by Robyn Donald
He was watching her with such stark hunger, such consuming, compelling need, that her throat and mouth dried and her pulses began to thunder. Surely, she thought desperately, his desire and passion must eventually lead to the love she craved?
If she didn’t take this chance of happiness, she didn’t deserve it.
‘Yes,’ she said, flooded with the ironic peace of surrender when he smiled at her.
CHAPTER NINE
CLAY’S Auckland home was in a development of town-houses halfway up one of the green cones that dotted the isthmus. Superbly designed, to make the most of the sun and the spell-binding views, the houses had been set in gardens that paid tribute to Mediterranean shores and to New Zealand’s magnificent heritage of rainforest trees and shrubs. Natalia looked gravely around.
‘This is lovely,’ she said quietly.
Flowers bloomed in a garden courtyard bordered by a high, close-clipped hedge. Beyond it rose the grassy slopes of the little extinct volcano, topped by a cluster of ancient puriri trees, their huge limbs bowed to the ground.
‘Thank you,’ Clay said.
She looked at him sharply. ‘Did you design it?’
‘No.’ Smiling, he put down the two cases they’d brought to open the front door. ‘It’s the only urban development I’ve been involved in,’ he said, picking her up and walking into the wide, tiled hallway. ‘I wanted something that suited the site, and because no one seemed able to understand my vision, I found an architect and landscaper who did.’ He looked down at her with a smile tilting his mouth and a deep, intense warmth in his gaze.
‘Welcome home,’ he said as he shouldered a door open, and kissed her and put her down, watching as she gazed around his sitting room.
A certain severity marked the room, although the over-stuffed furniture was skilfully matched and contrasted. Books filled a large set of shelves, and the pictures were varied and interesting. The room radiated the fresh, light beauty of winter flowers—tulips and jonquils and the heavenly blue of irises—which indicated a housekeeper with her own key.
It suited Clay. Natalia had expected a starkly modern apartment with even more stark furniture; she found this infinitely more pleasant. Not that it mattered, because she had no right to object. In spite of his irritation at the term, and his attempt to make her feel better about it, she was now Clay’s mistress, bought and paid for. Before they had left Bowden they’d visited the solicitor, and Clay had organised the disposal of her property and the payment of her debt.
‘What’s the matter?’ he asked abruptly.
Meeting narrowed eyes in an expressionless face, she said, ‘I’ve just realised what burning your boats means, I suppose.’
‘Regrets, Natalia?’ When he touched her shoulder she had to stop herself from swaying towards him as naturally and inevitably as a coconut palm greets the tropical lagoon. She couldn’t afford the luxury of dependence.
‘A few,’ she admitted.
His lashes half covered his eyes, giving him a distinctly saturnine cast. Beneath them, intent and golden, his eyes gleamed. ‘Come and see the bedroom,’ he suggested.
Her smile wavered slightly, was repinned firmly to her mouth. Why feel so defeated? Clay had made no bones about the reason he wanted her with him. And although she loved him, she had to accept that he might never progress beyond this violent passion.
I could end up with a broken heart, she thought, walking beside him down a wide hall. Well, when it happens I’ll deal with it.
This was an honest relationship; Clay hadn’t lied to her.
For the bedroom the decorator had chosen a subtle mixture of gold and amber and tan, anchored by small areas of black. The large bed wore a cover tailored in stripes of black and cinnamon-brown that matched the padded bedhead. Two armchairs upholstered in an unusual cinnamon and ivory check sat on either side of a table in the window; the pictures were an interesting mix of modern and traditional styles.
‘No people,’ Natalia said.
He followed her gaze. ‘No,’ he said on a surprised note. ‘I hadn’t realised until you said that, but I’ve never liked figures in a landscape.’
‘I’d never have thought you’d like abstracts. Is that a Georgette Edwards?’ Natalia nodded at one subtle, clever oil, black and bronze and copper dominated by a brilliant, heart-shaking blue.
‘Yes. Do you know her?’
‘I know her work. It’s fabulous.’ And expensive, and usually an acquired taste; Clay had said he knew little about art, but if he liked Georgette Edwards he had a connoisseur’s eye.
‘You’re nervous,’ Clay said, smiling his twisted smile.
She ran her forefinger along the polished wood of the dressing table. ‘Yes. Silly, isn’t it?’
‘I think it’s endearing,’ he said, and came to stand behind her.
Slowly Natalia raised her head, looking at their reflections in the mirror. Against Clay’s wide shoulders she seemed small and slender and fragile. Lazy golden eyes roamed her mirrored face with more than a hint of possessiveness as his long fingers closed around her upper arms.
‘I think we should redecorate this room,’ he said, a smile quirking his mouth.
‘Why? It’s a very nice room,’ she protested, even as her heart leapt at the words he’d used—we should redecorate.
‘It doesn’t do you justice,’ he said deliberately. ‘It’s too restrained, too calm. You should sleep in something that echoes your inherent drama—black and green and ivory, with the red of your mouth and the silky strength of your character.’
Heat sparked along her cheeks. What exactly did he mean by ‘inherent drama’? Did he see her as anarchic and disorderly? ‘No, this suits you,’ she said, warming because he was intimating a shared future. ‘Lovely tawny colours, like some great lion—a very leashed lion.’
He laughed. ‘Perhaps the two of us could do with a bit of loosening up. You’re too controlled—that lush mouth is under such constant restraint it’s a wonder you haven’t developed lines around it. Yet I’ll bet you were a wild, temperamental little girl.’
Imprisoned by his hands, now sliding up and down her arms in a touch as gentle as it was exciting, Natalia stood very still, watching their mirror images. ‘I had tantrums,’ she agreed, noting the deepening colour in her skin, the glitter his lazy caress summoned in her heavy-lidded eyes. Her mouth was fuller and her breasts tightened, yearning for his touch.
Her breath caught in her throat. Twenty-four hours ago she’d been an independent human being; now she was in thrall to Clay’s male sorcery. After years of carefully planning every move, she’d tossed everything aside to elope with a man who offered her a potent, primeval passion—but only a chance of permanence.
She’d never realised before that she was a gambler.
He bent his black head and kissed the acutely sensitive spot beneath her ear. ‘Natalia,’ he murmured. ‘Make love to me, Natalia.’
Reaching up, her fingers searched through his thick, springy hair to shape the bones beneath. ‘Yes,’ she whispered.
‘I like this room,’ she said a long time later. ‘You weren’t serious about redecorating, were you?’
Clay tucked her head under his chin. ‘I still have these fantasies about making love to you in a great, oriental bed with silks and brocades and furs,’ he said meditatively.
She laughed with sleepy amusement. ‘I’m all for indulging fantasies, but furs are no longer politically correct and it might be difficult to find comfortable brocades. I like this.’
‘So do I,’ he said, gliding a slow, sensuous hand from her waist to her hip.
His open, self-assured enjoyment of her body was almost shocking, yet she enjoyed the freedom it gave her to explore him in return. Touching the centre of his chest with the tip of her tongue, she asked, ‘Do you have an office somewhere?’
‘At the moment I work from home and use office temps when I need them,’ he said indolently. ‘How would you like to come to Hawke’s Bay with me at the end of the week?’
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‘Do you want me to?’
He kissed the top of her head. ‘I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t.’
‘What will we be doing?’
‘I’m checking out a run-down vineyard that makes some of the best wine in the world but needs a lot of money to expand. While we’re there we could go to a jazz concert, or look at the gannets on Cape Kidnappers—whatever you want. Napier’s a charming little city, full of Art Deco buildings.’
Mentally scrabbling through the contents of her suitcase, she said, ‘I’d like that, but—’
‘Good. We’d better buy you some clothes tomorrow.’
Natalia froze. When the silence had stretched beyond comfort level, he said evenly, ‘I hope you’re not going to be rigid and difficult about this.’
‘I didn’t think of clothes,’ she muttered. ‘I didn’t realise you were going to take me with you when you went away.’
‘The days are long gone when men hid their mistresses,’ he said casually, although she heard the bite in the words. ‘I’m not ashamed of you, Natalia, and I forbid you to be ashamed of yourself.’ He turned her head and kissed her throat, biting softly down the pale length of it. With his mouth covering the fluttering hollow at the base, he murmured, ‘I want to give you clothes that pay tribute to your beauty.’ When he lifted his head, her heart jumped at the turbulence in the depths of his eyes.
‘I’m sorry I ranted on about buying and selling; I know this—us—our arrangement—isn’t like that,’ she said, because she was being ungracious. ‘We’ll buy some clothes, and whenever I put them on I’ll think of you.’
Smiling, he made a necklace of kisses for her. ‘Good,’ he said, not trying to hide his satisfaction.
The following day Clay told the owner of a discreet salon, ‘Not fashion. She’s not fashionable. What she has is style.’
‘I’ll say,’ the middle-aged, frighteningly well-groomed proprietor said, looking Natalia over with an impersonal eye. ‘Right, style it is.’
Ten minutes later Natalia stared at herself in the mirror and wondered how often Clay had bought clothes for a woman.
None of your business, she told herself, twisting to see how the jacket fitted across her shoulders. As well as being easy to wear, the narrow trousers and exquisitely cut jacket made her look smart and confident and worldly—all the things she so conspicuously wasn’t.
‘Superb,’ the proprietor said firmly, swishing back the curtain. ‘You’re built like a racehorse, all line and muscle. Do me a favour, will you? Never wear anything but black and red. Use that soft, pale ivory as a neutral, and green—the exact green of your eyes—when you’re feeling adventurous.’
Natalia looked past her to Clay, lounging on a deep sofa. He lifted his brows and she emerged from the cubicle, feeling oddly, absurdly shy. And embarrassed. He’d asked if she wanted him to come with her and she’d said yes, but now she felt as though the salon owner—and everyone who’d seen them walk in together—knew that he was buying her clothes.
Buying her? The nasty little thought was banished. No, she had to believe that there was more to their relationship than buying and selling.
Getting to his feet, Clay looked her over, the austere framework of his face giving nothing away. ‘That suits you. I’m beginning to think the burglary was a good thing.’
‘Suits her?’ The older woman snorted. ‘She wears clothes like a dream and you say they suit her! So you’ve had a burglary. It happens, it happens, and you can replace clothes. What else do you need, my dear?’
‘Something to wear to dinner,’ Natalia told her, trying to wrest back some control. Without actually lying Clay had saved her face, and for that she was grateful.
And alarmed, because he read her too easily.
She ended up with two pairs of trousers, a skirt, several variations on tops, and one jacket. For dinner she chose a dress in unrelieved black that could be worn during the day with the addition of the jacket.
‘Good thinking. Those are classical styles, and you can dress the evening clothes up with diamonds,’ the owner approved as she packed the clothes carefully. No one seemed to take down the prices, and certainly no money changed hands.
Did Clay do this sort of thing often? Natalia couldn’t remember ever feeling jealous, but she burned with it now.
‘Can I make a suggestion?’ the older woman said without missing a beat. ‘Have your hair cut and styled. You look as though you’ve been hacking at it with the kitchen scissors.’
‘I have.’ Natalia was unrepentant.
Half-appalled, half-laughing, the woman exchanged a complicated glance with Clay. ‘Go to Steffan’s,’ she advised. ‘He’s a pain in the neck but he’s a genius with scissors. Make sure he doesn’t do anything outrageous. And get his make-up assistant to show you what cosmetics to use. I’ll ring him if you like—he and I have an arrangement. I’m his mother.’
Natalia never knew whether it was a feminine need to look her best, or—embarrassingly—a jealous desire to measure up to the other women who’d shared Clay’s bed that stopped her instinctive objection.
Abandoning the question as unprofitable, she went meekly off to the salon, and by the end of the day possessed not only a small, expensive pack of cosmetics and skin-care products, but a tamed head of hair, miraculously lighter and sleeker in spite of her curls. The new cut emphasised her eyes and lent her cheekbones more prominence.
‘I wonder how he did that,’ she said, staring at herself in the mirror in the big bedroom.
Clay laughed. ‘Clearly he’s a genius, as his mother said. One thing he couldn’t do, however, is change that decisive chin and jaw.’
He lay sprawled on the bed, all long golden limbs and indolence—an indolence only skin-deep. Natalia gave her reflection a final doubtful glance before turning to him. ‘You make me sound like a battleaxe.’
‘You look what you are, a strong, incredibly desirable woman,’ he said coolly.
She was wearing a slim, skin-coloured camisole and French knickers; they’d arrived by courier with the clothes and a note from the owner of the shop suggesting she go to a certain lingerie shop to be fitted for bras.
Heat stirred in Natalia again as Clay’s eyes lingered on her breasts.
Unexpectedly he said, ‘I enjoyed being with you when you bought those clothes today, and I can’t think of anything I’d prefer than to be lying on this bed watching you as you are now.’ His voice altered. ‘Well, a few things. But it’s not just the sex—I like being with you. I want you to be happy.’
‘I want you to be happy too,’ she said quietly. She might hunger for a more formal commitment, one that lasted for ever, but his pleasure in her was enough for now.
‘I’ve got something else you might use,’ he said after a moment, his voice neutral. He got up, sleek and lean and graceful, padded into the walk-in wardrobe that had been fitted beside an en suite bathroom, and returned with a brown paper parcel in one hand.
Natalia eyed it with bewilderment.
‘It’s not a snake,’ he said coolly, handing it over.
No, it was a pad of drawing paper, with pencils—the correct ones. He’d got advice, because there was a craft knife there too. Natalia smoothed her hand over the pad. She had to swallow to ask huskily, ‘Thank you. Why?’
‘Because you have talent,’ he said calmly. ‘And because you’re used to making every hour count. If you don’t have something to do you’ll go crazy. And I doubt if dedicated shopping would satisfy you. Which reminds me—I’ll take you in tomorrow and we can set up a bank account and an allowance.’
Her throat closed. ‘I could keep house,’ she said gruffly.
‘That would be just as much a waste of your talent as growing capsicums was. Besides, I have a housekeeper.’ He spoke pleasantly, without too much interest—making conversation. Yet she thought she discerned a deliberate note in his words, as though he was working out a plan of attack.
‘Thank you,’ she said belatedly. ‘I—I’m to
uched.’ He’d insisted on bringing the sketches on the walls of the house at Xanadu, but she hadn’t asked where he’d put them.
How had he known that the only way for her to deal with her compulsion to draw was to repress it? A shiver ran the length of her spine. She would have to be careful—he was far too astute.
And so easy to love.
A month later she stood in front of the mirror in the bathroom, applying cosmetics with a skilful hand. Clay had just rung from the car to tell her he’d be home soon; tonight they were going to a cocktail party given by one of the producer boards for the managing director of a huge British textile firm.
Natalia blotted her scarlet lips and stared gravely at herself in the mirror. She’d hoped for intimacy, and she had it—but it was a strictly limited closeness. Clay made room for her in his life; he was proud of her, and his eyes smouldered whenever he saw her. But she knew little more of him after a month than she had when she’d arrived here. She was happy, of course she was. Clay was the perfect lover—intelligent, thoughtful, sexy, a man who worshipped her body with such skill, such flair and expertise, that her bones liquefied whenever she saw him. What woman wouldn’t be happy?
A woman who loved him.
Coming to this lovely apartment, learning to love its owner, was the most dangerous thing she’d ever done. Scrutinising her face with its sleek, imperceptible mask of cosmetics, she wondered whether her gamble was paying off. Their month together had taught her the difference between an overmastering physical passion and love.
It had also taught her that she needed more from him than sexual adoration and friendship; if he couldn’t love her she’d have to leave before she embarrassed him with demands he couldn’t meet.
She heard the door and turned, summoning a smile. Her heart clamped as he came in, the excellent tailoring of his dark suit failing to hide the raw male power that emanated from him. ‘Good day?’ He’d spent it with the trade delegation.
‘Pretty good.’ His eyes kindled as they came to rest on her. ‘I wish we didn’t have to go out again tonight.’