Captivated by Her Innocence

This conviction that her life, if not her frozen heart, belonged in the Highlands had made her ignore advice and push ahead with her application for the post of head teacher at this tiny primary school in an isolated but beautiful part of the Scottish north-west coast.

This was not a knee-jerk reaction to her ex, Mark, or the near-miss wedding and she was most definitely not running away!

Teeth gritted, she pushed away the thought and lifted her chin. Mark, who she had never persuaded to take a holiday anywhere without sun and sand let alone north of the border, would have been bewildered by her choice but his bewilderment was no longer a factor. She was a free agent and she wished him and his underwear model all the happiness they both richly deserved, and if that involved the stick thin blonde gaining a hundred pounds all the better! Anna might not be heartbroken or devastated—she had seen devastated and had taken active steps to avoid it—but she was human.

She’d show the doubters that she could do it, but she had to get the job first. Shaking off her doubts, she focused on staying positive, desperately hoping it was enough to convince the panel to give her a chance.

So far, so good. Was this sliver of optimism inviting fate to cut her down to size? Anna blinked away the thought and focused on the question being asked, determined not to blow it now when it was going so well. She was not, as she had half expected, simply there to make up the numbers. Instead it was wide open: she really had a shot here.

It was going well.

Very well, she corrected mentally as the chairman of the panel leaned back in his seat and looked at her over his half-rimmed spectacles and produced his first smile.

‘Well, Miss Henderson, thank you very much for coming today. Is there anything you’d like to ask us?’

Anna, who had compiled a list of intelligent and practical questions for this moment, found herself shaking her head.

‘Then if you’d like to wait in the staff room we won’t keep you in suspense long, but I think I can speak for us all when I say that you have impressed—’

Anna, who had got to her feet and smoothed down her skirt, stifled a frustrated sigh as after a short knock the door to her left opened, causing the interviewer to leave this promising sentence incomplete. A moment later it was not the cold air from the draughty corridor that made her gasp but the person who entered the room.

He had to be used to gasps, looking as he did. He was something special.

Early thirties? Several inches over six feet, lean, broad shoulders, endless long legs, athletically muscular and absolutely stunningly gorgeous! Possessing a wide, sensually moulded mouth, dark, thickly lashed heavily lidded eyes, and the sort of strong, chiselled features that a Greek statue would have envied, the new arrival ticked every box on Anna’s personal list of attributes required of dark brooding hero, from the top of his dark, tousled, damp head to his mud splashed shoes.

Past the static buzz in her head, Anna registered the vibrant timbre of his deep voice but not what he said to the members of the panel—not the words maybe, but she did get the aura of raw masculinity he projected. It would have been hard not to!

Along with sex, he literally exuded authority from every perfect pore. Was it possible that this identikit Hollywood action-hero figure was the missing interview panel member whose absence had been apologised for?

Anna hadn’t given the no-show another thought, but if this was him she could see that his tardiness had been a stroke of luck for her, given the fact she was struggling and failing to hold his gaze without falling victim to a deep, very un-head-teacher-like blush, and shamefully the heat was not confined to her previously pale cheeks! The chances that she would have been able to manage an entire interview without doing something mortifying were slim. It was all very disturbing, possibly due to the accumulated stress of an interview on top of the long journey north. Whatever its cause, she had never in her life experienced a physical reaction like this to a man before—even her scalp was tingling.

Mortified and bemused by her reaction, she clasped her clammy hands together in a grip that turned her knuckles white as she struggled to control this over-the-top reaction. Then he was looking away, thank goodness. Anna shook her head to clear the shivering a moment later, a response to the touch of the dark eyes that brushed her face again. She had never stepped off a high cliff into velvety pitch darkness but she was pretty sure that if she did it would feel this way!

The intense, narrow-eyed stare was not intended to make the recipient feel warm and fluffy, that was for sure. For a moment she thought she had glimpsed a flicker of recognition in those steel-grey depths, but then it was gone and she was valiantly struggling to regain some of her shattered composure when the chairman of the interview panel, a local councillor, made the necessary introductions.

‘Cesare, this is Miss Henderson, our last, though in no way least, candidate.’

The smile sent Anna’s way was warm with approval.

‘There are tea and biscuits in the office. Mrs Sinclair will look after you.’ The chairman stepped to one side to allow Anna access to the door and turned his head to address his next comment to the tall man with the Italian-sounding name and the glowing olive-toned complexion. ‘Miss Henderson was just leaving us for a moment while we—’

The speculation buzzing in Anna’s head was louder than the flock of seagulls outside.

Cesare—the name was as un-British as his looks if you discounted the spookily pale silver-grey eyes. So what was his story?

The answer was not long coming, or at least part of it.

‘Miss Henderson, this is Cesare Urquart. He is the reason the school enjoys the connections with local businesses you were so complimentary about.’

Anna was so flustered she barely recalled her name, let alone the comment she had made earlier.

‘Mr Urquart.’ Relieved she sounded relatively sane despite her temporary but dramatic hormone imbalance, Anna tipped her head back and in the process found herself on the receiving end of a penetrating and distinctly chilly stare.

‘Anna was also very impressed by our green credentials.’ The older man appeared oblivious to the weird undercurrents—did that mean it was all in her head?

Her hand on the door handle, she paused as he added, ‘It is thanks to Cesare’s generosity and foresight that the school not only produces enough electricity for itself but sells it back to the grid. There was talk at one point of the school closing like so many other small schools before Cesare took a personal interest.’

There was a pause, and Anna knew a response was expected. So she nodded and made an admiring noise in the back of her throat, but would it kill the man to smile?

‘I have a personal interest.’

The woman on the panel spoke up. ‘And how is little Jasmine? We have all missed her, Killaran.’

‘Bored.’

So rich and influential Mr Urquart—or Killaran?—appeared to be a parent. Presumably with the child came a wife and mother who was his glamorous female equivalent? Rich incomers who had bought their way into the hearts of the locals? Her cynicism allowed room for the possibility their motives might be totally altruistic. Either way she knew there were many small schools under threat of closure who would have envied the village their rich benefactor. It was just sad that they needed one.

‘Miss Henderson.’ Cesare Urquart took a step her way and her grip on the door handle tightened. She was forced to tilt her head back to meet his eyes and she shifted her weight from one foot to the other feeling more like an errant schoolgirl than a prospective headmistress. ‘I must apologise for my late arrival.’

He didn’t sound sorry, and the smile that he gave did not reach his spectacular eyes. Anna was receiving the strong unspoken message that this disturbingly handsome man did not like her. Fair enough, she didn’t particularly like him. She returned his smile with one of equal insincerity. She might not have been as good an actor as he was because she saw a flash in his eyes before she brought her lashes down in a protective shield.

‘You have no objection if I ask you a little about yourself?’ he asked. Like wrecked any marriages recently?

Of course he knew the answer. Women like her rarely changed; they sailed through life leaving a trail of destruction in their selfish wake.

‘Of course not,’ Anna lied as Cesare Urquart shrugged off the dark cashmere overcoat he wore to reveal an elegant grey suit and a body that appeared to consist of solid muscle. She was shocked to feel desire clutch low in her belly and averted her shamed stare, focusing hard on her steepled fingers pressed together until her knuckles went white.

She had to get a grip—the atmosphere had definitely changed.

Cesare had walked into the room, seen a beautiful woman and felt a visceral stab of attraction that hadn’t diminished even after he had recognised her and experienced a deluge of outraged anger. Anger so extreme that he had literally been a reckless breath away from confronting her right there, outing her in front of the panel.

Fortunately the shock had flattened out, though not the testosterone-fuelled heat in his belly. Hormones were indiscriminate things; however, he was not. He had not allowed his hormones to rule him since he was a schoolboy.

He firmly believed a man could not be in control of any situation unless he was in control of himself. Cesare liked to be in control.

Like any other situation, this one needed a cool, analytical approach. When he applied this rule two things were clear to him: she was the last woman on the planet equipped with the moral authority to be a head teacher, and she had won over the interview panel.

And to be fair, had he been meeting her for the first time, even with his razor-sharp instincts for reading people, he might not have guessed that a first-class immoral bitch hid behind the angelic face. Even given his insider knowledge it was a struggle to reconcile what he knew her to be capable of with the guileless, quite disturbingly direct bright blue stare.

He did not allow the seeds of doubt to take hold; neither did he doubt his ability to convince the other panel members, help them see beyond the sexy librarian suit and the smile, that she was the wrong person for the job. He would be totally impartial while he gave her the chance to prove it for him.

As he took his seat behind the long table his attention was drawn to the gleaming top of her head. On the occasion when he had last seen her his attention had been captured, not by this woman’s colouring, but what she had been doing, namely publicly devouring the face of his married best friend!

Even with his attention on other things, under the subdued lights of the restaurant her hair, cut into a sleek jaw-length style, had been definably auburn. But under the harsh, unforgiving electric light of this room, grown long enough now to twist into a neat knot that revealed the long, smooth curve of her throat, it shone as bright as flame, rich, dramatic, glossy copper interwoven with threads of bright gold.

Paul always had had a thing for redheads—some had even been natural—but he had married a blonde and despite this woman’s attempts to wreck that marriage he still was.

Cesare continued to study the face of the woman who had almost cost his friend his marriage and felt desire as indiscriminate as it was strong twist in his belly.