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‘Buongiorno,’ Zac said courteously.
Dana spun round with a startled cry, her heart thumping.
He was sitting in the high-backed armchair beside the empty fireplace, fully dressed apart from his coat and tie, which were on the floor beside him.
‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded unevenly.
He got to his feet, raking back his hair with a lazy hand. ‘I needed some private time to think, after which I seem to have slept. Until, of course, you whistled up this storm, my little witch, when I stayed to watch nature’s light show. It has been quite spectacular. And you? Have you come down to dance between the raindrops?’
‘Very amusing.’ She picked up the nearest magazine—a county glossy—from the desk. ‘Please resume your viewing. I won’t disturb you any longer.’
He said quite gently, ‘If only that were true. But we both know it is not. Nor that simple.’
‘I know nothing of the kind,’ she said curtly, aware of his scrutiny and wishing her robe was infinitely thicker. And that she did not have to walk past him to reach the door.
And, more importantly, that she’d stayed safely in her room in the first place.
‘Then consider it now.’
As he spoke, another flash of lightning blazed into the room through the uncurtained windows and the lamp on the desk went out, leaving them first dazzled, then in total darkness.
Dana gasped. ‘What’s happened?’
‘A local power cut.’ His tone was laconic. ‘The storm playing havoc with the electrics. It often happens, as I am sure you remember.’
Yes, she thought, but she hadn’t bargained for it to happen here and now.
She said quickly, ‘I’d better go back to my room.’
‘Why the haste?’ He paused. ‘After all, we have been alone in the dark before, you and I.’
As if she could have forgotten, she thought shakily. And it was not a situation she could afford to repeat.
He hadn’t moved. She would swear to that, but she felt that he was somehow nearer. As if the walls of the room were closing in on them, and she needed to get out—to get away in the same way that she needed to draw her next breath.
She thought, I have to be safe.
She began to edge towards where she thought the door should be, only to catch her foot in something lying on the floor—oh, God, his bloody coat—and stumble forward, her balance gone.
Only to find herself grabbed and steadied, then held in the circle of his arms, feeling his warmth, inhaling the haunting trace of the cologne he still used after all this time. Aware that his grasp was tightening.
Panic closed her throat.
‘Let go of me, damn you.’ She choked the words then struck upwards, her hands curled into claws, finding taut skin stretched over bone and a hint of stubble.
She felt Zac wince, heard him swear under his breath before he stepped back, freeing her.
Another jagged flash lit up the room, and gathering the folds of her robe in clumsy hands, Dana ran to the door and across the wide hall to the stairs.
She tripped twice, clutching at the smooth oak bannister rail, almost hauling herself, panting, from step to step in case he was there behind her, following silently, cat-like, in the stifling darkness.
Wondering, if his hand fell on her shoulder, if she would have breath enough to scream and what she would say if she did and people came. How she could possibly explain when the real explanation must remain hidden. For ever.
In her room, with the door closed and the key turned in the stiff lock, she picked up the discarded coverlet from the floor and rolled herself in it, pulling a fold over her head and lying still, waiting for her heartbeat to slow and the rasp of her breathing to subside into normality.
But her cocoon provided no protection at all against the soft trembling deep within her, or the thoughts and memories she could no longer exclude from her consciousness, however hard she might try.
And, perhaps, in order to be free, she should allow her mind to travel back over seven years and—remember.
* * *
She should not even have been at Mannion that summer. Aunt Joss had visited the school to tell her with faint awkwardness about the planned alternative.
‘My friend Mrs Lewis has found you a job through her employment agency. A Mrs Heston needs an au pair to look after her eight-year-old girl and twin boys aged three. You’ll live as family and Mrs Heston will make sure you keep up with any holiday work set by the school.’
‘But I don’t want to spend my vacation with a bunch of strangers,’ Dana protested. ‘Nicola’s expecting me to come home with her. They’re having lots of people to stay, and there’ll be parties. And it’s Adam’s birthday.’
