CHAPTER FOUR

      MATTHEW strode back to Dragon Bay in a foul temper.

      It might have been a novelty for him to be put down by a skinny blonde with more mouth than sense, but it didn’t amuse him. He didn’t even know why he’d bothered to speak to her. It wasn’t as if he cared what she thought of him. He’d been civil, that was all, and she’d insulted him. What the hell did she know about his life?

      For God’s sake, he thought, letting himself into the grounds of his house through the iron gate set into the wall, there were plenty of women around who didn’t take offence when he offered advice. Nothing could alter the fact that the boy had got away from her. So what if the other kid was being sick? She hadn’t been about to choke, had she?

      But it was that crack about Fleur that had really got to him. Bloody cheek, he fumed angrily. What did it have to do with her? It was little consolation to know that she’d been watching him. He’d known that, dammit. He’d seen the accusation in her face.

      For once, the gardens surrounding his villa didn’t appease him. Almost two acres of green lawns, flowering shrubs and brilliant flame trees provided a fitting setting for the sprawling Spanish-style villa that was his home. Cool, shaded rooms surrounded three sides of a paved courtyard, with a stone fountain in the centre whose rippling pool was edged with lilies.

      Through a belt of palms, he could just glimpse the painted roofs of the cabanas, and beyond that the swimming-pool was a smooth slash of aquamarine, glinting in the sun. The way he felt right now, he would have liked to have plunged his sweating body into the cool water. But the thought that Fleur might choose to

      join him had him opting for a shower.

      Dammit, he thought, crossing the patio, where hanging baskets spilling scarlet geraniums provided a startling splash of colour, he couldn’t even do what he liked in his own home. Stepping beneath a shadowed balcony, woven with bougainvillaea, he entered a marbled hallway and mounted grimly to his suite of rooms. He’d always enjoyed his morning walks before, but today he felt decidedly out of tune with himself.

      He ran the shower hot, then cold, soaping his limbs aggressively as he endeavoured to lighten his mood. Fleur couldn’t stay here forever, he thought, deliberately turning his thoughts from the woman on the beach. She’d soon get bored without the social life she’d enjoyed as Chase’s wife. Besides, although there were plenty of stores in Bridgetown to suit her needs, Fleur was an avid shopper. She’d spent a small fortune in beauty parlours alone, and she’d had a new wardrobe of clothes every season.

      He wondered in passing where she was planning to live, now that Chase was no longer a factor. He doubted she’d stay on at the ranch, even if his father was willing. She’d always been more at home in the capital cities of the world. He couldn’t see her vegetating at Ryan’s Bend.

      He was shaving when his assistant knocked at his door. At his shout, Lucas came into his bedroom, and Matthew paused in the doorway to his bathroom, his razor still in his hand.

      ‘Problems?’ he asked, and Lucas pulled a face.

      ‘Your sister-in-law has already asked where you are, if that’s what you mean,’ he remarked, propping his stocky frame against a chest of drawers. ‘She’s having breakfast in the dining-room, would you believe? I thought you said she rarely got up before midday.’

      ‘She doesn’t—usually,’ Matthew replied flatly, turning back to the mirror and expelling a weary breath. He cursed as the razor nicked his jaw. ‘Damn, I guess that means she wants something, doesn’t it? You may be right. This is not just a social visit.’

      Lucas shrugged. ‘Has it occurred to you that she may be short of money?’

      ‘Of course it has.’ Matthew rinsed his jaw with fresh water and turned back again, drying his face with a towel. ‘But I don’t see how. Chase always had insurance. And his horses were worth a small fortune, you know that.’

      Lucas considered. ‘Could he have been in debt?’

      ‘I guess he could.’ Matthew frowned. ‘But if he was, he never said a word to me. And wouldn’t he have discussed it with my father?’ He grimaced. ‘Perhaps he did. The old man always was as close-mouthed as a shrew.’

      A shrew…

      Matthew tossed the towel aside, annoyed to find that the connotations of that particular word were not to his liking. It reminded him again of the young woman he had encountered on the beach. The truth was, for all his irritation with her, she had disrupted his morning walk and his equilibrium. And where that disturbance was rooted, he didn’t care to consider.

      ‘So, what are you going to do?’ Lucas watched as Matthew tossed the towel aside and pulled on a pair of frayed denim shorts and a loose black T-shirt. ‘Ask her right out? Or let her make the first move?’

      ‘That depends.’ Matthew forced his thoughts back to Fleur, and scanned the bedroom with narrowed eyes. Then, observing that his watch was lying on the cabinet where he had left it, he went to pick it up. ‘I don’t intend to allow her to stay here indefinitely.’

      ‘So you’ll play it by ear,’ remarked Lucas, straightening. ‘D’you want to look over the manuscript this morning, or shall I concentrate on the accounts?’

      Matthew gave him a resigned look. ‘What do you think?’

      Lucas grinned, his fair features crinkling humorously. ‘Accounts it is,’ he said. ‘And I’ll eat breakfast in the kitchen. I’m not sure I’m in the mood for Fleur’s particular kind of chat.’

      ‘And I am?’ queried Matthew drily, buckling the slim gold Ebel on to his wrist. ‘Remind me to thank you for your support some time, won’t you? I don’t know what I’d do without you in circumstances like this.’

      Leaving the spacious, if slightly austere surroundings of Matthew’s bedroom behind, both men walked along the wide gallery that connected all the rooms on the upper floor. Open on one side at present, with sculptured arches giving an uninterrupted view of the ocean, there were tight-fitting shutters which could be closed if a tropical storm blew in from the Gulf. In the latter months of the year there was the risk of hurricanes, too, but thankfully they were few and far between. In the main, the weather was fairly temperate, with humidity being the biggest source of complaint.