by Susan Napier
'Don’t look so horrified; your virtue is still intact.'
The dry words jolted her back to the present. No thanks to her! Another few minutes and she might have thrown him to the ground and had her way with him.
Another horrifying thought struck her. Not only was she guilty of losing her head, she had been tempting a man to adultery. This man was married, for goodness' sake; that alone should have made her recoil from his embrace. That she hadn’t even considered the taboo was a measure of how perceptive Ryan had been six years ago.
Stiffly Elizabeth disentangled herself from the supporting arms that moments ago she had badly needed.
'Should I apologise?' he had the misfortune to ask softly as she averted her face.
'Not to me. It's just the kind of disgusting behaviour I would have expected from you.' She turned to glare at him accusingly.
'There's nothing disgusting about two people kissing,' he pointed out in mild surprise.
'In certain circumstances there is.'
'Oh? And what would they be?' He looked amused. His mouth was faintly reddened by their sensual encounter and Elizabeth went hot just looking at it.
'If one of the people is supposed to be saving their kisses for someone else!'
He shoved a lazy hand through his hair, slicking it back from his forehead to let it fall neatly behind his ears. As straight as it was dark, it framed his long throat and just brushed the thick, tanned shoulders.
‘If you mean Bunny, she was a means, not an end. She's a hotel employee. She's paid in francs, not kisses-'
‘I meant when you're married!'
He went very still. 'You're married?' His eyes flicked down, puzzled, wary. 'You're not wearing a wedding-ring.'
'Not me, you!’ she cried.
'Whatever makes you think I'm married?' he had the gall to ask innocently.
'Your wife and children, perhaps?' said Elizabeth with sweetly vicious sarcasm.
'What wife?'
'The one in France. The one living on your family estate, with your children...'
Enlightenment dawned, and suddenly the grey eyes were lit with a mocking brilliance. 'Ah, that wife and family. Beth—who do you think I am?'
'Who do I—? I know who you are.'
'Humour me. Tell me about my wicked self.'
Infuriated, Elizabeth bent to sweep up her camera and leave, but his reactions were lightning-swift.
'Humour me,' he invited her softly, beating her to it and swinging her camera mockingly from its strap.
'You're Jean-Jules Hawkwood. You own this hotel and about two dozen more all over the world,' Elizabeth gritted at him.
'So why do people call me Jack?' he wondered blandly, slurring the first consonant through his teeth.
'I don’t know.' Elizabeth shrugged impatiently. 'I suppose it's just a nickname-'
'Or it could be my actual name,' he drawled.
'I told you—'
'And now I'm telling you. My name is Jacques. Jean-Jacques Hawkwood. I don’t own this hotel. I only manage it. For my brother. My elder brother. Jean-Jules Hawkwood.'
The whispering sea was suddenly a deafening roar in her ears.
'You—you mean you're not——?' she croaked. Her mind went numb as she clutched desperately at straws. 'But—you must be... I saw you—and—Mrs Corvell... she's here with you...'
There was a different kind of stillness about him this time, not of shock but of instant alertness, a brooding suspicion that turned the sunlit grey eyes darkly overcast.
'Serena came as a guest of my brother's, yes—you have that information right,' he confirmed slowly. 'But Jules was called away to New York unexpectedly, and since I was in New Zealand at the time I was the natural person to bring the news back to Serena, who had come on ahead, and to help keep her entertained until Jules arrives... if he arrives.'
Jack had stopped swinging the camera and instead studied it and her with a menacing interest that sent chills down her spine.
‘In fact I swopped my original return flight to Nouméa for Jules's earlier booking, since my Auckland business was concluded anyway. We even went out to the airport together—his plane to New York was taking off half an hour after ours. Maybe that was where you got us mixed up—we look very much alike so I'm told... possibly someone pointed out the wrong man to you, hmm?'
So rattled was she that she almost fell into that one. Just in time she saw the jaws of the trap. 'I just assumed ... I guess I made a mistake...'
'And a very revealing one,' he murmured to her dismay. 'Do I take it, Beth, that you're going to suddenly lose your deliciously intense interest in me now that you've discovered that I'm not my extremely rich and influential—not to mention married—elder brother?'
Elizabeth knew when to quit. But that didn’t stop her wanting to have the last word.
‘I’m not interested in you or your brother,' she said frostily, realising with delight that she was now off the hook where Uncle Simon was concerned. Relief made her final line haughtily smug.
'All I'm interested in is the fact that your ridiculous attitude is going to make me late for lunch. And since you've probably damaged a valuable camera by your actions this morning I'll expect to receive an appropriate refund on my bill. I'm sure, seeing as you're the hotel manager, it's the least you can do!'
CHAPTER SIX
‘I CAN’T possibly stay here!'
The young Melanesian staffer lost his wide, ingratiating smile as he set down Elizabeth's suitcase.
'There is nowhere else. The hotel is full.'
'What about staff quarters?'
Now she had offended him. 'We couldn’t put up a guest in staff accommodation!'
The personal residence of the manager was obviously in a totally different category.
'Not even if the guest requests it?'
A shrug, but one that was stubborn rather than helpless. ‘It would not be permitted. The reputation of the hotel-'
'And what about my reputation?' Elizabeth interrupted furiously.
'There is much room here. It is very comfortable.' There was no doubt about that. The bungalow was huge and even more blatantly luxurious than any of the guest accommodation she had seen. No, it was not the space, but the company she strenuously objected to.
The young man's liquid brown gaze was lowered, but not before Elizabeth had seen the trace of sly amusement. Her eyes burned with violet fire. Her reputation, at least among the staff, had obviously already suffered considerably!
Elizabeth drew a tense, steadying breath. 'Where is he?' 'Who?'
He knew very well who.
'Monsieur Hawkwood.' So much for her vow after their clash yesterday that she was going to avoid him at all costs!
'Oh...' The brown eyes still evaded hers as the young man quickly down-graded his former air of importance. 'I do not know. I am only domestic staff.'
If his skin hadn’t been so dark Elizabeth was sure she would have been able to see a blush. If he knew, he certainly wasn’t telling.
'Never mind. I'll hunt him to ground myself,' she said grimly, confusing him with her very English metaphor.
'Please, chérie, do try and curb your eagerness for me in front of my staff...'
Elizabeth spun around to find her tormentor leaning lazily against the connecting door between the two adjoining suites. He was dressed all in white, a short-sleeved shirt hanging open over his chest and white jeans that were soft with age conforming closely to his hard thighs.
Elizabeth immediately felt hot and overdressed in the dress she had hurriedly pulled on when she had been awoken by a hammering on her roof. She hadn’t been able to have her usual morning shower because the water to her bungalow had been switched off. Then Henri had swooped in and started gathering up her possessions, not even giving her time to brush her hair or put on a minimum of make-up before she left.
She lifted her chin and narrowed her eyes accusingly. 'You-'
He neatly cut short her harangue bef
ore it started. "Thank you for doing your job so proficiently, Henri. I'll take care of Miss Lamb from here...'
Elizabeth was barely able to contain herself long enough for Henri's clean bare soles to hit the doorway before she let her frustration fly.
'What am I doing here?'
'As I'm hotel manager it's the least I can do in the unfortunate circumstances,' he purred, cleverly turning yesterday's rash words back on her.
'What circumstances?' demanded Elizabeth suspiciously, pushing a wayward curl off her face. Since she hadn’t had a chance to wash and blow-dry her hair into its usual sleekness this morning, it waved around her shoulders in glossy abandon.
'Why, the leak in your roof, of course—and the lack of an alternative place for you to stay.'
'Considering that it hasn’t rained since I got here I don’t see how anyone could have discovered a leak in my roof,' Elizabeth snorted sarcastically. She didn’t consider the fine mist of drops that had briefly swept the beach yesterday afternoon rain.
'Actually, we've had several millilitres,' Jack corrected her with infuriating punctiliousness. 'And—as I'm manager—it's my responsibility to make sure that every part of this hotel functions perfectly.'
He was going to throw that phrase back in her face at every opportunity, Elizabeth realised angrily.
‘I don’t see why I have to move out!'
'You certainly wouldn’t be comfortable without power or water and with construction noise going on around you. You see, we have discovered, in the process of investigating your leak, that your bungalow requires some extensive structural alterations to bring it back up to the hotel's exceptionally high standard-'
'Piffle!' They both knew the roof was not the real issue here. The workmen were up there for the express purpose of driving Elizabeth Lamb off his island.
'Bless you,' he murmured solicitously, at his most blandly French. 'I hope you haven’t caught a cold by staying in leaky accommodation.'
'How long is it going to take to make these "extensive" alterations?' she asked, already knowing the answer.
'Certainly not less than ten days.'
Quite. The exact length of time she had left at the Isle of Hawks. He definitely wanted her off the island.
'What about the people in the other side of my bungalow? Are you kindly putting them up here, too?' she demanded.
'Their booking was made prior to yours, so of course they had first option on the only alternative suite that was available,' he said suavely. ‘Is there some problem with the arrangement? Our quarters here are quite separate, except for this adjoining door. And you won’t be charged for the inconvenience. In fact, to demonstrate the sincerity of the hotel's apologies, as manager, I can arrange for the total cost of your holiday to be refunded for you...'
There was no question about it now. He was letting her know that if she left it would be greatly to her financial advantage. Elizabeth was torn by two powerful urges. One was to grab the offer and retreat while she still had a shred of integrity left, the other was to fling his bribe in his mocking face.
‘In fact, Beth, you should consider yourself privileged because it's usually only friends of the family who use this suite,' he added, watching her expressive face.
That prompted another unpalatable thought. 'And would I be expected to share my "privileged" accommodation with Mrs Corvell?' She knew that Serena had been using the room, and guessed that the other woman would be no keener than herself at the idea of enforced companionship.
'Serena is no longer staying at Ile des Faucons.'
Elizabeth locked her jaw to prevent it from dropping. 'Oh!'
'She flew back to New Zealand this morning. My brother won’t be visiting the island after all.'
'Oh.' Elizabeth's uninterest overwhelmed her momentary surprise. She was just grateful that she was no longer involved in any way with the distasteful triangle ... or was it a quartet?
'So now you will be able to relax after all, and enjoy the facilities we have to offer for their own sake,' Jack said silkily.
'And if I said I wanted to leave New Caledonia no doubt you'd offer to pay for that, too,' snapped Elizabeth.
'Oh, no, Beth, for you it's not going to be that easy,' he said, to her total consternation.
'What do you mean?' She had been sure he was trying to make her so uncomfortable that she would jump at the first opportunity to leave.
'Well, to leave one requires a passport...'
'But I have a-' She didn’t, of course. The hotel had it. He had it.
He watched the realisation hit her. ‘I regret to inform you, Miss Lamb, that owing to an... administrative oversight your passport has been temporarily misplaced. I'm sure it will soon be found, especially if you... co-operate.'
'Co-operate?' The way he pronounced the word made it sound deeply ominous.
His mouth was a hard curve of satisfaction as he studied her utter confusion.
'Yes. You do know what co-operation is, don’t you, Beth? You give me something I want, I give you something you need—i.e. your passport?'
'Are—are you trying to blackmail me?' Elizabeth's voice was shrill with outrage.
'Ah, you say that as if you've never even heard of such a shocking thing, chérie, let alone contemplated doing it yourself-'
‘I have never blackmailed anyone in my life!'
'Oh, very good! Excellent!' He rewarded her with a slow, insulting clap of his hands. 'Such surprise. Such blushing innocence!'
Elizabeth's flush was one of fury, not innocence. 'Are you saying that you won’t give me my passport back, even if I offer to leave?'
'And such intelligence, too!' He applauded again.
'Will you stop that?' She swatted wildly at his hands. He raised them in a gesture of surrender, laughing at her frustration. Suddenly the reason for their surroundings became all too clear as she recalled their last encounter.
‘If you think I'm going to let you threaten me into your bed-'
The arrested expression on his face told her that she had just made yet another ghastly mistake in judging him. She had allowed her own sensual awareness to invest his words with a completely different meaning from that intended.
'Goodness, Eliza-Beth,' he said wonderingly. 'You do have a naughty imagination. And a most disappointing opinion of my manhood. You think I have to bribe women into having sex with me?'
‘I—no—of course not...' She tried to back-track to no avail. He was right on her heels, enjoying himself enormously.
'Am I so totally unattractive that no woman could find me appealing enough to desire me for myself?'
'Don’t be silly,' she muttered quellingly.
'Or is it that you perceive in me a dark, sexual perversity that borders on sadism? Maybe I like to see women cower and cringe...' He had moved even closer, lightly, on the balls of his feet, like a boxer dancing up to an opponent he intended to annihilate with a sucker-punch, the brooding menace of his expression a threat in itself.
And it was all show. Elizabeth didn’t know how she knew it—by all rights she should be running away screaming—but she was so certain that he wouldn’t hurt her that she tossed her head disdainfully.
'Then you're picking on the wrong woman. You don’t scare me. I'm not going to play victim for your macho gratification.'
His eyes glowed with a strange yellow colour, like sun trying to break through summer storm clouds. 'So I don’t scare you?'
If her chin tipped any higher she was going to fall over backwards, but she had to do something to counteract his overwhelming physical impact. 'Not a bit!' she defied him.
The sun broke through, but his smile was a twist of irony and his voice disturbingly quiet.
'Then it's purely one-sided. Because, ma chère, you scare the hell out of me.'
That did frighten her. She could fight an arrogant man, but a vulnerable one was capable of undermining her defences. Why should she scare him? Wasn’t he the one with all the money, the p
ower...?
'Why are you doing this?' She summoned aggression to mask her uncertainty.
It was as if he scented her secret weakness. Like a hawk's, his strike was swift and lethal. 'Why? Exactly what I want to know. Did you intend all along for Jules to realise what you were doing? And what were you going to do with the results of your snooping? Sell it on the open market, or did you have a more personal method of extortion in mind?'
He picked up something from the lacquered coffee-table which formed a right-angled corner between two rattan couches padded with brightly coloured floral fabric. With a flick of his wrist he fanned out a series of photographs—pictures in which he and Serena Corvell featured with monotonous regularity.
'How dare you take my film?' Her cry was more of dismay than outrage.
‘I was just checking whether your camera still worked-' With a deft movement of his fingers, reminiscent of a card-sharp, he closed the fan while simultaneously flipping another photograph to the front. 'As you can see, it does.'
The photograph was one of Elizabeth, stalking haughtily away from the camera, her beach-shirt floating up around her hips. He must have taken it yesterday, the instant she had turned away from him and her captive camera. Glumly Elizabeth compared the generous breadth of her hips in the shot with the slender memory of Serena's. 'The zoom, too...'
This showed her in profile, skirting a tree. The shirt was breezily plastered against her body. Somehow it managed not only to show the regrettable span of her hips but also the full thrust of her breasts. To her horror she even thought she could see the outline of her nipples, still taut from their encounter with his chest.
She glared at him, trying not to feel fat and frumpy as well as hot and bothered. There was no point in her denying that she had been photographing him. The proof was in his hands. But proof of what, she had no intention of explaining.