by Margaret Way
He ran his fingers through his thick dark hair, betraying his agitation.
“What if I give you the villa that will be eventually built on this spot? It’s going to happen. Some part of you must know that. The thing is, Nyree, you shouldn’t be way out here on your own. Even with the dogs it’s a tremendous worry. Word goes out. You’ve been seen in the town. Everyone is talking about Howie’s beautiful great-niece. How long do you think it will take before you have uninvited callers?”
“Then they can clear off!” she cried with perverse fury, knowing he was absolutely right. “I’m quite safe with the dogs.”
“Oh, yeah, you’re a real Superwoman!” he snapped. “There are ways to subdue dogs,” he added grimly.
So many drifters passed through the tourist towns. Men without ties, without women, without scruple. A beautiful young woman alone, unprotected. He couldn’t live with it. Alena wanted it all to come to a halt. She had grown very fond of Nyree, often commenting on Nyree’s broad range of interests—unusual in a young girl. Interests no doubt encouraged by her beloved Miss Em.
“You’re paranoid, as far as I can see,” Nyree announced wrathfully. It was all an act. Her heart was pumping away madly. She knew her position was untenable, but she’d be damned if she’d give in to him without a fight. “Absolutely paranoid!” She covered the living room with her arms crossed.
“Well, you can’t see very far,” he retorted bluntly, tracking her progress with his eyes. “You’re not giving enough thought to this, Nyree. I don’t want you here. It would be bad enough if Howie had left you a house in the town. But way out here…It’s too isolated.”
“Who says I have to have your p-permission?” She was so angry she was stuttering.
“I do,” he said. “You wouldn’t want me for an enemy.”
“Is that a threat?” She looked at him, aghast.
“You know damned well it’s not.” He shot to his feet, uncharacteristically off balance. Her eyes were huge. Overbright. “You take all my help—”
“I’ve thanked you, haven’t I?” she flung at him. “I’m tremendously grateful. What are you trying to do to me, Brant? Send me away? Because I’m telling you now, I’m not going!” She even stamped her foot.
“And I have no intention of leaving you here,” he countered, moving towards her, a towering male figure. “Alena is worried about you. She told me to tell you to pack a bag and come back to the house,” he said, in a quieter tone. “Cyclone Callie is forming in the Coral Sea. We’re all on alert. It could live for as long as two or three weeks, and if it comes in it will come at great speed. If you think this afternoon’s storm was bad, you won’t want to be out here on your own during cyclonic weather—even if a cyclone doesn’t hit.”
The rational part of her was aware of all this, but she was beyond reason—at the mercy of her ungovernable emotions. She had never felt remotely like this in her life. “You want to control me utterly, don’t you. Why?”
“Don’t play the little fool,” he ground out, feeling himself being pushed beyond his limits.
His vision was filled with her. His nostrils were inhaling with tortured delight the extraordinary scent of her. He had to gulp in air. Finally, out of all patience, he reached for her, hauling her into his arms.
“You’ve known what was on my mind since the very first day.”
She flushed, the vivid memory of their first meeting streaking before her eyes. She was ready to faint with the yearning that threatened to engulf her. He filled up her whole field of vision.
“So you want me?” she cried. “You think I don’t know? I’m all sorts of a fool, according to you, and yet you want me. What as? Some tawdry little affair? I’m not wife material. I’m too inexperienced—too stupid for you. No, I take that back. I’m far from stupid. I’m clever. I’m just not clever about you. That’s where Lana Bennett comes in. It’s the talk of the town.”
“The hell it is!” He dismissed that in a fury. “You’re the talk of the town. You know so much and yet you know nothing!”
“So tell me!” she shouted. A primitive rage, driven by this torrent of unresolved yearning, had taken hold of her. She was so agitated her whole body was throbbing.
“Why don’t I just show you?” he ground out, his tone unbearably harsh.
In a blaze of action Brant swept her off her feet, knowing she was so shell shocked she could offer no resistance. She was such a featherweight he could have walked halfway across the world with her in his arms.
They were on the sofa…Her warm body was draped across his knees, her beautiful curly head tipped back into the crook of his shoulder, arching her throat. God, he adored her. How had it happened?
“Bravado one minute, silence the next.” He spoke tersely. “You’re a very complicated person, aren’t you?”
“And you’re not?” She tried to raise her head to defy him, only he swooped…
His first kiss literally sizzled across her mouth, leaving a trail of fire.
An experiment? Whatever had been intended, it had a galvanic effect. Her heart was beating inside and out, sensation expanding at such a rate she felt her whole body go into meltdown. His strong hands actually seemed to be melting through her skin to her bones. She went limp and alarmingly languorous. She couldn’t have stood up even if she’d wanted to. All she could do was fall back with a helpless moan.
The next time he kissed her it went so deep she began to drown in a sea of sensation. She thought she locked her hand around his neck. She wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure of anything. What did she know about sex and passion? He was taking her some place she had never been before…His hand moved down over the soft fabric of her smock, caressing her breasts through it, bringing her sensitive nipples to tight painful life. She couldn’t disengage…her longing for this to continue was too fierce…it was wonderful and it was terrifying…like the effects of a dangerous stimulant.
His hand moved lower, down over her stomach, which quivered under the pressure, then abruptly he stopped—even though her knees were spreading in a movement that was totally involuntary. She wanted his fingers to enter her…she wanted it…longed for it…She had never known a lover, but more than anything in the world she wanted her first lover, her only lover, to be him.
Even so, she knew she was panicking…There was a good chance she would lose not only her virginity but her reason. Her reactions were astonishing to her…She wasn’t herself at all. She was woman with man. Her first man. She was going to live the experience. Maybe die of sheer excitement.
“There’s nothing to panic about.” Brant’s voice came in a swift undertone. “I’m only making love to you. A little.”
A little?
Dear God, if this was a little, how would she withstand the real thing? Her whole body had flamed into life beneath his hands. Nothing could save her. She was losing herself, despite the very real worry that fluttered like a moth at the back of her mind. How far were they going? She wasn’t prepared for sex. Yet his every kiss was taking her down deeper and deeper into a sensual whirlpool.
This was how it happened. Blind passion. Emotions out of control. Ecstasy mixed with fear.
You love him.
The voice in her head did nothing to soothe her extreme agitation. How was it possible she could love so deeply, so madly, a man she really didn’t know? How could she abandon herself like this to his voluptuous lovemaking? She had curled herself into his aroused body, fitting herself to him, a sure manifestation of his power over her.
Brant drew in his breath sharply, wrenched himself sober, though his heart was banging painfully against his ribs and his powerful arousal was an agony. He was desperate to pick her up and carry her to her bedroom. Slam the door. Lock it. Make love to her for hours and hours. Leave his imprint. Make it so she would never forget him.
Only…only…He tried desperately to regain control…His body was demanding he take her—his sex drive sizzling its way along his arteries. But his mind told him he cou
ld never hurt her. Never, never, never! She was wise to trust him. He didn’t know if that made him feel better or worse. His desire for her had grown with every passing minute of every passing day. Today that desire had all but brought him to his knees. His life, which for the most part had been all about business, was now focused on a woman. She didn’t just arouse him sexually. Her well-being had come to mean everything to him.
He looked down at her, shaking his head a little from side to side in an effort to bounce away his driving desires. Her beautiful dark eyes were brimming with the tears of high emotion, breaking his heart and in the end reining him in.
“I’m sorry, Nyree.” He picked up her hand and kissed it like some knight of old. “I’m sorry I frightened you. I’d never hurt you. You must know that.”
“I do,” she gasped. Her breasts were rising and falling in agitation. “I’m a virgin, Brant.” She had to tell him. Warn him?
“I know. Girl into woman.” He bent and took silvery teardrops into his mouth, willing his heartbeat to stabilise. “Come back to the house with me. Say you will. Put me out of my misery.”
She stared into his eyes, seeing tiny flecks of gold in the brilliant turquoise. “I can’t refuse you,” she murmured finally.
She truly couldn’t.
CHAPTER SEVEN
CYCLONE CALLIE, initiated as a cluster of thunderstorms over the Coral Sea, continued to hover out to sea. Either it would die there or it would cross the coast, bringing destructive winds and flooding. The region was on cyclone watch. Everyone hoped it wouldn’t be upgraded to a cyclone warning. Either way, people were being given plenty of updates, through radio, television and the Weather Bureau in six different languages: English, four Asian, Italian.
Nyree had settled back into the big house, treated by everyone from the Contessa down as though she were family. It was the most marvellous feeling. She was being made truly welcome. In a sense, it felt to her like a coming home. She certainly wasn’t drawing back from the affection she was being shown. In fact she was revelling in it. The death of one parent profoundly isolates a child. The death of both parents places an insupportable and terrifying burden on such a child.
She had been a lone teenager. No brothers and sisters to share the burden of her grief. All she’d had was a grandmother who had been horrible to her. God knew which way her life would have gone without Miss Em. Miss Em had fixed a vulnerable young girl’s mind not on the distress of her life but on the challenges that lay ahead. Miss Em had cast her as an achiever. She wasn’t going to fail her.
In a near magical way the Contessa had taken up from where Miss Em had left off. To Nyree’s mind, both women shared the same wonderfully endearing personality traits. They had warmth, humour, spirit, charm, and a serious and abiding interest in intellectual pursuits. She and the Contessa got on so famously it seemed to Nyree they were well on the way to a powerful attachment. There had been no settling in period. They had clicked from the start. It helped that because of the circumstances of her life she had grown used to and greatly valued the company of women at the culmination of their life—accomplished women who had so much wisdom to offer.
She was enjoying every minute of her new life. Of course she knew everyone ultimately stood alone, but her great wish for family, a profound human need, was finding expression within Brant’s family. Such was the sheer unexpectedness of life. Her journey towards becoming a woman, a real woman, was well underway. Had she known it, she was positively blooming in this glorious tropical landscape, living an existence that had been offered to her like some precious gift. She wasn’t lost. Brant had found her. A divine mystery at work?
Brant, who was often busy from early morning to mid-evening, told her she had given his grandmother a new lease on life.
“She’s wonderfully at ease with you, Nyree,” he reported back, clearly delighted about the whole thing.
That meant so much to the thriving Nyree. Even Jasmin, the Contessa’s devoted maid and companion, was glad of her many extra breaks, so she could go into town and meet up with her friends.
Nyree had finally been shown the Contessa’s portrait, painted by her great-uncle. It had been put away in storage as the Contessa’s late husband had taken an inexplicable dislike to it.
Not inexplicable at all! As Nyree had found out.
She’d stood in front of the large portrait that had been placed on a decorative easel, her heart in her mouth. The style was reminiscent of the famous American portrait painter John Singer Sargent—bravura in concept.
The Contessa when younger—she would have been perhaps in her early thirties at the time—had been stunningly beautiful. In the portrait she was seated in a high-backed Louis chair, covered in ivory silk with tiny sprigs of blue flowers. The exact same chair was still in her bedroom. One hand lay on her lap; the other was draped over the gilded side of the chair. Her copious raven hair was drawn back from her face and arranged in a coil on her neck. She wore no jewellery except for a great engagement ring and her wedding ring. Her silk morning gown was ice-blue, with a wide sash in a deep sapphire, the ends trailing over her gown. The Louis chair had been placed in front of a magnificent Chinese screen—also still in her bedroom—as a background.
It was a knockout portrait of a beautiful and sexy woman. A countess who’d reigned over men’s hearts. In this case her husband’s—Brant’s grandfather—and also, without a shadow of a doubt her ill-fated Great-Uncle Howard.
Here was his femme fatale. His Dark Lady. His downfall.
Nyree had stood transfixed, hardly knowing what to say.
“You can see he was in love with me, can’t you?” the Contessa said very softly, from behind her. By now she knew Nyree was very intuitive.
“Anyone with eyes to see could,” Nyree answered, just as gently. “Not that I could blame him.”
“Let me tell you I was attracted to him,” the Contessa confessed. “But that was all it was or could be for me. Afterwards, when the portrait was finished, Howard was like a lost soul. I tried to counter the attraction with coldness. Previously I had been very kind to him, not fully realising what I was setting in train. Howard sent me a letter full of torment that my late husband—a wonderful man—found quite by accident. He thought I had really fallen in love with Howard, but I convinced him Howard was only living a dream. My husband took care of matters. Howard never bothered me again. This portrait, that had held pride of place, came down. Your great-uncle very sadly took to drink as a solace. The depth of his connection to me was not reciprocated, Nyree. Unfortunately Howard let his feelings consume him. He had women. Plenty of women. Maybe he only fixated on me because I was not to be had. Who would know? It’s a sad story. You know it now, child. We won’t speak of it again.”
“But the portrait is so beautiful!” Nyree cried in dismay. “You are so beautiful. What are you going to do with it? It should be seen.”
“Not in this house, my child.” The Contessa shook her head.
“Then may I have it?” Nyree begged. “I’ll treasure it always.”
The Contessa took only seconds to decide. “Of course you may,” she said, clasping Nyree’s face and planting a kiss on her forehead. “I would give it to no one else.”
Nyree continued to keep a check on the farm, airing the house as though she were coming back to it, walking dreamily around the empty rooms, reliving the sublime moments when Brant had made love to her. Had it actually happened? These days she had reason to doubt it. He was acting more and more like an older cousin, with his mind firmly on more important matters.
Dolly had taken Howard’s cat—simply called “Cat”—to live with her. The guard dogs had been returned to their minder—one of DHH’s employees. In the sultry heat and the intermittent heavy downpours the grounds were quickly reverting to jungle. No wonder her great-uncle had gone mad trying to maintain the place. He should have sold. Probably would have, only Miss Em had convinced him to leave his entire estate to her. If she did sell she would ask top pr
ice. DHH would have to cough up. Her darling Miss Em had ensured she would be comfortably placed. When her children came along—and Nyree fervently wanted children—one of the girls would be called Emilia.
For now she was her own woman. Only months ago that would have been the ultimate status. But these days she had to confront the fact that she wanted above anything to be Brant’s woman. The woman in his life. He’d sparred with her, comforted her, put his brand on her, mended her. If one believed in Cupid, his arrow had hit the vital spot.
Don’t let him smash up your life like the Contessa smashed up Great-Uncle Howard’s. A cautionary voice fought for her attention.
She wasn’t frightened any more. Another thing was certain. Whichever way things went she wouldn’t, like Great-Uncle Howie, take to the bottle.
On her way back from the farm one day, she called into town to see her friend Dolly. Dolly wasn’t at the Hibiscus Hut, as it transpired, but as Nyree was returning to the runabout Brant had put at her disposal a woman shouted, “Hold on, there, Nyree.”
Nyree turned with a sinking heart. She recognised the voice as Lana Bennett’s. Lana Bennett wasn’t a friend. Never would be. Lana Bennett had marked her down from the beginning as Trouble.
“How nice to see you!” Lana confounded her by smiling brightly. “I hope you have time for an iced coffee?” She grasped Nyree’s arm in the friendliest possible manner. “Terrible weather we’re having, isn’t it? The only consolation is it lasts such a short time. Most of the year is perfect.”
What could she do? Had Lana undergone a much-needed sea change? She had heard of such things.