by Robyn Donald
“You understand that I’ll expect you to translate into Japanese symbols?”
“My computer is quite capable of doing that, and so, Mr. Leigh, am I,” she said in what she hoped was a repressive tone.
When she’d arrived back he handed her a letter from a Japanese businessman, one of the country’s most forward-looking industrialists.
“This is the letter I’ve answered,” he said. “You might find it helpful to read it first so that you know what I’m talking about.”
Apparently he had an interest in some new invention. Well versed as she was in the subtleties of Japanese business language, she realized that the industrialist had written to him as an equal.
So he had power.
Well, she didn’t need a letter to tell her that. He reeked of it, she thought snidely; power and the personality to make use of it oozed from every pore of his tall, graceful body.
Doing her best to ignore his potent male presence, she got to work. His name, she realized, looking at the slashing black signature, wasn’t Leigh; it was Leigh.
It figured. She wasn’t surprised that his name should have the more complex spelling; he was complex. Not to mention prejudiced, she thought with irritation. He didn’t know her, and yet he had presumed to judge her, and that before she’d been stupid enough to issue her own version of a sexual challenge.
Perhaps he had something against tall redheads who drank mineral water in bars.
Fortunately, because he was having an unsettling effect on her nerves, she had long ago perfected the skill of complete concentration. She needed it now. He’d given her a fairly complicated document which took some time to translate, but eventually she was able to say, “Here you are, sir, it’s finished,” and lay the three sheets down on the gleaming desk.
Clearly he shared her gift of losing herself in work, because she had to speak twice before he looked up from the sheaf of papers he was studying, black brows knotting as those disturbing eyes focused on her face.
“Read it to me, please. In Japanese.”
Too well trained to ask why, she obeyed, her voice slipping through the liquid syllables with confidence.
“You have an excellent accent,” he observed when she’d finished. “You must have learned to speak the language as a child.”
Mariel returned impersonally, “Yes, sir.”
“I see,” he said, a dry note infusing his voice.
She asked, “When did you learn?”
And could have kicked herself. Normally she’d have stopped at a simple thank-you; natural caution should have overridden an unsuspected desire to learn more about him.
Although his brows drew together above the blade of his nose, he said mildly enough, “In my teens. I can speak the language fluently, and to a certain extent read it, but I can’t write it and I’ll never lose my accent.”
Shrewdly Mariel surmised that this would always be a source of irritation to him. He would demand perfection from himself, as well as others—the very worst sort of man, totally impossible to live with.
She wasn’t going to have to live with him. However, she was going to have to work with him, and that meant that from now on she was going to be resolutely, professionally, implacably aloof.
With a touch of brusqueness he resumed speaking. “Thank you, you’ve done a good job. I’ll order tea. I assume you are a tea drinker? Most New Zealanders are, especially at this time of the afternoon.”
No, he didn’t miss anything. As well as keen eyes, he had keen ears. Although her American colleagues invariably picked up the trace of an antipodean accent in her speech, any New Zealanders she’d met during the past few years usually assumed she was American.
Mariel looked at her watch. “I’m sorry, sir,” she said without expression, “but I need to be free when the other members of the delegation arrive.” She gave him a businesslike smile, carefully not quite meeting his eyes, and as she got to her feet said in the same collected tone, “It was kind of you to think of it. Thank you.”
He waited until she had packed up her computer and printer and was halfway to the door before saying, “I am not kind, Ms. Browning. I do, however, appreciate efficiency and intelligence.”
Delivered in a cool, inflexible tone, the words sounded almost like a warning.
Mariel saw Nicholas Leigh again that night at the inaugural dinner. According to Liz Jermain, the purpose of the conference was to conduct a high-level but informal discussion of trade patterns.
Known worldwide for its exclusivity and superb service, the resort, with its health club and golf course and rifle range, its banquet rooms and world-class restaurant, its proud history of discretion and opulence, was the perfect place for such occasions.
However, in spite of the official lack of ceremony, someone had decided that these proceedings should begin with a dinner. Although both parties had brought their own interpreters, Mariel, clad in a black dress so circumspect it almost rendered her invisible, presented herself at the small lounge off the reserved dining room to mingle and make herself useful, which she did, stepping in when conversations stuttered and died, acting as a sort of subsidiary hostess, smoothing the diplomatic pathways.
Apart from a middle-aged woman with shrewd, worldly eyes and two extremely elegant women of about Mariel’s age—all New Zealanders—the room was filled with the dark elegance of about twenty men in good-quality evening clothes. Most were comparatively young; only a couple were the same age as her parents would have been had they still been alive.
Deep inside her, a barely discernible foreboding faded to quiescence.
As always she eschewed alcohol; this time she chose club soda and lime. While she was thanking the waiter for making a special trip to get it, she looked up to see Nicholas Leigh talking to one of the younger women, a very attractive person with smoothly coiffed hair the colour of newly minted copper. The woman’s fine, patrician features were lit by a composed, gracious smile, but there was nothing composed about the swift glance she sent him from beneath her lashes.
Dumbfounded as a hitherto cloaked emotion flared abruptly and painfully into life, Mariel thought, I’m jealous!
And the vivid sexual awareness that had sprung so unexpectedly to life in the bar a few hours earlier began to assume a much more sinister aspect.
Sharply she turned her head away, glad when her glance fell on a middle-aged Japanese man smiling at a younger New Zealander, who looked to be at a loss. She set her jaw and made her way toward them.
The older man was too sophisticated to reveal any sign of relief when she joined them and introduced herself with a deprecating remark, but the younger man greeted her with a frown. He turned out to be Peter Sanderson, a career diplomat. Short and blocky, his expression pugnaciously intense, he had narrow, suspicious eyes that flicked hastily from person to person as though he was terrified of missing something. However, after the first irritated glare at Mariel, his brows straightened, and he smiled at her with overbold interest.
She didn’t like him, she thought when he asked her where she was from.
“New York? You don’t sound like a native of the Big Apple,” he said, watching her as though he suspected her of lying.
She smiled. “I’m a New Zealander, Mr. Sanderson.”
“But you’re not one of our party,” he said, his brows meeting.
“I’m an interpreter and translator,” she told him, smiling to take away the edge in her voice.
The older man interposed politely, “With an excellent grasp of Japanese.”
Transferring the smile to him, she bowed. “You honour me too much.”
After waiting impatiently for the formalities to be over, Peter Sanderson asked, “How long have you been living in America?”
Trying to hide the wariness in her voice, she told him. He continued asking questions, cloaking them with a veneer of politeness too thin to hide his determination to get answers. His tenacity made Mariel uneasy; she didn’t like the way he watched her, as tho
ugh assessing her value as a pawn to be played in some game she didn’t understand.
She suspected that his attitude wasn’t personal—he was probably the sort of person who valued people only for their use to him—but she had to struggle to maintain her aplomb.
Five minutes later she felt someone behind her and turned, her eyes meeting with a small shock those of Nicholas Leigh. The redhead was still with him, and for a moment a purely feminine challenge crystallized in the woman’s pale gray eyes as they met Mariel’s.
Nicholas made the introductions; the woman was Susan Waterhouse, an aide to the New Zealand minister of trade. Perfectly pleasant and charming, she was nevertheless blanketed by an aura of detachment—neither aloof nor indifferent, yet oddly uninvolved—except when she looked at Nicholas.
In spite of its resemblance to a social occasion, this event was business; Mariel was merely a necessary adjunct, like a computer or a printer. In fact, her profession meant that she should try to be as inconspicuous as possible. Yet she couldn’t repress a spurt of indignation when Susan Waterhouse’s eyes rested for sizzling seconds on Nicholas’s arrogant, hard-edged countenance.
Distastefully ignoring the scuttling, furtive envy that crawled across her heart, Mariel looked away. The unaccustomed strength of her reaction added to her troubled apprehension. Within a few minutes she made her excuses and left them.
As with most diplomatic affairs the evening was run with slightly soulless efficiency. Exactly enough time had been allocated for two drinks, so just as Mariel finished her second glass, a concerted movement propelled her toward the dining room.
She sat in an alcove to one side of the main table, waiting in case she was needed and trying unsuccessfully to keep her gaze firmly directed away from where Nicholas Leigh sat, charcoal hair warmed with a sheen of bronze by the lights, the poised head held confidently high, features sculpted in angles and planes that were at once fiercely attractive and invulnerable.
Handsome didn’t describe him exactly, she thought, catching him as he smiled at the middle-aged woman beside him. Handsome was too effete, too ordinary. He had the disciplined, inborn grace of a predator—judging by the letter she’d translated that afternoon, a very intelligent, clear-minded predator. His classical good looks, based on colouring and bone structure, were overshadowed by an effortless, supremely well-controlled strength and authority.
Just what was his position in this high-powered group of politicians and diplomats?
He sat at the main table, which meant he had influence.
Surely too much power and influence for a man of his age?
The skin along her cheekbones tingled. Steadfastly she kept her eyes on the two ministers at the centre of the table, but as plainly as if she was staring at him she knew that Nicholas Leigh was looking at her. And even from that distance the impact of his elemental magnetism flared through her, heating her skin and churning her stomach and melting the vulnerable base of her backbone.
At last the head of the Japanese mission rose; his interpreter, a slim, bespectacled man, stood to one side. Mariel settled herself to listen intently and professionally.
He was good, but the New Zealand interpreter who followed was not. Technically, she thought objectively, he had the words, but he was missing the nuances. Once she exchanged a glance with the Japanese interpreter, a split-second communication in which neither face moved a muscle, but both understood perfectly.
When she looked away her gaze was captured and held by Nicholas Leigh’s half-closed eyes. Carefully she gave him a small, meaningless smile and returned her attention to the speaker, but that hard, searching, far-too-perceptive glance set her heart thudding disconcertingly against her ribs.
At eleven o’clock the dinner broke up to mutual expressions of immense esteem. Mariel waited until everyone had gone before sliding out of her chair. One of the least enjoyable aspects of occasions such as this was watching others eat delicious meals, but because she never knew when she’d be called on, she preferred to eat offstage, so to speak. The sandwich she’d eaten before coming down had been enough to satisfy her, but she could, she thought with anticipation, enjoy a good cup of tea right then.
The door of the dining room closed behind her; she relaxed and had begun to head off for the staff cafeteria when a voice from behind said, “Ms. Browning.”
Not now, she thought, forcing her features into a mask of composure before turning. “Mr. Leigh?”
“I’d like to buy you a drink, if I may.”
This was definitely not a part of her job description. Sedately she responded, “I’m afraid I’m not encouraged to socialize with guests, sir.”
A spark of temper lit his eyes to pure, flaming gold, but was instantly curbed. “I need your professional opinion, and I need it tonight.” When she still hesitated he said levelly, “We can do it like this, or I can insist on a formal meeting.”
He didn’t raise his voice; he didn’t have to. An implacable note in the even tones made itself more than obvious. Involuntarily Mariel looked across the foyer to where Mr. McCabe, the New Zealand trade minister, was standing with a small group of men. As if summoned, he glanced their way, his shrewd eyes going from her face to Nicholas’s. The minister’s gaze returned to her countenance, and he nodded with an air of authority.
“Very well,” she said, surprising herself with her acquiescence, and in case he got the wrong impression, added a fraction of a second too late, “sir.”
Heavy lids hooded his eyes. He said quietly, “Thank you, Ms. Browning.”
CHAPTER TWO
He took her to Desmond’s bar, seated her in one of the wing chairs and ordered the mineral water she asked for, deciding on another weak whiskey and soda for himself.
While the waitress went off to get the drinks, he asked unexpectedly, “What’s your first name?”
She bristled, but told him in a level voice.
Black brows climbed. “Where does it come from?”
“It’s a derivative of Mary,” she said. “A family name. My m-mother used to say it came from a princess a long way back in the family tree who was born in what is now Bavaria. Apparently she was a bit of a handful, so her long-suffering family married her off to a Viking. Eventually some of their descendants took the name with them to England.”
“I’m almost certain Mariel is a place in Cuba. I wondered whether it had sentimental associations for your parents,” he said blandly, “but it’s unlikely any Westerners would have been there when you were conceived.”
Her heart slammed to a halt. Before she could stop herself she shot a glance at him, her pulse kicking into overdrive when she met the elongated slivers of pure light that were his eyes.
“Yes,” she said huskily, trying not to swallow.
Broad shoulders lifted in a shrug, but she knew he’d noticed her response. However, his voice was almost indolent, as he said, “You’re the right build and height to be of German descent. Although your colouring looks more Norse.”
Of course he wasn’t so crude as to scrutinize her tall, long-limbed body. Nevertheless, although his dark lashes hid his eyes, she felt exposed to the naked force of his interest, and to her horror her skin pulled tight and an unfamiliar sensation prickled in her breasts. Appalled, she wondered how the mere sound of a man’s—a stranger’s—voice could produce such a violent and unwanted physical response.
“It was,” she returned dismissively, “just a family story, and almost certainly untrue. Families get the weirdest ideas about their antecedents.”
“Ah, all those ancestors who were supposed to be descendants of kings and turn out to have worked as swineherds on the royal estates,” he said, a note of irony colouring the deep voice. “It’s a natural human instinct, I suppose, to put the best gloss on one’s circumstances.”
Once more her eyelids flew up. She met a gaze that was cool and glinting, a face that was a subtle challenge. He must know, she thought dazedly.
No, he couldn’t!
Dry-mouthed, she grabbed for equanimity. “I suppose it is. What did you want to talk to me about, Mr. Leigh?”
He waited until the waitress had departed, then said, “What is wrong with the New Zealand interpreter? And please call me Nicholas, as I fully intend to call you Mariel from now on.”
She drank some mineral water, grateful for its cold fizz and soothing passage down her raw throat. “What made you think there was something wrong?” she countered, unsure of the correct way to deal with this.
“Your face and my own instinct. If I hadn’t been sure of it, that swift glance you exchanged with your Japanese counterpart would have convinced me.”
Dismayed, she said, “You can’t have seen anything in my expression!”
“Don’t worry, I’m sure no one else did. As I said, I happened to be wondering already, and your face was too still. You looked as though you were urging him on, mentally helping him.”
She blinked. This man was dangerously observant, and astute enough to understand what those keen eyes saw. Choosing her words with caution, she said, “There’s nothing wrong with his work. He’s a perfectly competent—”
“At this level,” he interrupted ruthlessly, “competence is not good enough, as you are well aware.”
Of course she was.
“Very well,” she said steadily. “He’s missing nuances.”
“Right. I’ll tell the minister.”
That inconvenient curiosity drove her to ask, “Where do you fit into this?”
His wide, sensuously moulded mouth moved in a smile that curled her toes. “I’m a diplomat,” he said, the words almost a taunt.
“Your letter didn’t sound as though—” She stopped and drew in a startled breath. God, how could she have said that? But he didn’t seem like the diplomats she’d known. He stood out, elemental and untamed as a wolf amongst well-fed, domesticated lapdogs. She began again. “I thought you were a businessman.”