Fortune in the Stars by Kate Proctor

as
she was remembering she was consciously resisting the temptation to
reach out and smooth back the dark hair tumbling across his forehead.
    She turned away with a small exclamation of self-disgust,
then tried to calm herself with the reminder that she was half dead on
her feet and in desperate need of the boost of caffeine strong coffee
would supply.
    She reached across his prone form for the coffee-jug
beside him, her gaze skimming from the stubbled darkness of his chin
towards his eyes at the precise moment they suddenly opened, wide and
watchful.
    'I was just about to make some coffee,' she said, pleased,
though more than a little started, to hear how completely ordinary her
tone had sounded.
    'Good… I could do with one,' he muttered, his
words still slurred with sleep.
    'The rain seems to have eased a little,' she said, the
stark strain now in her tone reflected in the jerkiness of her
movements as she filled and switched on the kettle and then rinsed the
jug.
    'Yes…but the weather doesn't alter the fact
that you're trapped here, does it, Penny?' he observed
expressionlessly, tilting back in his chair to watch her every move
over his shoulder.
    Determined not to respond to his blatant goading, she
prepared the coffee in silence.
    'Does it, Penny?' he repeated as she brought fresh cups to
the table.
    As she turned to get the coffee his hand reached out, his
fingers encircling her wrist in a pressureless band.
    'If you're trying to frighten me, you're wasting your
time,' she told him quietly, making no attempt to free herself.
    'Am I?' he murmured, the softness of his words contrasting
sharply with the strength with which he suddenly pulled her down on to
his knee. 'I'm not very often wrong about people, Penny,' he continued,
the silkiness of menace now in his tone. 'But let's hope I am about
you, because if I'm not I'd be very frightened if I were in your shoes.'
    'I fail to see any logic in your threats,' Penny stated,
the unnatural calmness in her words masking the thudding of a heart
that was like a caged violence against her chest. 'You've stooped low
enough to threaten me sexually, yet the unfortunate fact of my physical
response to you—and which you've taken such gentlemanly
delight in pointing out to me—tends to make any such threat a
little empty, wouldn't you say?'
    'Bravo, Penny, bravo!' Dominic drawled softly, his
incipient beard sharp against her skin as he nuzzled the nape of her
neck before rising abruptly to his feet and depositing her back on
hers. 'But you're a little behind the times.'
    'Oh—in what way?' she snapped, busying herself
by pouring the coffee in an attempt to regain a measure of equilibrium
and to mask how thoroughly unsettled she was.
    'Thank you,' he muttered, accepting a cup, his eyes coldly
watchful as he towered over her. 'I'm expecting a call from a friend in
London. He's checking on something he heard, but there was something in
his tone that got my sixth sense working overtime…something
over and above the fact that he was uncharacteristically loath to
discuss what it was he had heard, and felt obliged to check before
passing it on to me.'
    Penny took her coffee to the table and sat down, curving
her hands around the cup for warmth. She had a pretty good idea what
the rumour was this friend had heard, and understood only too well his
reluctance to tell Dominic exactly with whom it was Lexy was involved.
    'In fact, he was every bit as loath to discuss the subject
with me, Penelope dear, as you are… Odd, isn't it?' he
murmured with venomous sweetness.
    'Well, I dare say your friend will ring back with whatever
it is you want,' she said with forced brightness, inwardly dreading the
moment. 'Then all your worries will be over.'
    'What a comfort you are to have around,' he muttered
sarcastically, flinging his tall frame down on the chair beside hers.
    Penny's eyes flickered towards his darkly shadowed face
and immediately away as the skin at the back of her neck began