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It made something twist hard inside him, something hot and almost...possessive. As if he liked seeing her wearing nothing but a T-shirt. His T-shirt.
‘What happened to the trousers?’ The words came out more like a demand than a question, but he didn’t bother to temper it.
She glanced at him then down at her bare legs. ‘I had to roll them up so much it was ridiculous. The T-shirt is fine.’
The T-shirt was not fine. It left far too much of her bare skin on show, though why he should even find that troubling, he had no idea.
His control over himself and his environment was perfect, so he had no excuse for getting hot and bothered over the potential glimpse of one pretty woman’s thighs. Certainly not enough to get her to change.
‘You’ll have to wear them tomorrow when I take you back,’ he said shortly. ‘I’ve hung your other clothes out, but they’re unlikely to be dry by morning, not in this humidity or with the storm coming. I’ll have to buy you some replacements.’
She’d turned back to the shelf, studying a small wooden sculpture of a rearing horse. ‘Yes, please. Considering you were the one who dumped me in the sea without warning.’
‘I gave you plenty of warning.’
‘Not that you were going to make me swim back to my boat.’
‘If you’d actually left with your boat instead of coming back to lie about it, then I wouldn’t have made you swim back to it.’
She glanced at him again, her brown eyes glittering with anger. ‘They said you were rude. I had no idea just how rude.’
Perhaps that should have made him feel ashamed or at least a little bit embarrassed. It did not. Most people knew that coming to his island unannounced would ensure an unpleasant reception and he didn’t apologise for it.
‘If you’d wanted a different reception then perhaps you should have waited for an invitation,’ he said coldly.
‘If you don’t want people to turn up unannounced then perhaps you should try replying to your emails,’ she snapped back.
Theos, the woman was impossible. She’d been tough, he remembered that, but had she always been such a little spitfire? And how had his father handled that? Aristeidis had been stern and quite the disciplinarian and hadn’t put up with what he’d termed ‘nonsense’. Surely he wouldn’t have been so indulgent of her? How could he? When he’d cut Atticus off so completely after Dorian’s death?
Perhaps he mellowed?
No, he shouldn’t even be thinking about his father. Yet another reason why Elena’s presence here was an irritant that he needed to get rid of as soon as possible.
Except you like her being an irritant. You like fighting with her.
He did not. It was a mistake and if she couldn’t keep control of her temper then it was up to him to stay in control of his own, no matter how much she annoyed him.
‘Peace, Elena,’ he said. ‘You’re here for the night so let’s not make it any more unpleasant than it already is.’
She bristled and looked as if she might snap at him again, then her lush mouth compressed and she turned back to the shelf again. ‘I like this horse,’ she said after a moment. ‘Where did you get it?’
Trying to relax his tight muscles, Atticus thrust his hands into his pockets. ‘I didn’t get it anywhere. I made it.’
Her brown eyes went wide and she glanced at him again. ‘You did?’
‘Yes. Carving occupies my hands and I find it relaxing.’
She reached out and touched the horse’s head with a delicate finger. Her nails were short and painted the same kind of shell pink as he’d glimpsed through her bra in the sea, and for some reason the way she touched the sculpture sent a bolt of heat through him. ‘It’s beautiful.’
The bolt of heat intensified, though he wasn’t sure why. He didn’t need her praise. He carved because it focused him and, as he’d said, relaxed him. He didn’t do it for any other reason and he wanted to tell her that, but he was trying to control his raw temper, so all he said was, ‘Thank you.’
Elena stared at the horse a moment longer then she turned around and stared at him, her gaze very direct. ‘Look, I know you said you didn’t want to talk about your father, but I—’
‘No,’ he interrupted flatly. ‘I told you we would not be having this discussion.’
‘But—’
‘No,’ he repeated, and turned to the doorway. He’d told her he wasn’t going to talk about this and he’d meant it He’d made his decision and there would be no changing it.
