‘I’m already acquainted with Mr Gardener,’ she cut in coolly, holding her hand out in a formal gesture of greeting. ‘How nice to see you again, Mr Gardener,’ she said with saccharine insincerity.
‘Isn’t it?’ he returned mockingly, holding her hand a little longer than necessary, Eve thought. She winced slightly as he increased the pressure of that hand momentarily before releasing it with slow reluctance. ‘Enjoying the sun?’ he drawled, his gaze roaming over her with slow appreciation.
Eve stood as if turned to stone, remembering for the first time that she was only wearing the turquoise bikini she had been sunbathing in.
Normally it wouldn’t have bothered her to greet people wearing so little, especially friends like Sophy and Patrick—and she still regarded the other woman as such, despite her recent interference. But Adam just made her feel conscious of her own near-nakedness—and his reaction to it.
His warmly caressing gaze made her feel hot all over. ‘I’ll just go and dress before lunch,’ she said hastily.
‘Please don’t bother on my account,’ Adam told her softly, his own clothing, although much more formal than her own, basically casual, the cream-coloured short-sleeved shirt revealing muscularly tanned arms covered in golden hair, beige-coloured trousers moulded to his narrow waist and thighs.
Eve gave him a warning look from beneath lowered lashes. In her seventies, her grandmother expected certain codes of behaviour from people, and simply wouldn’t understand the way Adam behaved with Eve. She didn’t understand it most of the time!
‘We’re only going to have a light meal served out here,’ her grandmother told her innocently. ‘No reason to change if you don’t want to.’
‘I want to,’ Eve affirmed through gritted teeth. How she wanted to!
‘I’ll come in with you and take the luggage up to our rooms,’ Patrick offered lightly.
‘No, I’ll do that,’ Adam put in in measured tones. ‘You stay and keep Sophy and Evelyn company; I’m sure the three of you must have a lot to talk about.’
Evelyn. Already Adam was on a first-name basis with her grandmother, and it had taken Paul, despite his father’s almost lifetime association with the older woman, months, after he had taken over from his father, to pluck up the courage to call her Evelyn!
‘If you’re sure?’ Patrick accepted amiably, already lowering his bulk down on to one of the loungers while Sophy poured them all a cool glass of lemonade, the matter of the luggage already decided as far as they were concerned.
Eve caught the look of coy satisfaction in Sophy’s gleaming green eyes and turned angrily away, marching determinedly towards the house.
‘Much as I like this tantalising view of your back——’ Adam broke off the gentle mockery as Eve turned furiously, his hands raised defensively as her hands could be seen to be clenched at her sides. ‘You didn’t know I was coming here today, obviously,’ he drawled drily.
‘Obviously,’ she bit out in controlled tones as she continued on into the house.
Adam caught up with her, keeping his strides measured to hers now that he had done so. ‘I didn’t plan this, you know,’ he began coaxingly.
‘No?’ She turned to glare at him with eyes as turquoise as her bikini. ‘You were no more Sophy and Patrick’s “weekend guest” than I am.’
‘That’s where you’re wrong.’ He shook his head confidently. ‘We were going to their cottage in the country …’
‘I have news for you.’ Eve gave him a pitying look. ‘If indeed it is news,’ she added suspiciously. ‘Sophy and Patrick don’t have a cottage in the country!’
‘They don’t?’ Dark blond brows rose in what could only be genuine surprise.
‘No!’
‘Oh.’ Adam was having trouble containing his humour now, running a hand over his mouth in an effort to control his show of mirth. But that couldn’t erase the laughter from his eyes. ‘What a pity Patrick met Sophy first; she’s a woman after my own heart.’ He sobered, his expression suddenly intense. ‘If it had still been mine to give, of course,’ he added softly.
Eve’s mouth firmed. ‘If you would like to bring the luggage up?’
She made no effort to help him carry the three suitcases up the wide staircase, knowing she was behaving childishly, but just so angry at the whole situation. Besides, a brief glance back showed her that he was managing the heavy cases with ease.
Going to Sophy and Patrick’s ‘cottage in the country’, indeed! It didn’t need two guesses—didn’t need one guess—to know whose fabrication that had been; she was already certain.
And, as she had already known, Mrs Hodges had prepared the two best guest bedrooms, the lemon and cream for Sophy and Patrick, the blue and white for Adam.
Unfortunately, as Eve was all too well aware, the blue and white bedroom happened to be the one next to hers. But she couldn’t possibly ask for that to be changed now, it would make herself too obvious to everyone. Not that she thought there was any possibility of Adam’s attempting to enter her bedroom without permission—permission he would never get. No, the real problem—and what a problem it was—was that there was actually a bathroom connecting the two rooms, with a door going into each bathroom off it!
It hadn’t always been this way. This was an old house, and the smaller room which was now a bathroom had once been another bedroom, for bathrooms had not been too plentiful when the house had originally been built. But that small room was a bathroom now, deliberately made that way so that the two bedrooms should appear to be a suite, a suite she and Adam Gardener were to share …
She couldn’t help wishing that particular bathroom had never been put in!