by Robyn Donald
Nevertheless, the fact that the New Zealand trade minister spoke no Japanese at all meant she had to be close by all the time. Indeed, she found the morning intriguing. The ministers and their aides discussed almost everything but the subject of free trade, which was what had brought both parties here.
Obviously these were just the preliminaries during which each party sized up the other.
Why was she needed at all when Nicholas spoke fluent Japanese, and the Japanese minister equally fluent, if heavily accented, English? Protocol, probably, and the desire not to lose face, and also because a lot could be riding on these preliminaries.
After lunch they spent several hours with the ministers and their cohorts on the rifle range. Nicholas was there, too; he shot well. No doubt he did everything well, she thought, firmly squelching an image of him making love, that lean body poised over hers...
Heat shimmered through her, sweet as honey, draining her of energy and common sense.
“No,” she muttered, earning herself a startled look from a small, exquisitely dressed Japanese gentleman.
“I wonder what other sports they intend to try?” she said, smiling.
He bowed. “I believe we ride horses,” he said politely.
“Oh.” She shrugged. “I don’t ride,” she said.
“Neither do I.”
They smiled at each other.
Golf had at least been comparatively quiet, and the links were beautiful—if one excepted the occasional alligator lurking in the ponds. And they were quiet. In spite of the earmuffs they all wore, the rifle range was noisy. Riding, however, threatened to be painful. She was wondering cynically whether she could claim danger pay when Nicholas said, “Clay pigeons next.”
Starting, because he’d come up behind her, she met his mocking eyes directly. He couldn’t possibly have recognized her boredom because she was an expert at hiding it, so he was just taunting her, seeing how she’d react.
I’ll fix him, she thought, and gave him a dazzling, excited smile before obediently accompanying the group to yet more fusillades of noise.
When at last they stopped shooting and returned to the hotel, she had several discussion documents to translate and type while everyone else went to their rooms. Grateful for the reprieve from one particular man’s company, she made for the office.
“At least I have reasonable hours,” Elise said with commiseration, looking up from her work as Mariel got up and stretched her fingers and back.
“Oh, I get paid well for it. How’s Caitlin today?”
“All churned up. I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do with her.” The older woman put down the sheets of paper she was sorting and pressed her fingertips to her forehead, smoothing out the frown lines toward her temples. “She swears she’s going to run away to her father. Says he’s going to come and meet her.”
Mariel asked tentatively, “Could he be putting ideas in her head?”
“Not as far as I know,” Elise said. Looking away, she said bitterly, “She got so upset after he called her the first few times that I told him I wouldn’t let her talk on the phone to him anymore because she was unbearable afterward— tantrums and yelling and then crying fit to break her heart.”
Preventing any communication at all didn’t seem to Mariel to be a good idea, but after a glance at Elise’s bleak face she held her tongue. Elise knew her daughter.
The older woman said abruptly, “She still cries in the night and says she’s going to see him soon. She misses him, I guess.”
“Is she going to spend the holidays with him?”
Elise’s mouth clamped shut. “He can’t look after her. He’s getting a new business off the ground—he’s got no time to spend with her. He only sued for custody to teach me a lesson for daring to leave him. It’s so typical of him to just go bullheaded for what he wants and never give a thought to how his actions affect anyone else.”
“Is he fond of her?”
Elise shrugged. “Yeah, he’s fond of her. He even says he loves her, but if loving means you want the other person’s happiness above your own, Jimmy’s only ever loved himself. The counselor said Caitlin just doesn’t know how to deal with the fact that her daddy’s left her, so she blames me for it. She hates me working, but she’s quite happy staying after school with Saranne Beamish in the village. She likes Saranne’s kids. Sometimes I just don’t know what to do.” Her eyes filled with tears.
“A marriage breakup is always hard on the children, but they get over it,” Mariel said soothingly.
From behind came a man’s voice, deep and cool and curt. “Have you finished those documents, Mariel?”
She jumped, but not as high as Elise, whose audible gasp sounded loudly in the room.
“No,” Mariel said, turning swiftly to shield the older woman from Nicholas’s too-observant eyes.
“We need them now,” he said.
She nodded. “I’ll bring them up to Mr. McCabe when they’re done.”
“Thank you.”
After he’d left, Elise said, “God, he’s gorgeous, isn’t he? But his eyes send shivers down my spine. I wouldn’t like to get on the wrong side of him. Jimmy only bruised my heart. That guy could scar you for life.”
“I’m sure he’s not violent,” Mariel said, shocked.
“There are different sorts of violence,” Elise said wearily. “I don’t think Tall-dark-and-handsome’s cruel by nature, but I’ll bet he could be if he was provoked enough. You’d better get on with that work.”
The documents were broadly based, without specifics-mere lists of suggestions. After translating them, Mariel took them up to the minister’s suite, where she read them through to him, Nicholas and a couple of other men. The older one she recognized with a clutch of foreboding to be a senior diplomat, now retired, whose speciality was Asian affairs. Although he would have known her parents, he showed no signs of identifying her.
That evening each mission was eating separately, no doubt discussing tactics, so her services weren’t required. After dinner and a swim in the pool, she spent a couple of hours or so in her room trying to relax, but the shadowy phantoms of her past pressed closer and closer, robbing her of any hope of rest, let alone sleep.
Finally she gave up the effort and crossed to her window and looked out. The moon hung half-blown in the sky, shedding a pale, hazy sheen over the grounds; lights blazed forth from the hotel, but although the paths were still lit by fairy lamps, no one trod between the trees.
She chose tan slacks and a cool cream T-shirt, slipped a soft cream-and-tan sweater over her shoulders and pulled espadrilles onto her feet, then walked outside, wondering just what restless compulsion drove her into the scented darkness.
Urged on by something primal and heartfelt, an unknown goad, she headed toward the beach, remembering other beaches she’d seen, other coasts, other seas far removed from this—seas that beat against rockbound coasts in Norway, seas that lapped blinding coral sands in turquoise lagoons off Fiji, the wild west coast of New Zealand where waves had half the world to gather and build before they fell savagely onto the cliff-bound rim of land.
Odd that New Zealand should come to mind when usually she avoided all thoughts of it.
Well, no, not odd; the image of a face, all aggressive angles, and a lean, disciplined body that moved with predatory grace had been hovering just behind her eyes ever since she’d first seen Nicholas Leigh.
Even as she shivered he appeared, coalescing out of the darkness on the edge of the woods, his head turned to watch her arrive. Not for a moment did she mistake him for anyone else; she had the unsettling feeling that he had brought her there, called her with a primitive, magical lure that had nothing to do with the mundane.
He didn’t make any of the usual greetings. As though he had expected her, he held out his hand, and as though he had the right, she gave him hers, this time braced for the jolt of pure awareness that raced through her at his touch.
“You can’t see the Southern C
ross from here,” he said.
“So?”
She caught the quick flash of white as he smiled.
“I was born under the Southern Cross,” he said. “I hope to die under it one day.’’
“Born under it literally?”
“Literally. My parents were sailing when I arrived, too suddenly for them to get back to land. My mother insisted on being on deck. My father said that I looked at the sky as I was born.”
Fascinated, she said, “Perhaps you were imprinted like a baby bird.”
He laughed softly. “Perhaps. Where were you born, Mariel?”
“In Kashmir,” she said, and gave a startled little laugh. “Oddly enough, on a houseboat. I was a month premature.”
She kept her eyes on the beach that spread out before them, white in the vaporous moonlight, but she felt his gaze, keen and piercing as a lance of crystal. It kindled an untamed exultation because his reaction was written in his features, and it was just as helpless, just as wild, as hers.
“So you were born on a boat, too.”
“Quite a coincidence.” Following his lead, she strove to sound matter-of-fact, repressing the astounded excitement that made her feel her whole world was tumbling, racing, shattering, and all she could call on to protect her were the small weapons of her character and willpower.
“A sign, do you think?”
Her attempt at a laugh was blocked somewhere in the region of her heart. “Of what?” she asked. “Careless parents?”
Beneath the amusement in his answering laugh prowled an elemental possessiveness that sent a shiver down her spine. “Perhaps,” he said. “A link, anyway.”
And because she couldn’t allow this, couldn’t let him forge connections between them, she said briskly, “Well, both events occurred a long time ago. I’m more interested in the present. Tell me, what happens tomorrow morning? Any possibility of a few exchanges of opinion about trade or barriers or tariffs? I thought they’d be settling into earnest discussions by now.”
“Let’s sit for a while,” he suggested, turning off the hard-packed strand onto the soft powdery sand by the low dunes.
Relieved, she removed her hand from his to sit down, and by doing so felt that in some symbolic way she’d regained a fraction of her autonomy.
Perhaps recognizing the small declaration of independence, he didn’t attempt to touch her; instead, he leaned back and looked at the stars. “This is just a preliminary sortie. It’s possible that nothing important will actually be discussed this time.”
Although he’d followed her change of subject, Mariel detected a note of indulgence in his words, as if he had consciously decided to allow her a breathing space.
“Then why are you all here?” she asked. “This holiday is costing each country a fortune, and all the ministers are doing is running around showing off to each other!”
His smile was brief and ironic. “Both of these men are new to their jobs—they haven’t met before. As they’re going to be working together, it will make things much simpler if they understand how the other thinks.”
“So that’s why all the macho posturing,” she said with exasperation. “Golf and target shooting. Honestly, when are you men going to give over the world to women and spend all your time playing your childish games without having the affairs of the world hinge on them? That way you wouldn’t do nearly so much damage.”
To her astonishment he laughed again. “Oh, I agree heartily, but diplomacy is conducted along different lines.”
With eyes adjusted to the night, Mariel looked at him shrewdly. “You don’t sound as though you buy into the ethos.”
His smile remained, the amusement in his expression didn’t alter, but she knew as plainly as if she’d seen it that her words had struck some hidden tender spot.
“I’m a diplomat, so I must,” he said evenly. “I agree it can be slow and sometimes infuriating, but often it works. Building a personal bridge can help.”
Recognizing the evasion, she decided to pin this irritatingly elusive man down. “What exactly is your part in all this posturing?”
“My area of expertise is trade.”
Of course, he was a diplomat, and they were experts at avoiding the issue. “So what,” she demanded, “beyond finding out that Mr. Watanabe is the better golfer and Mr. McCabe the better shot, do any of you expect to learn from this expensive exercise?”
“I don’t expect to learn anything,” he said calmly. “I am a mere cog in the wheel, the lowliest of the low.”
She laughed, she couldn’t help it, the sound clear and low and warm in the salty air. “You don’t look the sort of man to indulge in mock humility,” she retorted.
“Mock humility I can manage,” he assured her. “I have been told that the real stuff is beyond me.”
A note in the deep voice snagged her attention. Whoever had told him that had been a woman. Stung, she said mordantly, “I believe it,” as she got to her feet.
With the automatic courtesy she was beginning to expect, he rose, too. In the shifting veils of moonlight his eyes glinted, and she thought with a sudden chill that trading insults with this man could be a dangerous pastime.
“I’d better go back,” she murmured.
“Ah, yes, I’d forgotten that you’re not expected to mingle with the guests.”‘
“Well, the resort doesn’t pay me to sit around discovering the inner workings of the diplomatic mind,” she retorted crisply.
“Don’t they allow you time off?”
“Of course they do, but I’m still on the other side of the divide.”
“Are you an employee?”
He’d have found out all about her before recommending that she take the other interpreter’s place, so why the questions? She sent him a swift sideways glance, but his face was unreadable.
“No, free-lance. An agency in New York organizes my jobs for me.”
“And you enjoy your work?”
“Love it,” she said firmly.
“You’re extremely good at it. You have both McCabe and Watanabe eating out of your hand.”
How did he do it? He wasn’t even looking at her, yet her skin pulled tight and she had the unnerving sensation of being totally, completely scrutinized—absorbed, taken in, everything about her measured and assessed.
“They both have a charming, old-fashioned courtesy,” she said dryly.
“The Japanese say you speak their language like a native.”
To satisfy his probing curiosity she said serenely, “When I lived in Tokyo my parents sent me to a Japanese school. In a situation like that you learn fast, believe me. Of course, the year I spent back in Japan when I was eighteen helped refine my accent.”
“And did you live in China and France as a child?”
She smiled, striving so hard for a casual unaffected air that her throat ached. “Hong Kong,” she said. “And for a while I had a French governess who was forbidden to speak English to me.”
“Peripatetic parents,” he said, his lashes drooping to hide his thoughts.
“Very,” she returned steadily. “Nomads.”
Just how nomadic their life had been she hadn’t realized until she went back to New Zealand, a shocked, bewildered eight-year-old plunged into the narrow, restrictive society of a small, unsympathetic country town. Two things had saved her—a kindly neighbor who provided her with uncritical affection, and an extremely good language teacher at the local high school who had seen her talents and helped her regain the languages she had almost lost.
“If I’m to be any good tomorrow I’d better go now,” she said, infusing her voice with a brisk, no-nonsense tone.
“Very well, then.” He sounded amused, as though he recognized her retreat but was prepared to allow her to run from him for the time being, because the result was never in doubt.
CHAPTER THREE
He was too bloody arrogant for his own good, she thought confusedly as she paced along the sand beside his tall presence.
As they were crossing the low band of scrub and palmettos that bordered the beach, something rustled in the bushes. Nicholas moved instantly, sidestepping swiftly so that he was between her and the noise.
“It’s nothing,” she said, surprised. “Perhaps a squirrel.”
“There are snakes here.”
She laughed. “And like all New Zealanders you’re paranoid about them. Don’t worry, the night is cool enough to keep them fairly lethargic. It’s not likely to be an alligator, either. They prefer the golf course. It could be a raccoon.”
His eyes gleamed as he looked down at her. “Snakes don’t worry you?”
“No, I’m used to them.” He didn’t deny his attitude, which secretly impressed her. But then he wasn’t the sort of man whose self-esteem demanded that he pretend invulnerability; he didn’t need the false confidence of bravado.
He kept walking, but she noticed that he stayed alert until they got back to the staff quarters. There he smiled at her and said, “Sleep well.”
She willed herself to relax, but that tingling in her skin and the sensitive reaction between her shoulder blades told her that he watched her until the door closed behind her.
Damn, she thought. He was curious, and for a moment her heart quailed. Then she straightened and went to her room. It was stupid to get into a tizz; he was probably just interested because she was a New Zealander.
Was he security? No, he was too obvious. Security men tended to be inconspicuous, part of their usefulness being their ability to fade into the background. Nicholas Leigh, she thought grimly, would fade into no background; there was something about him that made everyone notice him. When he walked into a room people looked, their attention caught whether they wanted it to be or not.
And she didn’t. She might be so attracted to him that her body sang when he was near, but she couldn’t afford to let anything happen. Ah, well, just another three days...
But that night she dreamed of him—explicit, erotic dreams that shocked her and made her feel as though another woman inhabited her skin, a woman whose fantasies had taken over her sleep. Even in her one serious relationship she had never dreamed like that, and David had been a good lover, thoughtful, tender and gentle.