Years of being photographed without my permission had engendered a hatred of having cameras trained on me, triggering a knee-jerk response. ‘I hope you’re not thinking of selling pictures of me to make a quick buck.’
He froze, then slowly lowered his camera as he rose from a deep crouch. In the pool of light from the lantern he’d brought with us, I watched shock and fury chase across his face.
‘I get by well enough on my own hard work without the need to peddle images of celebrities, princess. I leave that kind of asshole move to pond scum who aren’t familiar with concepts like respect, privacy and basic human decency.’
The bite in his voice rivalled the Arctic wind sweeping against my skin.
For a moment I was ashamed at my harsh rebuke, but even that emotion was swept away by the wild panic at the thought of having offended him. I stepped forward. He turned away, his back stiff as he went to check on his equipment.
I opened my mouth to say what I wasn’t exactly sure just as the name he’d called me struck hard and deep.
Princess.
He called me princess. A predictable insult from someone who claimed not to read the filth and lies the media wrote about me. The world’s favourite derogatory term for me, but searingly painful coming from Jensen. Anger mounted, and I stewed in my righteous fury, but beneath all that I was totally confounded by how much his slur had affected me.
Why?
Because we’d rolled around in a tent for a few hours?
It was supposed to mean nothing. And it did, I insisted to myself.
As passing time and work went, it hadn’t been a bad day. I’d seen three spectacular sights, been the recipient of two mind-blowing orgasms, and could now tick a traipse to the Arctic Circle off my bucket list. Not bad for a twenty-four-hour jaunt.
First thing in the morning I’d order the chopper to come back and get me.
Jensen could complete his assignment on his own. If his work produced a less than satisfactory outcome, I’d hire the next best person. He might think himself the best, but surely there was someone out there equally qualified.
With that thought in mind I turned towards the tent, but at the last moment, unable to resist, I looked over my shoulder. In his white gear, he should’ve blended into the landscape, but there was an aura about him, the type that made him impossible to miss. Impossible to ignore. Even in these final moments of seeing Jensen Scott in this environment, I knew he’d be as unforgettable as he’d wanted to be.
The thought irritated as much as it disturbed.
Enough to trigger another unfettered response. ‘This ice princess needs her beauty sleep. I’d appreciate not being disturbed when you come back in.’ Yes, it was a cheap shot, but I didn’t care.
Not when I zipped myself into the bag and immediately felt the lack of hard male body warmth that’d helped me sleep soundly only a few hours earlier.
Not when he didn’t return for the better part of an hour, leaving my mind whirling, making me wonder where he was, whether I was that loathsome that he would stay out in the cold rather than share a tent with me.
Not when I felt another clench of my heart at the thought I’d screwed up something as simple as a one-night stand.
The same way I’d driven my brothers away.
The same way I’d screwed up and sent my mother away from me at the age of nine.
CHAPTER FOUR
THINGS WENT FROM bad to worse between Graciela and me while I was in the middle of kicking myself for overreacting the night before.
Now I’d had time to cool down, I couldn’t blame her for assuming the worst. The British media were notorious for privacy invasion, and with a family like the Mortimers, with their well-documented clashes with the tabloid press, it didn’t surprise me that she’d be wary.
So what if we’d shared a few intimate moments the night before?
Everything about our encounter reeked of temporary.
Regardless of certainty, though, a hard bite caught me every time I thought of this project being over, that what happened in the tent last night would never be repeated.
Fuck, if I wanted the blood to relocate from what felt like its new permanent residence in my groin, I needed to stop thinking about last night and concentrate on the real threat of the snowstorm heading our way.
It’d caught me unawares, much like a lot of things had since meeting Graciela Mortimer.
Jaw clenched, I resisted yet another urge to glance behind me. To catch another glimpse of her face. She’d been asleep, thankfully, when I eventually returned to the tent last night. Knowing I couldn’t join her inside the sleeping bag, despite being sorely tempted, had been another unpalatable lesson in self-control. Common sense had been little comfort as I’d shivered in the blankets on the other side of the tent.
Breakfast had been predictably chilly, and I wasn’t surprised when she treated me to haughty silence as we packed up and reloaded the sled. Nor could I stem my disappointment when she informed me of her plans to cut short her involvement in the project.
There was no avoiding talking to her now, though.
I glanced over my shoulder. ‘There’s a storm headed our way. We’re not going to make the rendezvous point to meet the chopper.’
Her eyes narrowed before leaving mine to scour the landscape and sky. ‘The sky is clear. I don’t see anything resembling a storm.’
I curbed a smile. ‘This isn’t a trick. We have about half an hour tops to find shelter before the storm hits. Your pick-up point is ninety minutes away.’
‘Can’t we hunker down somewhere, wait for it to pass?’ she asked.
I shook my head, feeling almost sorry for her. Almost. Her hurry to get away from me rankled. ‘No, we can’t. It’s better to find solid shelter rather than camp out.’
She
