With the weight of the past pressing down on her, she forced her mind back to the present, her voice sharper than she'd intended. 'It does make me feel better, so I'll leave you to do the caveman job and light the fire.' Before he could say anything she strode purposefully from the room. Time away from the aura of power he exuded was necessary if her heart rate was to return to anything like normal.
As she left the room she heard the low rumble of his laugh and marvelled that she could find it so sexy, so appealing when he was clearly mocking her, entertaining himself at her expense.
Xavier's charm was lethal if nothing else. Anywhere else she could walk away, but stuck here in this rambling old house, cocooned from the real world, it was different-very different and very dangerous.
'Don't fall for his charm,' she berated herself angrily, as she continued to pack away her catering equipment, certain that first thing tomorrow she would be on the way to see Vanessa before returning to London and reality. This surreal interlude would be over, forgotten and dismissed.
CHAPTER SIX
ALL AFTERNOON TILLY had tried to ignore the falling snow, knowing that with each flake the likelihood she and Xavier would be alone here for several days increased. The chance of leaving the manor had slipped away as fast as the daylight and now she was faced with another night in Xavier's company.
The ringing of her phone gave her yet another excuse to linger in the kitchen. 'Tilly? Are you all right?' Vanessa's voice reconnected her to the outside world.
'I'm fine.' She injected laughter into her voice in an attempt to put Vanessa's mind at rest. 'Trapped in a beautiful manor house with an incredibly sexy Italian man, of course I'm all right.'
'We've postponed the party until next week. I really want you there, Tilly.'
'I will be,' Tilly reassured her. 'I promise.'
'I have to go now, but you just remember that one big item on your bucket list. This could be your chance, Tilly. Don't waste it.'
'Vanessa, behave yourself and get back to your fiancé.' Tilly ended the call, still smiling at her friend's very unsubtle advice, but Vanessa had only echoed what had already crossed her mind several times.
Thankfully Xavier was still ensconced in the small lounge with his paperwork. She prepared supper and was pleasantly surprised to find he'd opened a bottle of red wine when she took the food into him. They ate in companionable silence and Vanessa's advice rattled around in her head as loudly as the wind around the old manor house. Tilly sipped her wine, reluctantly feeling calmer as she sat on the sofa before the fire, lulled by its heat and the comforting glow of the flames.
'This is much nicer than the grandeur of the lounge,' she said, looking around her, taking in the desk by the windows that Xavier had been working at all afternoon, his briefcase open, papers spilling out.
'Sì, it is cosy but, more importantly, much warmer.' He looked at her, his dark eyes holding a message she couldn't resist.
She blushed at his words, concentrating on the orange flames as they curled around the logs. She tried to change the subject, keep away from stirring the tension that sizzled around them constantly. 'The wind is getting worse.'
The lights dimmed, flickered then came back. She looked at Xavier, who didn't appear at all perturbed, and forced herself to relax back into the moment she'd just been pulled from.
The lights flickered again and the howl of the wind sounded like a forlorn and lonely animal from the moors. Stop being so dramatic, she told herself sharply, but her anxiety level rose as Xavier got up and lit one of the large white pillar candles that adorned the mantelpiece.
'The power could go out.' He focused his attention on lighting more of the candles.
Was the weather due to be that bad? A trickle of fear ran down her spine and staying in Xavier's company suddenly became a whole lot more appealing. He wouldn't abandon her if the lights went out, would he?
'Surely that won't happen,' she said quickly and a little too sharply, forcing those memories back. Now was not the time to remember the misery of her childhood after her father had died or how Jason had walked out on her so casually.
'In case you hadn't noticed, Natalie, we are in rural Devon, on the edge of Exmoor. I would strongly suspect power cuts are more than normal in this kind of weather.'
His matter-of-fact deduction irritated her and again she studied the leaping flames of the fire, anything other than look from his broad shoulders all the way down to his long legs. Every bit of him was attractive and that spark fizzed in her once more as she remembered being in his arms last night. She could still feel the heat of his touch as he'd caressed her slumbering body awake. Vanessa's advice rushed back. This could be your chance, Tilly. Could she abandon her fears for just one night?
What was she thinking?
'In that case, thank you for lighting the candles.' What was the matter with her? The tartness of her voice positively prickled with challenge-something you didn't do with a man such as Xavier Moretti.
The lights flickered then went off and the glow of the fire and the candlelight surrounded him as he turned to her. It was then she was aware she'd given a startled gasp. She looked up into his face as he laughed softly.
'You were saying, cara?' He sounded so different when he laughed, as if it was something he wasn't familiar with.
'Okay,' she conceded, and raised her glass to him, desperate to hide the emotions that were being unlocked. 'You win.'
He picked up the bottle of wine and poured more into her glass, then his, before sitting on the sofa. He touched his glass against hers, the sound strangely loud. 'To my win.'
No sooner had he said the words than the lights flickered back on. 'Maybe not.' The lightness of her voice almost betrayed her relief and he looked at her questioningly. The gurgle of laughter that threatened to rise from her left her in no doubt she shouldn't drink much more wine, but right now, despite preserving her ideals of professionalism, she was happy to be in Xavier's company.
'What would you have been doing this evening, at the party?' The question, asked in such a deep and accented voice, caught her attention and she looked at him, unaware of just how close he was now sitting to her, until she looked into his eyes.
She tried to break eye contact, tried to prevent him from looking deep into her soul, but she couldn't. She was compelled by something she'd never known before. 'I felt so guilty about not being there, but it has been postponed until next week. I promised that, whatever happened, I will be there. I don't want Vanessa to think I'm hiding behind excuses.'
'Why would she think you are hiding, Natalie?' His sexy voice rose questioningly, his dark gaze holding hers.
'Hiding?' She hated the way her voice rose, but didn't miss the slight narrowing of his eyes. 'I'm not hiding. I wanted this New Year to be different from any other. I guess I was trying to prove to my family and friends that I'd put the past behind me and moved on.'
'But you haven't, have you, cara? Not completely.'
What was going on here? It was as if all her past hurt was being dragged out for inspection, forced out by this man and the situation they were in. 'It's hard to forget the humiliation of being stood up just hours before your wedding.'
'But you are still in love with this man?'
She wasn't in love with Jason, not the way she should have been, she realised with a jolt. She'd been in love with the idea of companionship and their longstanding friendship. She'd thought she'd found her happy-ever-after with a trusted and safe friend. It was only now she realised that all along she'd been afraid to love; she hadn't wanted to be like her mother, constantly searching for something so elusive it almost destroyed her.
The day her father had died, her relationship with her mother had changed, leaving her emotionally alone. A gap soon filled by Jason's friendship. He had been patient, never pressuring her to make it physically more, so the fact he'd found that somewhere else only added to her pain.
She shook her head in denial. 'He is about to get married. After telling me he wanted freedom to live life to the full.'
Indignation at the revelations he'd made to her about wanting more than just friendship came flooding back. She knew then she'd lost a friend as well as a fiancé. Sadness had been in his eyes as he'd told her he wanted more than friendship and he'd fallen into an affair.
'He'd said we should go out and find life, live it to the full, make the most of every opportunity.'
'Did you?' He watched her intently but she looked into the leaping orange flames of the fire.