The Soldier in Room 286

Step behind the hotel room doors of The Chatsfield, London…

Salim Segal has turned his back on his legionnaire soldier life and made a new one for himself as an international actor. He’s seen much in his life, but nothing that captures him like the beauty of Natalja Jordan. Now he has one night at The Chatsfield to convince her that, despite the pains of the past, they might just have a future worth fighting for.

The Soldier in Room 286

Abby Green

MILLS & BOON

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Contents

Cover

Blurb

Title Page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

About the Author

Discover The Chatsfield

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

‘I thought you must be one of the models when I first saw you.’

Natalja Jordan rolled her eyes inwardly at the shameless flattery and surmised that perhaps the hulking great camera around her neck hadn’t been as much of a giveaway as she might have expected.

She knew she wasn’t completely unattractive with her slimly curvaceous figure and long dark blonde hair, which was currently scraped up into a high bun for practicality. But she came nowhere near the gazelle-like golden goddess who was her model for the day and who was blithely stripping down to skimpy underwear to change behind a clothes rail on the other side of the room.

A fact that Mr Matthias Cavello, manager of the exclusive Chatsfield hotel, seemed to have just picked up on, his dark eyes bugging out on stalks now.

Dryly Nat remarked, ‘Thanks for the vote of confidence but as I’m only five foot six I hardly qualify for the modeling world.’

The manager dragged his gaze away from the gorgeous Russian model and blinked at Nat. She could have laughed and curbed a wry smile. She’d witnessed the effect supermodels had on poor hapless men for at least three years now and it never failed to amuse her.

Mr Cavello, an attractive Italian, cleared his throat. ‘Like I said, if there’s anything you need at all, we’ll look after you. It’s an honour to have F magazine shooting here at the hotel.’

Nat smiled but there was something about him that she didn’t quite trust. An element of pseudo politeness that made her uneasy. To her relief he seemed to take the hint and left, but not before his dark eyes devoured the model who was now being zipped into a haute couture creation.

They’d already done some shots and this was the first of many changes. Knowing that hair and make-up would be touching up Lenka’s look for a few minutes, Nat took advantage and slipped outside through the open french doors of the huge hotel ballroom to suck in a deep breath of fresh London spring air.

The view over the surrounding gardens was spectacular, the low rumble of traffic muted in this rare quiet city space. This was Nat’s favourite time of the year to be in London, when everything was blooming. Fresh. Starting over.

Just as she had herself in the past few years. She sighed and leant against the stone balustrade on the grand terrace. It was during peaceful civilised moments like this that the past rushed back to meet her, reminding her forcibly of the chaos and destruction she’d left behind. She could almost taste the thrill of adrenalin and danger on her tongue now, tart and strong. Just how her father must have felt. The thought made a familiar ache of grief form in her chest. Yet she knew she didn’t miss that danger and chaos.

She was slightly shocked by how close the past felt to her when she was a million miles away from it, and when she was fifteen years on from the death of her father, and her mother. An uncharacteristic sense of vulnerability washed over her and for the first time she felt a keen sense of loneliness.

She thought of the mesmerised, almost dazed look in the manager’s eyes just now when he’d stared at the model. Nat couldn’t remember the last time a man had looked at her like that, if ever. She almost couldn’t remember the last time a man had transported her with his touch, his mouth.

When he had, it had been a fellow photographer, amidst the tumult of a war-zone when life and death hung in the balance every second. It had heightened the love- making but Nat knew now that under normal circumstances her last lover would have left little or no impression at all. She could hardly recall his face.

Irritated to be thinking like this, she made a disgusted sound and turned to go back into the ballroom when her gaze snagged on a lone figure at the other end of the terrace, over the dividing wall.

It was a man, dressed in dark clothing. Something about his intense stillness caught at her. He was dark, dark enough to stand out against the lush city garden, his short thick black hair making her think bizarrely of military precision. His hands rested on the stone wall, just like hers had been, and he was looking out over the garden broodingly, much as she must have been.

A tug of something made her breath shorten. Crazy. Just because he too was looking out at the garden - to imagine he was thinking of similar things? And even though quite a distance separated them, she was aware that he was big. Well over six feet tall, broad and powerful. Instantly something sizzled to life in her belly. Something she hadn’t felt in a long time. Lust.

Without even realising she was doing it, because the camera around her neck was as familiar as an extra limb, Nat lifted it to her eye and looked through the lens, adjusting it for focus. When his face sharpened into view, she sucked in a breath. He was in profile to her but it was possibly the most beautiful male profile she’d ever seen.

Proud. Haughty. Strong. Flawed, with a bump in his nose, but still perfect. His skin was deeply olive making her wonder if he was middle-eastern. High cheekbones and a full mouth was almost ridiculously sensual in such a masculine face, but then his jaw provided a hard uncompromising line of strength and power.

And then as if sensing her intense focus, he turned to look right at her and on a shocked reflex to see him revealed face on, Nat’s finger depressed the button and a loud whirring click broke the silence, along with a flare of light that jarred her.

He moved so quickly - vaulting over the dividing wall with all the lithe grace of an animal - that he was almost upon her before Nat had lowered the camera. Suddenly she found the wall pressing into her back, breath strangled in her throat.

Nothing could have prepared her for such close proximity. He towered over her, dark, menacing. Formidably masculine. And yet, she didn’t feel scared. She felt excited, heart racing.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ His voice was low and deep, accented. And then, still struck dumb by some strange paralysis, she didn’t stop him when he reached out and lifted her camera over her head in one swoop of a big hand.

As soon as she saw it in his hands Nat came back to life, reaching for it instinctively. ‘Hey, wait a second.’

She made a grab for it but he held it out of her grasp easily. He turned her camera around, clearly looking to find the images. Eyes as black as obsidian narrowed on her. ‘How did paparazzi get in here?’

It took a second for what he said to sink in and then she said hotly, ‘I’m not paparazzi, I’m a photographer.’

He made a snorting noise. ‘That’s what they all say.’

She could see him clicking the buttons now and panic made her throat dry, as she registered the latent sense of danger that clung to him. A kind of danger she recognised but which was incongruous in this setting.

‘Give that back now,’ she demanded, ‘I’ve got at least an hour’s work on the memory card.’

He seared her with a scathing glance. ‘Work? What you do isn’t work, it’s the equivalent of a parasite sucking the life out of its host’s body.’

Just then a female voice called from the other end of the patio, something indistinct that Nat couldn’t make out. The man turned his head and then looked back to Nat. He backed away and anger flashed up Nat’s spine; she started after him. ‘Wait, you can’t take my camera. It’s worth a lot of money, it’s my work.’

The man was grim, that beautiful face etched in stark disapproving lines. She wanted to slap it.

‘We’ll see what security says.’ With that he turned away and walked back down the terrace, examining the camera, clearly busy trying to find incriminating evidence. She saw a woman in a suit waiting for him anxiously. His lover? An assistant? To Nat’s utter chagrin, something dark lanced through her to think it might be a lover.

Just who the hell was he anyway? She watched him vault easily over the dividing wall again and was about to start after him when her assistant popped out. ‘Nat? They’re ready to go again.’

Rage caught in her throat. What was wrong with her reflexes? She’d just let an arrogant stranger walk away with one of her most prized possessions - one of her father’s cameras. The stranger had thought she was paparazzi. Her skin crawled.

Torn, but knowing that the exacting fashion editor of the magazine was inside and waiting, Nat had no choice but to go back. She had another camera with her and she’d downloaded the morning’s first shots onto her laptop, a lucky force of habit from her years of knowing how useless the images were unless they were backed up.

But whoever the mysterious stranger was, she was going to find him and let him know exactly who she was and leave him in no doubt that his judge and jury act had been completely over the top and unnecessary.

***

Salim Segal watched the woman work with mesmeric grace. The fact that he’d been mistaken about her didn’t sit easy within him. He didn’t usually read situations wrong, but when he’d felt that prickle of awareness of someone’s eyes on him and had turned and seen the slim woman, he’d only registered the camera when the flash had gone off.

He would have thought he’d be used to that by now - the thousand flashes of light a second as his image was captured a million different ways. But for the first time, he’d understood what it was to feel as if a secret part of your soul was taken when someone took a picture.

He’d been thinking…about things that he hadn’t thought of in a long time. Dark things that he thought he’d left behind amidst the rubble of so many ruined cities he’d lost count. Under a million twisted and torn bodies. And then he’d looked and seen her, and she’d caught that feeling of rawness. He’d seen it for himself in the image she’d taken, unwittingly.