CHAPTER SEVEN

      ‘WOULD AN OFFER of help get my head bitten off?’ Ivo was all for self-sufficiency, but she took it into the realm of the ridiculous.

      Flora, who hadn’t heard him come up behind her as she tucked the baby into his buggy and adjusted his sun hat, gave a startled jump at the sound of his voice at her shoulder.

      She didn’t realise how disturbingly close he was until she straightened up and half turned, finding they were standing almost touching. The sensation that made her head spin sizzled along her nerve endings and sent her stomach into a violent dip.

      Her eyes made the slow journey from mid-chest level up to his lean, dark face. There was no trace of the emotions that had blazed earlier in his enigmatic stare; his expression was inscrutable.

      But now she had glimpsed past the mask she couldn’t help but wonder what else his impregnable shell of control hid besides a toxic relationship with his late father.

      None of your business, Flora girl. He’s not your business. The romance is fake. It’s not your job to understand him or heal him. He’d laugh in your face at the idea he needs healing.

      And maybe, she mused, he was right.

      His voice cut across her internal dialogue.

      ‘Well, are you?’

      She looked at him blankly. ‘Nervous?’

      It wasn’t what he’d asked and if he was honest not something he had even considered. The acknowledgement came with a stab of guilt tinged with irritation. He didn’t need to change. He didn’t want to change. Any changing and compromise would be hers to do. Dio, why the hell did she have to be so in touch with her feelings about everything anyway? he wondered, ignoring the fact that it was this aspect of her personality—the soft heart, the desire to put the needs of others above her own—that he was relying on to deliver his nephew into his care.

      Flora shrugged and dodged his dark brooding stare. If she hadn’t been nervous she was now, and not only of what waited outside.

      The earlier conversation had made her think of him in a new light, not as a man who was invulnerable but someone who might actually have some weak spots. Just when she had got comfortable with thinking of him as a man who was one of life’s takers, a Callum, a man she could comfortably dismiss, a man she wouldn’t allow herself to be attracted to.

      ‘A bit.’

      He took a half-step back and she almost wept, so intense was her relief to put a few more inches of air between them. She had to ask herself whether the problem lay with him or her... No, actually, she didn’t have to ask herself anything—and she wouldn’t.

      Resurrecting a little defiance, albeit a slightly less focused version, she lifted a hand to her face and absently brushed a curl from her cheek. The braid in her hair was unravelling as fast as she was!

      ‘Do I have time to freshen up?’

      His heavy-lidded gaze slid over the soft curves of her face, lingering a second or two too long on the plump fullness of her lips before he ventured a response. ‘You look fine to me, but if you need—’

      Flustered by the way he was looking at her, she shook her head. ‘No. I’m fine.’

      He watched through his half-lowered lids as she tweaked the baby’s cap, even though it didn’t need tweaking. She looked, he decided, better than fine.

      A lot better!

      He recognised the compulsive element as his glance slid over her slim figure, but he didn’t have an appetite to fight it.

      He liked looking at her. It was a weakness he was ready to admit to and looking at her was infinitely preferable to having her loose in his head, even if he had invited the invasion by revealing far too much. He still didn’t know what madness had possessed him to make him open up that way.

      During the flight, while he’d renewed his acquaintance with the pilot, he’d tried and failed to analyse why she acted as some sort of catalyst to feelings he had buried—best thing for them—and failed.

      He’d settled for a slightly unsatisfactory verdict: that it wouldn’t be happening again, but he could carry on looking.

      And where was the harm?

      Except to his blood pressure.

      Today her hair was tied again, though in a looser plait affair that left curls trailing down her neck and around her face. She had opted to wear a shift dress with a swirly pattern of soft blues and greens that showed off her slim arms and incredible legs. Looking at the slim calves reminded him of the only other time he’d seen her legs. The memory of the sizzling tension of that night still retained enough residual heat to make his skin prickle and his gut tighten.

      ‘Are you going to accept some help?’

      She straightened up gracefully and did the flip thing with her hair. Every time she did it he thought about unwinding that plait and spreading the hair... ‘Help,’ he exclaimed abruptly.

      In response to her bemused expression, Ivo nodded at the stroller where Jamie was doing his impression of a perfect baby, kicking his legs and looking cute and smiley. ‘Do you want to negotiate the steps or...?’ He arched a satiric brow and added drily, ‘In case you were wondering, this is me discussing it with you.’

      Flora decided to ignore the sarcasm. Instead she nodded to the two uniformed figures waiting to carry the buggy down the steps.

      ‘Thanks so much.’

      Ivo watched the men melt as she smiled at them.

      Behind her Flora heard Ivo swear; it was an impressive bilingual effort. She half turned to look at him as the men hoisted the buggy between them, a questioning frown painting furrows in her wide smooth brow.

      ‘What happened?’

      ‘It hasn’t yet—this is the first test.’

      She lifted her face and quivered nervously. ‘Test?’ It had an ominous sound and brought back the terrible weeks of revision before her finals, then the elation of passing before she’d realised that exams were only the first step. Next came experience.

      She’d been lucky and got a job offer after her first interview, a firm based in Edinburgh but with their heart and much of their work in the Highlands, domestic and commercial.

      She’d joined a team of young and enthusiastic architects with innovative ideas for affordable but aesthetically pleasing homes in the Highlands.

      She had seen her future as mapped out and then... Well, it just went to show that you should live in the moment. She had walked away from her dream job and did she regret it? She looked at the crumpled sleep suit in her hand and lifted her chin. Not for one second did she regret her choice.

      ‘We are in love, remember.’

      The soft words jolted her back to the moment with a thud. She dropped the sleep suit, gulped and tried to match his insouciant tone. ‘I didn’t think you’d care what the help thinks, and you’ve already told me that your grandfather doesn’t believe in love...or is that you? You know, a person could be forgiven for thinking the brooding Latin lover doth protest too much.’

      ‘I’m not your lover.’ The blush she had held at bay