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had no idea how to do either. He looked as if he could pin
her down with one hand – unlike her ex-boss, Alfie. And she didn’t know the
number for the French emergency services, even if she could make it past him to
her handbag and her new mobile phone.
    ‘Verity?
Lucy? Are you here?’
    That
definitely was Etienne and his voice was coming from the hall.
    ‘Etienne,
help me!’ she screamed at the top of her lungs. ‘There’s a strange man in my
room!’
    The
stranger gave her a bewildered look. ‘I’m not a strange man!’ he insisted
before Etienne burst into the room, almost careering into him.
    ‘Josh!’
Etienne said, slapping the man on the back and grinning with relief. ‘What are
you doing here? I thought you were still in Boston.’
    Now
it was Verity’s bottom lip that dropped. Josh. This man was Josh. Josh Calder
... her new boss! Dear God, it couldn’t be.
    ‘I
was. I mean ... I’ve just got back. This morning. I took the red-eye.’ He
turned back to Verity with an odd look on his face. ‘Do you think you could put
some clothes on? It’s pretty distracting having a semi-naked woman standing so
close to me.’
    Verity
could feel her temper rising, partly because Josh’s eyes kept lingering on her
thighs and partly because she wanted to die of sheer embarrassment.
    ‘Well!
Excuse me!’ she snapped. ‘But this is my bedroom and I thought you were
Etienne.’ She saw the look of surprise on both men’s faces and realised how
that sentence may be misconstrued – possibly in different ways by each of them.
‘No. That wasn’t what I meant. I meant ... I thought you were someone I knew.
... As opposed to a total stranger, that is. No, that’s not exactly–’
    ‘Take
this,’ Josh interrupted, removing his all-weather jacket and holding it up in
front of her like a screen.
    She
glanced at it as a hint of aftershave wafted towards her.
    ‘I
have a better idea,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you both get out of my room?’
    Something
flashed in Josh’s eyes as they met hers and she looked at him properly for the
first time now that the sun wasn’t blinding her. He was rather good looking.
Extremely good looking in fact.
    He
was taller and marginally leaner than Etienne but clearly a man who kept
himself in shape. His dark brown hair was just a fraction too long to be
considered ‘tidy’ and his face had the look of a man who loved the outdoors,
with a clean-shaven jaw and those slightly chiselled features that always made
Verity look twice. Dark brows sat perfectly above piercing, blue-grey eyes
framed by lashes she would die for and edged by the finest of laughter lines.
As she studied his face, she saw his generous mouth twitch at one corner and
she felt the colour rush to her cheeks. Was that a twinkle of devilment in
those blue-grey eyes? Or possibly a challenge?
    ‘Technically,
it’s my room,’ he said, ‘as I own the chalet ... and everything in it.’
    She
tipped her chin up and held his gaze with some difficulty; her heart was
pounding. ‘But you don’t own me,’ she said, attempting a sultry edge to her
voice although she had no idea why. ‘And a gentleman would leave.’
    Josh
hesitated for just one moment, as if he had something more to say but he bowed
his head in an old-fashioned gesture and left the room, pushing Etienne out in
front of him. When he’d gone, Verity collapsed on the bed.
    ‘Bloody
hell! It’s been a long time since I’ve had a man as gorgeous as that in
my bedroom,’ she said in a raised voice, suddenly gasping as she realised they
might have heard. Two gorgeous men, she thought, counting Etienne. But he
didn’t hold a candle to Josh in her opinion.
    In
truth, she reminded herself, the only gorgeous man she’d ever had in her
bedroom – or anywhere else for that matter – had been Tony. She wondered, not
for the first time, whether she’d been missing out and then she wondered if
she’d ever have sex again now that Tony was gone. No! She must not