by Lucy Gordon;Sarah Morgan;Robyn Donald;Lucy Monroe;Lee Wilkinson;Kate Walker
‘I must be going mad,’ she muttered, slamming the book shut. Erotic fantasies, for heaven’s sake! Although her travel articles found a ready market, she’d never written fiction before, or wanted to.
What was Keir doing to her?
She flung herself into bed, yanked the sheet up and folded angry arms behind her head, glowering at the ceiling.
If I’d just been a little more forward, I might be making love with him now, she thought wildly, imagining Keir standing beside the bed, looking down at her, his wide shoulders bare…
Her stomach clamped and she sat up and switched the light on to stare around the room. Her lips twitched.
This was hardly a room to seduce a man in—clean and comfortable though it was, the single bed wouldn’t hold Keir by himself, let alone the two of them. And the place was basic, to say the least. The only things paying lip service to the electronic age were her small television set and CD player, and the geriatric laptop she needed to replace before it finally died.
Sighing, she switched off the light, turned over and punched a pillow. Even if she transformed her room into a haven of sensuous sin, there was her nice, elderly landlady, sleeping lightly on the floor above.
Besides, she had no seductive nightwear, and she didn’t know who provided the condoms in an encounter such as she’d fantasised.
She also didn’t have the faintest idea how you went about seducing a man.
It didn’t matter, she thought defiantly; she’d learn.
She drifted into sleep, where in several different dreams she had no trouble at all seducing Keir.
Chapter Six
BOUNCING out of the office as Hope walked into the shop on Monday, Markus said in a significant voice, ‘I think we’ve sold that necklace.’
‘Good,’ Hope returned. ‘Anyone we know—a film star, perhaps?’
His mouth turning down, he tapped the side of his nose. ‘He wants discretion.’
Five minutes later the smile had vanished entirely. He drove a stubby finger at the letter Hope had just given him and asked sharply, ‘What does this mean?’
‘What it says,’ Hope said, a little startled. ‘I’ll be moving on in a couple of weeks.’
‘Why?’ He stared at her as though she’d taken leave of her senses. ‘If it’s a question of money—’
‘It’s not,’ she interrupted briskly.
He made a petulant face. ‘Wanderlust, that’s your problem. I shouldn’t have offered you a commission.’
She laughed. ‘Don’t blame the commission. I’ve been in Noosa longer than I normally stay anywhere.’
‘I don’t understand you young things,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Or perhaps I’m just envious. Where are you heading for? Back to New Zealand?’
She shrugged. ‘I have a hankering to go inland. I’ve seen coastal Australia, but not the Outback.’
‘Dust and flies and snakes and heat,’ he said, ruthlessly dismissing most of his native land. ‘You’ll hate it.’
Hiding a smile, Hope went to the front of the shop, where she sold three small gold charms—a kangaroo, emu and koala—to a harassed man who confided that they were for his daughters. For his wife he chose a necklace of sterling silver and pearls, an especially handsome piece made by a local artisan.
As she handed him his credit card slip, Hope found herself wondering what it would be like to be able to spend that amount of money without even thinking about it.
She busied herself tidying the contents of the cases, carefully rearranging the beautiful, expensive results of humanity’s obsession with adornment and prestige. Had Keir been right? Was she just drifting?
Even her writing was a part-time thing…
Several minutes later her skin tightened, pulling upright the tiny hairs across the nape of her neck. She glanced across sharply to see Keir walk in through the door.
‘Good morning,’ he said, teasing her a little. ‘Did you sleep well?’
‘Of course,’ she lied, closing the case and locking it.
‘I didn’t.’ His gaze swept her face with something dangerously close to possessiveness, but when her eyes met his he frowned, and splinters of ice collected in the translucent grey depths, dispelling the heat. ‘What’s the matter?’
She couldn’t tell him that possessiveness brought old fears jangling to the surface. ‘Nothing.’
Although her answer didn’t satisfy him, a customer’s arrival meant that he had to content himself with a nod that promised further discussion. ‘I might be a little late tonight; if so, I’ll ring.’ His hooded eyes scanned her face as though searching for something.
‘All right.’
Hope knew the moment he’d left because her pulses settled down to normal, although anticipation still hummed languorously through her.
The day turned hot and steamy. By mid-morning people began to drift inside in a search for air-conditioning; although they looked most didn’t buy, contenting themselves with trying things on and complaining about the unseasonable heat and humidity.
Hope got tired of murmuring soothingly, ‘There’ll probably be a thunderstorm later in the afternoon. That will clear the air.’
Sure enough, just after she’d set off into the stifling humidity, she heard the first low rumble and looked up to see a black band of cloud ominously working its way up from the south. Sweat gathered at her temples, trickled unpleasantly down her spine, and she couldn’t breathe in the heavy, hot air.
When a car drew up beside her she didn’t turn until she heard Keir’s voice saying, ‘Get in, Hope. It’s going to rain.’
‘Not yet,’ she said, climbing in.
‘I thought of taking you on a picnic,’ he said, setting the car in motion again, ‘but it’s clearly not a good idea. We’ll go to Philibert’s.’
‘The restaurant with the temperamental owner who never lets more than four people—four exclusive, incredibly rich and powerful people—at a time into his dining room?’
His mouth quirked. ‘That’s the place.’
‘The restaurant famous for its ambrosial food and its huge and eclectic wine list?’
‘The same one.’
She looked at him with pity. ‘I’d adore to go, but you have to book at least a month ahead.’
‘It’s all right,’ he told her, ‘I’ve reserved a table.’
Well, of course. What chef—however temperamental—was going to turn Keir Carmichael down?
‘How wonderful,’ she said, and added slyly, ‘If only I’d known earlier. Markus would probably have offered to borrow something from his wife’s salon for me to wear and pressed jewellery on me—as long as I promised to mention both shops loudly at least ten times, of course.’
Keir lifted an eyebrow. ‘And would you have taken up his offer?’
‘Once was more than enough—I felt like a prize heifer in a show ring.’
‘Staked and surrounded by wolves,’ Keir said shortly. ‘But you kept your dignity.’
The memory of that moment when Keir had looked at Harry Forsayth with flat, deadly eyes jangled already overstretched nerves. Hope licked dry lips and said, ‘Markus has been good to me, and he was desperate to sell the necklace.’
‘Then he should have got his wife or daughter to wear it,’ Keir said austerely.
‘He had a bet on with his wife, and be fair, Keir, he organised a bodyguard as well as keeping an eye on me himself.’ It seemed a good idea to change the subject. ‘Tell me, what should I wear to a place like Philibert’s?’
‘Whatever you want to. You always look superb.’
The compliment was delivered in a cool, impersonal voice. Did he think she was fishing? Cordially she said, ‘Well, thank you. So do you.’
Eyes glinting, he said, ‘I meant it.’
‘So did I.’
He laughed softly and turned into her street. ‘All right, next time I’ll inject more enthusiasm into my voice.’
‘Don’t bother injecting,’ she said calmly. ‘If your to
ne doesn’t match your words you always run the risk of being disbelieved.’
‘You’ve grown into a very frank woman.’
‘You should have remembered that subtlety is not my strong suit.’ She’d watched her father’s vicious subtlety wreck her mother’s life.
The muttering cloud alerted her senses; it hung over them, intensifying the light into a lurid green, weighing them down with its darkness. Carefully Hope loosened her hands in her lap, relaxed the small muscles of her face.
‘I’ll pick you up in a couple of hours. I assume it will be cooler after the rain,’ Keir said as he drove into the driveway.
‘Yes, and fresher—much less humid.’
Lightning flashed inside the cloud; when she flinched, Keir asked, ‘Are you afraid of thunderstorms?’
‘Not really.’ She scrabbled at the handle, finally jerking the door open. ‘It’s going to rain like hell in a few minutes, so you’d better get under cover before it comes.’
Without giving him a chance to answer, she slammed the door behind her and ran for the house. Once in its shelter she stiffened her shoulders, pasted on a smile and turned to wave, but Keir was only two steps behind her, his face set in fierce, predatory lines.
Another bolt of lightning pinned her in its livid glare. Witless, unable to think, she gulped air into starved lungs and stared at him with painfully wide eyes. ‘Don’t worry, Keir.’ She renewed the set smile on her uncooperative mouth. ‘I’m just a bit edgy.’
‘I can’t leave you like this,’ he said harshly, urging her inside the door.
A scream of rosellas made her jump. Another garish flash of lightning lit up the room, outlining Keir as he strode across to pull the curtains.
‘I’m not afraid,’ she said, her voice muffled in the quiet room. ‘Thunderstorms make me tense, but they don’t really scare me.’
He was scaring her.
‘Why?’ he asked.
As more thunder mumbled around the sky she said, ‘I don’t know. They just do.’
‘Perhaps because they remind you of the day in the bush when a storm came up and you and your friend ran screaming down the track beneath the kauri trees—the day you learned your mother would do anything to appease your stepfather. That’s a hard lesson for a child to learn.’
Why had she told him that? Eyes almost black in her white face, she pressed her lips together and headed across to the sink. With shaking hands she turned on the tap and filled a glass with water. It slid down her dry throat as another flash of lightning ripped the cloud apart. Thunder blasted the taut silence, roaring down from the sky and up from the earth, elemental, ferocious, mindless.
Just the way she felt about Keir. Love no longer entered into it, if love ever had, but she was determined to exorcise that raw, basic need until she could look at Keir with nothing more than mild admiration for a sexy man.
Turning to face him, she gave him another tight smile. ‘Be careful driving. We haven’t had rain for well over a month so the roads will be slippery.’
Keir came across and lifted her chin, subjecting her to a cool, analytical stare. Heat crept into her skin, and her lashes fell.
‘All right. I’ll see you later,’ he said, and let her go.
Hope waited until the door closed behind him before she drew breath.
As the lightning crackled and spat and the thunder rumbled overhead, she showered and changed into a knitted silk singlet top, a close match to the colour of her skin. With it she teamed black trousers and a pair of gold sandals, then made up carefully, emphasising her eyes with soft, golden-taupe shadow, filling in her lips with a honey-pink lipstick. She finished by spraying herself lightly with Les Belles de Ricci, hoping Keir liked the delicious citrus fragrance.
Perhaps she should have chosen something more discreet—no, she thought, frowning. If he didn’t like her perfume he could say so and she might not wear it when she was with him, but second-guessing was a fast, degrading road to defeat. Her mother had turned it into a way of life.
She looked for a long moment at her reflection, noting the glinting, gleaming eyes, the flush along her cheekbones, the soft curve of her mouth.
‘I hope you know what you’re doing,’ she said to the golden woman in the mirror.
By the time Keir’s car turned into the driveway again the thunder had grumbled its way north, taking with it the tumultuous shower that accompanied it. Newly washed palm fronds waved against a sky of tender blue, each green tress outlined by rain jewels, and birds were calling above the sound of running gutters.
Her stomach churning with anticipation, Hope ran down the steps and along the drive. Suddenly buoyant and alive, her skin flushed and sensitive, her spirits soaring, she drew in great lungfuls of fresh, clean, cool air.
Clad entirely in black, as lithely dangerous as a warrior, Keir got out and swung around to open the passenger door. His rapid, unsmiling survey set her tingling. ‘My mother used to grow a rose with ferocious thorns, but the flowers glowed in the sun like living light and radiance. So do you.’
Stunned, Hope gazed at him with slightly parted lips. He gave her a mocking smile and his gaze dropped to her mouth. ‘And if you keep looking at me like that,’ he murmured, ‘I’ll carry you back inside…’
His voice, deep and mesmeric, dissolved every sinew and bone in her body, as did the widening darkness in his eyes, rimmed by ice and fire. Hypnotised, she tried to think of something to say—anything that would smash the tension and give her back her mind.
‘But if I do that,’ he said, with a quick, twisted smile, ‘Philibert may never let us into his restaurant again, and that would be a pity.’
‘Yes,’ she muttered, recovering enough composure to scuttle into the car and barricade herself behind the seat belt while she watched him stride around the front of the car.
His shirt and trousers were cut with a spare elegance that gave admiring homage to broad shoulders and narrow hips and long, muscular legs; he looked like some rakish, menacing fantasy of high romance, at once threatening and overwhelmingly sensual.
Hell, Hope thought feverishly, get a grip!
It took all of her energy to summon a calm voice, a light tone. Once he’d switched on the engine she asked, ‘Are you on holiday, or working?’
‘Working,’ he said, smoothly putting the car in gear. He turned, slung an arm along the back of her seat, and began backing the vehicle down the drive.
Acutely, painfully aware of that strong arm only centimetres from her shoulders, she had to reorganise her churning thoughts. ‘Someone said you’re talking to a Chinese delegation.’
‘Yes.’
‘I hope it’s going well.’
‘So far, so good,’ he said non-committally.
It was stupid to feel rebuffed; why should he tell her? Pushing down a tendril of hurt, she said brightly, ‘Isn’t it a glorious evening?’
‘Fantastic,’ he said, and sent her an oblique glance as he turned the wheel and the car joined the traffic at the end of the road. ‘Breathtaking.’
Three hours later Hope gazed at an elaborate concoction of chocolate and strawberries with awe and real regret. ‘No,’ she sighed at the bald, mustachioed man who offered it, ‘I would dearly love to, but I just haven’t got the room for it.’
Philibert echoed her sigh. ‘I made it especially for you,’ he said sadly. ‘When my good friend Keir rang to say that he was bringing a golden woman with a voice as lazy and lovely as the sound of a summer afternoon, not only did I cancel my other bookings, but I knew that I would make you this.’ His dark eyes rested mournfully on her face.
Keir said dryly, ‘Don’t let that fake accent or the flowery language fool you—when we were at school together he played lock in the first fifteen.’
Philibert sighed again, even more fulsomely. ‘Ah, those wonderful years of our youth.’ He winked at Hope. ‘Keir played fullback—and had all the girls drooling like drain-pipes over him. I hated him. It’s a wonder I let him come to my restaur
ant.’
The two men grinned at each other. Clearly great friends, they couldn’t have been more different. Years of sampling his own exquisite cooking had made the chef rotund, and his genetic heritage had bestowed baldness on him. Beside him Keir looked younger, and infinitely, spectacularly, more magnetic.
‘Are you sure you couldn’t eat any of this—not even a delicious morsel?’ Philibert wheedled. ‘I am not allowed to eat it, and my darling wife doesn’t touch puddings. It will be thrown away.’
‘It’s a wicked waste, but no,’ Hope said regretfully. ‘And I hope you didn’t really cancel your other bookings.’
‘For my friend—my important friend—of course!’ He grinned at Keir, unawed by his wealth or power. ‘The customers will come back because they know I am very, very exclusive, and part of the mystique is that booking is not enough. If a king comes for a private holiday to Noosa, then I tell my customers, sorry, no, tonight I have to cancel. Try again next month.’
‘Hmm,’ Hope said. ‘So it’s all a con?’ She laughed at his outraged expression. ‘Not the food, of course—that’s sublime.’
Keir drawled, ‘The problem is becoming exclusive; once you’ve got there you can do almost anything and the punters will still flock in. Mob psychology works every time. Make it difficult for people, and you’ll have them hammering on your door.’
‘Being the best cook in the southern hemisphere helps,’ Philibert agreed without any false modesty, ‘but it would have taken us much longer without my friend Keir. It helps to have a backer who’s devious and cynical and knows how to manipulate our masters, the public. Now, if you’re not going to eat this pudding, what are we going to do with it?’
Keir looked at Hope and said, ‘Do you think Jaedan and Abby would like it?’
‘Your children?’ The chef’s eyes darted to Hope, then switched to Keir’s. With a spark of amused malice, he added, ‘Keir’s really good with kids.’
Hope told him, ‘They’re the kids next door.’
Philibert raised his eyebrows, but said, ‘You must take it for them. Get them early, I always say.’