.
Hearing the jumble of questions coming from all directions reminded her that there were other people present. ‘Get me away from this,’ she whispered to Carla.
‘Of course,’ Carla murmured understandingly, and straightened up before taking hold of Samantha’s arm to help her to stand. It was a well-timed offer of help, because the moment she tried to put any weight on her right leg the knee reacted with a crack of pain that made her gasp out loud.
‘I wondered when I saw you fall if that would happen.’ Carla frowned. ‘You hit your bad knee against the corner of the desk as you fainted,’ she explained, looking down at the place where Samantha’s uniform-straight navy blue skirt finished, just above the injury. ‘I hope you’ve not done it any further damage.’
Gritting her teeth and clinging to Carla, she began to limp across the reception area towards a door marked ‘Staff Only’.
The stranger came towering to his feet. ‘Where are you going?’ he said sharply, staring at her as though he was expecting her to make a sudden run for it.
Samantha smiled wanly at the prospect. She couldn’t run if she tried. ‘Staffroom,’ she said, then added very reluctantly, ‘You can come if you want.’
‘I have every intention of doing so,’ he replied, and moved to follow them—only to pause and turn to make a flashing inventory of the crowded foyer. ‘Are you the only two people running this place?’ he questioned.
American. His accent contained the deep velvet drawl of a cultured American, Samantha noticed, then began frowning in confusion, because he and Nathan Payne had been speaking in Italian to each other only a minute ago.
‘The manager is away on business today.’ Carla did the explaining. ‘I’ll just help Samantha in here, then I’ll come back and—’
‘No!’ Samantha protested, her hand closing convulsively over Carla’s. ‘Don’t leave me alone with him!’ she whispered shrilly, not caring if the stranger had heard what she’d said and was offended by it.
‘Okay,’ Carla said soothingly, but her expression was looking a little hunted. It was the busiest time of the week on Reception and both of them couldn’t just walk off duty.
‘Nathan.’ Even Samantha, in her state of shock, heard the voice of authority when it spoke like that. ‘Take over here,’ the stranger instructed—then, at Carla’s uncertain look, ‘Don’t worry. He knows what he’s doing. It’s his job to know. We are going in here, I presume?’ he then prompted smoothly, indicating the door next to the reception desk.
Samantha nodded, having to bite down on her bottom lip now because her knee was hurting so badly. So, leaning more heavily on Carla while trying hard not to show it, she limped slowly through the staffroom door with him following so close behind her that she could actually feel his breath on her neck.
She shuddered, wishing he would just back off a little and give her time to recover and think. She didn’t want him here. She didn’t like him. She didn’t want to like him. Which was just stupid when she remembered that this man would be the link to her past she had been praying for.
It was relief to sit down in one of the chairs. At Samantha’s mumbled request Carla hurried off to collect her painkillers from her room, and the stranger pulled up another chair right beside her own, then sank down heavily on it. It brought him too close. She could feel his body heat and smell his subtle, masculine scent. Fighting hard not to edge right away from him, she leaned forward slightly to rub at her throbbing knee.
‘How bad is it?’ he rasped.
‘Not too bad,’ she lied. In fact it was very painful. ‘I just need to rest it for a few minutes.’
‘I meant, how badly did you injure your knee in the accident?’ he grimly corrected her mistake.
‘You know about that?’ she responded in surprise.
‘How the hell else do you think I found you?’ he bit out angrily.
She flinched at his tone; he let out a sigh and suddenly sat forward to lean his elbows on his spread knees, bringing their heads disturbingly close.
‘Sorry.’ He sighed. ‘I didn’t mean to bite your head off.’
Samantha didn’t say anything, and after a moment he said more levelly, ‘Nathan was surveying a couple of properties around here. He saw the article about you in the local newspaper and recognised your photograph. He couldn’t believe it!’ he ground out. ‘Neither could I when he rang me in New York to—’ The words dried up, seeming to block in his throat so he had to swallow, and his hands clenched very tightly together between his spread thighs.
‘Who is Nathan?’ she asked huskily.
His head swivelled round to look at her, dark brown eyes lancing her a bitter hard look. ‘Don’t you think it’s time you asked me who I am?’ he suggested.
But oddly, even to herself, Samantha shook her head. She didn’t know why, but she just wasn’t ready to hear who he was yet.
‘This man…Nathan,’ she persisted instead. ‘He’s been staying here over the last few days to keep an eye on me, hasn’t he?’
He took her refusal to take him up on his challenge with a tensing of his jaw. He answered her question though. ‘Yes. After he rang me and told me about your accident and the—the—God—’ He choked, had to stop to swallow thickly, lifting a decidedly shaky hand to press at his mouth. ‘I don’t want to think about that,’ he muttered after a moment. ‘I can’t cope with thinking about that right now…’
‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured, accepting that if he had read the article the newspaper had run on her accident, then he had a right to feel this bad about it. It made horrendous reading.
But she didn’t accept the cruel way he lashed back at her. ‘For surviving when six other people didn’t?’
The harsh words sent her jerking back in her seat in reaction, her green eyes spitting ice as a cold anger suddenly took her over. ‘I feel no sense of pleasure in being the lucky one,’ she informed him frigidly. ‘Six people died. I survived. But if you think I’ve spent the last year counting my blessings at their expense then you couldn’t be more wrong!’
‘And I’ve spent the last year wishing you in hell,’ he sliced back at her. ‘Only to discover that you were already living there and I didn’t know a damned thing about it!’
True, so true, she grimly acknowledged, for living hell was exactly where she had been. But it made her wonder why he had wished her in hell. What had she done to him to make him wish something as cruel as that upon her?
Whatever the reason, his harsh words hurt, and did nothing to make her feel more comfortable with him. In fact she was scared.
Maybe he realised it, because he launched himself back to his feet, then just stood there literally pulsing with a sizzling tension. He was tall—over six feet—and the room suddenly grew smaller. He seemed to dwarf everything—and not just with his physical presence. The man possessed a raw kind of energy that seemed to be sucking up all the oxygen.
Then he let out a harsh sigh and muttered something that sounded like a curse beneath his breath. As he did so, some of the tension eased out of the atmosphere.
‘I’m not managing this very well,’ he admitted finally.
No, he wasn’t, Samantha agreed. But then, neither was she.
It was perhaps a good point for Carla to reappear. Glancing warily from one tense face to the other, she came to squat down in front of Samantha, then silently handed her the foil slide containing her prescription painkillers, followed by a second glass of water.
‘Thanks,’ she murmured, and flipped two of the tablets out into her palm, swallowed them down with the help of the water then, on a sigh, sat back in the chair and closed her eyes