Page 11 of Undoing His Innocent Enemy (Hot Winter Escapes)

‘You... What?’ Her voice trailed off, anger and frustration replaced with confusion.

‘I found the camera.’ He spat the last word, as if it were an obscenity.

Okay, there was clearly some misunderstanding here. Because he was looking at her as if her camera were an unexploded nuclear warhead.

If only she’d listened more carefully to her fellow barista Issi’s stories about this guy, then she might have some clue what his problem was. But whatever his problem was, she needed to get to the bottom of it, before she exploded from frustration...and that damn throbbing in her gut got any more forceful—which had no business being there at all.

‘You found my equipment in the snowmobile?’ So that was where he had just been.

He gave a curt nod.

‘Did you bring it back with you?’ she asked, the flicker of hope in her chest almost painful. Maybe her work hadn’t been lost.

‘No,’ he said.

The hope guttered out. And she had the stupid urge to cry. Six months’ work. Lost. Not to mention the thousands of pounds’ worth of priceless equipment that was now probably close to being frozen solid. That camera had been her future. A future she hadn’t been able to afford to insure.

I hate my life.

She swallowed heavily, to contain the pain. The last thing she needed right now was to show him a weakness, because she had a feeling it would only increase his contempt. From his rigid unyielding stance, it was clear he didn’t have a compassionate or empathetic bone in his body.

Her gaze glided over his impressive physique, the ridges of his six-pack moulded under the skintight thermal shirt.

His veryhotbody. The man was a ride and no mistake.

She blinked.

Whoa, girl.Why are you getting fixated on his abs when it’s his suspicious mind you need to concentrate on?

‘Why not?’ she managed, her voice breaking on the words. How hard would it have been for him to bring back her camera?

He didn’t answer her perfectly reasonable question. He simply continued to glare at her—but she spotted the flicker of surprise cross his features before he could mask it.

It was only a small crack, but she’d take it.

‘Why did you go out to find my snowmobile?’ she asked. ‘If you didn’t intend to rescue my stuff?’

‘To check if the machine was really broken.’

It was her turn to look surprised. Make that astonished. Exactly how cynical was he?

‘You thought I faked being stranded?’ she asked, even though she could see from the ice in his gaze he had thought exactly that.

He shrugged. ‘Yes.’

‘Why...? Why would I do that?’ She knew she shouldn’t be angry with him—she’d nearly died. But she was still too astonished by that brittle suspicion to be anything but dumbfounded. How could anyone be this cynical? This guarded?

‘For the same reason you have the camera.’

That pale blue gaze glided over her figure. But despite the icy suspicion, all it did was make the throb in her abdomen heat.

Terrific.

‘You’ve lost me again,’ she said.

He crossed his ankles, drawing her attention to the muscles flexing in his thighs beneath the clinging brushed cotton of his sweatpants. She noticed for the first time, he wore thick woollen socks, which somehow softened the hard, unyielding stance.

But not much. Her gaze rose back to the rigid jawline, tensing under the thick stubble.

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