A Masterful Man

He nodded and moved his shoulders ruefully. 'I spent a rather uncomfortable night,' he murmured. 'What about you?'

She looked away and put her hands together awkwardly but said nothing.

He studied her averted profile then he said in quite a different voice, 'Did he ever-beat you up?' She blinked rapidly. 'No, not exactly.' 'Was he your first lover?' 'Yes…'

'And you've decided to make him your last,' he said a little flatly.

'No,' Davina said barely audibly and looked at him at last out of shadowed but steady violet eyes. 'But I have decided, and I've already told you this, that I will never willingly put myself in the position where I'm in any way beholden to a man again.'

He was silent for a time as they gazed at each other, until he said thoughtfully, 'It needn't necessarily be that way, Davina. In fact I think you and I would deal rather well together-I'm a little allergic myself to being beholden to anyone.'

'That doesn't mean to say you wouldn't expect it of a woman you were-sleeping with, let alone a wife-and before you take that the wrong way, I gather anything permanent is not what you had in mind for us-I'm not angling-'

'I know, don't get all worked up again.' She sighed, then said, 'Well?' 'Well,' he repeated, 'I guess this is it- you're trying to say that outside of my arms the thought of sleeping with me doesn't appeal because you've been hurt and frightened once, whereas I'm trying to say-' he paused and narrowed his eyes '-that when two people attract each other the way we do it's not likely to be either a hurtful or frightening experience, something like that.' He paused again and focused those clever, hazel eyes on her. 'But I've got the feeling there's only one way I'll be able to prove that to you.'

Davina trembled beneath his gaze, knowing exactly what he meant, but at the same time she was struck by an inner truth she hadn't acknowledged since her disastrous marriage. She desperately lacked love in her life and not only the physical side of it, but the warmth, friendship, tenderness and permanence she'd once believed in then lost faith in altogether, or so she'd thought. And where is that here? she mused. How can I know whether this difficult, dangerous, arrogant man is any more prepared to fall in love with me than I am with him? How can I know if those things could exist between us; there's little evidence of them in his life now or that there ever was-no, so far there's little difference between him and Darren, who was prepared to lie and cheat, so desperate was he to get me into his bed. No, I'd be mad to expose myself to it again, to…lust, I guess, even if I seem to suffer from it, too.

'It's no good,' she said huskily, and rose a little unsteadily. 'I'm sorry but if we… make that decision that it's just not on, it will fade, it has to.' She rubbed her brow wearily. 'Not to mention the sheer logistics of it,' she added with some irony.

'You mean how to explain to my grandmother and my stepmother that I'm sleeping with my housekeeper?' he said with a touch of irritable sarcasm. 'Yes,' she said tautly.

'I never allow them to dictate anything to me, Davina,' he said coolly.

'Well, bully for you,' she murmured. 'I, on the other hand, have distinct reservations about sleeping with the boss when I'm on a job.'

'May I return your sentiment?' he said. 'But I have to point out you're also splitting hairs.'

Davina raised her hands and moved to the doorway. 'Do me a favour-you were the one who said we should hammer this out; well, we have-at least I have, and you're just going to have to accept it! You were also the one who said it couldn't have happened at a worse time for you-why don't you take that thought to bed with you?'

'And what will you take with you?' he said softly, eyeing her with all the mockery he was capable of.

'Steve…' She stopped, because his name, which she'd sworn never to use, had risen to her lips unconsciously and, worse, she'd uttered it as a plea. She closed her eyes but it was too late to deny it. 'Please,' she whispered, her lips suddenly trembling, 'let it be.'

He stood up at last and came over to her and leant his shoulders against the doorframe and the lines of his face were suddenly more serious than she'd ever seen them, as he said, after a moment, 'Are you really sure about this, Davina?'

'I…' She licked her lips. 'Yes. I'm sorry.' Her shoulders slumped suddenly. 'But it would…be impossible,' she said, though.

'No more sorry than I am,' he murmured and, taking her by surprise, lifted a hand and touched her face in the lightest gesture. 'All right.' He straightened. 'So be it. You'd better go to bed. Tomorrow will be quite an experience for you, I'm sure.'

She stared at him, still feeling the touch of his fingers on her skin and with sudden uncertainty in her eyes. Then she forced herself to say, 'What… what time do they arrive?'

'About eleven-thirty.' He turned away. 'What you should really do is have a swim tomorrow morning,' he added. 'The cold water will help any bruises you have.'

'I…will. Goodnight.'

'Goodnight, Davina.'

She hesitated for one brief moment, but he'd sounded so completely normal that it seemed pointless to say any more.

She went to bed, if anything more confused than ever.

'And this,’ Steve Warwick said the next morning, 'is Candice.'

'Hello, Candice,' Davina said, stifling her surprise. For some reason, she'd expected an ultra-feminine little girl, but the one who stood before her eyeing her aggressively was anything but. She had scraggly long pigtails, glasses, and her outfit of jeans, blouse and running shoes looked as if it had all been pulled through a bush backwards. She also didn't reply to Davina's greeting, but shrugged her thin shoulders and turned away. 'Candy,' Steve's stepmother Loretta protested mildly. 'Don't call me that!'

'But, darling-'

'I agree with Candice,' the elder Mrs Warwick said briskly, speaking for the first time since apparently being struck dumb upon having Davina presented to her. She was a tall, aristocratic as well as energetic-looking lady who wore her age lightly and Davina guessed she must be at least seventy. 'If you wanted to call her Candy you shouldn't have bothered with Candice, although why anyone should want to call to mind something frivolous and sugary like confectionery when naming a child is beyond me.' And she cast her daughter-in-law an old-fashioned look.

It made no impression on Loretta. She too had been visibly taken aback by the temporary housekeeper, widening her sleepy but spectacular dark eyes and blinking her thick dark lashes several times. It was not easy to put an age on Loretta, Davina decided, but quite easy to see how most men, let alone a possibly lonely widower, could fall for her. She was… 'luscious' was the word, Davina reflected a little wryly, once again taking in the river of shining black hair, her smooth olive skin and very white teeth, her-and it would be unkind to say blowzy-but undeniably opulent figure clad also in jeans but with a tiny vest top that left little to the imagination. And for the first time since waking up she felt a trickle of amusement run through her at the thought of the kind of fur and feathers that might fly between the two Mrs Warwicks.

'Yes, well, before we resort to armed combat,' Steve Warwick said a little drily, 'may I say that Davina is here to make your holidays entirely worry-free, so please don't even think about anything to do with the house and, if you wouldn't mind, I'll need some help with this.' He gestured to the mountain of luggage that he'd brought in through the back door. 'How the hell you got all this on the plane I'll never know; the limit is supposed to be fourteen kilos.'

'Darling,' Loretta purred, 'what's the use of owning an airline if you can't bend the rules a bit?'

'I disagree entirely with that kind of thinking,' Mrs Warwick senior said. 'Rules should be rules-'

'But we were the only people on the plane, Lavinia,' Loretta pointed out. 'It's not as if I was endangering lives-'

'You weren't to know that, though-'

'I was. I rang and checked-they assured me I could bring as much as I liked.'

'Anyone,' Lavinia Warwick said arctically, 'who requires that amount of luggage for a simple holiday on a simple island needs their head read. Come, Candice,' she added, 'we'll choose our rooms.' And she stalked out of the kitchen with Candice following.

Loretta watched them go and turned to Steve with a smile. 'Your grandmother never changes, does she? And