He removed the designer shades he wore and tucked them into the breast pocket of his jacket. The dark, wintry eyes that surveyed her coldly were even less reassuring than the mirrored lenses had been!
It had been ten days since she’d last seen him…I was counting? He could not have altered since then, but the hard angles on his face did seem more defined this evening, as though he might have lost weight. But his greyhound-lean frame had not carried any excess flesh the last time. Perhaps it was the black leather jacket and tailored dark trousers that hugged the muscular contours of his long thighs that made him look longer and leaner and just generally harder.
If he’d been auditioning for the part of a dangerous but fatally attractive gangster he’d have got the job on the spot! The sprinkling of designer stubble across his jaw and hollow cheeks only intensified the aura of menace that hung around his sinfully gorgeous person.
The discovery that it was hard to maintain your anger with someone who was blinking innocently up at you did not improve Roman’s mood. His jaw clenched because he knew that under baggy pyjamas and the glowing, baby smooth contours of her make-up-free face there lurked a woman who was living a lie.#p#????#e#
Even if she didn’t know he was the boy’s father, she sure as hell knew she wasn’t the mother! Besides, what was it his mother had said?
‘Ignorance is no defence’ Scarlet Smith—if that was her name?—was about to find out it was no defence in his eyes either.
His son was growing up without a father—that wasn’t something that had happened by accident. Oh, yes, there were a lot of questions he wanted answered.
Scarlet Smith was going to do the answering.
For all he knew, everything about her was a lie. The curly knot scrunched casually on the top of her head, which made her look simultaneously vulnerable and sexy, was probably contrived to do just that.
‘What the hell kept you?’ he growled. ‘Open the door.’
‘I was on the phone.’ Scarlet’s beleaguered brain having finally accepted the fact that it was actually Roman standing out in the hallway and not some hallucination, she began to move on to other stuff, such as what was he doing here? ‘What are you…how…?’ She stopped, the blood draining from her face as a possible explanation presented itself to her.
‘The Bradleys sent you.’ Her worst fears were realised when he didn’t deny it.
The Bradleys were exactly the sort of people he would know.
Tom was something important in films and Nancy, who wore floaty clothes and cooked like an angel, wrote a foodie newspaper column in a national newspaper; in short the sort of female that left Scarlet feeling sadly inadequate. They lived in a fantastic house, employed an au pair and a gardener, and most likely had dinner guests like Roman.
Her imagination went into overdrive. Oh, my God, it was so bad they hadn’t been able to break the news over the phone.
‘What’s happened to Sam? You can tell me,’ she added, an icy calm settling over her as she prepared herself to hear the worst.
Roman’s dark eyes scanned her distressed features; the only trace of colour in her face was supplied by her jewel-bright eyes. He appeared about to say something and then changed his mind.
‘Just tell me,’ she begged. Imagining was so bad, could the reality be worse?
‘Let me in.’
‘Of course, of course,’ she cried, fumbling with the door chain, her hands trembling. ‘Have they taken him to the hospital?’ She pushed her fingers into her hair, dislodging one of her hair grips; a section of hair slithered free, falling across her cheek as she flung the door wide and stepped aside for him to enter.
Think, Scarlet, think… ‘Now let me think…’ she said out loud as she tried to organise her thoughts and keep panic at arm’s length. ‘Yes, get dressed.’ She flashed him a white-faced but encouraging smile. ‘It won’t take me a minute to get dressed,’ she promised, turning to suit her words to action.
Roman closed the front door. ‘I don’t know who the Bradleys are.’
Halfway to the bedroom door, Scarlet stopped. ‘What?’
‘I don’t know the Bradleys and, as far as I am aware, Sam is not in hospital.’
Her marble-pale brow creased. ‘But you said…’
‘No, actually, I didn’t, you said.’
She started shaking in reaction as a massive wave of relief hit her. Impetuously she wrapped her arms around him and hugged hard. ‘Thank God!’ she breathed fervently.
Roman looked at the heart-shaped face complete with misty eyes and trusting sunny smile tilted up to him and felt his focus slipping. He’d come here to uncover some truths, not fantasise about a sexy mouth and what he’d like to do with it.