Aunt Lucy's Lover

by Miranda Lee

  'It's such a shame I have to sell it,' she said.

  'Why do you have to sell it? Why not live here yourself?'

  'It's not as easy as that, Sebastian,' she said stiffly. 'I have a life in Sydney. And a career.'

  'You call slaving for someone else a career? You could make a real career out of running this place like Lucy did. She did very well yet she only opened the house for guests in the summer.'

  'I wouldn't be very good at that type of thing.'

  'Come now. The public relations manager of a big city hotel could run a place like this standing on her head. Now don't look so surprised. One of the things Lucy did tell me was what you did in Sydney, even if she didn't say where. She sounded very proud of you.'

  'I see. Well it's not a matter of capability, Sebastian. It's a matter of what I enjoy doing. I enjoy being a public relations manager. I don't enjoy housekeeping.'

  'Neither did Lucy. When she had guests, she had a girl come in every day to do the laundry and ironing, another to do the heavy cleaning and Evie to cook. Lucy's role was more of a hostess, though she did make breakfast in the mornings.'

  'What did she do with herself all day?'

  'She entertained her guests, in the main. Her friendly and relaxing style of companionship was one of the reasons the same people came back to stay here year after year. Lucy was a very calming person to be around. And then, of course, there was her garden. She spent a lot of time there, too. She loved her flowers. Do you like flowers, Jessica?'

  'What woman doesn't like flowers? I can't say I'm much of a gardener, though. I've never had a garden.'

  'You would here.'

  'I didn't say I wanted one.'

  'You didn't say you didn't, either.'

  She sighed an exasperated sigh. 'Stop trying to change my mind, Sebastian. I don't want to run a guesthouse. I am not going to stay. I'm here for one month and one month only.'

  He said nothing. Absolutely nothing. But his mouth tightened a little and she thought she saw scorn in his eyes.

  Jessica bristled, resenting the feeling she was having to defend herself to this man all the time. She decided it was his turn to answer some questions.

  'What else did Lucy tell you about me?' she demanded.

  'Nothing much.' He shrugged. 'She said you looked and seemed very..

  .efficient. That's about it. You must appreciate Lucy found out as little about you in your brief meeting as you did about her.'

  He was lying. Aunt Lucy had told him something else, something that had made him stare at her when they'd first met. But it was clear he wasn't going to tell her. She felt quite frustrated with him. And totally frustrated with herself.

  Dear God, it was as well he was on the other side of the room, for as she looked at him now, she felt the urge to reach out and touch, to see if his long golden hair was as silky as it seemed, to know if his bronzed skin was as satiny smooth as it looked.

  The man was a menace! Why couldn't he have been rising sixty, with a paunch and a greying beard? she thought irritably. Why did he have to be a golden god with eyes one could drown in and a mouth to tempt even the most frigid virgin?

  'Have you decided which bedroom you want to sleep in?' he asked abruptly. Yours, came the wicked thought before she could stop it entering her mind. Jessica took a deep, steadying breath. 'No,' she said. 'But not Lucy's. I wouldn't feel comfortable in Lucy's room.'

  'Which leaves you four to choose from, since I have no intention of giving you mine.'

  'It's hard to choose,' she said. 'From what I can remember they were all beautiful.'

  'The view is better on the southern side,' he advised, 'and you get more breezes in the evening.'

  'Which side is the southern side?'

  'This side. My side. I'll put your case in the room next to mine, shall I?'

  'Oh, er, all right.'

  'Good.' He bent to pick up the heavy case, the movement highlighting the sleekly defined muscles in his chest and upper arms.

  'I know you probably promised my aunt you would try to persuade me to stay, Sebastian,' she burst out, a type of panic invading her at the thought of spending a whole month in the bedroom next to his. 'But the truth is...I simply could not bear to live permanently on Norfolk Island.'

  He straightened and looked at her with suppressed exasperation in his eyes.

  'How do you know that? You haven't tried it.'

  'You don't have to climb Mount Everest to know that it's freezing cold up there,' she said defensively.

  'Meaning?'

  'Life here is too slow for me. And far too quiet. I'd be bored in no time.'

  His eyes locked with hers across the room, and she felt instantly breathless.

  'You think so?' he said with a taunting softness.

  'I know so.'

  'You know nothing, Jessica,' he said with an almost weary sigh. 'Just as I knew nothing when I first came here. But I won't bore you by telling you about my experience. I can see Evie's quite wrong. You won't change your mind. Still, perhaps it's just as well. You really don't suit the island any more than it suits you.'

  His eyes became cold again as they raked over her. 'No. You're much better suited to a career in Sydney. I dare say having to stay here for a whole month has inconvenienced you no end.'

  Jessica resented the underlying contempt in his voice. Who was he to judge anyone? 'Yes, it has, actually,' she said curtly. 'I might have risked my job in dropping everything and coming at once.'

  'Pardon me if my heart doesn't bleed for you. I'm sure your inheritance will more than compensate for any inconvenience. And if you lose your job, then what the hell? You'll survive till you get the next one.'

  'You still believe all I care about is the money, don't you?'

  'If the cap fits, wear it, Jessica.'

  'I have not come just for the money!'

  'Whatever you say.' His expression was distant, as though he didn't give a damn either way.

  'Lunch in ten minutes!' Evie called from the depths of the house. 'I'll serve it out on the back veranda.'

  'Fine, Evie,' Sebastian called down the hallway before turning to face Jessica. 'Let's get you along to your room,' he said briskly. 'You might like to shower and change before lunch. I know I do. I probably smell of fish. I threw away my T-shirt earlier because it was high as a kite, but I think I must still be on the nose a bit. I couldn't help but notice you run a mile every time I get too close.'

  Jessica found some relief that this was what he thought. The last thing she wanted was for him to think she fancied him. My God, the last thing she'd wanted— or expected—was to fancy him at all!

  She wasn't sure why she did, with the way he was treating her. Like she was a cold-hearted, ambitious bitch! Okay, so he was gorgeous looking, in a blond, bronzed surfie fashion, but she'd never been attracted to that type before, not even in her younger days. She'd always gone for dark, intensely passionate types, the ones who couldn't stop looking at you, who flattered you like mad and were always over you like a rash as soon as they got you alone.

  Jessica's previous lovers had always rushed her into the bedroom before she could draw breath, and silly lonely love-struck fool that she was, she'd never thought to say no, even when the bells didn't ring and the stars didn't explode.

  She'd long come to terms with the fact that while the men she'd fallen in love with had been passionate types, they hadn't been the most skilled lovers in the world. They had been impatient for their own pleasure, quick and selfish, takers, not givers.

  She stared at Sebastian as she crossed the room and wondered what kind of lover he was. Which led her to the question of whether he had a girlfriend somewhere on the island.

  She didn't like that idea. Not one bit. It was a perversely telling moment.

  'I'll use the bathroom on the other side of the house,' he said, 'if that's what you're frowning about.'

  Jessica frowned some more till she remembered none of the bedrooms had ensuites. Each side of the house
had a bathroom and separate toilet, with a third powder room and toilet coming off the hallway near the living rooms.

  'I think that's a good idea,' she said coolly. 'Perhaps you should always use that bathroom for the duration of my stay here. That way we won't have to worry about sharing, or running into each other accidentally in the bathroom.'

  And I won't have to worry about drooling over you too much. He stared at her for a moment, then shrugged. 'Okay. If that's what you want.'

  'What I want, Sebastian,' she said as she followed him into the bedroom he'd chosen for her, 'is for you to tell me the truth.'

  He placed her suitcase on the ottoman at the foot of her four-poster bed, then glanced at her, his face an-noyingly bland. 'About what?'

  'About everything.'

  'Everything?'

  'You know what-I mean, so don't play dumb. It doesn't suit you.'

  'What if I think you're not ready to know.. .everything?' he said with irritating calm.

  'What gives you the right to make such a judgment?' she countered frustratedly. 'You know, you have a habit of making ill-founded judgments. You accused me earlier of not wanting to find out about my heritage. Then, just now, you virtually accused me for a second time of only coming here for the money. You were wrong on both counts. I would have survived quite well without Aunt Lucy's money. But I doubt I'll survive without knowing the facts surrounding my mother's flight from her family, and her pretending they didn't exist, and vice versa. So stop telling me what I think and what I feel! You don't know anything about me. Not the real me. You probably never will.'

  His eyebrows shot ceilingwards. Jessica wasn't sure if he was impressed by her outburst, or taken aback. Frankly, she didn't care. She was too mad to care.

  'I also want to know where you fit into all this,' she swept on heatedly.

  'Okay, so you refuse to tell me if you and my aunt were lovers, but I still want to know who in hell you are, and how you came to live here, and why Aunt Lucy put you in her will in such a peculiar backhanded fashion?'

  His smile was wry. 'Thems a lot of questions, Jess. It would take me all day and all night to answer them.'

  His calling her Jess almost distracted her from her mission. For a few disarming seconds she took some perverse pleasure from the possibility that it meant he was beginning to believe her. Or perhaps even like her. But just as swiftly she pushed such silly considerations aside and put her mind on why she was here. For it certainly wasn't to become involved with a man like Sebastian Slade, who was at best a bit of a beach bum, at worst, a gold-digging gigolo.

  'I have all day and all night,' she said firmly. 'And so do you, by the look of things.'

  'I work in the afternoons.'

  'You... work?' Her face and voice must have shown her surprise.

  'Yes. Did you think I just lazed around every day, doing nothing but fish?'

  Pretty well, came the dryly cynical thought.

  'What on earth do you do?' she asked. Maybe his idea of work and her idea of work were two different things.

  'I write.'

  'Write,' she repeated dully, as though she'd lost her brain power. But frankly, he looked about as far removed from a writer as one could get.

  'What do you write?'

  'I'm working on a novel.'

  'You mean you're a novelist? You earn money from writing books?'

  'I hope to. A publisher has already accepted my story on the first two hundred pages plus a synopsis. I've completed a further four hundred and have about fifty to go. Since my deadline is the end of this month, I'm sure you must appreciate I can't have an afternoon off at this stage.'

  'What's it about, this novel of yours?'

  His sigh was a little weary. 'Jessica, for pity's sake, you never open your mouth except to ask more questions. I could be here forever if I started answering them now. Have a quick shower and change into something cooler. You look hot. I'll tell you about my book over lunch. Then tonight at dinner, and afterwards, I'll try to answer all your other questions.'

  'You won't hold anything back?' she asked. 'Promise?'

  'I promise to put myself at your total disposal till you are well and truly satisfied. Fair enough?'

  He could not possibly have meant any double entendre within that statement, but still, his words put perturbing pictures into her mind. Pictures of her staying all night in his bed, being made love to over and over, no sexual stone unturned till she lay exhausted and thoroughly sated in his arms.

  Jessica swallowed, then struggled to find her voice. 'F-fair enough.'

  He smiled at her then, an unconsciously sensual smile, which made her feel suddenly weak at the knees.

  'See you at lunch,' he said. 'I'll tell Evie to hold the food for another five minutes, but don't be long.'

  CHAPTER FIVE

  JESSICA managed to find her way to the back veranda in just over ten minutes. Sebastian was already there, slightly more dressed than earlier in multicoloured board shorts and a bright blue singlet the same colour as his eyes. His hair hung darkly damp onto his shoulders in gentle waves. He looked deliciously cool, hunkily handsome and ir-ritatingly relaxed, leaning back in a deep cane chair, his bare feet up on the veranda railing.

  'Great view, isn't it?' he said as she settled herself in an adjacent chair, a glass-topped cane table between them. He didn't even look her way. Jessica's automatic pique was telling. She'd told herself she hadn't dressed to attract him, that she'd chosen to wear her white cheesecloth outfit simply because it didn't need ironing, and not because it was the most feminine thing she'd brought with her.

  Now she gazed at her clothes with a rueful acceptance of the truth. The skirt flowed in sensually soft folds to mid-calf, the matching shirt falling loosely from her shoulders to her hips, its thin white material showing tantalising glimpses of the half-cup lace bra she was wearing underneath, one that pressed her breasts up and together. She'd deliberately left the top two of the mother-of-pearl buttons open at the neck, forming a deep V neckline, which displayed a good inch or two of cleavage.

  Jessica felt frustration at her own stupidity, and relief that the object of this unwanted sexual attraction was indifferent to her appearance. Still, she was thankful she hadn't had time to change her hair. Leaving her hair down might have delivered a none too subtle message.

  With a small sigh she crossed her legs, noting as she did that her toenail polish was chipped. Embarrassed--she was a perfectionist about her personal grooming— she uncrossed her legs and swung them underneath her chair to hide her feet.

  It was only then that she really took in the view Sebastian had remarked upon.

  My God, but it was magnificent! Rolling green hills in the forefront, framed by stately Norfolk Island pines. The Pacific Ocean in the distance, a great expanse of blue-green water broken by two small craggy islands, which looked deserted. Above, cotton wool clouds were scattered across a deep aqua sky.

  'There aren't any boats on the horizon,' she commented, surprised. In Sydney, you could rarely look out at the ocean and not see a boat on the horizon.

  'We're not on any shipping line here,' Sebastian replied. 'The only boat you'll ever see other than local fishing boats is the occasional supply ship. It's quite an event when one shows up. Everyone goes down to the pier to watch the unloading.'

  Wow, Jessica thought dryly, trying not to show what she felt about that on her face.

  Sebastian laughed. 'You think that's about as interesting as watching grass grow, don't you?'

  What was the point in lying to him?

  She threw a rueful glance his way. 'Something like that,' she admitted. 'But maybe I'm wrong. If a boat comes in while I'm here, take me down to watch for a while.'

  'All right. I'll do that. Ah, here's Evie with some brain food.'

  'It's nothing fancy,' Evie said as she carried a tray over and proceeded to put a plate each on the table between them. 'Just some club sandwiches, followed by banana cake and tea. Or coffee, if you'd prefer.' She d
irected the last remark towards Jessica.

  'Tea would be just fine,' she said, smiling. The only time she liked coffee was first thing in the mornings and after dinner at night. 'This looks delicious.' Jessica picked up the long sesame-seed-covered roll filled with cold meat and salad and took a bite. 'Aren't you having one, Evie?'

  'I already did, in the kitchen. Sebastian, you've let provisions really run down in the freezer. I'll have to do some shopping this afternoon before I can produce a decent meal tonight.'

  'There's plenty of trumpeter in the fridge,' he said, and Jessica wondered what trumpeter was.

  'We can't eat fish every night,' Evie told him, thereby solving the mystery.

  'And I need some fresh vegetables.'

  'Have you enough money to buy what you need, Evie?' Jessica asked. 'I'll pay you back tomorrow when I go to the bank. I didn't carry all that much cash with me on the plane.'

  'I'll fix her up with some money,' Sebastian offered.

  'Certainly not,' Jessica snapped. 'The will said you were to live here free of charge, and that's exactly what you'll do.'

  'For pity's sake don't start arguing, you two,' Evie protested. 'That would be the last thing Lucy wanted. I'll pay for the food and Jessica can pay me back. Now eat up and I'll go get the banana cake and tea.'

  'Forceful woman,' Sebastian said after Evie disappeared.

  'She's a very nice lady,' Jessica defended.

  'I was talking about you.'

  'Oh.' Her head turned and their eyes met over their rolls. He was looking at her now. Really looking at her, drinking her in, his eyes starting on hers and travelling slowly downwards, past her suddenly drying mouth, down the V neckline to where her swelling breasts were forming an even more impressive cleavage. Her nipples suddenly felt like hard pebbles, pressing against the lace confines of her bra. Her heart was thudding heavily behind her ribs.

  Thank God I'm not given to blushing, she thought with growing irritation. Her chin lifted instinctively in defiance of the effect he had on her. He wasn't even looking at her with desire in his eyes. If anything, there was a rueful edge to his appraisal, as though he recognised her physical attractiveness but was totally immune.