by Robyn Donald
She persisted, ‘Then when?’
Although he directed an impatient look at her, he answered briefly, ‘Breakfast meetings, Aline.’ And added mockingly, ‘Before each round of negotiations.’
He had such a powerful impact on her it seemed impossible that those other meetings had been wiped from her mind overnight. She ignored the niggle of pain at her temple to ask, ‘What sort of negotiations?’
‘High finances,’ he said in a level voice, more forbidding than if he’d shouted. ‘Between us we negotiated a joint venture with a tribe from one of the Solomon Islands. We’re setting up a plantation system on part of their land so they have a continued income. As well, we’ve agreed to help set up a small cosmetic oil industry. The bank you work for was retained by their government to do the negotiations.’
Following him along the deck, Aline opened her mouth to ask for more, met measuring tawny eyes, and thought better of it. Nothing he said had any personal implication for her, so any further information would be useless. But at least she now knew she worked for a bank.
The table, sheltered from the sun by a glossy-leaved vine, was set with linen and china in the same subtle, beachy colours as the furnishings. ‘This is lovely. Very House and Garden chic,’ she said, trying to sound normal and ordinary.
Jake set the dishes down and gave her a smile in which mockery and amusement were nicely blended. ‘Said with the right patrician sneer. The decorator did a good job, although I’d prefer a little more warmth.’
Undercurrents in his tone, in his words—in the way his enigmatic, hooded eyes locked onto her mouth for a second before flicking up to capture her gaze—sent a swift quiver down her spine.
Feeling that she’d woken up in some alien dimension, where truth was turned on its head and threats lurked behind innocent words, Aline sat down in the chair he indicated. After a moment’s indecision she lifted the mug of coffee and drank deeply; it took all of her self-control to stop her hands from shaking.
‘Did I frighten you when I took the chain off?’ Jake asked crisply, eyes narrowing as he looked at her.
‘Yes, you scared me,’ she said. Her throat where the chain had rested felt bereft, as empty as her mind. ‘You meant to.’
He lowered himself into the chair opposite her before saying, ‘I’m sorry—my reaction was over the top. Put it down to a certain male arrogance.’
‘I already had,’ she returned crisply. Startled and suspicious of his low laughter, she looked up into eyes that blazed like crystals. ‘What’s so funny about that?’
‘I like the way you give no quarter,’ he said lazily, adding with the unexpectedness of a striking snake, ‘Drop the amnesia bit, Aline, it’s not worthy of you. We can work things out without that.’
Suddenly furious, she flared, ‘I am not making it up.’
He gave a lazy, insolent smile. ‘Coward.’ When she didn’t answer he drawled, ‘Don’t you want any breakfast?’
What small appetite she’d had was gone, but she’d be stupid not to eat something. ‘Of course I do. This looks wonderful,’ she said automatically and insincerely, sounding, she realised too late, like a child reminded of its manners.
Jake said on a hard, sardonic note, ‘I haven’t poisoned it. Serve yourself, sprinkle with pepper and salt, pick up your knife and fork, cut up the eggs and bacon, chew them and swallow.’
She threw him a fiery glance, hoping he couldn’t see the panicky desolation behind it. ‘I know how to eat.’
Once more that low laughter took her completely by surprise. ‘You’ve got a nice line in female arrogance,’ he said smoothly. ‘We’re a lot alike, you and I.’
Suppressing a wild response to the taunting invitation of his smile, Aline began to eat with studious concentration.
It should have been pleasant to sit at the sunny table and listen to the call of seabirds and the soothing murmur of the wavelets on the beach. Eating was such everyday, humdrum behaviour; especially breakfast. Its very ordinariness should have calmed her.
Instead, her nerves were fraying, her body was betraying her with acute awareness, and the silence had somehow assumed a huge significance. Sex, she decided bitterly, had a lot to answer for—it had forged an intense physical intimacy that still held in spite of her locked mind.
Uneasily she wondered if she really did want to remember what had happened the previous night. Had he been tender or wildly exciting? A contraction in the pit of her stomach warned her that she’d better get off this subject and fast, leaving any forgotten sins safely hidden in the darkness of her mind.
Tender or not, making love to Jake would have been—overwhelming, like being claimed by a storm.
Aline chewed stubbornly on. The bacon was crisp, the eggs delicious, yet she had to force them down.
Jake had gathered half a dozen scarlet flowers from the large bush just outside on the terrace and dropped them carelessly onto the table. They lay like silk ornaments on the cloth, gold-tipped, flagrantly beautiful.
Suddenly eager to break the taut silence, she reached over and touched one, her fingers lingering against a petal. ‘These are so pretty,’ she said.
‘That’s interesting.’
She jerked back her hand as though stung by a lurking bee. ‘Why?’
‘Hibiscuses are flamboyant and theatrical, real no-holds-barred flowers. Very much at odds with that very composed face you present to the world.’ His voice was neutral, but she looked up into uncomfortably penetrating eyes.
Gritting her teeth, she gave him a polite, dismissive smile. ‘But beautiful. No one could dislike them.’
‘What are your favourite flowers?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said briefly. Frowning, she picked up a bloom, holding it in the palm of her hand and keeping her gaze fixed on the elaborate silken ruffles. She couldn’t remember liking flowers; she couldn’t remember anything, she thought with a flash of near-hysterical terror that warned her to think of something else.
‘What are your favourites?’ she asked.
He paused before saying dryly, ‘I like gardenias. I enjoy the contrast between the demure colour and the heavy, almost cloying perfume and the incredible texture of the petals, like the finest velvet. They’re very sensuous flowers.’
Something in his voice set off warning bells. ‘They sound it,’ she said unevenly. His words brought no pictures to her mind, but she’d remember that he loved gardenias. And she would also remember that these were hibiscuses. Waking up with an empty brain didn’t mean it had to stay that way.
A black eyebrow climbing, he surveyed her face with leisurely, intimidating thoroughness. ‘Eat up. You don’t look as though you’ve had a decent meal for a while.’
Aline looked down at her arms, infuriatingly familiar. From some unknown place inside her came an imprudent response. ‘Am I too thin?’
His gaze roamed her with slow thoroughness, setting off tiny explosions of sensation throughout her body. ‘No.’ His voice didn’t change but she responded with involuntary excitement to the pulse of sexuality beneath the word. ‘I was referring to a certain air of fragility that’s so much a part of you everyone seems to ignore it.’
Who was everyone? Once again, panic stirred, threatening to drag her down into its murky, unreasoning depths. Sickly, she realised that in all the world Jake Howard was the only person she knew.
She thrust the thought to the back of her mind. Later she’d deal with it; for now she had to continue this duelling dance of advance and retreat.
‘I feel as strong as a horse,’ she said crisply, picking up the knife and fork again. If he said anything more about her fragility with that disturbing, equivocal note in his voice her throat would close up entirely.
Jake’s perceptive, burnished eyes must have noted her withdrawal because for the rest of the meal he contented himself with casual, almost detached conversation. Gratefully, Aline followed suit, startled to find herself fighting a sense of rightness, of companionability, almost more diffic
ult to bear than her outrageous physical reaction to him.
It had to be because she’d eaten breakfast like this with her husband—the husband she couldn’t remember.
The toast, delicately brown and crunchy, spread with marmalade that clamped onto her tastebuds with satisfying impact, turned to cardboard in her mouth. Ignoring a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice, she drank the rest of her coffee.
When they’d finished the meal and cleared the table he eyed her with a frown. ‘You’re still a bit pale. Come for a walk.’ At her momentary hesitation he gave a hard smile. ‘I won’t touch you.’
And because she wanted to get out of the house and away from the spurious intimacy of that tumbled bed, she said, ‘A walk sounds an excellent idea.’
With a bite in his voice, he said, ‘Have you decided I’m trustworthy, Aline?’
Had she? She didn’t know enough about him to trust him—but a purely female instinct accepted that he wouldn’t hurt her. ‘So far,’ she returned uncertainly.
He gave her a mocking glance. ‘I’m relieved.’
Together they walked across the springy grass of the lawn and down a couple of steps onto the beach. The sun beat down, teasing them with its promise of summer’s generosity. Determined to keep her eyes away from the man who strode lithely beside her, Aline stared out across the dancing, glinting waters of the little bay as she set off over the thick, soft sand.
Something hard beneath the clinging surface caught one foot. With a startled yelp, she flung her hands out to break her landing, but before she hit the sand Jake caught her in a grip of iron, jerking her away from the spiky log her incautious kick had found.
‘I’m all right,’ she said raggedly, senses humming at his closeness, the strength of his hands around her waist, the quick lift of his chest.
‘Sure?’ He looked down into her face, his own absorbed and intent.
‘Yes,’ she said breathlessly. ‘It didn’t hurt—I slipped off it. I’ll take my shoes off—I like walking barefoot on the beach.’
‘I’ll do it.’ Before she could protest, he let her go and crouched to untie the laces on her shoes.
Aline looked down at his bent black head, shimmering with tawny fire, and something moved in the pit of her stomach, something both erotic and emotion-laden. Shocked, she glanced away, and for a dazed moment the sun danced in the glowing sky while her strength seeped through the soles of her feet.
Instinctively she supported herself by clutching one broad shoulder. Her fingers curled and she thought that she could feel Jake’s life force beating up into them, dynamic, aggressive, irresistible.
He looked up at her, narrowed golden eyes blazing. For a long tense moment their glances locked until in one powerful movement he stood up. ‘Step out,’ he ordered, a raw note underlining the words.
A single pace freed one foot; she took another and was at last far enough away from him to breathe properly. After clearing her throat she said stupidly, ‘Thank you.’
‘My pleasure.’ He bent to slide off his own shoes.
That elusive feeling of rightness startled her again. To banish it she blurted the first thing that came to her head. ‘Who did you get those astonishing eyes from?’
His brows lifted; shying his shoes onto the bank, he said, ‘My mother.’
The shoes landed exactly where he’d aimed them. Well, naturally—not for nothing did he have that air of super-competence. Aline cleared her throat and said, ‘I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone with eyes that colour before.’
‘Cats’ eyes,’ he said laconically, holding out his hand for her shoes.
She knew what cats were. Nodding, she took care to hand him the shoes without touching him
Her shoes followed his, landing beside them. Dusting the sand from his fingers, he turned to look at her. Although the sun shone full in his face, she couldn’t read his expression when he said dryly, ‘Where did you get yours from?’
‘My father,’ she said automatically, then stopped, her heart jumping. How did she know that? It had come from nowhere, that single fact. Confused, she set off along the beach, ignoring the bite of the hot sand on her tender soles.
No wonder Jake thought she was playing games with him!
‘Your father?’ he said neutrally from beside her. ‘At first I thought you wore contact lenses to intensify their colour.’
‘Why would I do that?’
He gave her a considering, sideways glance. ‘To impress. It didn’t take me long to realise that you don’t care what effect you have on men. Your natural sense of style means that you always dress elegantly, but everything about your attitude proclaims that you aren’t trying to attract.’
Aline stiffened, sensing condemnation beneath his detached tone. ‘I wear make-up,’ she retorted, striving not to sound defensive.
‘With subtlety and restraint, carefully chosen—like your tasteful clothes—to play down your sexuality,’ he returned with caustic, uncompromising detachment. ‘You walk into every room, every situation, every social occasion, carrying a keep-off sign.’
That stung, as he’d meant it to. ‘Is that why you want me?’ she demanded angrily. ‘Because I’m not easy?’
The pause that followed her injudicious question lifted the hair on the back of her neck. Apparently she’d been pathetically easy.
Finally he drawled, ‘Most boys grow out of that sort of mindless point-scoring by the time they leave high school. I certainly did. And the keep-off sign meant nothing—I rarely take people at their own valuation. You revealed yourself as a closet sensualist time and time again.’
‘How?’ She should be wary—she was wary!—yet she was also intensely stimulated by the conversation. By everything, she amended hastily. Surely some of this blazing anticipation was due to the glorious day, the scent of the sea, the way the birds swooped and dived and called overhead…
Don’t lie, she told herself ruthlessly. You don’t care about the birds or the sea—you’re entirely focused on Jake Howard, who is a stranger, even if he has been kind as well as forbidding.
Even if you did spend last night in bed with him…
‘How did you give yourself away? You eat with enjoyment,’ he said, watching her with clinical objectiveness. ‘You respond openly and ardently to beauty. I’ve seen you sit at a concert with tears in your eyes. And you like children. Yesterday at Emma’s christening you cuddled her for half an hour. She obviously knows you well and likes you very much. You’re a very sensuous woman, Aline. I was already convinced of that before last night.’
Colour drummed up through her skin. ‘How gratifying to be right.’
It gave her angry enjoyment to see his cheekbones darken. However, his eyes gleamed and his beautiful mouth curved in a sudden, sexy smile that sent shivers of excitement across her skin.
‘You enjoyed making love last night,’ he said, his voice low and lazy and caressing. ‘Almost as much as I did.’
Without looking at him she swallowed, and forced a brisk practicality into her voice. It didn’t work; to her horror the words emerged in husky hesitancy. ‘How long have we known each other?’
After a deliberate moment he said, ‘You know it’s been a couple of months.’
For some reason she asked, ‘Do I know your mother?’
‘No,’ he said briefly. ‘She died when I was eight.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Aline said, thinking how inadequate such a trite phrase was. She ached to think of an eight-year-old boy weeping for his mother.
‘It was twenty-seven years ago.’
‘Eight is so young,’ she said quietly. ‘It must have left a huge hole in your life.’
‘Yes.’ He walked down to the water, picked up a small round stone and shied it, watching it skip several times before sinking.
‘Well done,’ Aline congratulated solemnly.
He began walking again. ‘My father taught me how to do that. A couple of years after my mother died he married again, and although his new wife
was charming and affectionate she wasn’t very old. She wanted to play rather than be responsible for a ten-year-old boy, so I was sent to boarding school.’
‘That was cruel,’ Aline said fiercely.
He turned his head, topaz eyes enigmatic. ‘I enjoyed it. Don’t pity me, Aline—that’s not what I want from you. I knew my father loved me, and my stepmother did her best. We’re good friends still.’
‘No child should be sent off like an unwanted parcel.’ Something clamped her heart at the idea of a schoolboy with his mother’s eyes torn away from all he knew, all he held dear.
Startled by her reaction, she pointed at the elegant shape of a three-masted yacht slipping by at some distance. ‘That’s so beautiful! I wonder what it is.’
‘It looks like one of the Spirits—the youth training ships. Spirit of New Zealand, I’d say. She’s beating up the channel between us and the mainland; when she reaches that point there she’ll go about and head into Auckland.’
‘Between us and the mainland?’ she echoed numbly, and stopped to stare about her. ‘Is this an island?’
Frowning, he said grimly, ‘You know it’s an island.’
Something stirred behind that curtain across her brain. Racked by a violent hope, she tried to force it out of the mists, but as she groped it faded into darkness. She said despairingly, ‘I don’t remember anything about an island.’
He surveyed her with eyes as unreadable as polished gilt. ‘I thought you didn’t remember anything,’ he said cruelly.
Frustration and fear thinned her voice. ‘Just a snatch—a floating fragment—now and then. And then it goes.’ Even to her own ears it sounded lame. Swallowing hard, she asked, ‘How long did we plan to stay here?’
In an even voice that came close to being bored, he told her, ‘A week.’
Aline shook her head. ‘I’ve changed my mind. I want to go home.’
‘We have no way of getting off the island.’
‘What? You must have a boat—’
‘Stop it, Aline,’ he said harshly. ‘You know damned well we came by helicopter. I don’t have a boat here, not even a dinghy.’