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Just before opening the front door, Blaise turned back for a moment. ‘I’m glad you’ve agreed to take the job. Where I live there’s a wild beauty that if I’m away too long inevitably lures me back. Perhaps you might find it has the same effect on you, Maya?’
A flash of a strangely enigmatic smile, a turn of the head, a final glimpse of that perfect knife-edged jaw and he was gone…
There was taking risks in life and then there was knowingly setting out on a course that was hell-bent on delivering nothing but trouble… Blaise couldn’t help reflecting on the latter as he expertly directed the silver Jaguar onto the long fir-tree-lined drive that led to the place he called home—a stately Jacobean dwelling nestling within towering conifers, with wisteria tumbling down its aged stone walls.
Maya had been the ideal travelling companion. She’d been perfectly amenable to conversation—if a little guarded—but had largely left him alone with his thoughts as he drove. Thoughts that had been inevitably consumed with her, did she but know it, along with constant musings on how he was going to survive the next few weeks working on his most challenging play with her distracting presence around…The woman had the saddest eyes Blaise had ever encountered. With the knowledge that her illustrious father had taken his own life, and having been on the receiving end of that defensive diatribe she’d launched into about men not being able to see past what she looked like, he could understand why she had such a fierce need to self-protect.
One glance into those melancholy green eyes of hers and he should have been instantly warned to steer well clear, instead of offering her a job and inviting her to stay with him in the one place where he could work in peace without intrusion. Yes, right now Blaise seemed determined to court the worst kind of potentially disruptive trouble as far as he was concerned…woman trouble. But here was the thing…regarding the gorgeous but clearly wounded Maya Hayward, he just couldn’t seem to help himself…
‘We’re here. Welcome to Hawk’s Lair.’ He rolled his shoulders to ease out the stiffness accumulated there from miles of concentrated driving, then turned to smile at the slim, dark-haired woman beside him. It had been a long journey, and to be frank he was extremely relieved to have reached their destination. But instead of having his gesture reciprocated, he saw his passenger’s lush pink mouth tighten worriedly, and the tension she exuded was tangible. Blaise sensed a muscle flex in his cheek.
‘Struck silent, huh?’ he teased, but felt an odd kind of tension of his own seizing his muscles.
‘I didn’t realise—’ She swallowed, tucked some strands of that waterfall of black flowing hair behind her ears, and looked as though she were trying hard to compose herself.
‘What?’ he demanded.
‘I didn’t realise the house would be quite as…as grand as this,’ she answered, her glance wary.
‘It’s a Grade One listed building, but it’s still my home,’ Blaise remarked matter-of-factly. ‘I inherited it from my parents. You might be surprised to know that sometimes it didn’t seem large enough when we lived there together.’
‘Any particular reason why?’
‘My father was apt to outbursts of quite violent temper. It just wasn’t easy being around him for my mother and me.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘No need to be. It’s all in the past.’
Sensing the muscles in his taut stomach bunch tight at the way he’d so easily glossed over what he had been through, Blaise shrugged, silently cursing himself for being so frank…too frank. In future he would have to more closely guard against such off-the-cuff personal revelations.
Feeling a sudden urgent need for some fresh air, he stepped out of the car onto the gravel drive into the rapidly cooling afternoon. ‘I’ll get our bags out of the back,’ he threw over his shoulder.
Up ahead, the front door of the house opened and a huge Irish Wolfhound bounded towards the car. It was a faintly surreal sight. In the process of making her way round to the front of the car, Maya felt her heartbeat drum painfully at the realisation that the hound was making a beeline for her. Remembering a childhood incident when she had been winded by the powerful bulk of an Alsatian running at her at full pelt, she froze in horror, her whole body tensing in expectation of being similarly winded again as the large dog drew nearer.
‘No, Sheba! Stay!’
The forceful tone of Blaise’s commanding voice cut through the mild breeze that was blowing round them and the dog came to a sudden obedient standstill, pink tongue lolling, massive head slightly bowed as it looked sheepishly towards him.
