by Robyn Donald
He looked down and said, ‘You have lovely hands, as graceful as they are capable. We’ll fly back to Auckland tonight and I’ll organise a ring fitting for you at the apartment. If there’s nothing you like we can wait until we reach Tahiti—they have an excellent selection of pearls there, some of which are as changeable as your eyes.’
But that evening she picked a tourmaline so blazingly blue it reminded her of the lagoon in Tahiti. On either side of the stone diamonds blazed in platinum.
Approvingly, the jeweller said, ‘A superb choice. The stone comes from Brazil, and this colour is so valued that a perfect gem like this is more precious than a diamond of the same quality.’ She glanced up at Iona and added, ‘It matches your eyes.’
‘Just now, perhaps.’ Iona smiled. ‘They tend to change shades when I wear different coloured clothes.’
‘They are beautiful,’ Luke said. He nodded at the ring. ‘And so is that. Leave it here, thank you.’
He saw the jeweller out and came silently back. Iona hadn’t moved. She was still standing a few feet away from the window, staring at the ring as if it were a snake. For a moment compunction struck him; he banished it. He would make her a good husband, and he couldn’t allow himself to feel anything but relief that Chloe now had a much better chance of a happy childhood and adolescence.
He picked up the ring. ‘Come here,’ he said softly.
Shadowed eyes shifting between a deep blue and a fathomless green, she said huskily, ‘Why?’
‘Because I want to give you this ring.’
All expression vanished from her face. ‘Nothing’s stopping you.’
He wondered just what was going on behind that calm face, that mysterious gaze. She was a challenge; the only things he really knew about her was that she didn’t want to marry him, and that she made love like a siren.
No, he knew much more; she was also tender-hearted enough to be manipulated by affection for a child. He started towards her and saw a quick flush heat the skin along her cheekbones. Hunger tore at him like a whirlwind, eating at the control he’d been forced to exercise since he’d received the first parcel of legal papers from his lawyers.
It would be easy enough to forget his cold anger at his father in wild sex, but now was not the time. Iona was prepared to sacrifice her life for Chloe; he would give her the knowledge that he respected her as well as wanted her. He could wait until their marriage to take her to bed.
He stopped in front of her, saw the colour come and go in her skin, and lifted her left hand. Frowning a little, he slid the ring onto her finger. It slipped easily enough at first, but had to be eased past the second knuckle.
Iona stiffened, then watched lean tanned fingers settle it into place. The silvery circle felt cold and heavy, but it was swiftly warmed by the blood pumping through her body, the burgeoning heat of her response to Luke’s closeness.
Kiss me, her mind pleaded, so importunately she wondered if she’d actually said the words out loud.
No, thank heavens.
And Luke didn’t kiss her. In a gesture that made her shiver, he raised her hand and kissed the ring, then pressed his mouth into her palm, before folding her fingers over his kiss.
Her breath came short through her lips.
He said quietly, ‘I shall never be able to thank you enough for this.’
Don’t thank me, she thought frantically, unable to read anything in the arrogantly handsome face, the steady golden glint of his eyes.
Don’t thank me, love me…
Words she couldn’t say.
No, that was defeatist; perhaps one day she could whisper them to him.
One day, when she was confident he’d say them back.
Luke dropped her hand. ‘Because of the international dateline we will arrive in Tahiti only an hour or so behind New Zealand time, so neither Chloe nor you should have too much difficulty adjusting your body clocks.’
‘I hope not,’ Iona said. ‘It’s only a few days since she went through the process in Auckland.’
He said calmly, ‘She is remarkably adaptable.’
Because she’d had to be, travelling with him. Iona realised she had no idea of the sort of life he intended for them. She asked, ‘Do you plan to have us travel with you when…from now on?’
‘Once we are married?’ he said, his voice hard. ‘You can say it, Iona; it is not a death sentence or a deed so foul it can’t be mentioned.’
She flushed, but said spiritedly, ‘I’m still getting used to the idea! If you insist on bulldozing your way into people’s lives you have to expect them to be shellshocked for a few days!’
Brows drawing together, he stared at her—and then to her astonishment he threw his head back and laughed.
‘I see all of us will have adjustments to make,’ he said dryly, ‘and not just to various time zones. Yes, whenever it’s possible—certainly while Chloe is not at school—you will travel with me.’
She looked up to find his eyes on her, unexpectedly keen. ‘It’s good for a child to have a settled base.’
Luke said, ‘So people have said. I don’t think she’s missing anything.’
‘That’s because to Chloe you are her home.’
He said sombrely, ‘Yes. However, until we know her future, it will be politic to lead a less peripatetic life. I have a house in London, and apartments in New York and Athens as well as the beach house in Tahiti, but the place I call home is an island south of Greece. Once we are married I intend to spend more time there. Will you be bored on a Greek island?’
Not when you’re there, she thought with an inward tremor. ‘I doubt it. I usually find plenty to do. I’ll want to learn Greek, and I have a degree to finish.’
‘A degree? In what?’
‘Early childhood education,’ she told him.
His expression softened into a smile. ‘Excellent—I learn new things about you all the time. Will you be able to finish it from half the world away?’
‘I’ll find out. Don’t worry about me, Luke. I’m adaptable.’
The next few days passed in a blur. When Luke made up his mind, Iona realised, things happened—fast. He even managed to dazzle Angie into acceptance of the situation. It took a considerable expenditure of his effortless charm, but nowhere near as much as Iona had expected.
After a very early start Luke’s private jet landed in Tahiti in the heat of a tropical noon, to the scent of flowers and the mingled sound of singing and the sea, and the stunning physical beauty of the people.
Even in that hothouse atmosphere Luke garnered more than his share of attention, with women eyeing him with open appreciation before transferring envious gazes to Iona. Aware of her chainstore clothes, she felt an unusual sense of inferiority; she couldn’t compete with these women in the brilliantly hued swathes of cloth they called a pareu, women who wore flowers in their long, glossily dark tresses with an insouciance she’d never be able to match.
And that she was even thinking in terms of competition made her angry with herself. Somehow being with Luke had turned her into a different woman, one with a disheartening lack of confidence.
They took a boat across the lagoon to the palm-fringed beach where they’d met, walking beneath the palms and through a garden perfumed by more flowers. Vivid and gaudy, they looked exquisitely at home.
‘Pretty,’ Chloe said with satisfaction, touching the silken petals of a scarlet hibiscus. However, when she sniffed the long pollen-laden centre stamen she quickly released it and looked disappointed.
‘Try this,’ Iona suggested, snapping off a bloom from the native gardenia.
Chloe sniffed the fragrant white flower, and beamed. ‘Nice,’ she announced, and held it out to Luke, who stopped and inhaled the scent.
‘Better than any perfume in a bottle,’ he pronounced, and tucked it behind the child’s ear, smiling down at her. ‘It is called tiare tahiti,’ he told her, ‘and the Tahitians use it for garlands. When Iona and I get married we will both wear a garland made
of tiare flowers, because they are the wedding flowers for Tahiti.’
Her face crinkled against the sun. ‘Will I have one too?’ she asked.
Luke glanced across at Iona, who nodded, for the first time feeling she had a part to play in the arrangements.
‘Of course, if you wish to wear one,’ he said.
‘I do,’ Chloe said fervently, transferring her wide beam from him to Iona.
Cradling the blossom in place in her long dark hair, she tucked her other little paw into Luke’s big hand as they walked the rest of the way, ending at the house Iona remembered so well. There they were enthusiastically welcomed by the caretaker, a short man of French extraction, and his tall, serious-faced wife who acted as housekeeper.
‘Moana and Jacques you remember, I’m sure,’ Luke said.
‘Of course I do.’ She smiled at them both, and went off with the housekeeper to settle Chloe in.
For Iona the day was clouded by a pang of…not envy, not even regret, an emotion more shadowy and fragile than either.
Last time she’d been here it had been as Luke’s temporary lover.
Chapter Nine
THINGS were so different now, although the sun still beamed down in a languorous caress. Desire uncoiled in supplication, summoning heated, erotic memories that tightened every nerve in delicious anticipation.
Cut that out, Iona ordered her body. Face facts—especially when they’re terrifying.
This time she loved Luke. And she’d promised to marry him. Her stomach hollowed out as though in anticipation of a blow. How was she was going to cope with marriage to a man who saw her as nothing more than a necessary evil?
Don’t overdramatise, she commanded, trying to ignore a swift flash of desolation. Emotions were all very well, but they needed to be reined in by logic and reason. She didn’t really believe Luke thought of her as an evil.
A frisson of sensation sizzled through her when she recalled the glint of heat in his eyes whenever he looked at her. But a lot of men found it quite easy to have sex with a woman they didn’t necessarily like much. Did Luke see her as a pawn to be manipulated for his own—and Chloe’s—ends?
Possibly. If she were in his position she’d probably feel the same—the welfare of her child taking paramount place. Whereas she felt much, much more than that for him—and not just because of his potent physical presence, either, or memories of his superb talent as a lover.
She stood on the terrace, eyeing Luke’s powerful back, the lean strength of his torso set above long, muscled legs, the purposeful grace of his movements as he moderated his steps to fit Chloe’s little trot.
How had his father’s rejection affected him? Had he been a spoilt young man, taking his position as the adored only son and heir for granted? Aristo Michelakis’s refusal to accept his word had bitten deep, and being thrown out of his family must have scarred some essential part of his soul.
He’d certainly set out to prove himself, and succeeded brilliantly. His reputation as a businessman was legendary and the speed of his rise in that cut-throat world had taken it by surprise.
He’d even made a new family for himself. And succeeded there too; Chloe bore all the hallmarks of a child secure in the knowledge she was loved.
Discovering he’d spent the first year of Chloe’s life caring for her himself might have been the tipping point, the hidden moment when Iona had crossed the border from desire to love. His affection for the child had touched an unknown hunger in her, and before she’d realised it—with no effort on his part—she’d let down her barricades. Somehow that unrecognised surrender had helped transform a powerful physical desire into love.
She was certainly nothing like the woman who’d once walked along this beach convinced she’d never feel again, that she was doomed to a grey existence of no emotion, separated from the rest of life by a veil of despair.
Luke, with his open and genuine appreciation of her as a sensual, desirable woman, had torn that veil into shreds, reuniting her with the world.
Would she have agreed to marry him if she hadn’t loved him?
It was a question she couldn’t answer.
But the decision was irrevocable. Not only did she love Luke, but in this short time Chloe too had wound her way into her heart; it wasn’t just for Luke’s sake that she’d do whatever had to be done to keep the little girl secure.
‘Look, Miss Iona,’ Chloe said importantly, running up to her, a shell in one little hand. ‘I found it on the beach.’
Without looking at Luke, Iona said, ‘Chloe, how would you like to call me Iona?’
‘Can I really?’ Chloe beamed, then lifted her face to Luke, seeking confirmation.
He nodded. ‘A good idea,’ he said, his gaze warm as he smiled at Iona.
Whose heart somersaulted in her chest. ‘Let’s go and wash it in our bathroom,’ she said.
Again her room was right beside Chloe’s—something that startled and disappointed her, because presumably Moana had followed Luke’s orders. The placement made a definite statement about the reason she was there—to take care of Chloe.
As she unpacked she indulged in a gloomy vision of being left behind on some Greek island while Luke zoomed around the world, of loveless sex for the sole attempt to conceive those children Luke said he wanted, of his eventual terminal boredom with her…
Too late now, she thought wearily as tension closed its claws on her. And she was overdramatising again—a habit that seemed to have crept up on her since Luke had re-entered her life.
She glanced out of the glass doors with their shutters pushed back. The small terrace outside served the two bedrooms; furniture beckoned, and the scent of the sea mingled with that of the flowering shrubs. Sunlight sifted down through the fronds of palms, casting shifting shadows that looked like a pattern of textiles. Through curving grey trunks the lagoon glimmered, an intense colour that echoed the sky.
At least she’d have a variety of beautiful places to be miserable in…
Snap out of it, she told herself abruptly. Luke wanted her—he couldn’t hide that. She’d have to learn to be content with what she had, and hope that his desire would one day grow into real love. Setting her jaw, she went into Chloe’s room and her unpacked her clothes, the child’s chattering lifting her mood.
Luke was called away to the telephone, so she took Chloe down to the lagoon and splashed in the warm, silken water, overseen by a Tahitian man with the same watchful, silent air of competence as Iakobos, who’d left them at Auckland airport.
They ate lunch together with no sign of Luke, and then Iona settled Chloe down for a nap. She saw nothing more of Luke until it was time for him to read to Chloe before she went to sleep.
Over dinner Luke said, ‘I am sorry I had to spend the day working. Something came up that needed my attention.’
A note in his voice warned her the something hadn’t been welcome. ‘All well now?’
He shrugged. ‘I have done what I could,’ he said briefly before abruptly changing the subject. ‘Our wedding will be held on the beach here; it will be a ceremony with traditional Tahitian features. I hope you do not mind that?’
The already familiar mixture of excitement and apprehension roiled through Iona. ‘What exactly will it entail?’
‘First we will be given Tahitian names, then we will exchange leis of tiare tahiti as a symbol of our unity. After that a priest will bless us, and we will be married. There will be singing and dancing, of course. Like Greeks, the Tahitians accompany all of life’s great moments and most of its lesser ones with both.’
‘It sounds lovely and informal,’ she said cautiously.
His smile held more than a hint of irony. ‘I hope you will enjoy it. Angie and the boys certainly should.’
Iona said, ‘Thank you for flying them over.’
‘Naturally you will want them here,’ he said dismissively. He paused, then said, ‘Did Chloe speak to you about being a flower girl?’
‘No,’ she said, with
a glance towards Chloe’s room.
‘I told her I’d ask.’
Remorsefully she said, ‘I should have thought of that myself. I’d love to have her as a flower girl, but where can we get her a frock?’
She’d chosen her own wedding dress in a boutique in Auckland, taking far too long selecting a creation that virtually emptied her bank account. Fortunately she already owned a pair of sandals that would look great with it, and for flowers she wanted nothing more than a wreath of gardenias for her hair and a small posy to carry, both of which had been organised.
When she’d arrived back at the penthouse Luke had looked up from the game he was playing with Chloe, and casually asked for the details of her bank account.
‘Why?’ she’d responded, a little curtly.
He’d sighed heavily as Chloe gleefully shouted, ‘Go Fish!’
‘I think you can see through the cards,’ he complained, widening Chloe’s grin. He picked up the card and went on in the tone he used to indicate to Chloe that there was no negotiation. ‘I shall make you a monthly allowance.’
Iona stiffened, but he said reasonably, ‘It is either that or you’ll have to come running to me whenever you want to buy a packet of chewing gum.’
‘I don’t chew gum,’ she pointed out.
‘Toothpaste, then.’ His smile summoned a reluctant one from her. ‘You’ll want a reasonably large sum at first for clothes and other things. Afterwards we can discuss a monthly amount.’
Of course it was sensible. She thought now of the indecently large amount that had appeared in her account and told herself it was ridiculously missish to feel as though she’d been bought.
Luke said, ‘Tomorrow morning a woman from Papeete will come across with a selection of suitable outfits for Chloe. And perhaps I should warn you that our daughter has very definite ideas about her clothes.’
Our daughter…His words kindled a warmth in Iona’s heart.
While they’d been eating dusk had swooped in from the sea, turning the island into a magical place of moonlight and shadows, of scents that became more potent and evocative after the sun went down. The thickening atmosphere almost silenced the ever-present whispering of the trade winds in the coconut palms, and far out to sea a bird called—a faint, solitary sound that echoed Iona’s fey mood exactly.