Private Lives Read online

  He blinked up at her for several seconds, frowning darkly, obviously aware, somewhere at the back of his mind, that she shouldn’t be here, that she definitely hadn’t been when he’d fallen asleep. He didn’t seem to have seen poor Ella at all as she stood at the back of the room near the door, concentrating on Fin with effort. ‘Who are you?’ he asked gruffly, as if just the effort of talking hurt the dryness of his throat.

  Now they were back to the original fairy-tale, only this one didn’t seem to be running true to form at all; wasn’t she supposed to be the one asking the questions? And there was such a lot she would have liked to ask …! ‘I’m one of the Little People—’

  ‘Oh, my God …!’ He gave a pained groan, his pallor increasing, his cheeks looking grey now. ‘Oh, God!’ he groaned again, his eyes wide now as he stared at her disbelievingly. ‘I don’t believe this is happening to me!’ He shook his head, looking up towards the ceiling, his gaze returning reluctantly to Fin, heaving a shuddering sigh as he saw she was still there. ‘Most people imagine they see pink elephants; I have to see “little people”!’ His gaze turned sharply towards the door as Ella gave a snort of laughter she tried to control but couldn’t quite manage to. ‘Another one!’ he gasped his dismay, his skin seeming to take on a green sheen now.

  Fin had realised the mistaken assumption he had made almost as soon as Ella had, and had trouble restraining her own laughter; this man really thought she was a hallucination brought on as the result of too much alcohol. One of the ‘little people’, indeed. She might not have explained herself very well, but really …! ‘You don’t understand—’

  ‘Of course I do,’ he nodded firmly. ‘You’re one of the “little people”. Are you an elf, or a pixie, or—?’

  ‘I run a business called Little People!’ she snapped tautly, bright spots of colour in her cheeks, her freckles standing out against the livid colour. She might be small and delicately made, but she wasn’t in the least fairy-like, and her very delicacy hid a strong-willed determination.

  ‘Hm?’ The man still looked totally befuddled by the conversation, running a hand through the length of his hair.

  ‘Little People,’ Fin repeated through gritted teeth. ‘It’s the name of the business I run. It’s on my van outside if you would care to look,’ she added exasperatedly as he still didn’t look convinced by this explanation.

  ‘It is?’ He began to look hopeful that he wasn’t going insane after all, although the suspicion still remained in his expression. ‘Perhaps I had better— Ah.’ He halted in the act of getting out of the bed as he looked down and obviously realised that he didn’t have any clothes on.

  Fin spied a pair of denims on the bedroom floor that had obviously been discarded there some time the night before, studiously avoiding looking for any other clothing he might have thrown down so carelessly as she hurried over to pick the denims up for him. ‘Here.’ She held them out towards him.

  He took them slowly, frowning as his suspicion deepened. ‘How did you know …?’

  She kept her gaze determinedly turned away from Ella as she heard the other woman give a choked cough to hide her squeak of guilt. ‘Logic,’ Fin dismissed with a briskness that defied questioning, turning away discreetly as he pulled the denims up his long legs, standing up to fasten them before padding over to the tiny window across the room that looked out over the driveway.

  God, he was tall, well over six feet, powerfully built, moving with all the feline grace of a caged tiger.

  Strange she should liken him to that particular animal, Fin realised with a startled jolt; the tiger had always been the animal she considered the most beautiful!

  His hair was so thick and dark now that she could see it properly, the grey among the darkness more noticeable now that it curled down on to his shoulders. His face seemed harsher in profile as he looked out of the window, those incredible-coloured eyes narrowed, his mouth a thin slash of displeasure between clenched jaws.

  Some of that displeasure was due, Fin would hazard a guess, to the fact that he was now fully aware of the fool he had made of himself minutes ago, concerning her identity, some of it was due to the colossal hangover he probably now realised he had—and the rest was due to a hard cynicism that certainly hadn’t materialised overnight!

  One of his hands still rested on the window-sill when he turned back into the room, challenge in every line of his hard body, cold assessment in his eyes as his gaze raked over her without mercy. ‘Just who are you?’ he repeated his initial question, this time with impatience.

  Fin, still squirming from the impact of that harsh scrutiny, felt as if he had looked at her, from the top of her bright red curls, her heart-shaped face with its liberal smattering of freckles, down over the slenderness of her body in the T-shirt and denims—and found her wanting. God, she didn’t just feel as if he had, she knew damn well that he had!

  She straightened, drawing herself up to her full five feet in height, moving forward slightly to hold out her hand in formal greeting. ‘Fin McKenzie,’ she introduced herself. ‘And this is Ella Morgan, one of my assistants.’

  He made no effort to take the proffered hand, his gaze moving sharply to Ella as she stepped reluctantly away from the doorway. ‘And what does she assist you at?’ he drawled disparagingly, making no effort to give her his own name either.

  He thought they were the intruders! No, he didn’t; Fin immediately rejected that idea: intruders would hardly have gone to the trouble of waking him up in the way they had. He was deliberately trying to make them feel uncomfortable because of his own earlier embarrassment.

  Well, Fin, for one, didn’t feel in the least at a disadvantage. She knew she had a perfect right to be here, and she wanted an explanation as to why he was here. ‘I believe we are the ones who should be asking the questions, Mr …?’ She paused pointedly, but once again he chose to ignore her prompting to give his own name, meeting her gaze coolly, one brow raised in calm challenge. ‘We’re contracted to keep watch on the cottage whenever Gail is— She didn’t tell us you were going to be here,’ Fin added stubbornly, refusing to be the one put in a position of explaining herself.

  He shrugged unconcernedly, crossing his arms in front of his bared chest, a plain gold watch on the wrist of his left arm. ‘That’s OK; she didn’t tell me about you either!’

  Impasse, Fin realised frustratedly. What should she do now? As far as she was aware, the man had done nothing but get drunk, very drunk, and fall asleep in Gail’s bed—without Gail. Naked. Fin mustn’t forget that, couldn’t forget it. Even now, with the denims resting low down on his hips to cover most of his nakedness, the tanned hardness of his chest caused her pulse to give a leap!

  And there was still that disturbing feeling she had that she knew this man. While he was standing up like this, his very size dominating the small confines of the room, that feeling was all the stronger. But she had been so young that she couldn’t remember exactly …

  ‘I’ll get in touch with Gail and have her call you,’ he added with arrogant dismissal.

  You may go now, Miss Whatever-your-name-is, Fin realised resentfully. He certainly had the damned arrogance of— ‘I shall be telephoning her myself, Mr …?’ Once again she paused, and this time the determination in her face brooked no argument; she would at least know his name before she agreed to leave.

  ‘Danvers,’ he came back smoothly. Too smoothly? Had he taken those few minutes’ respite to give himself time to think of another identity for himself that would protect his anonymity …? ‘Jac—Jake Danvers,’ he added more confidently.

  But Fin had noted the slip, couldn’t help wondering if it really was significant or if she was just imagining things where there was nothing. But there had been that ‘Jac’, and, although the name was different, the initials were the same, J.D. …

  She nodded abruptly, frowning, deeply disturbed. ‘We’ll leave you in peace now, Mr Danvers.’ She gave a strained smile. ‘If you should need to contact us, we’re in the
book,’ she offered with a politeness she was far from feeling. But if he really was a friend of Gail’s …

  ‘Under Little People,’ he acknowledged drily, the humour evident in his voice not reaching the coldness of his eyes.

  ‘Under Little People,’ she confirmed tersely, deciding then and there that she would try to contact Gail herself as soon as she got back to the office. The sooner the puzzle over this man’s identity was cleared up, the better it would be for everyone.

  Not least Fin’s mother …

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘… JUST thought I should let you know, so that there’s no confusion, that my uncle will be staying at the cottage for a while,’ the recorded message told Fin dismissively. ‘He’s pretty capable of looking after himself, so I don’t think you’ll need to go to the cottage again until after he’s left,’ Gail added hastily. ‘But if you could just keep a distant eye on him …?’

  Fin switched the machine off as she realised that was the end of the message. The ‘confusion’ had already occurred. And Fin would hazard a guess on the reason Gail had asked for a ‘distant’ eye to be kept on Jake Danvers—that she was well aware of the fact that he wouldn’t welcome any intrusion into his privacy!

  She had tried to contact the other woman, once she’d got back to the office, at the telephone number she had for her in London, but there had been no reply. Gail was an actress, had been playing in a supporting role in one of London’s longest-running plays for the last nine months, and so at the moment she found it easier to stay in town during the week, and usually only managed to get down to the cottage on a Sunday overnight, hence her need for Fin to keep an eye on the cottage while she was away. Fin could only assume that the other woman was either sleeping at the moment after a late night at the theatre the night before, or else she was actually out; either way, Fin hadn’t actually been able to talk to her personally yet. What she had found, when she’d decided to leave calling Gail again until later in the day and got down to listening to the rest of her overnight messages, was that one of them was from Gail herself!

  It didn’t bother Fin that the check on the cottage was no longer necessary at the moment; they had always had a flexible arrangement on that—no doubt when Gail was ‘resting’ once again she would move back to the cottage permanently anyway. But uncle? It wasn’t exactly that Fin doubted the other woman’s word, it was just—well, Gail was a tall, leggy blonde with an effervescent personality, none of which, except perhaps the height, bore any resemblance to the taciturn man Fin had encountered at the cottage earlier. The facial characteristics of the two were dissimilar too, Gail’s eyes a deep, deep brown, her complexion fair, her mouth wide and smiling. But if Jake Danvers wasn’t really Gail’s uncle, then what was he? What, indeed …?

  It was really none of her business, Fin supposed ruefully; Gail was twenty-five, old enough to know exactly what she was doing. And take the consequences for it!

  Nevertheless, Fin’s own curiosity about Jake Danvers continued, and she went out of her way later in the morning to drive past the cottage, just to see if she might not get another glimpse of him. And reassure herself of how ridiculous her thoughts concerning his identity this morning had been, she tried to convince herself.

  She could see a movement out in the garden at the front of the cottage, hesitating only fractionally before turning the van down the gravel driveway, telling herself she was only making the call to let Jake Danvers know she had heard from Gail, and knew who he was now. It was a valid enough reason, but it wasn’t the true one …

  It was him out in the garden; he was pulling up weeds from the flowerbeds, didn’t acknowledge the arrival of the van, or her footsteps on the gravel as she crossed to stand beside the wall, looking over at him, by even so much as a brief break in his concentration on the back-bending work.

  He looked less strained than he had this morning—less hung-over, perhaps!—that grey tinge gone from his cheeks now, and instead sweat glistened on his face and body from his exertions, his skin seeming to have gone an even deeper brown just in this short time he must have spent out in the sun today, his hair falling untidily to his shoulders.

  Fin’s pulse skipped a beat just from her looking at the sheer animal magnetism of him, colour burning in her cheeks as he turned suddenly and caught her watching him with avid interest.

  He straightened abruptly, eyes narrowing almost accusingly, almost as if he really hadn’t been aware of her presence there, his attention so intent on something else. But surely not on weeding the garden, Fin doubted sceptically.

  ‘You again!’ he rasped harshly, looking down his arrogantly long nose at her. ‘Maybe you aren’t really one of the “little people”, but you certainly can creep around like one!’ he told her disgustedly.

  The name of her business had been a talking point from when she had first started out, but one of her advertising slogans at the time had been that ‘she came in, did the job, and left again, without bother or hindrance to her client. Almost as if she had never been there at all’. Just the way the ‘little people’ were reputed to do. There had been the added factor of her name, but she had always skimmed over that particular part of it.

  ‘I didn’t try to hide the fact that I was here,’ she defended a little indignantly. ‘I came down the driveway in the van.’ She pointed to the yellow-coloured vehicle parked a short distance away.

  His mouth twisted, and he almost seemed to wince at the brightness of the colour. ‘You would certainly have thought I would have noticed that!’ He gave a scornful shake of his head. ‘But I was deep in thought,’ he dismissed impatiently. ‘I didn’t hear you arrive at all; you could have given me a heart attack, creeping about like that,’ he accused hardly.

  Surely it wasn’t her fault that he hadn’t heard her! And she knew what she would like to give him!

  Oh, goodness, this second visit, meant to be a conciliatory one, was turning out to be as much of a mistake as the first one had been!

  ‘Gail rang and left a message for me.’ She deliberately kept her voice light as she tried to salvage the situation by explaining her reason for being here now at all. ‘She told me that you’re here on a visit,’ Fin smiled.

  His mouth twisted with hard mockery. ‘I already knew my reason for being here!’

  He certainly wasn’t about to make this easy for her! ‘But, as you may recall, I didn’t,’ Fin pointed out softly, determined not to allow him to force her into losing her temper. Then they would really be in trouble!

  He shrugged, as if her lack of knowledge concerning his presence here really wasn’t his problem, his expression scathing. ‘And now you do,’ he dismissed, looking at her expectantly.

  And, now that she had had her say, he wanted her to leave again, his gaze told her. He really was the rudest man she had ever had the misfortune to meet!

  Fin straightened, any feelings of a need to be friendly towards this man, because Gail had asked her to, and because he was a stranger to the area and she would truly have liked to make him welcome, fading rapidly at his continued rudeness. Obviously he didn’t want to feel welcome, just wanted to be left alone with his rudeness. Well, that was easily arranged!

  She turned to leave, but a loyalty to Gail made her hesitate slightly, to try to reach him just once more. ‘If there is anything you need during your stay here—’

  ‘I’ll contact the Little People.’ He acknowledged the offer with a derisive inclination of his head. ‘Although I don’t really see the occasion arising,’ he added arrogantly.

  Neither did Fin. In fact, she hoped it didn’t, didn’t particularly want to see this man ever again, not least because of his disturbing resemblance to that other man from the past. ‘I’ll leave you in peace, then,’ she said in abrupt farewell.

  His mouth quirked, dark brows raised over mocking eyes the colour of aquamarine. ‘Now that would be a novelty!’ he drawled without even attempting to hide his sarcasm.

  Fin knew, without needing to look in a m
irror, that her freckles would be standing out lividly against the sudden redness of her face. But at that moment she didn’t care about how she looked, was fighting a battle within herself to hold on to her temper. Like a lot of red-haired people, when she lost her temper it was like Guy Fawkes Night and the Fourth of July fireworks all going off at the same time. It didn’t happen very often, thank goodness, but this man was pushing her to the limits of her politeness; she had never been treated with such derision in her life before!

  She drew in several deep breaths of air before even attempting to speak. ‘You will find, Mr Danvers …’ she spoke in carefully controlled tones, relieved to find that terrible tide of anger she had felt wash over her beginning to fade; she had never lost her temper with a client yet, even if some of them could be a little difficult. But, strictly speaking, Jake Danvers wasn’t her client, he was just staying in the house of someone who was, and if the worst came to the worst she would take comfort from that knowledge before she ripped into him! ‘… that we are a pretty friendly crowd in this area, and—’

  ‘And Gail assured me you also respect a person’s privacy!’ he cut in harshly.

  Fin bit back the retort she had been about to make to the accusation, thinking, really thinking, about what he was saying to her. Discretion and quiet efficiency were attributes that were clearly promised by her service, and at the moment she was breaking one of her own rules and staying here when she clearly wasn’t wanted. And that was unforgivable.

  She nodded abruptly. ‘That’s true too,’ she bit out tautly, so tense that she felt her back begin to ache. ‘Enjoy your stay in the area, Mr Danvers,’ she added with a formal politeness that had to be forced.