The Presence. Heather Graham
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he said, looking up but not setting the paper aside. “Don’t you knock in the States?” “Not when I’m entering my own room.”
“Oh?”
“I’ve been living in here,” she informed him. “But it’s not your own room, is it?” he queried. “So … this was your room,” she murmured. “Is mine.”
Suck up! They had all warned her. But she was tired—and aggravated.
“If you’re the one in the right,” she reminded him, regretting her words at once.
“I do assure you that I am,” he said solemnly.
“At this particular moment, I don’t really have any legal proof that you’re telling the truth, so I’m not entirely convinced that it is your room, that you have the right to claim it from me,” she said. “You’ll note my things at the dressing table. They do look like mine, unless you customarily wear women’s perfume, mascara and lipstick.”
He stared at her politely, and maybe a bit amazed.
“My wardrobe, you’ll notice,” he pointed out. “Since you’re ever so observant, I’m sure you noted that when you came in and made yourself so thoroughly at home, you had no place to actually hang clothing since the wardrobe was locked.”
He had won from the beginning and she knew it. She didn’t know why she was still arguing. She loved this room, though, and she was settled into it.
Maybe she was just incapable of giving up a fight, or accepting the fact that they could have been taken, that their dreams had been dashed.
“My suitcases,” she said, pointing to the side of the bed.
He set the paper aside and rose suddenly. She prayed the towel wouldn’t slip.
“Would you like me to help you gather your things?” he asked politely.
There was something about the man that irritated her to such an extent that she couldn’t keep her mouth closed—or prevent herself from behaving with sheer stupidity.
“No. I’d be happy to help you relocate, though.” “You really do have … what it is the Americans say? Balls,” he told her. She flushed.
“I’m not relocating,” he said flatly. “Unless you have the deed to this place right here and now,” she said sweetly, “neither am I.”
He stared at her a long moment, and she found herself flushing.
“Do you think I keep my important papers under a mattress or something?” he queried. “My documents are in a bank vault.” He shrugged, then took his seat before the fire once again, retrieving his paper. “If you’re staying in here, do your best to keep quiet, will you? I have a hell of a headache coming on.”
“You are the headache!” she murmured beneath her breath.
He had heard her. Once again, his eyes met hers. “I believe that you’re supposed to be sucking up to me, Miss Fraser. I am trying to be patient and understanding. I’ve even offered a helping hand.”
“Sorry,” she said swiftly, though she couldn’t help adding a soft, “I think!”
But she had lost and she knew it. Now she just had to accept it. She entered the room, slamming the door behind her. After gathering up what she could hold of her toiletries, she headed back to the hall.
“Next door down is the bride’s chamber for this room. It’s very nice,” he told her absently, studying his paper again.
“I’ve seen it. I got down on my hands and knees and scrubbed in there—just as I did in here.”
“Yes, very nice, actually,” he told her. “Good job. As I said before, I can help you move your things.”
“Wouldn’t want you to have to get dressed,” she said.
“I don’t have to get dressed, actually. Just go through the bathroom.”
“These two rooms share that bath?” she murmured.
She felt like an idiot. She knew that. She’d also cleaned the bathroom!
“This is a castle, with some modernization—not the Hilton,” he said. “Most of the rooms share a bath. Since you’ve been living here, surely you know that.”
She only knew at that moment that she wished she had chosen a room on the other side of the U.
He rose and grabbed one of her suitcases. “Through here,” he said, walking down the little hallway to the bath, and through it.
The next room was one of the nicer ones, not as large as the one she had vacated, but there was a fireplace, naturally—it was a castle, not the Hilton—and a wonderful curving draped window. “Widow’s walk out there,” he pointed out. “You’ll love it, I’m sure.”
“Naturally, I’ve seen it,” she snapped.
“Right. You cleaned that, too.”
“Yes, we did.”
“Lovely.”
He deposited her suitcase on the floor.
It was fine, it was lovely. But … it attached to his room. How did she know that the man wasn’t … weird? What if, in the middle of the night, he came through the connecting doorway? No, there were other vacant rooms. She should choose one of them.
He must have read her mind, for a small smile of grim amusement—and a touch of disdain—suddenly played upon his features. “Rest assured, you can lock your side of the bathroom door.”
“I should hope so,” she murmured.
“Really? Seems I’m the one who should be concerned about locking doors. Have no fear, Miss Fraser. There’s really not a great deal for you to worry about. From me, at any rate.”
His look assured her that he found her less appealing than a cobra. For some reason, that was disconcerting.
Because the bastard looked good in a towel? she mocked herself. More than that, he had assurance and self-confidence. Sharp, intelligent eyes, well-sculpted, masculine, handsome features. And his other assets were well sculpted, too.
“I’ll keep my door locked, too,” he assured her.
“You do that,” she said sweetly.
He turned and walked back through the connecting bath. The towel, amazingly, remained just as it had been tied.
Toni shut the door in his wake. She leaned against it, wondering how such a brilliant night could have possibly ended in such disaster. And how she had not only invented a historical figure who had actually existed, but one with a seriously formidable, modern-day descendant who was here, in the living—near naked—flesh?
Fear trickled down her spine, but she ignored it. It was very late now, and she was determined to get organized and get some sleep. And that was that.
She looked around, trying to forget the man on the other side of the door and keep herself from being cowed by him in any way. Surveying her surroundings, she decided it was more than just a fine room. Really. It was a better room.
She moved away from the door, telling herself that she liked it just fine, that she was going to move right in—even if it did prove to be just for the next few nights.
So determined, she went about arranging her toiletries
and unpacking some of her belongings. But despite her resolve to settle in and get some sleep, she was restless and disturbed. First, this really was one total mess. She couldn’t believe that they had been taken by some kind of a shyster. But worse, it bothered her that his family history, which she thought she’d made up, had turned out to be true.
Finished with hanging a number of her garments,