Deadly Rivals. CHARLOTTE LAMB

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СКАЧАТЬ winding a big white towel around his waist. Against the whiteness his skin was an even deeper tan, small dark hairs roughening his forearms and calves.

      She looked away, swallowing on a sudden physical awareness, a pulse beginning to beat in her throat as she remembered that body lying on top of her, the forced intimacy of the brief contact. He turned and looked at her coolly. ‘You were about to crash into those rocks.’

      Crossly she snapped, ‘Nothing of the kind! I knew they were there! I was just going to change course to avoid them.’

      His brows rose again. ‘It didn’t look to me as if you were.’

      ‘Well, I was! I know every inch of this beach. If you hadn’t interfered I would have veered to the right and gone on down into the sea.’

      Just behind him she saw a pile of clothes on the rocks: crumpled, well-washed jeans, a cheap cotton T-shirt.

      She looked back at him, frowning. ‘Who are you? What are you doing on this beach anyway? It’s private. Have you got permission to be here?’

      ‘I’m staying at your father’s villa. I arrived late last night, after you had gone to bed. Your father told me you were staying here too.’

      She had gone to bed early; she always did, so that she could be up at first light. Olivia hated missing a moment of the morning here. It was the best time of day; each dawn was like the birth of the world—radiant, clear, breathtaking.

      ‘My father didn’t tell me anyone else was arriving,’ she slowly said, running a still shaky hand through her short hair, which was cut in a bell shape, soft and silky like the petals of a yellow chrysanthemum, around her small, oval face. Olivia was only five feet four, and proportioned accordingly, with tiny hands and feet, a slender, fine-boned body. Her eyes were big, however, and wide-spaced, and her mouth was soft and generous, with something passionate in the warm curves of it.

      The stranger’s mouth was wide, too, but hard, the line of it uncompromising, forceful. ‘I dropped in unexpectedly,’ he said, and suddenly smiled, if you could call the twist of that mouth a smile. Something was amusing him, but that smile made a shiver run down her back.

      ‘Where from? Do you live on Corfu?’ Her father’s guests were usually rich businessmen and their wivespeople she tried to avoid as much as possible, and who were often openly surprised, and curious, about her presence, because few people knew that Gerald Faulton had a child.

      His marriage to her mother had ended in divorce when Olivia was six and she had remained in her mother’s custody afterwards, growing up in a small town in Cumbria, in the north-west of England. Gerald Faulton had remarried once the divorce was final, only to divorce again some years later, without having another child. He had been married four times now, but Olivia was still his only child, although they were hardly close; he didn’t keep in touch with her, except to send her a birthday and Christmas present each year, usually some expensive yet impersonal gift she suspected was chosen by his secretary. The only time they spent together was this fortnight every year in his Corfu villa, and even then he often had other guests to stay and saw very little of Olivia.

      The dark Greek eyes were watching her small mobile face intently and she felt the skin on the back of her neck prickle. Surely her thoughts didn’t show in her face? It always made her sad to think of her father; she did not want this stranger guessing at her feelings.

      But his voice was calm when he answered her. ‘No, I don’t live here. I sailed here. My boat is down in the harbour at Corfu Town.’

      ‘You sail?’ Olivia’s golden eyes glowed with interest at that. ‘I sail too. What size is your boat? Did you sail her single-handed, or do you have a crew?’

      ‘I sailed single-handed—the boat’s designed to be easy for one person to handle,’ he said, giving her a shrewd look. ‘Do you sail?’

      ‘Not here, back home. I live in the Lake District, in England.’

      He smiled, teeth very white against that deeply tanned skin. ‘A lovely part of the country.’

      ‘Oh, yes,’ she said with fervour. ‘Do you know it?’

      He nodded, then, before she could ask him any more questions, he turned away, picked up his clothes and began to walk up the beach towards the pines behind which lay the white-walled villa.

      Over his shoulder he said, ‘Have your swim. See you later.’

      Olivia watched him walk away, a tall, swift-moving man, the white towel flapping against his naked brown legs. Who was he? He hadn’t told her his name or anything about himself, and she was consumed with curiosity, but it would have to wait until she met him again later back at the villa.

      She turned and ran down into the sea, her body graceful as it dived through the blue water. Olivia swam like a fish. Her Cumbrian home was on the shores of one of the lakes which were the major tourist attraction in that part of England. She spent most of her leisure time on the water, sailing her small yacht, White Bird, and she had learned to swim at around the time she learned to walk. Her mother was a sports teacher at a local school and very keen on children learning to swim early, especially if they lived near water.

      Olivia cut short her usual time on the beach that morning, but it was an hour later when she walked out on to the marble-tiled terrace where breakfast was eaten every morning in the shadow of the vines growing overhead. She had showered after her swim, her layered blonde hair was faintly damp, and she was wearing blue and white striped shorts which left most of her long, golden-brown legs bare, and a sleeveless yellow cotton top with a scalloped neckline.

      Her father was at the table, reading yesterday’s English newspapers, drinking coffee, having eaten his usual slice of toast and English marmalade, no doubt. Gerald Faulton was a man of ingrained habit, and disliked any changes to his routine.

      He looked round the paper and gave her his abstracted smile, which always made her wonder if he really knew quite who she was and what she was doing in his house.

      ‘Ah…good morning! Sleep well?’ A well-preserved fifty-five-year-old, her father’s once fair hair was now a silvery shade but his features were still as clear-cut and firm as ever because he dieted rigorously and exercised every day. His eyes were a piercing blue, a little cold, very sharp.

      ‘Very well. Did you?’

      ‘Yes. Been down to the beach, have you?’ Gerald approved of his daughter’s early rising and swimming, as he did of her glowing health and physical fitness.

      ‘Yes. You should come down, Father. It’s wonderful first thing in the morning.’

      ‘I swam in the pool, as usual.’ He didn’t quite trust the sea. The water in his swimming pool was treated and ‘safe’; there were no crashing waves to overwhelm you either.

      Olivia never kissed her father; their relationship was far too distant for that. She smiled at him though, as she sat down opposite him, her golden eyes glowing with leonine warmth, but only got back that blank stare, as if Gerald Faulton found it hard to believe she was really his child.

      Sighing a little, Olivia took one of the crisp, homebaked rolls put out in a silver basket in the centre of the table by the housekeeper, Anna Speralides, who looked after the villa whenever Gerald Faulton wasn’t using it. Spreading the roll with home-made black cherry jam, she said casually, ‘I met someone on the beach this morning. СКАЧАТЬ