'You must be kidding. They're wet and cold. Are you sure you haven't got any men's clothes around? One of your boyfriends didn't leave any here?'
'No, I already told you that!'
'I guess you're the type to chuck their clothes away once you've dumped the guys,' he said derisively.
She resented that, her green eyes flashing. Wait till she saw Hal Thaxford! How dared he spread vicious rumours about her?
'Look here…Mr—what's your name…?'
'Hillier. Connel Hillier,' he said over his shoulder as he began going round the bedroom, opening her wardrobe, rummaging through her chest of drawers.
Unusual name, she thought. Connel. She liked it. 'Well, Mr Hillier…' She stopped, doing a double take as she realised what was happening. 'What on earth do you think you're doing? You've no right to search my room! And there's no point in searching, anyway, you won't find any men's clothes!'
She went over to slam shut the open drawer he was hunting through. 'I said, stop it!'
He straightened, turned, a pair of dark socks in his hand. Zoe wore socks whenever she wore boots to work, which, in winter or wet weather, happened frequently.
'What size are these? Oh, never mind, they're the type that stretch. I should be able to get into them.'
He sat down on her bed, swinging one knee over the other to lift a foot. Zoe looked away as she caught a shadowy glimpse of his thigh. A minute later he stood up, and now he was wearing the socks. 'That's better; my feet were freezing. I hope you've at least got food in the house. I'm starving. Let's go downstairs and get cooking.'
His sheer gall left Zoe speechless, something that rarely happened to her. She hadn't liked him much from the instant she'd set eyes on him; now she was beginn
ing to detest him.
Recovering her breath, she burst out, 'Look, you human steamroller, will you stop pushing me around?'
'Steamrollers flatten people; they don't push them around!'
'Well, you aren't flattening me!'
Ignoring her, he walked into the bathroom and came out carrying his wet clothes in a neat pile. Cool as a cucumber, he produced the key from his trouser pocket and unlocked the bedroom door.
Without looking back to check that she was coming, he vanished, and, discovering that he had left the key in the lock, she almost locked herself in, but on reflection decided that that would leave him free to ransack the rest of the house and make off with half her possessions.
Fuming, she followed him, wondering how on earth she was going to get rid of him. If only her mobile didn't need charging!
Maybe while he was eating she might be able to get to the phone, plug it back in, and ring the police? So long as he didn't hear her and strangle her before the police arrived.
Oh, don't be so melodramatic, she told herself—he isn't the type. If I was casting him I wouldn't make him the murderer. A thug, maybe. A gangster. Somebody to be wary of, that was certain. She'd felt that the minute she saw him in the rainy night, peering into her car. There was something electric, powerful, dangerous about those eyes of his.
By the time she reached the kitchen he was chucking his clothes into her washing machine. He briefly looked at her over his shoulder with those dark, menacing eyes.
'Where's your soap powder?'
She almost said, I'll do it for you, until she caught herself doing it. Female programming! she angrily thought. It's put into us right from childhood—why the hell should I? Let him do his own washing.
'Cupboard next to the machine,' she bit out, and got a dry glance from him. No doubt he had been expecting her to offer to do it for him. Men always expected women to wait on them. That was their own programming. If she ever had a son she would make sure he wasn't brought up to see women as potential servants or toys.
He bent again to open the cupboard and her eyes flicked round the kitchen in search of possible weapons. A glass rolling pin filled with dried flowers, from Greece, hung on the wall—how about that?
No, that was a souvenir of one of the best holidays she had ever had. She didn't want to break that. One of the saucepans? Not heavy enough. That copper casserole would make quite a dent, though, she thought, gazing at the highly polished dish hanging close to the oven.
The washing machine started and she looked back at him warily. He was now busy inspecting the contents of the fridge and the freezer, taking stuff out and checking the cooking instructions.
'There are plenty of soups,' she offered.
He was reading a pack of microwave chicken curry and shrugged. 'I'm too hungry for soup—this looks good. I see you've got a microwave. I'll have this. Do you want some of it?'