Wyatt had no such compunctions. ‘Go on,’ he said in a voice like death. ‘Your next line should include something about my lack of a sense of humour, or is that after the next outburst of hysterical laughter?’
It was like a cold glass of water in the face. Justine shivered visibly, making no attempt to hide it. Fear closed her mouth, but it couldn’t stop her lips from trembling as he reached out to grasp her wrist, pulling her towards him in a single, inexorable motion.
His black eyes bored into hers as she fetched up in the circle of his arm, her breasts crushed against his chest as he lowered his mouth to hers in a kiss that cruelly ravaged the softness of her mouth. Her lips parted, unable to withstand the onslaught of his mouth, and her head was thrown back to expose her throat to fingers that traced a design of passion and sheer masculine domination along the taut tendons there.
She couldn’t breathe; she couldn’t think; she couldn’t move. Yet all her senses came alight as if he’d attacked her with a blowtorch of passion. She could feel his heart thudding against her breasts, smell the clean, tangy scent of him, hear the raging of his own breath as he kissed her, ravished her with-his mouth, with his entire being.
Never in all her life had Justine experienced such an assault. Wyatt’s obvious experience and the barely-controlled anger which had obviously prompted his ravishment made him invincible. She didn’t, couldn’t fight him; her body and mind could only accept his domination.
Then, as suddenly as it had begun, it was ended. He straightened her up into a sitting position with a gentleness that belied his earlier passion, and when he spoke his voice was totally controlled.
‘And how is that for a sense of humour, dear Justine?’ he said very softly, no longer touching her, but his eyes continued the assault, roving with careless abandonment over the curves of her body, the flushed trembling of her lips.
Justine fought for breath, for control of her shattered emotions. She simply could not believe that her body could feel so suddenly cold, bereft of the close heat of Wyatt’s chest against her. Her eyes, she knew, were no longer green, but a muted, in-between colour that revealed the confusion inside her.
Until finally she met his eyes and saw the raw mockery that flashed towards her like lightning bolts. He was laughing at her, nothing more. Even the savagery of his assault had been no more than an act, she thought. With that realisation came a strange calm, a passive control that allowed her mind to work, her lips to move.
‘Personally,’ she said scornfully, ‘I much preferred the mushrooms.’
‘Personally,’ he replied with an infuriating and quite unnerving calm, ‘I much preferred you! Although,’ and a secretive smile flickered at the side of his mouth, ‘I think I could develop a taste for mushrooms, as well.’
‘I think that might be safer,’ a voice from within Justine replied without her consciously helping. ‘Even though some mushrooms are poisonous.’
‘All women are,’ he retorted without so much as raising his voice. And then, totally unexpectedly, he held out his hand to her and grinned broadly. ‘You’ll take over as Number One chef in the morning, then. I think we’ll go well together.’
Justine was struck dumb. Her every thought, from slapping his face to simply walking out and leaving the dirty dishes behind her, disappeared in a puff of nothingness.
‘I ... mm ... yes ... yes!’ she replied finally, her hand already caught in the muscular grasp of his fingers as he shook her hand.
‘Right! I’ll have somebody rounded up to clean up after that most delightful lunch, and if you’ll be ready at six I’ll return the compliment by taking you somewhere for a dinner you don’t have to even think about cooking,’ he said, and had left her before she could reply.
Justine leaned back into the softness of the cushions behind her, her head swimming with confusion that wasn’t at all helped by her unconsciously sipping at the remains of her port. Suddenly it all seemed like a dream. Surely she couldn’t have — in one single morning — been given a new job, a former brothel to live in, and been kissed so very, very thoroughly?
Without Wyatt’s unnerving presence, she was gradually more able to evaluate what had happened, and after a moment she found herself even more incredulous than before. The incident concerning the mushrooms took on new implications with hindsight; he must have been having her on. Nobody, and surely nobody so deeply involved in restaurant management, she thought, could possibly have eaten that dish without knowing what it contained.
But then what had he been doing? Testing her, in some way, but for what purpose? Did he expect to find her reaction when a dissatisfied customer demanded her presence? Or had he been playing some much more devious game of his own?
For one ludicrous instant Justine found herself wondering if it had all been a carefully constructed scenario building up to the unexpected kiss. Then she laughed aloud at the sheer ridiculousness of that idea. Wyatt Burns surely needed no such artificial organisation to provide him with the opportunity to kiss her, or any other woman. It was quite obviously an area in which he had a wealth of experience.
‘A wealth of experience indeed,’ she mused half aloud, then reached up with one index finger to stroke at her soft, still tender lips.
‘The nerve of the man!’ she muttered, knowing she should very definitely be angry but not overly surprised that she was not. After all, he’d only kissed her, Justine thought, only too aware that his simple kiss had held more sexual overtones than the most blatant approach she had ever received from any other man — even in Paris.
Or had that, too, been only an act? Justine racked her brain over that particular question, unable to find even a hint of an answer because something kept insisting that his professed aversion to mushrooms wasn’t an act. He’d seemed genuinely angry then, even if it didn’t make sense to her.
‘Not that I should be complaining, I suppose,’ she muttered ruefully. ‘Here I am, agreed to having dinner with him, and any fool could see that it’s entirely the opposite of what I should be doing.’
For just an instant she thought of changing her mind and refusing. Certainly his unprovoked assault gave her all the justification she could ask for? But it was a fleeting thought; she knew in her heart that she wouldn’t change her mind. What she would do, however, was ensure that the evening provided no opportunity for a repeat performance of that afternoon’s kiss. There was something dangerous in allowing too many liberties to a man like Wyatt Burns, Justine decided.
‘Excuse me, ma’am.’ The shy, tentative voice interrupted her thoughts, then, and Justine refocused her eyes to find a tall, slender, dark-haired young girl standing hesitantly off to one side.
‘Yes?’ Justine smiled as she replied, not at all sure the child wouldn’t cut and run if she so much as spoke too loudly. Enormous, doe-like eyes widened at her response, and the girl seemed to hesitate before speaking.
‘Um ... Mr Wyatt sent me to clean up,’ she blurted.
‘I see,’ Justine smiled. ‘And did he say you should tell me your name, as well?’
‘N-no,’ whispered the girl, eyes dropping away as if she feared Justine would strike her. The girl couldn’t have been much over sixteen, Justine thought, and her slim young figure was all out of proportion, like that of a young colt. And the shyness!
‘Well, we’re hardly going to be able to work together if I don’t know your name,’ Justine said gently. ‘Mine’s Justine.’
‘Yes, Miss Ryan. Mr Wyatt told me,’ the child replied, then lapsed once again into a watchful silence.
‘And do you work here full-time?’ Justine asked, carefully ignoring the fact that the girl had yet really to answer the last question. Lord, she thought, if this is any example of my regular kitchen help, I may have made a mistake in staying.
‘In ... in the kitchen,’ the girl faltered. ‘I ... I’m hoping to be a chef, like you ... some day.’
‘I see,’ Justine replied. ‘Well then, perhaps we’d best get these dirty dishes back in
to the kitchen, and perhaps we can talk about it while we’re cleaning up, eh?’
‘Oh ... but I’m supposed to do the cleaning up,’ was the faltering response, and Justine sighed inwardly. She hadn’t seen such shyness since ... since she herself was about fifteen, she realised with wry amusement. And even I could manage to get my name out, she thought. What’s wrong with this child?
She slid cautiously to her feet, unable to avoid the oddest idea that one fast move would spook the child into flight. Moving slowly, she gathered up the various dishes and carefully stacked them into the girl’s arms.
Then she gathered the rest into her own grasp, mouth quirking in memory of the first time she’d tried to carry too many plates and cups and saucers, and the embarrassing, inevitable result of broken glass and crockery.
‘Can you manage all that?’ she asked gently. A nod was the only reply, but when she turned to shoulder her way through into the kitchens, the child was right behind her and seemed to be coping well enough.
Justine forced herself to sit down and watch as the girl began the dishwashing, clumsiness transformed to a sort of coltish grace as familiarity reduced the shyness to some extent. She had to restrain the impulse to ask yet again for the girl’s name, hoping that it would come without any increased pressure.
It did. Justine almost fell off her stool when the girl looked up from the suds and said, quite unexpectedly, ‘My name’s Parthenia. Isn’t it awful?’
‘I don’t see why,’ Justine replied honestly. ‘It’s Greek, isn’t it? And it means ... oh, I should know, too ...’
‘It means sweet virgin, or at least that’s what my father tells me. He’s Greek. His name is Sebastian. That’s not as awful as Parthenia.’ The words poured out, once begun, and Justine was treated to a lengthy account of the girl’s history, likes and dislikes, ending with the rather surprising disclosure that Wyatt—along with most of the staff—called Parthenia ‘Possum’. Unspoken, but no less obvious, was the fact that Possum thought the sun rose and set in Wyatt Burns.
Which, Justine thought as she went up the stairs to her room a bit later, was hardly to be unexpected. At that age she herself would have been similarly inclined. But not, she vowed fervently, quite so obvious about it. Possum’s case of hero-worship was quite the most pronounced she’d ever encountered.
Justine spent the remainder of the afternoon organising her diminutive wardrobe, having a long, refreshing shower and being alternately amused and put off by the multi-faceted images of herself as she moved about the apartment.
‘If I were a narcissist, this flat would be perfect,’ she mused, stepping from the shower to find herself confronted with views of her body from viewpoints never before available to her. It was mildly disconcerting, she found, and yet ...
‘At least it’s very handy to check if my slip is showing,’ she said to one image, which giggled back at her silently as she spun herself around to check the flair of the one really good dress she owned. It was supposedly a basic black, the traditional mainstay of any girl’s wardrobe, but it was a Parisian basic black, which before the legion of mirrors took on much greater effect than Justine had ever quite realised.
It was cocktail length, with three-quarter sleeves and a high mesh neckline that she had always thought quite decorous, and she looked at it now and realised that the mesh was more provocative than anything else, especially combined with the deep-cut proper neckline and even lower back.
For one panic-stricken moment she thought to change the dress; it would be folly, she thought, to wear something this .provocative in light of Wyatt’s earlier actions. But Justine realised just as suddenly that she couldn’t change it. She simply had nothing else with her that was suitable for anywhere she could imagine Wyatt Burns dining out.
And in any event, there wasn’t the time. Even as she rejected the idea and ran a comb through her hair, there was a discreet knock at her door.
Grabbing up her handbag and knitted evening stole, she flung open the door to find a resplendent Wyatt leaning with studied casualness against the wall across from it. In his dark evening wear he looked even taller than usual, his eyes somehow more sardonic, his face more devilish above the neat bow tie and gleaming shirt-front.
‘Punctual, I see,’ he said with a ghost of a grin. ‘My, there’s just no end to your appeal, Justine.’ He slurred out her name, almost but not quite in the French pronunciation, and there was something so personal in the way he said it that Justine felt a warm glow despite his sarcasm.
‘So arc you; punctual, I mean,’ she replied, stepping quickly through the doorway and away from the pavilion of mirrors behind her. It was subtle, she thought, but Wyatt didn’t miss the gesture.
‘Still bugged by the mirrors?’ he asked, this time with a distinct grin. ‘You’re not using your imagination to full advantage, Justine; think what it could do for your love life.’
‘The day I need that kind of stimulation, I’ll give it away entirely,’ she replied tartly. ‘If you check your history, you’ll find that kind of stimulation was there only for the jaded old men who patronised such places. The ... girls didn’t need such special effects.’
Wyatt laughed, taking her arm as they reached the head of the stairs. ‘We must have read different history books, dear child,’ he said. ‘Although you’re half right; for a woman, money is usually a stronger sexual stimulant than mirrors.’
Justine yanked her arm free, almost tripping herself in the process but determined not to be drawn further by his innuendoes. ‘For some women, perhaps,’ she snapped. ‘And if that’s the only type you’ve encountered in your life, then I rather pity you, Mr Burns.’
‘The last thing I need is pity from any woman,’ he replied calmly enough. But Justine got the feeling her sharp comment had struck home, somewhere in that chauvinistic hide.
Could it be, she wondered, that even the devilish Wyatt Burns had his Achilles heel? Or was she just imagining things, giving way to her own personal preference for men with a bit of gentleness to their nature?
Fortunately, Wyatt chose to alter the tone of the conversation as they reached the bottom of the staircase and stepped out to where he could hand her into the passenger seat of a luxurious automobile.
Speaking as if their earlier fencing hadn’t even happened, he leaned above her and asked, ‘Have you any objection to Greek food, Justine? If so, please tell me now, while there’s time to change our reservation.’
‘I have no objection to any type of food, properly done,’ she replied honestly enough. During her years of training she’d been exposed to virtually every type of cooking, including the more traditional ethnic dishes common to the restaurant world, and she’d yet to run across any particular style that she didn’t enjoy.
‘Good,’ Wyatt replied, striding round to seat himself behind the wheel. ‘Because I think you might find some aspects of the place I’ve chosen ... interesting.’
‘That would be nice,’ Justine replied cautiously and without committing herself too deeply. She refrained from asking if they served mushrooms, though it was on the tip of her tongue.
During the hour-long drive just to the edge of the city, Wyatt contented himself with discussing fairly general topics, mostly concerning his own establishment, its history and the approach he had been developing during the past few years. Justine was a quiet and willing listener, knowing as she did that the more she knew about his attitudes towards the place, the easier her job would be in terms of fitting in.
What she’d seen of Wyatt’s thus far had been more than impressive, and his comments during the drive made it even more so.
The restaurant he had chosen wasn’t particularly impressive from the outside, but once in the large entryway, Justine was pleasantly surprised to find it fitted out authentically as a proper Greek taverna.
And the head waiter who greeted them with effusive buoyancy might well have been Anthony Quinn’s understudy for Zorba the Greek. He was absolutely perfect, wild and flamboya
nt and vivid in the extreme.
He greeted Wyatt like an old friend, which rather surprised Justine. How could a man who claimed to detest ordinary mushrooms cope with the exotic Greek offerings? she wondered.
It was hardly less surprising when Wyatt suggested that she choose from the expansive menu, without so much as a word about her avoiding the dreaded mushrooms. ‘I hope you know what you’re doing,’ she cautioned. ‘I could get quite carried away.’
‘Good. I’m rather hungry,’ he replied—and never turned a hair when she chose tyropita, then dolmades poached in egg-and-lemon sauce, sofrita, pork cooked with cabbage, fried squid and finally the delectable sfingi, honey fritters she remembered from a long-ago trip to Corfu.
They worked their way through the various delicacies in relative silence, and were well into the meal when a brazen outburst of traditional music announced the arrival of the evening’s entertainment. Justine looked up in mild curiosity as a scantily-clad dancer vaulted on to the tiny stage, then looked again and promptly dropped her fork in astonishment.
CHAPTER THREE
‘I don’t believe it!’ she whispered aloud, but one glance at Wyatt’s laughing face told her she’d better believe it. Dancing on the stage with an abandon that went far beyond anything Justine had ever seen in Greece itself was Possum!
She couldn’t believe her eyes. Shy, wouldn’t even tell her name, coltish Parthenia-Possum, sweet virgin? Not by any evaluation of her performance before an enthusiastic audience. The music might have been traditionally Greek, along with the food, but Possum’s act was deliberately geared to Australian taste, and masculine Australian taste at that, Justine decided.
There was no evidence of shyness, nor of the youthful, uncoordinated movement she had seen in the kitchen only that afternoon. This Possum was a woman, slender and lightly built to be sure, but no less a woman for all that. There was no mistaking the curve of long, high-kicking legs, nor the wide, flashing smile that promised heaven itself whenever it touched on a male member of the wildly cheering audience.
Dinner at Wyatt's Page 4