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He could handle black runs in the most challenging of conditions and ergo he could handle anything.
Not least a stubborn woman who should know better than to put her life at risk by venturing out in hostile weather conditions!
He reached her at speed, aware of the slushing of the snow in his loafers and the bitter wind stinging his face.
She was so small against the vastness of the landscape, a vulnerable little dot, and he fought against an urge to pull her against him.
She was huddled into so many layers of clothing and her woolly hat was pulled low over her eyes and his heart clenched with a surge of protectiveness that took him by surprise.
He reached out to circle her arm with his fingers, turning her to face him because she hadn’t seen him approaching from behind her.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing out there?’
The sudden fear and panic that had gripped him when he’d spotted her outside made him sound harsher than he’d intended. But he wasn’t going to apologise because it was sheer crazy recklessness to be out in these conditions, where the darkness and the falling snow concealed a multitude of potential danger zones.
‘What on earth are you doing?’ Celia, alone with her thoughts and enjoying the peace of not being in the house where she seemed to be on constant alert to the sound of his approaching footsteps, stared at Leandro in astonishment.
Shouldn’t he be working?
It was all he did! He worked from the early hours of the morning to late in the evening. Either he had a limitless amount of things that couldn’t possibly be deferred for a day or two or else, more likely, he was intent on doing everything within his power to avoid her.
She couldn’t blame him. Why would he want to be stuck out here with a woman who had come along for the ride as a matter of necessity? This was the sort of wildly romantic place he would choose to come with a lover. She could picture him, the Lord of the Manor, with an icy beauty, strolling hand in hand through the ruggedly untamed countryside, stopping only to lose themselves in one another.
Instead, he’d found himself closeted with a woman he barely liked, reduced to small talk when it just couldn’t be avoided.
Conscious of that fact and not wanting to be a bother, Celia had been at pains to be in his company as little as possible. They ate together and she was surprised that he was as good a cook as he was, turning down her offers to help because, surprisingly, he enjoyed it.
Watching and listening, enjoying the sight of him moving confidently around the well-equipped kitchen and knowing that her disobedient eyes were just fanning the flames of an illicit attraction that no amount of common sense could squash, Celia hung onto every word that left his lips.
She knew it was wrong. It wasn’t as though he were sharing anything with her that he wouldn’t have shared with anyone else who happened to be there at the time he just happened to be throwing a few things in a pan! She was very careful to keep herself to herself, which wasn’t difficult because whenever she was around him, she became curiously tongue-tied. It had been easier to argue with him when he’d first shown up on her doorstep with his accusations and arrogant assumptions about her and Dan.
But out here, there had been a lull in hostilities, and she had been treacherously aware that, within the lull, she had glimpsed a multifaceted guy with a sharp sense of humour and a charm that she couldn’t have predicted.
Not the kind of man who was her type, because their worlds were just so far apart, because she would always need someone so much more normal and down-to-earth. So she was as safe as houses on that front...but he was still so physically attractive that what woman wouldn’t feel her insides go just a little bit squishy in his presence?
She tried to yank her arm free, sensitive to the heat pouring from him straight into her.
‘I’m rescuing you,’ Leandro gritted. He began tugging her back in the direction of the house and, rather than resist, she hurried alongside him because the force of the snow didn’t permit extended arguments to be conducted outside. Not without hypothermia kicking in.
‘Rescuing me?’ she all but shouted once they were inside the house with the front door firmly shut against the elements. She’d leapt back and now she glared at him, hands on her hips, fuming green eyes clashing with equally fuming black ones. ‘You wererescuingme?’
Leandro wondered what the world was coming to when an act of pure chivalry could be met with open hostility.
‘Don’t be bloody-minded,’ he growled. ‘Have you any idea just how dangerous it is attempting to venture out in this weather anywhere near that loch?’
‘Iknowwhere the loch is, Leandro! I’ve been having an afternoon walk every day since we’ve been...been...cooped up here!’
‘I get it this isn’t exactly what you’d bought into!’
‘Is it whatyou’vebought into?’
‘It could have been a damn sight worse.’ Leandro was so aware of her pulsing, throbbing, sexily alluring feminine anger that he was driven to stare, knowing even as his eyes rested on her that what heshouldbe doing was looking away. Cutting the conversation dead—if she wanted to berate him for being a gentleman, then that was her problem.
However, he couldn’t tear his eyes away. She’d yanked off the woolly hat and he wanted to reach out and push her tangled hair away from her face, gather her into his arms and kiss her senseless.
No...he wanted to do more than that...he wanted to take her to his bed, see her naked, that wild hair strewn across his pillow...he wanted to touch...
‘I wasn’t in any danger.’ Celia’s voice hitched in her throat and she stumbled a couple of steps back.
