Page 194 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 1-4

A very tall, powerfully built man, with a white stripe running through his black hair.

Dominic wasn’t sure how long he’d stood there watching the woman. He’d been in the forest, showing a developer currently interested in the property around, and had been intending to show him the waterfall and the pool, but as they’d approached, he’d caught a glimpse of bare skin and long golden hair and had quickly decided the developer should return to the manor without him.

Obviously, he hadn’t gone too, since if there was a naked woman bathing in his pool, he wanted to know exactly who she was and why she was there.

Not that he needed to ask her, since the knowledge had been sitting in his subconscious for months now, and had since become part of him.

There was only one woman it could possibly be and that was the beautiful wood nymph he’d caught in the forest on his last bacchanal. And of course it was her. He hadn’t seen her face, hadn’t spoken to her, knew her only by her scent, the soft sound of her cries, and the silken heat of her skin, but it was her all the same.

He knew it like he knew his own name.

He’d watched her turn her face to the waterfall as it cascaded over a delicately curved body, with honey-gold skin, and then he’d watched her dive gracefully into the pool before rising onto the surface and rolling onto her back.

Wildflowers were tangled in hair the colour of ripe wheat and caramel, long tresses like golden kelp fanning around her head as she floated in the water. Her body was framed beautifully, high, rounded breasts with pretty pink nipples, the curve of hip and thigh proportioned with perfection. A slender woman, yet he remembered the way she’d felt, delicate but with a subtle strength in the arms that had wrapped around him and in the thighs that had closed around his hips.

He felt like a voyeur watching her now, but he didn’t move. His scruples had always been few and scant enough that he couldn’t bear to drag himself away. She was a beautiful wood nymph crowned in wildflowers, and she was bathing in his pool.

Abruptly, as if sensing she was being watched, she rolled onto her front, the water splashing as her head turned in his direction and her gaze met his. She had warm brown eyes, flecked with the same gold as her hair. They made his heart feel as if it had missed a beat.

Her mouth opened and her eyes went wide with surprise, and she submerged herself to her shoulders in the water, obviously trying to hide herself.

He should have looked away. He really should, but he’d never been a gentleman, not once, and why shouldn’t he look anyway? The darkness had hidden her that night in the forest, but now the sun was shining and she was naked, and he couldn’t tear his gaze away.

‘Hello, nymph,’ he said. ‘What are you doing in my pool?’

Her features were as delicate as the rest of her, small and precise, with a full mouth and high cheekbones, and slightly winged dark gold brows. An ethereal beauty, almost otherworldly, and subtle enough that he might not have noticed it in another context. But right here, right now, it was all he could see. Those gold-flecked eyes of hers held a strength and a fire that caught his interest and held it.

‘I’m swimming,’ she said. ‘What does it look like?’

Her voice held a husk to it that went straight to his groin, but her tone was decidedly un-nymphlike. Which also went to his groin. He’d always liked a woman with spirit.

‘You appear to have forgotten your bathing suit,’ he pointed out. ‘Did you perhaps think you could hire one? Alas, neither this pool nor the manor are open to the public.’

‘I’m not the public.’ She eyed him with deep suspicion. ‘I work here.’

That gave him pause. She worked here? It was possible, he supposed. He had many houses dotted all over the globe, most of them fully staffed, and he didn’t know the names of all those staff. But he did know the names of the Darkfell staff. They’d been there since he was a child. John and Polly Harris. Those were the only two. Except...

John had been getting on in years and had told Dominic that he should hire a gardener and someone to do forest upkeep, so Dominic had instructed John to employ whomever he thought best. Dominic trusted his judgement. But this...sprite couldnotbe the person John had hired, surely?

She couldn’t be the woman in the woods that night either, right?

Dominic wasn’t often surprised, but he could feel shock working its way through his body now.

He’d found that nightgown the next morning, but he hadn’t bothered finding the owner. In fact, he’d put it out of his mind. Yet every now and then he’d find himself looking over the guest list of that last bacchanal, studying the names of the female guests and wondering.

It hadn’t been any of them, he was sure, which meant he should keep looking. Because if that woman hadn’t been a guest then perhaps he’d involved someone else, someone unsuspecting who hadn’t known what was happening. Then again, she hadn’t protested, hadn’t pushed him away. When he’d caught her, she’d kissed him just as savagely as he’d kissed her. There had been nothing reluctant about her, nothing at all.

She was staring at him now, her gaze wary, her shoulders still underwater.

‘Please tell me,’ he said, ‘that it wasn’t you that night.’

She flushed. ‘What night?’

‘You know what I’m talking about.’

‘I don’t.’ She glanced away, her chin jutting at a mutinous angle. ‘It’s cold. I need to get out. Which means you need to bugger off.’

He decided to ignore that. ‘You’re John’s hire, aren’t you? From that agency. You’re the gardener.’

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