No Escaping Love. Sharon Kendrick

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СКАЧАТЬ of woman to attract me is some tall, skinny kid who doesn’t look old enough to be out of gym-slips!’

      Shauna glared at him. It was one thing to decide that the man before her was the last person she’d ever fall for—it was quite another to discover that he felt exactly the same way—and his disparaging remarks made her bristle with indignation. Share a flat with him? Why, she’d rather share with a gang of escaped convicts!

      ‘And what about—privacy?’ she asked primly.

      He gave a hollow laugh. ‘Privacy? Will you stop acting like the original vestal virgin? Slightly redundant anyway, since we’ve just collected your stuff from your ex-lover.’

      He managed to make a young love-affair sound so sordid, she thought, her grey eyes sending out sparks of indignation.

      ‘You’ll have all the privacy you could possibly want,’ he continued. ‘For a start, I’m away in the country most weekends. Secondly, your room is on the opposite side of a very large flat, and it has its own bathroom. So does mine. So the chances of your coming across me in the raw are pretty remote.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘The good news for both of us is that I’ll shortly be having the flat divided into two completely separate apartments. It would have been done already if I had been here to sort the damned builders out. Unfortunately, I’ve been out of the country.’

      That explained the tan, thought Shauna.

      His eyes were mocking as they surveyed her. ‘Now, are those arrangements secure enough for your Victorian sensibilities, or would you like me to throw in a chastity belt while I’m at it?’ He gave an unexpected grin as he saw her colour heighten yet again.

      ‘You know, you really are going to have to do something about that blushing, if you’re going to work for me. And you a woman of the world!’

      His teasing immediately defused the atmosphere. ‘I am not a woman of the world, if that means what I think it means.’

      He was staring at her curiously. ‘Tell me, you didn’t lie about your age in your letter, did you?’

      ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ she flung back at him. ‘Of course I didn’t lie! Do you always think the worst of people, or are you just used to people lying to you?’

      ‘All the time,’ he mused. ‘Particularly women, and particularly about their age. Except that they usually lop a few years off, whereas in your case …’

      There was something distinctly unsettling about the way those green eyes bored into her, she thought, but, refusing to rise to this, she stared steadily at him. ‘Will you be needing me this evening?’ she asked pointedly. ‘Because I’d like to unpack and—’

      He shook his head. ‘You’re free until tomorrow morning at ten sharp. Oh, and there’s one more thing—house rules.’

      ‘I am very tidy,’ she interrupted. ‘And I do not leave dirty dishes in the sink.’

      ‘There’s a dishwasher, actually—and the maid comes in twice a week. No, I’ve only one rule and that’s no overnight guests. I don’t care who you go to bed with—just don’t do it here. I don’t intend to have my sleep disturbed.’

      She went white beneath her tan and glared at him. He was obviously going out of his way to shock her, but he was going to be disappointed—she had absolutely no intention of rising to his challenge, or of offering him any information on the current state of her love-life. The question was whether she could put up with working for a man who could be quite so contentious. She continued to stare at him as she contemplated the only alternative, which would be to walk out of here right now.

      She couldn’t. It was a brilliant job—she’d never find another like it. And if the only fly in the ointment was the conceited Max Ryder—well, surely she could put up with that? And at least he had made it perfectly clear that he wouldn’t dream of making a pass at her, so in that sense, at least, she was quite safe with him.

      The green eyes had been observing her with the faintest touch of amusement. ‘Changed your mind, have you?’

      She pretended to look perplexed. ‘Changed my mind? About what?’

      ‘Staying.’

      Her wide mouth closed in a determined line. Roll on the day when the builders arrived! ‘Certainly not, Mr Ryder. I look on it as a challenge.’

      The glimmer of a smile. ‘Call me Max. And there’s plenty of food in the kitchen. Help yourself.’

      ‘Thank you very much,’ she answered politely, but, as she closed her bedroom door behind her, she reflected that her voracious appetite of earlier had mysteriously disappeared.

       CHAPTER THREE

      SHAUNA unpacked her cases and her holdall and hung everything up in the vast mirrored wardrobe, deciding wryly that she would really have to invest in some new clothes. What she had was OK, but there was so little of it. In Portugal she’d lived mostly in lightweight clothes which were totally inappropriate for the approaching English winter. At least the stuff she’d picked up at the flat was warmer, but, even so, it now looked terribly dated.

      The bathroom looked like something out of an ideal home advertisement—all mirrors and lights and expensive-looking glass-topped bottles. She took a long, luxurious bath, which was heaven after all the travelling, and finished off in the shower, untying the rampant black curls and smothering them with shampoo, then conditioner. It took her almost half an hour to dry them, and by that time she was exhausted and barely had the energy to brush her teeth and climb into the king-sized bed. It had been a long day.

      She had thought that she wasn’t hungry, but her stomach obviously thought differently since she woke up in the night feeling distinctly empty. She sat up in bed, rubbing her eyes with the back of her fist, her heart sinking when she saw that her watch read only four a.m.—hardly the proper time to eat. Her stomach rumbled loudly in protest. Perhaps if she was very quiet, she could go and raid Max’s larder—he’d told her to help herself, after all.

      She climbed out of bed and pulled on her robe. Barefooted, she quietly opened the bedroom door and listened for a moment. She could hear nothing other than the faint ticking of a clock somewhere in the distance. Max Ryder’s bedroom door was closed, thank goodness. Silently she padded over the thick pile of the carpet, the soft woollen strands tickling her toes. She reached the kitchen and gently opened the door.

      Whatever else he might or might not have done, Max Ryder certainly ate well. The fridge was full of salads, cold meats, cheeses, fruit, and an expensive-looking box of Belgian chocolates. Further hunting produced a bread-bin, and she cut herself two enormous slices of brown bread, buttered them, and layered salad and ham between them.

      She had just found a full carton of orange juice and was about to open it when she heard a sound behind her and whirled round to find Max Ryder standing at the door, wearing nothing but a pair of faded denims—and only half-zipped, she noted in horror before averting her gaze from them so hastily that the carton of juice slipped from her fingers.

      At precisely the same moment, they both lunged for the juice, Shauna’s outstretched hand making her lose her balance, her bare feet slipping wildly on the shiny tiles. She would have fallen awkwardly had his arm not reached СКАЧАТЬ