Living With The Enemy. Laura Martin

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СКАЧАТЬ stop,’ she murmured. ‘Were they from around here, do you suppose?’

      ‘No.’ He looked past Lucy towards the valley below. The track was like a winding brown snake. In the distance a trail of dust indicated the car’s continued progress. ‘Definitely not.’ He stared fixedly at the hillside for a moment, intense dark eyes following the vehicle’s journey in the distance.

      ‘Did you know the driver?’

      Lucy’s question seemed to jolt Alex out of his reverie. He looked down at her and frowned. ‘What made you ask that?’

      She shrugged, a little confused by the stillness of his frame and the sharpness of his question. ‘I...I don’t know,’ she murmured. ‘It was just your expression...’

      He released a breath. ‘There was something,’ he murmured. ‘I didn’t get a chance to see a great deal, but a flash of hair...colours... It reminded me of someone...’ The dark head shook as if he wanted to forget, to shake the image forcibly out of his head. Impatient fingers turned the key in the ignition. ‘Let’s try and put it out of our minds. Another five minutes and we’ll arrive.’

      

      His villa was the sort of home that Lucy dreamed about: comfortable furniture, fine paintings, expensive books, pleasant, interesting objects practically everywhere she looked.

      She thought about the cheap bedsitter that she had shared with Paul, with its worn carpet and sad furniture, and had to work hard to repress a shudder.

      ‘You don’t look too good.’ Dark eyes were surveying her face with a frown.

      Lucy inhaled. ‘I’m just a little tired, that’s all,’ she murmured. ‘And the trouble with the car...it shook me.’

      ‘I’ll show you to your room. You can freshen up and then rest. I have some work I have to do so you’ll be left in peace.’

      He led her up a narrow staircase, along a passageway that had colourful rugs pinned to the stone walls, past several closed doors, to a large, airy room which overlooked the valley below.

      ‘Oh, this is lovely!’ Lucy’s smile was genuine as she glanced around, her green eyes sparkling with pleasure at the white walls, the polished furniture, the books and fresh flowers that filled almost every available surface. ‘It’s just the sort of bedroom I’ve always wanted!’

      ‘And now you have it—for a short time at least.’ Alex placed the cases on the floor at the foot of the four-poster bed. He looked around, as if seeing the room for the first time. ‘I asked Maria, the woman from the village, to make sure that it was welcoming, and it seems she’s done a good job.’

      ‘It’s marvellous, thank you.’ Lucy crossed to the window and gazed out across the valley. Her eyes alighted on the aquamarine of the pool shimmering in the afternoon sun. ‘It looks very inviting,’ she murmured. ‘I haven’t been swimming in ages.’

      ‘You must swim every day whilst you are here.’ He came and stood beside her and once again she felt the sudden, strong, uncompromising presence—an animal magnetism that had unnerved her before whilst travelling with him in the car and was unnerving her again.

      ‘You have a wonderful home.’ She moved slightly to put more space between them. He noticed but she couldn’t help that. She had never been very relaxed with men—look at how she had been with Paul...

      ‘Yes. I like it. You’ve had a difficult few months,’ Alex continued smoothly. ‘You really need to make the most of your time here.’

      Lucy ventured the question which had been plaguing her since the beginning. ‘You’re allowing me to stay here as a favour to Charles. Why is that?’ she asked.

      Dark eyes surveyed her face impassively. ‘Does there have to be a reason?’

      ‘In my experience, people rarely do something for nothing,’ she murmured.

      ‘But your experience hasn’t been very good, has it?’ Alex remarked quietly.

      She stared hard at the swimming pool. ‘So you do know more than the basic details!’ she accused him. ‘What exactly has Charles been saying?’

      ‘I told you,’ he replied. ‘I know about your husband’s death. Nothing more. I didn’t ask for details.’

      ‘But he gave them to you all the same!’ Lucy shook her head angrily. ‘Damn Charles!’ she murmured quietly. ‘He always was a terrible gossip.’

      ‘He cares about you. Surely you know that?’

      ‘Yes.’ She pressed her trembling lips together. ‘Yes, I know.’

      ‘You look exhausted,’ Alex said quietly. ‘You need to rest’

      ‘Don’t treat me like a child!’ She spun away from the caring voice and concerned eyes and erected a wall of hostility to hide behind. ‘I’ve been married. I’ve been widowed. I’m a grown woman, for heaven’s sake!’

      ‘At the present moment you barely look fifteen,’ Alex commented, seemingly unaffected by her sharp outburst ‘If I ask exactly how old you are, will I get my head bitten off again?’

      ‘Most probably!’ Lucy kept her gaze fixed on the valley. ‘I’m surprised Charles hasn’t told you that already. Twenty,’ she added, after a few seconds had passed. She glanced across at the far too attractive face and asked pointedly, ‘How old are you?’

      ‘A lot older.’

      ‘And wiser no doubt!’

      ‘In some fields, yes.’

      ‘Not all? My, my, you do surprise me! Such modesty.’

      She was being a pain again—unnecessarily irritable, just because she was feeling unsure of herself. Just because standing in the same room as this man made her feel weirdly unsettled, excited, confused and totally mixed up.

      ‘I’ve never been married,’ he replied, with brutal smoothness. ‘You have the lead on me there.’

      ‘Or widowed?’ Lucy’s expression was hard. She’d show him.

      ‘No.’

      ‘I disappointed him,’ she murmured, fixing her gaze on the view from the window.

      ‘Who? Your husband?’

      Lucy’s smile was twisted with irony. She shook her head and worked hard at blotting out Paul’s deceptively mild countenance. ‘No, not my husband. I mean Charles.’ She heaved a sigh. ‘My behaviour over the last few years...it’s not been the best I was a difficult teenager and then, of course...’ there was a telling pause ‘...I got married. That only reinforced his belief that I was incapable of running my own life in a satisfactory manner. Charles had hoped for great things...’

      ‘And you? Did you hope for great things?’

      His question surprised her. She looked across at him and frowned. ‘Maybe, at one time...’ Lucy thought back to her days at drama school. She had been keen and ambitious then. She СКАЧАТЬ