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My eyes flew open to find Ian looming over me, looking thunderous. I sat up quickly, but I wasn’t going to leap to my feet like some guilty trespasser.
“Getting away from everybody,” I said succinctly. “Including you.”
“Haven’t you learned anything in the last twelve years? The world’s a dangerous place, and wandering off on your own is asking for trouble.”
“On Mariposa? Don’t be ridiculous—this is the safest place in the world.” Belatedly, I remembered the ominous presence of the big man, but I couldn’t very well ask Ian about it after I insisted how safe it was.
“We have over a hundred farmhands on the estate, twice as many seasonal workers, and I can’t vet everybody. You need to stay close to the house, not go wandering off alone.”
“The only person I know who seems to want to hurt me is you,” I said flatly.
His eyes narrowed. “You’re forgetting your dance partner. And I don’t care enough to want to hurt you,” he replied with devastating candor. “I just don’t want anything to happen to you on my watch.”
“It’s not your watch, it’s mine,” I snapped before I realized how ridiculous I sounded. “Oh, go away, Ian. Just leave me alone.”
“Fine. Once you’re back at the house, I won’t come anywhere near you.”
“Good.”
“Good.”
We were glaring at each other beneath the bright Spanish sun, two combatants waiting for the other to make the first move. I could turn and run, but I didn’t move, staring at him. We were so close I could reach out and touch him, so close...
“Do you enjoy driving me crazy?” he said in a low voice.
“Yes,” I said with complete honesty.
“We’re just going to have to do something about that.” Was it a threat? A promise?
“I’d like to see you try,” I shot back. Wanting him to try, to put his hands on me, his mouth on me.
But he took a step back with a short laugh, and the heat between us turned cold. “I’m sure you would, Bella-Beast, but I’ve never been your plaything, and I never will.”
“Except for one night,” I said, remembering his words.
His eyes darkened, and his mouth curved in an unpleasant smile. “Just one,” he agreed. “It was very effective—I’d never seen your manipulative soul so clearly. And I learned my lesson. If you lie down with a snake, prepare to get bitten.” He turned away from me. Taking a few steps down the path, he stopped and looked back at me. “Are you coming? It can be dangerous out here.”
A chill ran down my back. He was trying to scare me, and he was doing a good job of it. I thought of the big man.
“I’m coming,” I said with all the dignity I could muster. “You haven’t hired anybody new recently, have you?” Like someone hired to hurt me, I thought, then shook myself. I was being ridiculous.
“We’re always hiring. Why do you ask?”
“Oh, nothing. Just curious.” I should tell him, I thought. A man had threatened to kill me last night, and I kept seeing an evil-looking individual dogging my footsteps. It might mean absolutely nothing. Or it might not.
He reached out his hand to help me when we got to the steep crevasse in the stone, but I ignored it, hoping my flimsy sandals would give me enough purchase on the rocks.
They didn’t, and I ended up in his arms, breathless, looking up at him, too close, too close. A light flared in his dark eyes and he was going to kiss me again, I knew it.
He didn’t. He simply moved me to flat ground and released me, so quickly I might have been the snake he’d been talking about. In fact, in his eyes I was the snake.
And I was being an idiot not to say something about the man I kept seeing. “I think a man’s been following me,” I blurted out, breaking the silence between us as we hiked down the narrow path.
“If you had your way, a thousand men would be following you. What’s the problem with that?”
I should have known he’d dismiss it. “He’s always showing up when I don’t expect him. He was trimming the rose bushes by the kitchen window, and he was watching me as I climbed up here. In fact, half the time when I look, I see him.”
“What does this mystery man look like? Is he the one from last night?”
