Page 9 of Undoing His Innocent Enemy (Hot Winter Escapes)

He stiffened, hating the look in her gaze—confused, surprised but also somehow full of empathy.

‘Where are you going?’ she asked.

‘Work,’ he said.

‘But... I wanted to ask you...’ She swallowed, looking unsure of herself, again. ‘Could you give me a lift back to my snowmobile today? So I can get out of your hair.’

‘No.’ He couldn’t be around her, let her touch him again, until he was fully prepared for that contact, and his confusing response to it.

‘Why not?’ Her guileless expression only infuriated him more.

The truth—that her touch had had a profound effect on him—would make him look weak and foolish. So, he seized on all the other reasons why he could not take her anywhere today.

‘The storm will become impassable,’ he said, which was only the truth.

She did not know he had found her camera. If she lied about it, he would know the truth. So he added, ‘And before you leave, you must tell me why you are really here.’

Her mouth went slack, those deep emerald eyes widening even further. ‘But... You know why. My skimobile broke down in the snowstorm and you rescued me.’

‘That is not the truth,’ he said, or certainly not the whole truth. And until she told him that, he knew he could not trust her.

She simply blinked, as if struggling to process his statement. Another act.

He walked past her, the silence behind him layered with shock.

Despite his anger, and the disturbing unease—that visceral awareness that had made his skin prickle and the warm weight in his gut start to pulse—he felt a little of his power returning as he left the room.

At least he had finally found a way to shut her up.

CHAPTER THREE

CARASTAREDAFTERLogan Colton’s retreating back—and his ridiculously broad shoulders—as her jaw dropped so fast she was surprised it didn’t bounce off the quartz floor tiles.

She was completely and utterly speechless as he disappeared through the large doorway that led who knew where in this enormous house.

What just happened?

She ran the conversation they’d had back through her head.

Not that you could really call it a conversation—given that the man had uttered all of about ten words on his end of it.

She’d thanked him and asked him politely to return her to her snowmobile. And okay, maybe her reaction hadn’t been the best when she’d figured out who he really was—the billionaire recluse she had been convinced was a figment of everyone’s imagination. But hey, she’d only just recovered from a near-death experience. And surely she could be forgiven for a little overfamiliarity—after all, he’d seen her all but naked the night before. And saved her from said near-death experience.

He’d looked at her with such intensity, she’d felt his gaze roam over her skin like a caress, her unbidden reaction as shocking as it was...well, shocking. For a moment she’d thought there was something there, something she probably shouldn’t entertain—given her circumstances as a woman alone, in a stranger’s home. But that searing gaze, dark with awareness, hadn’t disgusted or unnerved her. It had made every one of her reliably dormant pheromones rejoice as if they were spending St Pat’s Day getting plastered in Dublin’s Temple Bar—instead of stranded in a stranger’s ice palace in the middle of nowhere.

But then she’d felt him flinch at her touch, and seen the flash of fury in his eyes.

And her pheromones had stopped partying—because that look had transported her back to her family’s kitchen, on the receiving end of one of her father’s drunken tirades. And left her feeling miserable, and suffocated, and unfairly judged.

She was so shocked by his accusations, though, she was completely speechless for one whole minute.

But then the sense of injustice, of righteous indignation—which had got her through so much of her childhood, and finally dynamited her out of Ireland and away from the cruel memories of her father’s abuse—kicked into gear.

Adrenaline charged through her veins, flushing away the last of the breathlessness that had dogged her ever since she’d woken up.

Maybe she owed Mr Grumpy her life and maybe she had invaded his privacy—something it was clear he was not happy about—and yeah, maybe she talked way too much. But what gave him the right to question her integrity? To suggest she had engineered a near-death experience... To dowhatexactly?

She shot through the doorway after him, finally finding her voice.

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