rottnest romance #5

The latest gripping mini-chapter of Rottnest Romance: Larissa finds herself in the kitchen, there's a lot of banging, and she and the evilly handsome Nick have a bit of a tango in the bedroom...read on...

“A single person can live here quite happily, I’ve found.” She hoped that her voice sounded neutral, and that he wouldn’t discern his questions were making here feel rather edgy.

“Hmm. There’s not a lot of natural light in here, is there…ideally the windows should either be bigger, or there should be more of them. I wonder…” He strode off into the living room. She stayed in the kitchen, beginning to resent his casually critical assessments of her home. She didn’t care if the windows were somehow inadequate, or if the sink was in the wrong place, or whatever. She liked living here. It was her own personal space, as she wasn’t concerned if it failed to meet his demanding specifications.

The sound of windows being opened and closed came from the living room as he seemingly made an inspection of everything. She sighed – surely there wasn’t much else in here that he would find interesting. She felt like making her self a pot of tea, but realised she couldn’t. she would have to offer him some as well – and she didn’t want to run the risk of him accepting. The sooner he left, the better.

While he was still fossicking around in the living room, she decided to quickly nip into her bedroom. She wanted to make sure there was nothing potentially embarrassing lying around. As she went in she thought she should close the door as she came out again – it would give him a hint that, really, there were limits to what he could poke his nose into.

She rapidly shoved her dressing gown under her pillow and tidied up her bedside table. She was relieved she’d made the bed this morning. More often than not it was an untidy tangle of unmade sheets. As she straightened up she saw he was framed by the doorway, looking at her.

“Oh!” she exclaimed. “You startled me.”

“I didn’t realise you were in here. Tell me, why did you choose the biggest room for your bedroom?”

She felt rather flustered at his sudden presence in here. Only her bed separated them, and she looked down at it.

“Is this the largest room? I didn’t know…” Her voice trailed off. All of a sudden it seemed no bigger than the bathroom. He seemed to fill the space with his presence. His tall frame, dressed in the imposing dark suit, dominated the room – he seemed to loom over the bed, and over her.

“I’ll just open the blinds and get some more light in here,” he said, apparently unaware of her discomfort. He moved around to the foot of the bed, towards the window behind her. At the same moment she moved away from the bed, trying to get out of his way.

“Excuse me…”

“Sorry – I’ll…”

“Sorry.”

Finally she managed to squeeze past him, without making any physical contact. It seemed as though it had taken five minutes for them to get past each other, instead of two seconds. She made an instant decision to cut her losses and get out of the cottage – her cottage – immediately. His presence was making the situation all too fraught. She needed some fresh air.