by Various
“It might very well be,” he said in a deepening tone. “You’re not going to sleep in it, are you?”
“Under my pillow,” she said. No wonder she was fighting to keep calm. He looked shockingly sexy, on high alert, very elegant but dangerous. He had taken off his jacket and slipped a couple of buttons on his black silk shirt for extra comfort. His skin, she saw, beyond the light mat of hair was like polished bronze.
“So what happened tonight?” he asked. “The stone arranged it?”
She was held by the force of those golden eyes. “Why ever would you say that? Marigole was stung. Wasn’t she?”
“She was stung all right, but not by any flying insect I know of. Do show me that stone again if you would.”
She opened out her palm.
“See. It’s duller and darker.”
Her head bent nearer his, golden blonde, a wonderful foil for rich dark auburn. “So?” She stared up at him perplexed. “Has it lost its powers?”
He gave a brief laugh. “I see we’re both in agreement it has powers.”
“Well, I’m not going to say it hasn’t and be struck dead.”
“Me either. I’ve seen too many extraordinary things in my time, all to do with aboriginal sorcery and magic. Your stone is governed by kinetic forces, movement, being close to your heart. Put it back on for a while.”
“Are you serious?”
“Why are you whispering?” he asked gently.
“I don’t know.” She was, in fact, caught up in high tension.
“Here, let me. If you’ll just grab that glorious mane and hold it out of the way.”
At the touch of his hands on her nape she felt her blood glitter. Her father would have frowned at her “glamour girl” look. The wrong look, he considered, for her. “I’ve been so accustomed to pulling my hair back,” she said shakily. “I don’t feel like myself with it floating around.”
“Your old self,” he stressed. “I love it! It’s the new you! Now turn around.”
She would when she could steady herself.
“OK, I’ll turn you.” His hands slid to her shoulders. “There! Your magic talisman has come alive again.”
Her eyes dipped to her breast. The sparkle had returned, along with the flash of iridescent colours. “I suspected Eerina was a sorceress the minute I met her. How does one get to be like that?” She lifted her eyes to meet his, felt a swift pulsing of sexual desire.
“You’re a sorceress in your own way,” he said, his tone low. “Right now I feel quite powerless.”
“You, powerless? To do what?” She was still whispering, trying to pull herself out of an erotic trance.
“Resist you,” he said. Dead serious. No flirtation.
He stood there, looking at her with such intensity that she felt herself swaying towards him. They were only a breath away.
You’ve found him! But what about the highly antagonistic ex-wife, Georgy’s mother?
“I should go,” she said falteringly.
“Don’t.” He caught the silky flesh of her arm, turned it, exposing her narrow wrist with its fine tracery of blue veins. While she held her constricted breath, he slowly raised her upturned hand to his mouth. “If I start anything more, I won’t stop,” he confessed. His voice sounded torched. Maybe tormented. Gently he touched his mouth to her wrist, his tongue a warm pulse on the blue veins. “I want you. You know that?” He lifted his head, casting aside all pretence.
Olivia felt a blinding rush of something beyond pleasure. All serenity had left her. She was adrift on a wild sea. She tried to explain. “This level of feeling is frightening to me, Clint. I’ve led such a quiet, contained life. No impressive collection of lovers. So please don’t lead me on if you don’t mean it. I couldn’t bear to be another victim.”
“Victim? I don’t lie.” The denial came out on a harsh rasp. He was still holding her hand, his thumb rubbing back and forth over her transparent wrist. “The truth is, I want you more and more every day. I acknowledge there’s terror in that. For both of us.”
“You fear to put yourself in a woman’s hands again?”
His stunning features had drawn taut with desire. “You could be the one exception. I want to scoop you up and take you to my bed.”
“But that doesn’t answer the question. We’re drawn to each other. We were from the beginning, I think, even though your way with me was infuriating.”
“I realise now I was spectacularly rude.”
“You were,” she said raggedly.
“Forgive me?” His smile was slow and heart melting. “Kiss and make up?”
Oh, God, yes!
She had been waiting for him all her life. Here was one man who wouldn’t let her hide away. Voluptuously she let her head fall back. Her eyes closed. Her senses were reeling. Rapture was flooding her brain and her body. That intense longing manifested itself in a sob that was muffled beneath the weight of his mouth.
She would never forget being kissed like this. Not if she lived until she was one hundred. The erotic splendour of it all drew her into its glory. No matter what happened—she was far from certain of what lay ahead of them—she would remember these moments out of time.
Involuntary tears rose to her eyes. An ache of yearning and anguish.
“Olivia?” He drew back, a sharp catch of concern in his voice. “Surely I’m not making you cry?”
“Women cry when they need to.”
Her tone stabbed at his heart. Was he rushing her, frightening her with the strength of his ardour? “Olivia, I’m here to take good care of you. You’re under my protection. I’m sorry if I’m moving too fast. I have to remember I’m older than you and far more experienced. I must apologise too if Marigole upset you tonight.”
“She did upset me,” Olivia admitted, drawing back very slightly. “The malice behind it! I’m rather good at hiding my upsets.”
“I know. But there’s nothing much I can do about Marigole,” he told her tersely. “She’s a tease and a bully, but she’s also Georgy’s mother. Sometimes I think I’ll always have Marigole in my life.”
“Because of the daughter you created together?” She spoke with the utmost gravity, mindful of that fact.
“Well, yes.”
“I understand.” She did. “But surely when you remarry?”
His golden eyes burned into her. “It has to be the right woman. Marriage can bring out the best in people and the worst. Only an idiot would make the same mistake twice.”
“So you’re not ready for commitment?”
He knit his dark brows together. It gave him a dangerous air. “Are you?” He badly needed to know.
She looked away towards a painting. Not really seeing it. “I want to get married. I want children. I love children. But, like you, I’m frightened of making a mess of my life, settling on the wrong man.”
“You want a safe man?”
She gave a broken little laugh, more like a sob. “When I first saw you coming towards me at the airport, I thought, My God, a wild man!”
His expression lightened. “I’m sure I looked like one after Justin.”
“Justin told me he was very fond of me.”
“God!” he exclaimed in disgust. “Couldn’t he do better than that?”
“Seems not!” She shrugged her creamy shoulders. “I suppose I’ve always appeared sort of ordinary beside Bella. Half the eligible men we knew were in love with her. And used me to get to her.”
“More accessible,” he said. “Bella is very beautiful and vivacious. I rather formed the impression Oscar enjoyed Bella’s wildness. She could get away with things you couldn’t. Ever think you proved too difficult? Too unassailable? That touch-me-not air. I like it. What I like better is touching you. But as I pointed out once before, there are inherent dangers in falling at a goddess’s feet.”
The way he was looking at her—surely with a marvellous tenderness—made her want to sob her heart out. Get rid of the pain. The pain of years of conforming to what he
r father wanted. He was right. As always. Their father had enjoyed Bella’s escapades, barring the last one. Bella was allowed to go wild. It was condoned. Olivia had been obliged to toe the line. A lone tear like a crystal drop trickled down her cheek.
“Olivia! Come here to me.” His mastery of her was running at full throttle. He drew her back into his arms, cradling her against his chest. It was extraordinary the way he made her feel small and deeply feminine. As much a woman as she could ever be.
She let him cradle her, revelling in his strength. “Don’t mind me,” she murmured. “I’m ashamed of myself really for breaking down like this.”
“But I do mind you,” he said tautly. “I thought we’d established that. For all your sophistication, your age, your beauty, you still carry around the grave child you once were. Lift your head.”
She was compelled to obey, driven by desire. His head bent over hers, the tip of his tongue catching up the teardrop that still lay on her cheek, taking it into his mouth. “I can’t waste one of your tears. Don’t let me frighten you away, Olivia. Sometimes I think of you as a gorgeous butterfly that’s alighted on my shoulder. One false move and you’ll fly off!”
“Clint!” Her voice broke with helpless emotion.
“I’ve never heard my name sound so good!” He dropped an exquisitely gentle kiss on her mouth. It pierced her with such sweetness she could have expired at the rapture. Fully aroused, he deepened the kiss, holding the back of her golden head to him so he could have more of her.
Little arrows of sexual yearning lanced deep into her body. They caused multiple involuntary contractions at the sensitive delta, as sharp and immediate as jabs of adrenalin. She didn’t attempt to break away, though the level of passion was extremely high. She remained locked in his arms, a woman desperate for his kisses…He could do what he liked with her. She was a woman on fire. Absolutely aflame.
A howl of feline rage split them apart.
“I knew it. I knew it!” Marigole stood several feet away, dancing with pure jealousy. Her large dark eyes were almost starting out of her head. She was wearing an exquisite cream nightgown with a matching peignoir, the flawless skin she prized wax white with outrage.
Olivia was too shocked to feel embarrassment. Kissing wasn’t a hanging offence. Even the passionate kissing that had generated such sizzling heat.
McAlpine predictably was swift to react. “Thank you, Marigole, for treating us to that howl. A wild dingo out there couldn’t have done it better. Couldn’t sleep?”
“You bastard!” she cried with ferocity, throwing back her peignoir so the outline of her body showed clearly through the near-transparent silk. “How could you? And with me in the house!”
Olivia came to her senses. These two people had been married for years. They knew each other intimately. Marigole had borne his child. He had admitted to an inescapable bond. Was it possible she was acting as a barrier to reunion? The woman still loved him. She even felt a pang of pity for her. It was a terrible thing to be unhappy whether one deserved it or not. And Marigole was dreadfully unhappy. So too was Georgy. She had been distraught at the divorce. Could she be in the way of causing the child further hurt?
Incredibly, even to her own ears, she sounded totally in command of herself. Long years of practise sometime came in handy. “I’ll leave the two of you to talk.”
“You’re in love with him, aren’t you?” Marigole cried, looking like a wild cat ready to use its claws.
“We shouldn’t be talking when you’re in this state, Mrs McAlpine,” Olivia said, not without pity. “Sometimes a kiss is just a kiss, you know. I am not sleeping with Clint. That’s your ex-husband?”
Marigole took a dancing pace towards her. “Think you’re very clever, don’t you?”
“Only about some things.” Olivia stayed her hand from moving to her crystal. It was there for her to call on when needed. She could handle Marigole. At any rate, she thought she could. She had never figured in a love triangle.
“What say we call it a night?” McAlpine suggested briskly, apparently well used to Marigole, the drama queen. “Lucas no doubt is tucked up fast asleep in your bed, Marigole. I would remind you that both of you are guests in my house. And you’re looking to me to take full custody of our daughter. I have to say, if you’re looking to Lucas as your next husband, at least he’ll be able to keep you in style. Now I suggest you stop going ballistic at the thought I might remarry.”
Marigole’s great dark eyes flashed lightning. “You have to be very, very careful with this man.” White faced, she turned her attention back to the appalled Olivia. “He takes your heart, then he stomps on it. Why do you suppose I had to leave him?”
Was there something more to this than met the eye? Usually was. Sad to say.
“Not thinking clearly, Marigole.” McAlpine’s expression was frankly mocking. “If you haven’t realised it yet, you will. We’re divorced. It took you less than a week to take another lover.”
“And what about you?” Hot colour stained her slanting cheekbones. “What about angel face here with the golden hair and the sapphire eyes and the so-posh voice. You’ve really been giving her the rush, haven’t you? I bet it wasn’t the course of action her father had in mind when he sent her.”
Though rocked by Marigole’s jealous rage, Olivia considered she had the right to intervene. “Either way, it’s none of your business, Mrs McAlpine. My affairs are none of your business either. Let’s keep it that way. I’ll say goodnight.”
“Good night, Lady Olivia,” Marigole carolled after her. “Just don’t make the mistake of thinking Clint can make you happy. He’s a dangerous man. Believe me. You might have fallen for him hook, line and sinker—I’m not a fool—but you don’t know him well at all.”
Against the creamy skin of Olivia’s breast, the flashing iridescent colours of her crystal had shaded into a pearly silver-grey.
It made her feel uneasy. Frightened too.
Marigole had made her point. She really didn’t know McAlpine all that well.
Chapter Eight
FOR the first time since her arrival she slept very badly, turning this way and that, angry and miserable with Marigole’s bad behaviour which in her view was right off the scale, quite manic. She was tormented too by her intense, unresolved desires interwoven with a natural worry about where things were heading.
Admit it. You’re madly in love with him. Dangerous attraction.
But the question had to be asked. Was it the same for him as it was for her, given that men were even more sex driven than women? Only he would have had women falling at his feet from his teens. It couldn’t be possible he was trying to manipulate her. Could it? She was, after all, a Balfour heiress. Even Justin had admitted she was quite a prize. A prize he hadn’t acted on. But Justin was basically a society layabout, largely financed by his wealthy father.
McAlpine had turned his family fortune into the billions. Like her father he might be obsessed with making money. Again, like her father, a businessman first and last. Marriage in her world was too often a business arrangement with sex thrown in. Did McAlpine think like that? Marigole came from a wealthy family. He’d told her that himself.
Could history be repeating itself? It always did. No one actually learned from others’ mistakes, or if they did they didn’t put the learning into practise. Hadn’t her mother, Alexandra, been the most beautiful and glamorous debutante of her time, a prize her father had swooped on without a moment’s hesitation? Yet the marriage had been doomed to failure. Her father claimed Alexandra had betrayed him. Marigole claimed Clint had betrayed her. How exactly? Infidelity? Somehow she didn’t think so.
Her mother must have been unhappily married, neglected by her workaholic husband. Was that the reason she had drifted into that fateful affair that had produced Zoe and left her dead? Even with his heart broken, her father had swiftly moved on. To other women. There were always other women in his life.
Would there always be other women in McA
lpine’s life? She couldn’t help drawing parallels between two magnetic men who had power over women.
Was it any wonder the old insecurity beset her?
Breakfast went well. Everyone was in good spirits. It restored a measure of normality Afterwards Georgy, who had not breakfasted with the rest of them, bounded through her open bedroom door, her beautiful face, so alike yet so unlike her mother’s, full of excitement. “Daddy said we’re going out to Carlee Waters to spot you a croc. That’s after lunch when the crocs take their siestas on the banks.”
“I’ll go on one condition.” Olivia smiled, having already heard about the expedition. “The croc doesn’t make me its lunch and you hold tight to my hand.”
“Of course I will.” Georgy went to her and gave her a spontaneous hug. “Please don’t be worried. We’ll be quite safe in the boat. Oh, Liv, it’s going to be wild! They’re so hideous, but so fascinating. Daddy would never let you come to any harm. Besides, the boat operator has the crocodile for his totem. That makes him the croc’s brother.”
“We don’t have crocodiles in England.”
‘No wild animals?” Georgy questioned, thinking there had to be one or two.
“Unless you count our fearsome hedgehogs. I think someone reported seeing a death adder in a forest one time. Personally I think he was having us on.”
“Where we’re going there’s tons of wildlife,” Georgy said. “You’ll be amazed at all the birds. Thousands and thousands of them. All the wildfowl. You know we couldn’t grow rice up here in the Territory for all the magpie geese. Even the air force couldn’t warn them off. You’ll see the water buffalo, great stupid things. They do a lot of damage. You won’t see a camel, although there are plenty of them on Kalla Koori, but we might get to see a pair of brolgas—that’s the blue cranes—dancing for us on the flats. You don’t have to be scared of the crocs, Liv. Did you know more people die every year from bee stings than they do from crocodile attacks? Anyway, we’re in the dry. It’s September through January when they get really hungry. They’re preparing to breed, you see.”