Jordan looked up to see him gazing at the large bold mural on the wall.
She zipped up the bag, wondering which of the kids had nicked her large Tupperware container filled with biscuits.
“Something similar, anyway,” Nick said, peering closely at the mural. “No signature.”
Jordan felt no need to volunteer the fact that she was the artist. Drawing was just a hobby, not something she took seriously. She had been rained in on her second trip here, alone without the group. Sketching seemed a great way to pass the time, although she fully expected the wall to be painted over sometime soon.
Nick turned around. “This was in your apartment. Not this exact one,” he gestured at the mural “but something similar. Same tone, a couple dancing.” His face suddenly cleared. “You did this.”
Jordan hoisted the bag. “Uh-huh.” She wondered where to look for the other tools and paraphernalia the Working Bee had left.
“These are good,” Nick enthused. “Do you sell them?”
“No. It’s just a hobby.” Jordan frowned at the sight of the old black kettle sitting on the bench. She thought she’d emptied it and set it on the gas cooker. She reached out to touch the kettle.
“How do you expect anyone to take you seriously if you don’t yourself?”
Jordan didn’t answer him because she was distracted by the warmth of the kettle. She spread her fingers on the belly of the vessel, frowning. “It’s hot,” she said, more to herself than him.
Nick came over to lean on the bench. “It’s sitting in direct sunlight.”
Right, and it shouldn’t be. There were matches on the bench by the gas cooker. “I wonder…I could swear I packed everything in that bag before we left last time and zipped it up. And there’s a big box of biscuits missing.”
Nick shrugged, his interest waning. He wandered over to the huge open pantry, his nose wrinkling in distaste.
Jordan nearly smiled. Rodent droppings, perhaps, or a corpse in one of the many mousetraps she’d set.
There were no cups in the sink. If there was an intruder, they were house proud. “I’m thinking of Letitia, the missing girl.”
“More likely to be a hunter or tramper. This is on the Queen Charlotte Track, isn’t it?”
The Queen Charlotte Track was one of New Zealand’s most popular tourist destinations, a seventy kilometer walk through lush subtropical native bush, showcasing the tranquil and stunning scenery of the Marlborough Sounds. Many thousands took to the track all year around.
“The door was locked,” Jordan pointed out, unconvinced. The house seemed secure downstairs, but perhaps someone could access one of the broken windows upstairs from the crumbling exterior fire escape. She tried to call Russ to see if the girl had returned home but there was still no cell phone reception, even on Nick’s phone.
“Atmospheric conditions.” He shrugged.
They decided to explore the grounds. After all, that’s what they were there for. But now they had an additional purpose: looking for Letitia.
They wandered the expansive and overgrown grounds for the next few hours. Nick wasn’t much of a gardener but even he could see that under the neglect, this was a pearl of a property. There were treasures everywhere. Human faces carved into punga fern trunks, hammocks entwined with ivy, perishing between their supports, stone seats set in the most glorious positions to catch the late sun over the web of waterways and forested cliffs.
Jordan spotted a plastic wrapper; the brand of biscuits that were supposed to be in the Tupperware container in the kitchen. “It could have been there for ages,” Nick cautioned, not wanting to get her hopes up.
“Our Working Bee went through here with forks and bags, picking up all the rubbish.”
Perched on the hill behind the lodge was an old rickety chicken coop, the straw molding and smelly. And there was the empty Tupperware container, sitting in the corner.
“It must be Letitia.”
Although Nick was skeptical, he accompanied her, clambering around the steep slopes and thick scrub high above the house, calling the girl’s name.
No one answered their calls. Finally, Jordan looked at her watch and gasped with dismay. “Are we going to get home before dark?” He’d told her it was a condition of the charter that the boat be moored after dark.
“If you really think she’s around here somewhere, then we’d best stay and have another look in the morning,” Nick said casually as they started down the hill. “Besides, I hired the boat for two days.”
Jordan stopped abruptly and turned her head. “Two days?”
Nick gazed at her unrepentant. Surely she didn’t think this was just about sex, did she? His plan was to get her to himself for a while, away from the hotel room and the constant worry of discovery. He wanted to see if they clicked outside of the bedroom as well as they did in.
Anyway, this wasn’t his fault. If she hadn’t been adamant her runaway was here, they could have started for home two hours ago.
Jordan turned fully to face him, something close to a pout on her lovely mouth. “And if I have plans for the evening?”
“Then he’s going to be disappointed,” he said evenly, absorbing the jolt he always got when she looked at him face on and close. The shape of her brows provided a perfect frame for those gorgeous almond-shaped blue eyes. Her luscious mouth with the prominent bow in the center just begged to be kissed. Beauty was in the eye of the beholder, he knew, and for Nick, he could never tire of looking at her face.
His body, too, rarely escaped the knowledge without a reaction of some kind. His mouth dried, his stomach muscles tensed. Every nerve ending sent an “I want” message to his brain.
“I didn’t bring anything with me,” she said curtly. “Clothes. Toothbrush.”
“There are spare toiletries on board. As for clothes…” His gaze swept over her white top and long white shorts and sneakers. It was too late for them, streaked with dirt and plant matter. His own weren’t much better. “I think there are robes in the bathrooms,” he said innocently. Clothes were optional for what he had in mind…
Her eyes narrowed as if she read the path of his thoughts. “Well, that’s worked out nicely for you, hasn’t it?”
She was right, it had all worked out perfectly. The missing girl situation was an unexpected stroke of luck.
Still, he didn’t want her sulking all night. “We’d have finished exploring the gardens two hours ago—plenty of time to make it home before dark—if we weren’t looking for your friend,” he reminded her. “Jordan, you have options. There’s enough food and wine for dinner, I think. And there are two cabins on board, as I’m sure you noticed.”
Nick wanted this chance for her to get to know him. It would take a major leap of trust for her to consider a public relationship with him while her father was ill. But if she thought he was really into her…Randall and Syrius had to be persuaded that further offenses would hurt their children.
As he watched her struggle with the desire to keep a cool distance between them, Nick knew he was getting under her skin. She could dictate the time frame and boundaries—to a point—but he would use the irresistible sexual connection between them to achieve his goal.
Nine
They searched the house once more, then locked up and walked back down the jetty to the boat. Jordan rubbed her arms briskly. “I hate to think about her all alone out here.”
“If she’s here, she’ll know we’re looking for her,” Nick reassured her. They’d yelled themselves hoarse. “She’ll come down to the boat when she gets cold or hungry.”
Together they prepared a salad and the leftovers of their lunch. Nick had brought pre-baked rolls which they warmed up in the small oven in the galley. He opened the wine, his eyes following Jordan as she moved around setting utensils and crockery on the table, lighting candles. He wanted her more with each passing second, but tonight was going to be her call all the way.
The meal was simple, enhanced by the wine and the candles she’d lit. The reheated bl
ackberry tart tasted even better than at lunch. They got through it all with an easy rapport, the wine mellowing her initial reticence.
“This is a novel experience,” he commented as they finished. “Sitting across a table from you, eating and talking.”
“We did that at lunchtime,” she reminded him.
Nick pushed his dessert plate aside. “Will your father be in court on Monday?”
“If the doctor is happy.” Jordan paused then rolled her eyes resignedly. “I spoke to him yesterday and he was looking forward to it.”
“You know he’s going to lose, don’t you?” He wasn’t being confrontational. There was little doubt about it.
Jordan nodded. “We’ve all told him but he’s too stubborn to accept it.”
“What’s he like?”
She smiled fondly. “Impossible. Everything is black or white with him. He has an opinion on everything and I don’t think he has ever been persuaded to change it, even in the face of irrefutable evidence.”
“And you’re crazy about him.” Nick wondered if one day her eyes would mist with emotion for him.
“There’s being crazy about him and there’s driving me crazy.”
Their eyes and smiles met and tangled but curiously, every time they did, Jordan would take a sip of wine. Her nervousness was unexpected.
She sat across from him in a decidedly grubby top, her ponytail slipping and a twig in her hair. Used to seeing her light up the tabloids in designer clothing that flattered her magnificent body—or alternatively, naked on Fridays—Nick warmed at the sight of her. The sparkle in her eyes could be put down to the wine or candlelight, but he hoped he may have contributed there in some small way.
Operation Jordan was under way. “It must have been unreal growing up in that mansion as an only child.” The Lake mansion in Kelburn was infamous for its grandeur.
Jordan relaxed back into her seat. “I think there was a friend roster. I don’t recall being lonely at all.”
“Spoiled rotten,” Nick grinned. “The biggest and best birthday parties…” The ostentatious celebrations were legendary in Wellington society.
“They were insane! Clowns, animals, costumes, so much cake and sweet stuff that we’d all get hyper…the tantrums when it was all over!” She gave a mock shudder. “My poor mother. I’d make myself physically sick with the excitement of it all!”
Jordan picked up her glass again. He was going to have to carry her to bed at this rate.
He stood, picked up the bottle and topped her glass off, smiling at her. While he was there, he pulled gently at the twig tangled in her hair, handed it to her and then went back to his seat.
“It’s interesting,” he said as he sat. “You have the whole world at your beck and call and yet you hide behind some foundation, too scared to show yourself. You don’t want anyone to know that you have values and talent.”
“I know I have those,” she said, lifting her shoulders in a careless shrug, “but it’s the money that makes the difference, that differentiates me from anyone else.”
Nick laughed. “I must be wearing rose-colored glasses then because from where I sit, I see something else entirely.”
Jordan didn’t respond, toying with the twig he’d handed her.
But Nick was interested. She seemed to have everything a young woman could want. What was she afraid of? “Gorgeous,” he began, smiling again when she frowned, “Talented as I can attest to, having seen some of your art…”
“Drawings,” she interjected.
“Art,” Nick went on, heedless. “Proactive—you’re doing something that makes a difference to a lot of people.”
“Lots of people do that…” She snapped the twig in half and laid it on the table, looking at it as if it personally offended her.
“Probably, but they don’t hide it. Did I mention creative? That ball the other night was a work of art, if I’m any judge of things.”
“You think putting on a party makes you an artist?” she asked innocently, but sarcasm laced her tone.
“Don’t knock it. People go to college to learn that stuff. The skills required get you a diploma. You just get on with it and make it happen.”
“Because of my money.” She insisted, nodding vigorously. “Do you honestly think I would have put together that ball without my father’s influence and contacts?”
She sat back as if she’d won the argument.
“The difference, Jordan, between you and most rich people is that you use your money, you do something useful with it.”
“Oh, I’ve frittered away a lifetime of money, believe me.”
“I believe you,” he said, grining, “but take some credit for making up for it now.”
“What was your childhood like?” she asked, twisting the stem of her glass, moving the focus from her.
“Pretty normal. School. Rugby. Sailing. A few family holidays.”
“Were you close?”
Nick had no complaints about his upbringing. “Adam and I were—are—I suppose. Mom and Dad—we got on all right. They weren’t very demonstrative and they were always so busy with their respective careers. Dad liked to pit me and Adam against each other all the time. Everything was always a competition.” He rolled his eyes. “Still is, far as Dad’s concerned.”
“Who won?”
“It was about sixty-forty. I was bigger but preferred negotiation. Adam liked to pretend he was David to my Goliath.”
Her smile faded as she gazed into his eyes over the candlelight. Nick nearly groaned aloud. She was killing him here, so damn beautiful, so desirable. The sexual chemistry between them was a palpable pull, one he wasn’t used to tamping down. That was the main disadvantage of starting as they had started—having to exercise self-control.
But he had to, just for a while longer. Until she accepted that what they shared was worth the fire and brimstone their fathers would rain down on them.
The moment lay between them like a suffocating cloud of fizz-edged awareness, stretching for long seconds.
Finally she looked away, frowning. “I was trying to imagine you as a boy.”
Yeah, right, Nick thought. She was wondering why he hadn’t moved, leaped across the table, pushing and demanding as he usually did when she looked as him with naked desire in her eyes.
Your move, baby.
The silence lengthened as they stared at each other, rocking gently in the swell of the waves lapping the jetty.
What was the deal? Jordan wondered. Didn’t he want her anymore?
Nick’s smile was strained at the edges, his eyes feverish with want. She recognized that because she saw it every Friday when he opened the hotel door to her.
Yet he sat there, one hand spread on his thigh as he lounged in his seat, the other on the table. Looking at ease and yet ready to pounce.
Why wasn’t he pouncing? He always made the moves. In the time it took for them tonight to prepare dinner, eat and then have a nice little chat, they would normally have made love two or three times.
Was it a test of some kind? Jordan shifted in her chair, a meter away from a man bristling with sexual tension and yet concealing it—not even that. Accepting it.
What was his game?
She stood abruptly, needing some space. “Do you mind if I take a shower?”
He moved his head from side to side, his eyes hooded.
Jordan made her way to the small bathroom off the second cabin. True to his word, there were unopened toiletries, toothbrushes in their wrappers and a stack of soft white towels on the vanity. She turned the shower on and scrutinized her grubby clothes. After clambering around a dusty house and up cliff and vale, the white lacy top was a shambles and the cutoffs weren’t much better. She stripped and took the top and her panties into the steaming shower with her; the cutoffs wouldn’t dry before morning.
The hot blast of water was bliss after a long day. She’d drunk too fast. Nervous. He made her nervous because he was different. Holding back, even though every
look told her he wanted her. The only conclusion she could make was that he wanted her to make the moves. But why?
She turned and let the water pummel her back while squeezing shower soap through her clothing. It was all so confusing. At the ball, she’d told him it was over. Now she wished they could return to sex on Fridays, where they both knew where they stood. Two unattached people sharing an amazing attraction.
That reminded her of what he’d said at the ball. “I want more.”
She turned off the shower and grabbed a towel. Did she want more? Of course she wanted more. The idea grew and grew until it pushed everything else out of her head. More with Nick than Friday afternoons. Dating Nick. Making love with him in her apartment, his house. Talking about their day. Making plans.
She had drunk too much to be thinking along these lines. The prudent thing to do in the circumstances was to poke her head back into the saloon, wish him goodnight and go to bed—alone—in the second cabin.
She rubbed the steamed mirror with a corner of the towel. Looking at herself, her naked body, reminded her of when he’d made love to her in front of the mirror at the hotel. She could see him behind her, his dark hands on her white breasts, his face above hers, eyes holding hers fiercely, compelling her to watch…unmentionable pleasure coiling through her body as he moved inside her, came with her.
Jordan flushed bright red. God, she was hot for him. He was addictive. She craved him. And trying to deny the craving, she began to justify herself. It was she who’d said they weren’t going to pick up where they left off. Her rules, she could break them. Going meekly off to bed alone was going along with him, changing the direction of what was a great sexual relationship.
The best solution was to go out there and seduce him. Remind him that they were about sex. Remind him how good they were at it. Keep things on the only level she was prepared to contemplate. Because she didn’t want to risk her heart, which she feared was already attached.
She dried herself, brushed her teeth and her hair, and hung her panties and top over the towel rail to dry. Then she went out to seduce Nick Thorne before he turned her head with his charm and his patience and his tests.
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