One Night with Morelli(21)

                Dry-eyed now, she tilted her chin. ‘Odd, she looked like a bright girl.’

                She had anticipated an angry response so the appreciative humour that deepened the lines radiating from his spectacular eyes threw her off balance.

                ‘That’s better,’ he approved. ‘So what’s the story?’

                ‘What story?’ She walked past him to the basin and turned on the water. ‘Shouldn’t you be going? Someone might come in and, as you see, I’m fine now.’

                ‘Don’t worry—Josie will give us some privacy.’

                Privacy with this man was the last thing that Eve wanted! The thought sent a fresh flurry of prickles down her spine. ‘So what do you expect her to do if someone wants to come in?’

                He gave an indifferent shrug. ‘She’s a very resourceful girl.’

                Eve stared at him in the mirror and shook her head. She could hear the pride in his voice; indifference was obviously the last thing he felt when it came to his daughter.

                ‘And you’re a really weird sort of father, not that I know anything about fathers.’ Wishing the admission unsaid, she bent her head and splashed water on her blotchy face.

                When she lifted her head again he was standing right there beside her, close enough for her to be conscious of the warmth of his hard, lean body, with one of the neatly folded individual hand towels that were stacked beside the linen basket in his hand.

                She stared at it as though she’d never seen a towel before while the water from her hands dripped on the floor. She wasn’t conscious of lifting her gaze, but as her eyes drifted slowly over the hard angles of his face she was suddenly aware of the increased volume of a low static hum in her ears.

                This close she could appreciate just how evenly textured his golden-toned skin was, shadowed now by a light dusting of dark stubble that almost hid the scar next to his mouth.

                She felt a sudden and almost uncontrollable urge to lift her hand and touch the place where she knew it was and trace the line…

                ‘So, you don’t have a dad, then?’

                Like a sleepwalker coming to, she started, her raised hand moving jerkily and snatching the towel from him without a word. Under cover of a glare, she fought a debilitating wave of trembling weakness.

                ‘What, is this research for your next book?’ she snapped.

                ‘Well, they do say everyone has one in them, but actually you just interest me.’

                His comment whipped away her protective camouflage. Feeling horribly exposed and yet, more worryingly, excited, she dabbed her face with the towel. ‘I’m not at all interesting, Mr Morelli.’

                His sable brows lifted. ‘You know my name.’

                ‘It came up in the conversation.’

                ‘Ah, yes, the conversation,’ he mused slowly. ‘So those charming friends of yours, what did they say that upset you so much?’

                ‘Not friends,’ she flashed, then, seeing his expression, she lowered her eyes and added more moderately, ‘We went to school together, the little village school, and then—’

                ‘Here, you missed a bit…’ He took a corner of the towel she still held and, leaning in to her, dabbed a spot beside her mouth. Then he dabbed it again…and again…