“Bloody hell,” said Erin, feeling the need to unburden.
The pilot simply powered down his vehicle, unbuckled his seatbelt and motioned for Erin to do the same.
He was gruff enough, in his leather one-piece and pilot’s helmet, but he had a reassuring air of competence and eyes much bluer than the greyish Portsmouth waves. Erin, without knowing why, felt safe with him.
He beckoned her to a hatch in the roof of the tower and she followed him down into a strange curved world.
The chamber below the helipad was vast and circular with heavily reinforced windows that kept out the tang of salt and seaweed so much in evidence above.
When the pilot left her there, she presumed he had gone to fetch the mysterious ‘Sir’, and she wandered over to the nearest of the arched windows to investigate. Far below, waves crashed against the grey walls and gulls flew by, on the lookout for their next meal. But it was the interior of the room Erin was most interested in. Was it every inch the millionaire playboy pad?
It was certainly luxurious and there wasn’t much evidence of a feminine touch. But, despite the obvious quality of the furnishings, the room didn’t look styled. It would never impress a connoisseur of interior décor. It was eclectic, Erin supposed. That was what they called things that didn’t match or look right together. Eclectic. A roll-topped antique walnut writing desk and a black leather couch. A jumble of Egyptian-looking artefacts on a smoked glass coffee table. It was weird. Erin liked the concert-sized piano in the centre of the room, though, and she walked over to it and lifted the lid, first looking up to make sure she wasn’t observed.
I’m not nervous, she said to herself. I’m excited.
The bookshelves were what she needed to see. The bookshelves would give away what kind of man this was.
She was only halfway over to them, though, when a voice halted her.
“You won’t find much to help you with women’s studies there.”
She leapt around, obscurely guilty, and stared at the windswept, handsome man who stood in the doorway, half
smiling at her.
The blue eyes were unmistakable.
“Oh, it was you all along,” she said, favourably impressed after all the nights she had spent trying to imagine her purchaser. Old, she had decided, and jaded, looking for some new plaything to enliven his shortening span. Or so hideous that companionship could only be bought. She had steeled herself for the worst and now she wanted to laugh hysterically at how different the reality had proved.
“Please excuse me for not introducing myself. I needed to see you outside the context of an established relationship, however briefly.”
He sounded almost ludicrously polite and well educated.
Erin had wondered if he’d swagger in and order her to ‘kiss his feet, bitch’, or words to that effect. Nope. Not yet.
She nodded, appreciating his words.
“Puts you at an immediate advantage as well,” she pointed out.
“I think that’s part of the deal, isn’t it?” His smile glittered, suddenly altering the room’s character from comfortable to dangerous.
“I suppose.” Erin’s skin chilled at this reminder of her situation. He had paid. Paid for her. She was the goods.
“Anyway.” He stepped farther into the room, watching her intently with each pace forward. “We were talking about books. Women’s studies is your subject, isn’t it? Or is it psychology?”
Erin shook her head, glad to be moving on to a topic she could happily discuss until the cows came home. Or the gulls.
“History,” she said. “Social and cultural history, specifically—”
He held up his hand, silencing her.
“I don’t need chapter and verse just yet,” he said. “I was making conversation. I’m not good at it, I’ll admit, so it probably didn’t come over the way I intended. I’m not what you’d call a social animal.”
“I could have worked that one out from this place.” Erin chuckled self-consciously and waved her hand towards a window. “I’ve heard of social phobia, but living in the middle of the sea…”
“That’ll do.” His tone was sharp enough to pull her up short.
She thought she might have offended him and she felt her cheeks heat.