LITMIR.BIZ

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that still existed between them. OK. Perhaps he hadn’t come here to capitalise on it, she accepted, but he knew, as well as she did, that if he tried to seduce her back into his bed, she wouldn’t stand a chance against his lethal skill and charisma. And if she stayed here, who knew what sort of fool she could wind up making of herself over him—and at what cost to her self-respect?

      Pain warred with anger over his audacity and the knowledge that he had, indeed, tricked her. Without a thought for what she wanted. Without a care about how it might affect her in the end!

      ‘I’m sorry for misconstruing all your motives,’ she uttered tightly. ‘But there’s one thing I’m not leaving either of us under any misconceptions about.’ Nimbly she stooped to scoop up the plate and mug he had put down on the table. ‘I’m still leaving here first thing tomorrow morning.’

      CHAPTER FOUR

      IT was the silence that woke her. The thick, heavy silence and the light that burned with a peculiar brightness through the chintzy curtains.

      Snug in the small double bed in the smaller of the two main bedrooms she had opted to sleep in the previous night, Taylor was reluctant for a moment to give up its warmth.

      Suddenly though, as realisation dawned, she was pushing back the duvet and racing over to the window, gasping as she pulled back the curtains.

      Everything was white—the garden, the trees and the hillsides, dazzling—like the mountains beyond them—under a crisp heavy fall of virgin snow.

      She shivered, wondering why the air felt so icy, and went over to feel the radiator on the opposite wall. It was stone cold.

      Fetching her light robe from the bathroom, quickly she slipped it on, pushing her hair into place with agitated fingers.

      Jared must have gone to bed without setting the heating to come on, or the thermostat in the hall was too low, she thought, racing downstairs to set the control higher. Either that, or it had come on and gone off again hours ago which meant that Jared wasn’t even up yet. Which was unlike him, she remembered from their marriage, when he had been up at six most days of the week.

      As she reached the hall, sounds coming from the sitting room brought her up sharply.

      Jared?

      She could smell smoke now—wood smoke—and could hear what she instantly distinguished as the crackling of an open fire.

      He didn’t see her at first. He had his back to the door and was bending over the fireplace, tossing logs from a wicker basket onto the brightly burning flames, and the sight of him performing that simple, domestic chore tugged unexpectedly at something deep down inside Taylor.

      Greedy for the smallest chance to feast her eyes on him, undetected, her hungry gaze tugged unashamedly over his pleasing torso.

      He was wearing a dark-blue cable-knit sweater and jeans, which showed off the superbly fit lines of his body. His hair was waving, dark and thick, over the polo neck of his sweater, while the thick wool encased shoulders that could set themselves squarely against anything that promised trouble. His hips were hard and lean, his buttocks tightly muscled, and even through the denim his long legs looked packed with the whipcord strength of a hunter. On his feet he wore a pair of casual black shoes, but it was his hands to which Taylor’s eyes were ultimately drawn; those long sinewy hands that could apply themselves to any manual task, however mundane, seeing it through with the same skilled competence with which they could also caress and arouse a woman…

      ‘So you’re up.’

      He turned round so suddenly that he couldn’t have failed to notice her interest in him and, from the rather sensual amusement tugging at his mouth it was clear he hadn’t.

      ‘You should have woken me,’ she protested, blushing and tousled in her dressing gown and slippers. She had slept for hours, she realised, having claimed a headache and gone to bed straight after their light dinner last night.

      ‘Why? Are you going somewhere?’ He was grinning so shamelessly that she wanted to hit him.

      With an exasperated glance at him, she hurried over to the window. Unlike her bedroom, the sitting room faced the lane and she could just make out her car, virtually buried beneath a thick mound of snow.

      ‘Still thinking of leaving, Taylor?’ The deep tones were overlaid with mockery, and she whipped round, eyes daring him to carry his joking any further. It didn’t help having noticed that he had had the foresight to put his own car straight in the garage when he had driven in last night.

      ‘I suppose you think this is all very funny!’ She moved away from the window, rubbing her arms, shoulders hunched against the cold.

      ‘Are you going to blame me for this too?’

      No, of course she wasn’t. It was his complacency she couldn’t take, which made her reply in a way that sounded childish even to her own ears, ‘You knew I was bent on leaving here this morning.’

      ‘Then start walking.’ Suddenly he wasn’t amused any more. The alarmingly swift movement that brought him to face her had her recoiling from him. His teeth were clenched between grim lips and his whole face was harsh with anger. Lifting her chin, Taylor caught the strong scent of wood smoke clinging to his sweater, with the underlying freshness of the great outdoors. ‘I’ve got enough problems here without you whingeing and whining like some petulant little schoolgirl.’ He swung back to resume tending to the fire. ‘I can’t help the damned weather, all right! Contrary to what you think I didn’t order it to help me with some Machiavellian scheme to trap someone who’s made it very plain she clearly doesn’t want to be married to me—because if you’re going to be like this for the next two or three days, believe me, it’s not going to be any picnic for me either!’

      Two or three days? Mentally Taylor shook that unsettling possibility aside, aware of Jared’s anger in every movement of his body, the way he was suddenly tossing logs onto the fire with more vehemence than before, sending sparks and ash flying up into the huge chimney. She supposed she deserved his anger, in a way.

      ‘Problems?’ she repeated tentatively to his broad back, wanting to smooth things over between them. ‘What problems? What’s happened?’

      He stood up again, one hand on the back pocket of his jeans. A deep sigh lifted the thick cable stitch of his sweater. ‘The snow’s brought the power cables down. There’s no electricity. No heating. That means no hot food or water—except in any way we can improvise ourselves.’

      A barely audible, shocked little oath escaped her.

      ‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘So you see, I didn’t instigate the weather or this situation. Nor do I like it, though I will reiterate what I said last night. I wanted some time with you.’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘To sort out our differences.’

      ‘You think they can be sorted out?’

      ‘I don’t know, but I sure as hell want to try. I’m not proud of having the label of Failed Marriage stamped on my head either. Isn’t that why you kept your marital status a secret from Charity and Craig?’

      Taylor’s back stiffened. How well he knew her! Or was it simply from the realms of his knowledge marked Human Psychology, gleaned from life and the wealth of books he kept in his own extensive library?

      ‘I saw coming here as an opportunity, that’s all. An opportunity for us to talk—relax—without the pressures of our jobs, life or anything else getting in the way.’

      She let out a short brittle laugh because he had given her no say in the matter. Apart from which they had tried before; tried and failed, and it had only resulted in pain, pain that, even until he had stormed into her life again, hadn’t even really begun to ease.

      ‘And supposing I don’t go along with your optimism— don’t share your idealistic view of what you think our marriage should be? Don’t want to be here?’

      A

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