Carole Mortimer - One-Man Woman

Ellie stared after him, knowing her face was very pale. She was so stunned that she still hadn’t been able to make so much as a movement when he turned after stepping into the lift to give her a parting gesture of his hand before the doors closed in front of him.

Had he known she was in his bedroom earlier? Did he know?

CHAPTER TWO

‘IT’S a nuisance that it’s Peter’s evening off.’ Beth frowned as she battled to take the stone out of the centre of the avocado without actually damaging the fruit. ‘We could have done with his expertise in the kitchen tonight if we’re to soften Daniel Thackery up enough to get any information out of him!’ She grimaced as the stone finally popped out of the fruit only to roll across the floor.

To Ellie’s immense dismay Daniel Thackery had accepted Beth’s invitation to dinner this evening. Beth had managed to speak to him this morning before he’d left for a business appointment, and he had been only too pleased, according to Beth, to accept dinner with an old friend. But after his parting comments to Ellie the evening before she really had no desire ever to see the man again. She was certain that if he didn’t actually know for sure, then he at least suspected her presence in his suite the evening before—otherwise why would he have made those comments about her perfume and suggested a chat?

Her first instinct the night before, once she had recovered from the shock, had been to go up to his suite and brazen the situation out—at least find out what he did know. But then common sense had prevailed, and she had realised she would be playing into his hands by going anywhere near his suite again that evening; if she didn’t go near him, he couldn’t ask her any embarrassing questions.

But before she could tell Beth that she had changed her mind about inviting the man for dinner Beth had come and told her she had already asked him—and he had accepted!

‘He ate in the restaurant yesterday evening,’ Ellie told her sister distractedly. ‘He knows how good a chef Peter is.’

‘But even with the two of us making our best effort we’re nowhere near as good,’ Beth groaned, having retrieved the stone from the floor now and placed it in the bin.

Ellie shrugged, having been given the job of shelling the prawns to go with the avocado. ‘Just ply him with lots of wine—that should mellow him,’ she dismissed scathingly. ‘Anyway, I told you I have to stand in on Reception this evening, so you’re on your own with this dinner,’ she announced with satisfaction. She had never been so relieved in her life to have had two people call in sick for this evening, one of them being their evening receptionist; she did not want to spend several hours sitting with Daniel Thackery trying to be polite to him, no matter what his reason for being in the area!

She no longer cared what his reason was; he couldn’t buy their hotel if they weren’t interested in selling. And they weren’t! And Beth’s interest in James was a private thing; her sister didn’t need her presence at dinner to ask Daniel Thackery whether or not he had seen her husband recently.

‘You don’t have to go on Reception until ten o’clock,’ Beth protested. ‘Plenty of time for you to have dinner with us first.’

‘That’s true,’ Ellie accepted grudgingly. ‘But one of the bar staff is off sick too, so—’

‘Send Doris in there,’ Beth interrupted practically. ‘She’s done it before, so that shouldn’t be a problem. And the two of us can turn back the beds in the rooms. We aren’t that heavily booked, so it shouldn’t take long.’

She sometimes wished her sister weren’t so practical. Or so logically capable. But the two of them had been brought up in this hotel, had watched their parents’ management of it for years, and they had learnt how to deal with staffing and other problems. And Beth’s answer to the problem now was perfectly correct. It was just that Ellie didn’t want to be present at the dinner!

She wanted to avoid Daniel Thackery for the rest of his stay—still had the uncomfortable feeling that he knew exactly where she had been the evening before. And, if he did, there was no way he was going to let something like that pass without further comment.

‘Ellie, will you finish the prawns so that we can get on with preparing the chicken?’ Beth impatiently interrupted her wandering thoughts. ‘It’s almost seven o’clock now, and if we have the beds to turn back...’

Which meant she had lost her argument about joining Beth and Daniel Thackery for dinner. Damn. But she really couldn’t come up with another excuse not to join them—not without alerting Beth to the fact that she really didn’t want to spend any more time in the man’s company. There was just something about him, the wardrobe incident apart, that set her teeth on edge...

And, appreciative of the way her luck was going at the moment, she wasn’t in the least surprised when Beth elected to do the beds on the second floor, leaving Ellie to deal with the first floor. Daniel Thackery’s suite was on the first floor...

Taking all possible precautions against bumping into him accidentally, she rang up his suite first and received no answer. Nor did her loud knocking on the door of the suite. Good, he was still out. Although he was cutting it a bit fine if he intended joining them for dinner at eight o’clock; it was almost seven-thirty now...

He certainly wasn’t an untidy man. In fact, looking around at the neatness of the suite, she acknowledged that it was difficult to tell whether it was occupied or not—no personal effects were lying around anywhere. But he was definitely still staying here; Ellie would have been the first to know if he had booked out. And the first to give thanks. He had been a disruptive influence on her life ever since he’d first booked in. And she had to sit down to dinner with the man in—oh, just over half an hour.

She would get this over with as quickly as possible and make good her escape; the last thing she wanted was Daniel Thackery returning to his suite while she was still there!

She had barely begun to turn back the bed when she heard the sound of a door opening behind her. She turned sharply, her expression one of guilty dismay. Not that she had anything to feel guilty about tonight, but—

It hadn’t been the bedroom door that had opened, but the adjoining bathroom door. Daniel Thackery must have just taken a bath or shower. His hair was still damp—his body completely naked!

Ellie just stared at him, hardly able to breathe. He—She—They—Oh, God...!

Daniel looked no more pleased to see her standing in his bedroom, apparently rooted to the spot, than she was to see him. A dark scowl marred his handsome features as he returned her stare. ‘You again!’ he snapped disgustedly.

She was still too shocked to react to that ‘again’, keeping her gaze riveted to his darkly scowling face after that first shocked recognition of his nakedness. There would be time later to remember the smoothly muscled contours of his body, his darkly tanned skin, the almost black hair that lightly covered his body. For now she had to concentrate on explaining herself—and then getting out of here!

‘I did telephone and knock before coming in to your suite.’ She rushed into breathless speech. “There was no answer, so I—’

‘I was taking a shower.’ He drily stated the obvious, making no effort to cover up his nakedness. ‘But the offer was for last night, not tonight!’

Her face suffused with colour as his meaning became clear. ‘The maid wanted to turn back the bed—’

‘Then why didn’t she?’ Dark brows rose over piercing blue eyes.

Why didn’t he put some clothes on, instead of just standing there completely unconcerned with his nudity? He might be accustomed to being naked in front of women, but she certainly wasn’t used to being in the same room with men who had nothing on. And who seemed completely unruffled by the fact!