The Gift Read Free

forgotten.
    Schooling herself to stay calm, she turned slowly towards the hard man with the beard, who’d been watching her and who was now only a couple of feet away.
    ‘Not really.’ She dared to look up at him. His eyes were sharp and intelligent, dark grey and glinting with a strange disquieting light. Shaken, she returned her attention to the man in the photo – the rather glamorous Signor Guidetti. ‘But I do believe that’s our esteemed host, the hotel manager.’
    ‘Indeed it is.’
    For several seconds, they stared at the image in silence, then, as one, they scanned the room, looking for the hotel’s suave, slightly flashy Italian proprietor.
    ‘So, why isn’t he your type?’
    Put on the spot, Sandy frowned. What business was it of his? Yet still the ghost from her past resurfaced.
    ‘He’s too groomed. Too slick. Too perfect.’
    Unlike you.
    She suppressed a flinch. Up close, her tough-looking man was tougher than ever. Tall, he towered above her, his shoulders broad and his lean yet muscular limbs strong looking beneath a rather beautiful lightweight suit in midnight grey. His buzz-cut hair was dark and looked velvety against his fine nobly shaped skull. He had the look of a Roman emperor, civilised yet savage.
    But it was his face most of all that made her swallow. She was both intrigued by it and also faintly frightened. His features were even, sculpted and masculine, and just as imperial as his cropped hair. But the network of fine white and pink scars that traced the planes of his high cheekbones, his mouth and jawline, framed by his crisp dark beard, spoke eloquently of pain and suffering.
    ‘Unlike me.’
    The fierce damaged face softened in a smile as he echoed her thoughts, and Sandy almost gasped. Once again, a fleeting sense of memory almost rocked her.
    ‘There’s nothing wrong with looking as if you’ve lived a bit,’ she countered, regaining her wits. For all his scars, the tall man had charisma. And his strong body was affecting her, making hers quicken irrationally. Was he scarred all over? Were the clean hard lines of his limbs marked and battered? It suddenly seemed important to find out.
    ‘Well, that’s good to know.’ His low laugh was as rough as his speaking voice, but Sandy felt it reach out and touch her like a phantom hand. Hormonal reactions fired throughout her body and she experienced a tingling all over her skin, as if her awareness of him was creating a subtle field. She’d been warm before, but now she was burning up.
    ‘Care for another drink?’
    Her companion nodded at her glass, which Sandy suddenly saw was empty. She couldn’t remember drinking the wine, but obviously she’d been nervously swigging away without realising it. Another drink would slip down well, and soothe her parched throat, even if it was a tepid and uninspiring vintage.
    ‘Yeah, great! I’d love one, thanks.’
    She held out the empty and, as the tall mysterious man took it from her, their fingers briefly touched. Electricity seemed to arc between them, ramping up the tingling sensation. She suppressed a gasp as his dark eyes widened. He’d felt it too.
    ‘Be right back. Don’t go away.’
    The urge to defy him, and run like the wind, welled up in her, and if her shoes hadn’t been so bloody ridiculous she might have succumbed to it. Something about his broad dark-clad back as he walked away from her was deeply unsettling. Threatening. Everything about him made her senses leap and prickle and, if she was going to cope with that, she needed some air first. If he was sufficiently interested, he’d follow her outside, wouldn’t he?
    It was a while since she’d experienced spontaneous desire like this, and to feel it for a scarred and troubling stranger was just as unsettling as he was. But she couldn’t ignore it or shut it off, hey presto. It was there, palpablenagging lust, low in her groin like a heavy and not entirely uncomfortable weight.
    I should go. I should really get out