Kelly Hunter - A Forbidden Passion

Rosedale .

A warm sense of homecoming suffused Rowan O’Brien as she climbed the hill and looked over the sprawling vineyard surrounding the sturdy house of gray stone and mullioned windows. The turreted Old English mansion was out of place against the white beach and turquoise water, pure folly on a Mediterranean island where white stone columns and flowing architecture typically reigned, but it had been built to indulge a loved one so Rowan adored it with all her heart. And here she was free.

She’d sent the taxi ahead with her things, initially frustrated that her finances had stalled to the point where she’d had to take the ferry from the mainland, but the slow boat had turned out to be therapeutic. As much as she’d ached to see the house again, she had needed the time to brace herself for its emptiness.

With a bittersweet throb in her chest she descended to the lawn, ignored her luggage on the stoop and tried the door, half expecting it to be locked and wondering where she’d put her key. She’d left a message for the housekeeper, but wasn’t sure Anna had received it. Rowan’s mobile had stopped working along with everything else. Very frustrating.

The door was unlocked. Rowan stepped into silence and released a sigh. She had longed to come for ages but hadn’t been able to face it, too aware that the heart of the home was missing. Except …

A muted beat sounded above her. Footsteps crossed the second floor to the top of the stairs. Male, heavy steps …

Before she could leap to the crazy conclusion that by some miracle her mother and stepfather had survived, and were here after all, the owner of the feet descended the stairs and came into view.

Oh .

She told herself her reaction stemmed from the unexpectedness of seeing him face-to-face after so long, but it was more than that. Nic always made her heart trip and her breath catch. And—and this was new, since she’d thrown herself at him in a hideous moment of desperation nearly two years ago—made her die a little of abject mortification.

She hid that, but couldn’t help reacting to his presence. He was so gorgeous! Which shouldn’t matter. She knew lots of good-looking men. Perhaps none combined the blond Viking warrior with the cold Spartan soldier quite the way he did, but marble-carved jaws and chilly, piercing blue eyes were a mainstay among her mother’s film and stage crowd.

Nic’s looks were the least of his attributes, though. He was a man of unadulterated power, physically honed and confident to the point of radiating couched aggression. Nic had always been sure of himself, but now the authority he projected was ramped to new heights. Rowan felt it as a force that leapt from him to catch hold of her like a tractor beam that wanted to draw her under its control.

Reflexively she resisted. There was no room for quiet defensiveness when she came up against this man’s aura. She instinctively feared she’d drown if she buckled to his will, so she leapt straight to a stance of opposition. Besides, he was one of the few people she could defy without consequence. She’d never had anything to lose with Nic. Not even his affection. He’d hated her from day one—something that had always stung badly enough without him proving it on her twentieth birthday by reacting to her kiss with such contempt. She tried very hard not to care that he didn’t like her. She definitely didn’t let herself show how much it hurt.

“What a lovely surprise,” she said, in the husky Irish lilt that had made her mother famous, flashing the smile that usually knocked men off their guard. “Hello, Nic.”

Her greeting bounced off the armor of his indifference. “Rowan.”

She felt his stern voice like the strop of a cat’s tongue—rough, yet sensual, and strangely compelling. It was a challenge to appear as unmoved as he was.

“If you left a message I didn’t get it. My mobile isn’t working.” She hooked the strap of her empty purse on the stairpost next to him.

“Why’s that, do you suppose?” he asked without moving, his eyes hooded as he looked down on her.

His accent always disconcerted her. It was as worldly as he was. Vaguely American, with a hint of British boarding school, and colored by the time he’d spent in Greece and the Middle East.

“I have no idea.” Needing distance from the inherent challenge in his tone, she slipped out of her light jacket and moved into the lounge to toss the faded denim over the back of a sofa. Her boots clipped on the tiles with a hollow echo, sending a renewed pang of emptiness through her.

It struck her that Nic might be here for the same reason she’d come. She glanced back, searching for homesickness in his carved features, but his face remained impassive. He folded his arms, bunching his muscles into a stance of superior arrogance.

“No, I don’t expect you do,” he remarked with dry disparagement.

“I don’t what?” she asked absently, still hopeful for a sign of humanity in him. But there was nothing. Disappointment poked at her with an itch of irritation. Sometimes she wished … Stop it . Nic was never going to warm up to her. She had to get over it. Get over him .

But how ? she wondered, restlessly tugging away the elastic that had kept her hair from blowing off her head on the ferry. She gave her scalp a rub, rejuvenating the dark waves while trying to erase her tingling awareness of Nic.

“Your mobile stopped working along with your cards,” he said, “but the obvious reason hasn’t occurred to you?”

“That everything expired at the same time? It occurred to me, but that doesn’t seem likely. They’ve always managed to renew themselves before.” She used her fingers to comb her hair back from her face, glancing up in time to see his gaze rise from an unabashed appraisal of her figure.

Her pulse kicked in shock. And treacherous delight. The wayward adolescent hormones that had propelled her to the most singularly humiliating experience of her life were alive and well, responding involuntarily to Nic’s unrelenting masculine appeal. It was aggravating that it took only one little peek from him to ramp her into a fervor, but she was secretly thrilled.

To hide her confusing reaction she challenged him, a vaguely smug smile on her face. It wasn’t easy to stare into his eyes and let him know she knew exactly where his attention had been. She’d been drilled from an early age to make the most of her looks. She knew she appealed to men, but she’d never caught a hint of appealing to this one. What an intriguing shift of power, she thought, even as their eye contact had the effect of making her feel as though she stood at a great height, dizzy, and at risk of a long fall.

Deep down, she knew she was kidding herself if she thought she had any power over him, but she let herself believe it long enough to take a few incautious steps toward him. She cocked her hip, aware that her boot heels would make the pose oh-so-provocative.

“You didn’t have to come all this way to bring me new cards, Nic. You seem like a busy man. What happened? Decided you needed a bit of family time?” Again she searched for a dent in his composure, some sign that he craved human contact the way lesser mortals like she did.

His iceman demeanor chilled several degrees and she could almost hear his thoughts. Her mother might have been his father’s lover for nearly a decade, but he’d never once thought of Ro as family .

“I am busy,” he informed her, with his patented complete lack of warmth.

She’d never seen him show affection to anyone, so she ought not to let his enmity bother her, but he always seemed extra frosty toward her.

“I work , you see. Something you wouldn’t know anything about.”