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what she assumed was a study. Two of the walls were lined with books, locked way in old-fashioned wood and glass cabinets. A couple of leather armchairs sat cosily before an open fireplace and a big 38mm camera lay on one of the seats. The two Dalmatians immediately pattered over to slouch before the blaze.
    Kara dutifully trooped into the room, in awe of the money that had created this place. His family had probably owned it for generations and ruled over the local populace.
    Ric headed over to a bureau on the far side of the fireplace. He rummaged through a few drawers but didn’t appear to turn up anything.
    ‘Can I help?’ Kara asked, though she was quite enjoying watching his bum wiggle inside those low-slung jeans. Her palms were near itching to cop a good feel of him.
    She hadn’t thought herself repressed in any way, but the world seemed a whole lot more attractive since her split with Gavin. Maybe that’s what being single did to you. Turned you into a compulsive flirt and left you hankering after sex any way you could get it. She’d certainly become ridiculously horny over the last few days. That guy last night – damned if she could remember more about him than how good he felt – and now she was gawping at the arse of a man she’d only just met. Chris would no doubt tell her she was overcompensating for being dumped, only she hadn’t been. Quite the opposite: she’d been coddled until she couldn’t stand it any more. Although maybe there was something to the notion of her trying to prove that guys still found her attractive.
    ‘No – it’s fine. They’re around here somewhere.’ Ric lifted his head and looked straight at her. For a fleeting moment Kara remained pinned by his gaze while she imagined some indulgent scene of them colliding in a sexual frenzy rather than in any romantic way. His gaze swept over her and then he gave a disarming grin. ‘Actually, maybe I left them in the studio.’ He swooped past her back into the hall. ‘Come on up.’
    ‘Up’ was a tightly wound spiral staircase. Kara chased him to the top, where she emerged into a vast white space that she guessed lay over the entryway. Here, blank walls loomed over her, seeming disproportionately high in the absence of decoration. At floor level, all around the perimeter, picture frames leant against the wall in piles. An impressive array of photographic equipment occupied the centre space. Ric stood raking through the pockets of a leather coat that hung on the back of a folding metal chair.
    ‘You’re a photographer.’
    ‘Yeah.’
    Good one, Kara. Why don’t you state the obvious?
    ‘Are you the Liddell family equivalent of Lord Lichfield?’ This was some serious set-up he had here, way beyond any kind of hobby studio.
    ‘Nah – I think the only thing I have in common with Patrick Lichfield is that we’ve both done
Harpers
covers. A-list celebs don’t really do it for me.’
    So, he didn’t like skinny models and glitterati. Probably explained why he chose to live out here on this godforsaken rock of an island. ‘No – what do you like?’ Kara inched towards him.
    ‘Porn,’ he muttered, blowing away her expectation of coastal landscapes and wildlife photography. She stuck a finger in her ear and wiggled, thinking maybe she’d misheard. Mr blond and sexy couldn’t possibly have said anything so crude. Only he had. He most certainly had and, what’s more, he didn’t even look guilty about it. ‘Here, take a look.’ He picked up a nearby picture frame and swung it round.
    Kara carefully averted her gaze, having no wish to gawp at a naked woman’s pussy. Only it was hard not to catch even a teensy glimpse considering the size of the image, plus she didn’t want to appear rude, or worse prudish.
    As it turned out, the picture was of a man not a woman, and was far too arty to be considered porn, though the black and white image was certainly lewd.
    The model looked vaguely familiar too. Not that you could see