couldn’t hear you with that thing on. Does it always make that noise?’ he enquired, his expression over-brimming with puzzled innocence.

‘Only when it’s too full,’ snapped Ginny, flashing him her most withering look before finishing clearing up the mess and then returning to making the coffee.

‘Things have been happening here since you’ve been out,’ he said.

Ginny had to force herself to keep on with what she was doing as she felt herself freeze. He had found out about Libby!