to him, too.
‘Like what?’ She didn’t know where to begin, or even if the island had any other suitable or affordable accommodation. Lorna had offered to let her stay in the villa rent-free, and although Kayla had insisted on paying her, it was still only a nominal amount. The alternative was that she could fly home…
‘There are three hotels on this side of the island. One of them—the largest—is closed for refurbishment,’ Leon was telling her, ‘but I’m sure as it’s out of season one of the other two will be able to accommodate you.’
‘I can’t stay with you tonight,’ she informed him. ‘It’s such an imposition, for one thing.’ She didn’t even know him! And from what she had seen of him over the past couple of days neither did she want to. ‘You said yourself you wanted to be left alone.’
‘Which you’ve failed to acknowledge since the day you arrived,’ he told her dryly. ‘So why break with tradition?’
‘I’m sorry.’ Now she felt even worse. ‘You don’t have to do this. I’m only making a nuisance of myself…’
‘What would you prefer me to do?’ he asked. ‘Put you out into the storm?’ He laughed when he saw the anxiety creasing her forehead. ‘Relax,’ he advised. ‘You’re coming back with me. So, no more arguments to the contrary—and definitely no more apologies. Understood?’
Uneasily, Kayla nodded.
‘I didn’t hear you,’ he stated over the rumble of the engine and the jaunty rhythm of the wiper blades trying to keep pace with the interminable rain.
‘Understood!’ she shouted back, and kept her gaze on the windscreen and her hands in her lap until he brought them safely off the road and onto the paved area of the old farmhouse.
The part of the house he led her into was remarkably clean and tidy. It was surprisingly well-furnished too, even though most of the furniture looked worn and in need of replacing, and the tapestries on two of the walls, like the once colourfully striped throws over the easy chairs, were faded from the sunlight and with age. But with its whitewashed walls and cool stone floors it had an overall rustic charm that offered more comfort than she had imagined from the outside.
She was too tired and weary from her experiences to take too much interest in how he was living, and said only after a cursory glance around her, ‘I’m really not happy about this.’
She didn’t know anything about him, for a start, even if he had just rescued her from a house that might possibly be unsafe. He was still a stranger, and up until now a decidedly hostile one.
‘I’m afraid you’ve no choice,’ he told her, opening a cupboard and pulling out towels and spare bedlinen, ‘because I’ve no intention of trying to find you a hotel tonight. No hotelier would welcome you turning up at this hour—even if it were safe enough to do so. And if you really don’t profess to know me—’ He broke off, his speculative gaze raking over her as if, by some miracle, he was at last beginning to believe her. ‘I’m not a criminal,’ he stated. ‘Unless, of course, the police want to charge me with some driving offence I don’t yet know about.’
Kayla smiled, relaxing a little, as he had intended her to.
Clever, she thought. Clever and probably very manipulative, she decided, but was too tired to worry about that tonight.
After she had declined his offer of any refreshment, and the room he showed her into was rustic but practical, with the same weary air about its furnishings. Like downstairs, the walls looked as though they hadn’t been whitewashed in a long time. A big wooden bed took pride of place, and from the few masculine possessions scattered around the room she gathered that he had been using it up until now.
‘I’m afraid it isn’t five-star, but it’s warm and dry and the sheets are clean.’ They looked it too. Crisp and white, if a little rumpled, and there was a definite indentation in the plump and inviting-looking pillow. ‘Well, I was only in them for half an hour,’ he enlightened her, with his mouth tugging down at one side.
So he had been to bed and got up again—which could only have meant that he must have driven down in the storm especially.
‘Think nothing of it,’ he advised dismissively as their eyes clashed.
Kayla wanted to say something, to thank him at the very least for deserting his bed in the middle of the