Secret Wedding

He looked as though he’d been out caulking a hull or something. Cream trousers with what looked like a tar stain across one knee, dark blue workshirt, cuffs rolled back to reveal powerful forearms, long-fingered hands, broad shoulders and a well-muscled back, as though he were no stranger to manual labour. A strong neck, an even stronger chin. Stubborn and forthright uncompromising. But then you would have to be uncompromising to amass the fortune that Nerina said he’d amassed.

Well, Gillan hadn’t amassed a fortune, but she could be pretty uncompromising when she chose, especially where her own identity was concerned, and that was what she must think of. Her own identity. All else was folly.

‘Shall we clear the decks?’ she asked, with a brightness that rang false even to herself.

He made a small movement, then turned. Folding his arms across his chest, he stared at her, his blue eyes direct. ‘By all means. I’m certainly an advocate of plain speaking.’

‘Very well. Nerina lives with you?’

He gave a small nod.

‘And she invited me without your consent?’

‘Without my knowledge,’ he corrected her.

‘So I gathered, and yet she said. . .’

‘Yes?’ he invited, that small, cynical smile playing about his mouth. ‘She said. . .?’

Ignoring his query, a speculative frown in her eyes, she murmured, ‘And she only told you minutes before disappearing off to Sicily?’

He nodded.

‘Why?’ she wondered musingly. ‘She didn’t say it would be your house I would be staying in—didn’t say very much about you at all, except that you valued your privacy, went. . .’ Went your own way, she mentally completed as she remembered what else Nerina had said. And she could believe that; he looked the sort of man who thought his way was the only way.

With a bewildered little shake of her head, she continued, ‘She certainly didn’t say you wouldn’t want me here. In fact, she intimated that you would welcome me with open arms!’ With a small, very unamused smile, she added, ‘But the arms weren’t open, were they?’

‘No.’

‘So why, knowing what your reaction would be, did she invite me?’

‘You really don’t know?’

Puzzled, searching a face that gave nothing away, she shook her head.

‘Then you had best ask her, hadn’t you?’ he suggested smoothly. ‘When she rings you, as no doubt she will.’

‘But I won’t be here, will I?’ she argued, in tones that were creepingly derisive.

‘Won’t you?’

‘No, I’ll be on the next flight out. Going home.’

‘And who will tell Nerina?’ he asked somewhat drily.

‘You will.’

‘No,’ he denied, and his voice was soft, magnetic.

‘But you don’t want me here—have made it abundantly clear how you feel.’

‘Yes,’ he agreed bluntly. No hesitation, no concern for offended sensibilities, and she gave a twisted smile, hastily moved her eyes away from a mouth that was—seductive.

‘And I certainly don’t wish to stay in a house where I’m not wanted.’ With another brief laugh, she murmured, ‘She invited me for a little holiday, said—’

‘Then you must certainly have a little holiday,’ he said in tones that dripped honey. ‘On Gozo.’

‘What?’

‘Gozo. Malta’s sister island.’

‘I know what Gozo is! I just meant—’

‘That you didn’t want to go?’ So at ease, so in control, he walked across to the roll-top desk in the comer. ‘I’ll write down the address for you. We have a small villa in Xlendi.’

Following him, being careful not to stand too close, accidentally touch him, feeling helpless and frustrated, she watched him write. “‘Shlendi”?’ she queried. ‘That’s how you pronounce it?’

‘Mmm. Many of the names are of Semitic origin. Pronunciation could be a problem for you—’

‘If I was here long enough,’ she interrupted sweetly. ‘Which, of course, I won’t be.’

‘No.’

With a little glance of dislike—never mind the impact he had on her, he certainly wasn’t a man she could like—she stared at a stack of photographs to one side, idly reached for the top one. ‘What are these?’

‘Photographs for the promotional brochure—and do you normally examine other people’s belongings uninvited?’

‘No,’ she denied, ‘but I’m a photographer, and—’

‘Nerina invited you to take some for the brochure.’

‘Yes. She said you needed a photographer—which you obviously do,’ she added as she looked at them more closely, gave a disparaging grimace. ‘Who took these?’

‘Unimportant.’

Ignoring his dismissive tone, she fanned the photographs out with one quick sweep of her hand. ‘They look like someone’s holiday snaps. Boring. Predictable. You want to be different, innovative.’

‘Do I?’

‘Yes.’

Conscious of his nearness, the steady rise and fall of his chest, she focused desperately on the snaps. ‘You don’t just want to attract tourists, you want to live up to their expactations when they do come; you want—’

‘A promotional brochure,’ he completed for her.

Borrowing a shrug; she continued to separate the photographs and criticised, ‘A schooner, a submarine.’

‘It’s what we do, Miss Hart.’