The gray eyes frosted over. “Is that my reputation, really?”
“Whether you like it or not.” She sipped her champagne.
“Listen to me, Toni.” He loosened the button of his beautifully cut jacket and eased back. “I’ve got a lot of people depending on me. A cattle chain to look after. These are tough times. Testing times. Toughness is a quality to be desired. You’d do well to remember it.”
“Oh, I will! Be sure of it. And Joel isn’t offering a challenge?”
For a moment he looked like he was going to ignore the silky taunt. “I’m not going to put my own brother down, but I think you’ll find Joel wouldn’t want to take on my responsibilities.”
“Just as well, under the circumstances. Personally I don’t go along with the old law of primogeniture. Both of you still unmarried?”
He took his time replying, a little nettled, more amused. “Not even engaged. Joel has plenty of time. I’ll get around to it when I’m ready.”
“You might even have someone already in mind?” She kept those lotus eyes trained on him.
“Not at all.”
“You don’t need women?” She knew she sounded challenging. But then she’d already been labelled.
“Oh, but I do, Toni. I don’t always sleep alone.”
No. Indeed not, Toni thought, endeavouring to ignore the shiver that ran down her spine. “Do we name names?”
“No,” he said bluntly.
So that was that.
“Drink up and we’ll go in to dinner,” he murmured. “I’ve had meetings most of the day. I feel like a Porsche with the engine still running. It will be nice to relax.”
Relax they didn’t. The tensions tightened a notch, even though an attraction between them was tacitly admitted.
The main dining room was opulent, softly lit, with beautiful paintings and tapestries on the wall, the tables glowing with candles and posies of flowers.
“It’s lovely here,” Toni murmured appreciatively, watching the light glance off his dark copper skin.
He glanced around, used to grand surroundings from infancy. “The main dining room has recently been refurbished, I understand. If it’s all right with you I’d like to get away fairly early in the morning, Toni.”
“Have no fear. I won’t put you out.”
He looked at her keenly, almost laughed. “Well, I’d like to be at the. airport by eight-thirty, at the latest. I suppose it’s reasonable to conclude you’ve brought a fair bit of luggage?”
She grimaced at the implication. “I’m not Mommy Dearest, Byrne. I’m here for the month, then I’ll go back to Paris.”
There was a sudden flare in his eyes, like diamonds exposed to bright light. “It sounds like you have someone waiting for you.”
“There is someone.” She took a deep breath, pretending to go starry eyed.
“There always is.” He stared at her for a minute before picking up his menu.
“His name is Akbar,” she confided. “We have crazy times together.”
His handsome mouth tightened. “I’m not sure I’m ready to hear about your little jaunts around Morocco. In many respects I lead a conservative life.”
She opened her eyes wide. “Don’t be ashamed of it, Byrne. You’re a gorgeous man, really,”
Her power to discomfort him was impressive. “Why, thank you, Antoinette. Just so long as you remember I don’t party with youngsters.”
“Which I might say without fear of contradiction lets me out. I’m twenty-two.”
“A considerable age.” His voice was half mocking, half gentle.
“I’m not going to let you patronise me, Byrne.”
“Good for you. I’m enjoying your efforts.” He looked at her.
“Oh? I thought you were trying to make me suffer.”
That put a brake on him.
“Forgive me, Toni, that wasn’t my intention.”
“Of course, I forgive you,” she lied, anxious to defuse the simmering tension. “As long as you remember something.”
“Please don’t stop yourself from telling me.” He poured them both another glass of champagne.
“I’m not stupid.”
He looked at her, light leaping from his silver-gray eyes. “That makes you doubly dangerous.”
Toni waited until they were airborne before she allowed herself to speak. “I’ve got to say I love the new plane.” She tapped one beautifully manicured nail against the arm of her chair. “What happened to the Beech Baron?”
“I sold it to Winaroo Downs. It was just what they wanted.”
“And this is the Super King Air?”
“Yes. Turbo prop. Averages about two hundred and eighty knots. A jet would have been fairly useless to me, what with trying to find suitable landing strips. This can get in just about anywhere the Baron could, which is what I need. I find I’m doing more flying around the country, checking on other properties, attending meetings, whatever.”
“It must have been hellishly expensive,” Toni said. Millions. Probably five or six.
“It’s not a luxury, Toni, not a rich man’s toy. It’s a necessity. A way of life. It comfortably seats ten passengers, as well as your seat beside me. A lot of the time I have a full complement on board. Especially when I’m carrying fellow cattlemen. They like to cadge a lift on the most comfortable plane.”
“Don’t I know.” She glanced at the earth. “I never grow tired of flying,” she said. “It’s a miracle.”
“You know Kerry had to part with the Cessna?” He shot her a keen look.
“Of course.” She bit her lip. “No matter how hardworking Dad and Kerry were, there were so many reversals.”
“And Zoe wanted a big slice of the pie.” The old bitterness slipped out.
“I don’t know anything about that, Byrne.”
“You had to know. Why lie?”
“Dad didn’t discuss the settlement with either of us. I was thirteen when Zoe left, remember? Kerry had only just finished school. Dad tried to protect us.”
“Then I’m sorry. He wasn’t happy about you going off to join your mother, either.”
“He agonised, then, loving me, gave in.”
“Did she never marry the man she went off with?” Byrne asked after a long pause, “or wasn’t he sufficiently well-heeled?”
She looked out the window. Brilliant blue sky and a streaming wedding veil of clouds. “Something like that.”
“How long were you with your mother before Von Dantzig disappeared?”
“It was all very distressing, Byrne.”
“I bet it was.” He felt a sudden wave of protectiveness. “In fact it must have been a nightmare for a beautiful young girl.”
“I had nothing to fear. I cried a little when Zoe and Rolf split up. Zoe had already met Claude. He decided to convert her to a grand lady. She liked that.”
“Dear, dear.” He clicked his tongue. “How did you keep up with these dreadful affairs?”
“I’m infinitely older than my mother,” she said simply.
“Is that why you stayed? To protect her?” His eyes were shrewd.
“And all the time you thought I was raging back and forth. Into guys. Into parties. Into drugs.” She shot a mocking glance at the hard, handsome profile, which he caught.
“I saw your pals at the hotel.”
“What pals?” She blinked in confusion.
“The two who were anxious to get your address.”
Her shoulders slumped. “Oh, them! You get pleasure seeing me as an air head, don’t you?”
“I know perfectly well you’re not.” She had wit, intelligence, her own apparent strengths.
“Actually I was giving them some tourist destinations on the Barrier Reef. They’re Americans, heading that way.”
“They didn’t invite you?” Hell, he was going out of his way to taunt her.
“All right, they tried. It’s no big secret men are convinced blondes know how to enjoy life.”
“It sounds
just about right to me.” He smiled, and it was like the proverbial ray of sunshine spreading radiance across his dark, daunting face.
“Didn’t you have a wild girlfriend at one time?” she countered, trying to fight the punch his smile delivered.
“I doubt it, Toni. Wild women aren’t my style.”
“Yet I seem to remember her. Hettie? Lettie? Tall, good-looking brunette, not shy about spouting off.”
“I think you mean Charlotte Reardon.” The silver-gray eyes sharpened.
“Yes, Lottie. Everyone said she was very fast.”
“What the hell are you up to, Toni?” He raised a brow.
“I just wanted to see if I could take the mickey out of you,” she joked.
“You’d better wait until you know me a little better.”
“I’ve known you all my life.” Not in this way, she thought. Not with all the flash and challenge.
“Not up close,” he told her, eyes narrowing. “Tell me why you really came home.”
As a question it was almost aggressive. “To be with Kerry, of course. To be one of Cate’s bridesmaids. I consider it an honour.”
“What will Zoe do without you?”
“Zoe has made her decision, Byrne. She’s going to marry Patrick. There’s nothing I can do about it.”
“But you’ve got a problem with it?” He glanced at her, trying to pierce her guard.
“Maybe. Zoe loves weddings. All the excitement and glamour. That wonderful feeling of magic in the air. She doesn’t give a lot of thought to after.”
“Then you can count it a miracle she stayed so long with your father.”
“I promise you she did love him,” Toni said out of her deep knowledge of her mother. “And there were the two of us.”
“A daughter thirteen. A son seventeen. Problematic ages, one would have thought.”
“Zoe wasn’t qualified to give advice.”
He glanced at her with a sympathy he couldn’t suppress. “Does she ever show regret?”
Toni rubbed a finger between her arched brows. “One can’t judge Zoe by normal standards. She doesn’t look on broken marriages as failures. More as a way of breaking out of a bad situation. I should warn you, she could bring Patrick when she arrives.”
“So long as she doesn’t bring Akbar.” Amusement showed in his light-struck eyes.
“All right, I was joking about Akbar.”
“Some joke.”
“You believed me?”
He shrugged. “It must have something to do with the fact you’re Zoe’s daughter.”
“A real flake.” That was the general impression before they came to know her.
“The sort of woman to drive men wild.”
It was difficult suddenly to breathe. “I missed out on that talent.”
“I’ve seen nothing to indicate- that so far,” he drawled. “In fact I’m wondering how we’re going to prevent you from upstaging Cate.”
Toni flushed with hurt. “That’s what I call a bit of out-and-out malice.”
“Not at all.” His silver eyes sparkled. “Some weddings I’ve been to the bridesmaid has upstaged the bride.”
“That shouldn’t happen.”
“But it is a problem. I suppose you know Cate has three little flower girls lined up, as well as her four bridesmaids?”
Toni smiled. “She always did say she wanted a large wedding. I know Sally and Tara, of course—” she referred to the Beresford cousins “—but I don’t think I’ve met Andrea.”
“Andrea Benton.”
“Doesn’t ring a bell.” She looked at him inquiringly.
“You’ve been out of the country awhile. Andrea’s father has been making the news for the past couple of years. Corporate takeovers, that kind of thing.”
“It doesn’t sound as if you like him.”
“I can promise you I like Andrea.” He let his gaze skim over her. Thinking, She doesn’t miss a thing.
“Should I read something significant into that?”
“You’re welcome to, if you like.” He smiled. “I don’t know that it means anything.”
“Just a friend of the family?” She shifted position so she could look at him. He was the most marvelous-looking man she had ever seen. Supremely self-assured, and it showed.
“Don’t press too hard, Toni,” he warned without sounding riled.
“Why, are you scared of matrimony?”
“That’s right, ma’am,” he drawled.
“Shame on you, Byrne. And you don’t like to get yourself into critical situations?”
“You’d better believe it.” He took his eyes off the control panel to stare at her. “There are no scandals in the Beresford family.”
“None whatsoever?” She couldn’t resist it. “Didn’t your granduncle have a mistress called Dolly?”
He laughed all of a sudden, and the laughter stayed in his eyes. “Lord, yes, I’d forgotten all about Dolly.”
“It’s what’s called selective memory. But I suppose if we stuck Dolly into the cupboard you’d have been a very worthy family. Maybe a bit starchy.” What the heck was she doing, being so irreverent?
“Okay, Antoinette, you’ve had your little bit of fun.”
“Only because you’re being pretty mean to me.”
He gave her a glance that spangled. “I’m sorry.”
She felt a kind of heat spread in her. “Okay, apology accepted. Anyway, I can’t talk. I have no immediate plans to get married, either. I’m a bit like you. I’m runnin’ scared.”
She hoped she might have tweaked his ego, but he laughed. “I guess I asked for that. Was it so bad moving in your mother’s circle?” he asked with surprising sympathy.
“Awkward.”
“If you needed money to come home, you only had to ask.”
“Do you honestly think I’d have approached you, Byrne?”
“You had Kerry.”
She paused, reflecting. “I don’t think Kerry and I will ever get back to what we were.”
“That’s nonsense!” He gave her a disapproving look. “He loves you.”
“He did when we were growing up. But somehow when I wanted to join Zoe he came to believe the Zoe side of me would triumph. It is scary the way I look like her. I even talk like her sometimes.” She smiled wryly. “Kerry never did identify with Zoe. He’s a Streeton through and through. In some ways, too, Kerry left Zoe out in the cold. He was very critical of her and her be-haviour from an early age. I think he felt shamed when Zoe flirted with every man in sight. He didn’t understand. Flirting is natural to her. She can’t stop it. After Zoe divorced Dad, Kerry. turned against her completely. I’m not defending Zoe for what she did, but I can see some things from her point of view.”
“Of course,” he conceded. “I would expect you to be loyal to your mother.”
She nodded, dappled sunshine playing over her hair and face. “There is a strong bond between us. The silver cord that can’t be severed. There’s nothing nasty about Zoe. She might astonish us all with the things she does, but she just has to do them. She’s like a woman caught in a fantasy world.”
“And you’re talking about going back?” He sounded amazed. “There’s nothing more you can do for her, surely? Obviously she gave you no guidance. Do you need her for all the little extras? I realise neither you nor Kerry got much out of your father’s estate except the property.”
“I can look after myself, Byrne.” She pressed her soft lips together.
“Doing what? You never did tell me.”
“I was always in demand tutoring English. I gained my degree.”
He looked at her in quick surprise. “This is the first I’ve heard of it.”
“You can’t know everything, Byrne,” she said, not holding back on the sarcasm. “I’ve worked very hard.”
“Well, good for you.” His glance was full of approval. “I know you and Kerry did very well at school.”
“But you thought I was only enjoying myself?”
/>
“Something like that,” he admitted dryly. Hell, they all had.
“Zoe didn’t want me to continue my studies. She thought, as a woman, I had no need of higher education, but I made my choice. I wasn’t going to bother Zoe with any demands for money.”
His eyes moved sharply to her face. “For the life of me I can’t figure out why. You were entitled. She got away with enough.” In fact, Zoe Streeton had taken her husband to the cleaners.
“I told you. Zoe made a few bad investments.” She didn’t say how bad they really were.
His handsome features tightened, but he remained silent.
“She hasn’t a head for business,” Toni said defensively. “Kerry didn’t write. And when I rang he sounded very remote.”
“That’s crazy,” he disagreed flatly. “All he wanted was for you to come home.”
“If he did, he never said so.” Toni had gotten the strong impression her brother preferred to cope alone. And then he had Cate.
Byrne’s scrutiny was intense, cutting through layers of her skin. “I’m not understanding this at all, Toni. Kerry was seriously concerned about you. He was under the impression you and your mother were leading a very giddy life.”
Toni shifted in her seat. Kerry hadn’t been wrong. It was an empty life Zoe had chosen for herself. A life involving self-indulgence, promiscuity, guile, suffering. A dreadful life, Toni thought, but she had tried very hard to protect Zoe and her interests while Zoe went around wondering aloud what was wrong with her daughter. It would have been funny, only the situations Zoe got herself into often landed her in trouble.
“All I can say is, I was there for my mother. What was I supposed to do, abandon her? I can’t renounce my responsibilities as her daughter. As I see it, it’s two-way traffic. She’s Kerry’s mother, as well, I might point out.”
His handsome features were thoughtful. “I should warn you he doesn’t want her at the wedding.”
“She’s coming anyway. It’s important to her.”
“Is she still as beautiful as ever?” he asked, getting a clear picture of Zoe with the prettiest little girl he had ever seen in her arms.
“Sometimes I think her beauty is indestructible.” Toni’s smile was soft. “She’s forty-seven but she looks thirty-five. She has wonderful skin.”
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