Laura took a deep breath. "As I already mentioned, this was the only room left when you booked. Since your booking was initially for a single occupant, the bed wouldn't have been thought a problem." Not wanting to inflame an already delicate situation, she chose her next words carefully. "When Miss Hartman added herself to the booking, specifically asking to share your room…"
"Fine. I get it." He held up a hand to stop her. "Do you know where Miss Hartman is at the moment? Is her car here?"
He glanced back towards the parking area, and Laura noted that the angry edge to his voice had been overtaken by pure weariness. Now that was something she could sympathise with—she was pretty weary herself.
"I'm sorry, I'm not sure," she admitted, softening a little. "I assume she must have gone out for something to eat. We'll have a note of her hire car and licence plate back up at the office if you want me to go and see?" She had to stop herself from glancing at her watch.
"No, that's fine. Please don't trouble yourself."
Relieved, Laura nodded. "If you need to eat, we serve sandwiches and snacks at the bar until nine, or I could recommend a local restaurant. Otherwise, there's a fruit bowl over there and complimentary wine, beer, and sparkling water in your fridge, along with a few nibbles—cheese and crackers, that sort of thing."
"I'll stay here."
"In that case, perhaps I could quickly show you around?"
The air was tolerably cool now and the gardens were enchanting in the low evening sun, but as Laura took him on her well-rehearsed tour of the pool, breakfast room, and bar, Daniel hardly spoke a word.
Unnerved by his lack of communication, Laura decided to quit while she was ahead—or as ahead as she was going to be with a guest in this frame of mind. Leaving him to unpack, she walked back up the path to lock the reception building, then—finally—she headed over to the family house.
****
In truth, the hotel was everything Daniel had expected from his research and more. The minute he'd seen it on the Internet, he'd wanted to stay here. In fact, it had lured him into breaking every rule in his book. He should be moving around, staying a couple of nights here and a couple of nights there as he always did, but the beautiful photographs had caught at his imagination and imprinted themselves on the back of his brain. How good would it be to stay in one place for more than a night or two, maybe relax a little? On impulse, he'd convinced himself it would be sensible to try having a stable base for a change, and he'd booked for a full fortnight.
He'd been deluding himself. Relax? Hardly. It might be a novelty to come back to the same place each night, but all that meant was that he would have to do a lot more driving to get where he needed to go and see what he needed to see. Still, as he stood looking out from the doorway of his room at the perfectly kept lawns stretching down to where the small pool and terrace lay still and quiet, the paths bordered by fruit trees with grapevines clambering overhead to provide a shady tunnel, the rustic stone buildings so pleasing to the eye, he couldn't be sorry. This was a spectacular setting, and he was already hoping his stay here would ultimately bear fruit.
Daniel suspected he hadn't transmitted that impression to his hostess, however. As Miss Matheson had shown him around, he'd barely trusted himself to speak. So many things had gone wrong today that by the time she was giving him her tour, he'd come to the conclusion the only way to stop himself from saying something he might regret was to say nothing at all. He'd always been forthright and demanding—that came naturally in his business—and he certainly didn't suffer fools gladly, but he was rarely as impatient and antagonistic as he had been today. Downright rude, even. Well, it was too late to do anything about it now.
He ran a hand over the stubble on his chin. With only a week's turnaround between returning from France and flying out here, he was so tired he could sleep for a month. Encounters with stroppy, sexy women he could well have done without. On his drive north from the airport, he'd had quite a struggle to forget the pretty brunette with attitude—and so the unexpected sight of her when he'd arrived at the hotel had taken him aback.
No longer flushed and sticky, she'd been striking in a white sundress, her hair once more tamed into its ponytail. Daniel had found himself wondering how long that hair would be out of its clips; how soft it might be to run his fingers through. On top of the heat and the drive and the fatigue, unwanted thoughts like that could only add to his bad temper.
His discovery that the owners were away hadn't helped. Since he'd chosen this hotel specifically because it was independent and family owned, it took some effort to quash his irritation and disappointment. He hadn't been entirely successful on that score, and he knew he'd taken it out on Miss Matheson. Daniel could kick himself for not thinking to check something so basic in advance, but since he hardly had time between trips to plan properly nowadays, his omission wasn't surprising. Besides, why would he have thought to check? It was peak season. Who in their right mind left their business at the height of summer in the hands of a ditzy, accident-prone family friend?
Closing his door, he went to the fridge and plucked out a cold beer. As he flipped the top off, he told himself it didn't have to be a setback. All he was interested in was seeing the place from a holidaymaker's point of view. He could contact the owners later
