usually his routine when he couldn’t sleep.
Nick moved quietly, without bothering to switch the lights on, and stuck on some drawstring cotton trousers, which were the closest thing to pyjama bottoms he possessed.
Making very little noise, he opened the sliding door that led onto his private veranda, from which the landscaped gardens stretched before him as a series of darkened shapes.
Borneo was proving to be a marvel of surprises. Few places, he thought, could provide such a winning combination of white sandy beaches, blue, calm sea and the spectacle that was the wonder of the rainforest.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something move. It was just a flicker behind the trellis separating his veranda from his neighbour’s. In this instance, Rose. Normally, the leafy fronds clambering over the wooden trellis acted as a very successful screen, but in the inky blackness of the night whatever she was wearing must have been of a light colour.
Nick felt a rush of adrenaline surge through him. Without pausing to think, just acting with the unerring instincts of the predator, he circled the patch of lawn and appeared in front of her, bare backed because the night was balmy but, other than that, decently clad, if lacking shoes.
‘Well, well, well,’ he drawled, ‘come here often?’ He sprinted up the two wooden steps, not giving her time to beat a hasty retreat.
Whatever she was wearing, it was obvious she had not dressed for an accidental meeting with her boss. Her nightie was ultra thin and barely skirted her thighs. The light trickling from the room behind her was her cruellest enemy because it showed the full, rounded outline of her bare breasts. With a little leap of the imagination, Nick could almost see the shape of her nipples.
Rose looked at him in horror. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing here?’ she demanded, too shocked by his sudden appearance to even think of what she was wearing.
‘Same as you. Couldn’t sleep.’ Ever one to take full advantage of the opportunities presented to him, Nick sat on the chair next to her and grinned. ‘I know why I couldn’t sleep, but what about you?’
Rose was literally lost for words. Never in a million years had she expected this. She could have wept with frustration because she had done so well over the past few days. She had behaved with impeccable and detached politeness and pointedly ignored him whenever she could get away with it, and when she couldn’t she had fallen back on talking about work. Yes, it was an ordeal, but at least the nights were hers. And now…How dared he invade her down time? Behaving for all the world as though he had every right?
‘I think you should go,’ Rose said coldly, rising to her feet. She snatched up the glass of water she had brought outside with her and spun round on her heel.
‘Not so fast.’
Before she knew it, he was standing in front of her, his hand biting into her arm.
‘What are you doing? Let me go.’
‘Tell me why you’re running away from me.’
‘I am not running away from you.’ If only she could sound a bit more convincing, but her voice was a high whisper and, Lord, her legs were like jelly.
‘You mean you’ve suddenly and coincidentally realised that you’re very tired and need to go to bed immediately?’
‘I mean…’ She took a deep breath to steady herself. This situation felt so intimate. Just the two of them, eyes locked, while the rest of the world slept. His semi nudity was an affront to all her senses, filling her up until it seemed to be the only thing she could see even though she was making every effort not to. ‘I mean that this is my private time and I don’t want you in it. I may work for you, Nick, but when I’m in my own quarters I don’t really expect you to barge in as though you own the place.’
‘Hardly barging in. I saw you through the trellis and, as neither of us could sleep, I figured I might as well pop over, make sure you were okay.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘You don’t look fine. You’re shaking. Are you cold? You’re wearing next to nothing.’
‘I’m wearing more than you.’
Nick gave her a rueful smile. ‘Apologies, but like you I didn’t expect company at one thirty in the morning. It was either this or nothing.’
Rose gulped.
‘I don’t possess pyjamas.’
‘Everyone possesses pyjamas.’
‘I challenge you to rifle through my belongings.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Let’s go inside. We wouldn’t want the neighbours talking, would we?’ There was no chance of that. The hotel was cleverly designed to ensure that guests had almost total privacy, with only the double cabanas sharing the same veranda split by leafy trellises. Nick took advantage of her momentary lapse in concentration to walk into her rooms, which were identical to his with only variations in some of the decor to differentiate the two.
She was as neat as he had expected her to be. The little sitting area was tidy, unlike his, which always bore the signs of work in progress. She had only switched on the side light by the sofa and he preferred to leave it that way.
Looking at her, he could tell that she was on the verge of imploding and it had obviously hit home that she was in a very transparent item of clothing because her arms were once more protectively around her as she hovered by the door. Wondering, no doubt, what tactic she could employ to chuck him out.
Well, he had waited for days in a state of frustration. He wasn’t going to blow this chance. He wanted her and he knew that all he needed to do was smash through her veneer of polite aloofness and she would be his because she wanted him too. The air between them had sizzled ever since they had arrived on the island. He intended to douse it.
‘It’s mad to be up at this hour.’ Rose laughed nervously, keeping her distance. ‘We’ll be fit for nothing in the morning and we’ve another busy day ahead.’
Nick strolled lazily towards her until he was standing right in front of her. In the muted light, breathtakingly sexy and very, very dangerous. Every alarm bell in her head was clamouring, but there was still a part of her that scoffed at the notion that there might be anything to be afraid of. After all, what was he going to do? A man like that? Kiss her? Men like that, she knew, made passes at girls like her sister. They didn’t look at her twice and if her heart was beating like a hammer, it was simply because she was scared of her own reaction to him, scared of him getting physically any closer just in case her legs gave way and she did something undignified like swoon.
‘Sometimes mad can be fun,’ Nick mused. ‘Have you never done anything mad in your life, Rose?’
‘No.’ Rose laughed, this time a little hysterically. ‘No—’ she cleared her throat and tried to get a grip ‘—mad really isn’t me.’
‘How do you know if you’ve never tried?’
She had managed to somehow find herself with her back to the wall, which turned out to be not a very good idea as he now laid his hands on either side of her so that she seemed to be surrounded by him, locked in and deprived, if not literally of oxygen, then certainly of the ability to think coherently.
‘Here we are, Rose…on one of the most stunningly beautiful islands in the world. Outside, the night is like black velvet and in here…well, just the two of us…Shall I tell you what my mad thought is?’
No! Her head screamed. ‘What?’
‘This…’ Nick leant into her. She felt his hand cradle the back of her neck and she almost couldn’t believe what was happening even as her skin burned where he touched her.
‘No…’ she protested in a pathetically weak little voice and Nick half smiled, already hearing her submission and knowing, in that instant, that his suspicions