by Robyn Donald
Despite the shock, in her innermost heart she knew she’d been waiting for this day. Somehow she’d sensed this—even though she’d refused to face it—long before she’d left New Zealand. For weeks Adrian had seemed distant and on edge, brushing off her enquiries with reassurances that now rang hollow and false.
Nick had called her bossy, and she probably was, but she’d learned to fight for what she wanted. Her parents had always been meticulously fair, but it hadn’t been exactly easy growing up in the shadow of a twin who’d been a beautiful baby, progressed to become an enchanting child and then a stunning teenager, before finally maturing into a woman so beautiful she’d dazzled every boyfriend Siena had brought home.
Swallowing hard, Siena fought back nausea. She didn’t—refused to—want a man who loved another woman.
So she had to get over this horrible anguish. But first she needed privacy, a few hours alone to deal with her grief. Tomorrow she was heading to Cornwall to stay with her best friend from school, and she would not depress her by moping around.
She clicked off the phone and put it back in her bag, staring resolutely out of the window until she could once more see and hear.
Back at the hotel she fled to her room, eyed the mini-bar, but decided bleakly that a stiff drink was the last thing she needed right now. Opting instead for the familiar solace of a cup of tea, she sat in the uncomfortable chair and forced herself to drink it, trying to achieve some serenity.
None came. Before she’d taken more than a couple of sips she leapt to her feet and, setting her mouth, wrenched off her engagement ring.
No, no longer her ring. The diamond winked and glittered in the palm of her hand, and without volition her fingers closed around the lovely thing. She fought back another sob and thrust it into a zipped pocket in her handbag with a sharp, final movement.
Tomorrow it would be on its way back to Adrian.
The hotel telephone rang, making her jump.
Startled, she stared at it, her heart bumping in her chest. It had to be Louise. Pick it up, Siena!
But it was Nick’s voice that answered her cautious greeting. “Did your parents get off all right?” he said.
“I got a text from Heathrow just before they boarded.” Her voice sounded odd.
“What are your plans for tonight?” Nick asked.
“I haven’t got any,” she said unevenly.
“So you can come out to dinner with me.”
She didn’t know what to say. “No, that’s not possible,” she said, obeying the instinct that warned her to hide away for a few hours.
“Why?” he asked.
She stuttered a few words, then stopped.
Into the silence Nick said with a cool decisiveness she found rather intimidating, “There will be just you and me, Siena. I don’t like to think of you alone in London.”
Say no, it’s all right, Nick, I’m fine. But she knew her voice would wobble.
Nevertheless she tried, swallowing first to ease her dry throat, and Nick demanded sharply, “What’s the matter?”
“N-nothing.” Again her voice betrayed her.
“Siena, I’ll be around straight away.”
“No!”
But he’d already cut the connection, and after a moment she hung up.
That damned protective instinct, she thought, staring wretchedly down at the half-empty teacup.
She couldn’t go out to dinner feeling as though everything that was inside her—heart, passion, laughter and joy—had been scooped out and thrown away, leaving only a shell.
Like Gemma, Nick was accustomed to attention. Even when he’d been a teenager girls had flocked after him, and as he’d grown they’d become more importunate. His meteoric success helped too, she thought with a flash of cynicism.
Once her mother had said with wry amusement, “All it takes is for that green gaze to drift over some woman’s face, and she’s hooked. It’s as though he’s a magnet.”
Last night almost every woman in the restaurant had given him several intrigued glances, many openly admiring, drawn as much by his leashed, potent energy as his boldly handsome face and that compelling aura that subtly signalled his prowess as a lover.
That thought sent a peculiar shiver down her spine. Ignoring it, she reached for the phone, only to pull back her hand when she realised she didn’t know Nick’s number. And after minutes of fruitless searching she realised he wasn’t listed either. She tried his office, only to be told by some smooth-voiced receptionist that he was unavailable.
Balked, Siena got up wearily and looked out of the window onto the street below. It blurred, and she blinked ferociously to clear an onslaught of tears. Perhaps a shower would clear her head.
She made it short, but when she emerged, fully dressed in case Nick had somehow persuaded the reception clerk to give him a key, her cell phone summoned her.
This time it was Louise.
Ten minutes later Siena put down her cell phone, her friend’s strained words still echoing in her ears. “It’s my father-in-law,” she’d said. “He’s had a stroke, and Ivan’s mother’s at her wits’ end with two younger children at home, so we’re going up tomorrow. I’m so sorry, Siena, but it’s impossible for you to stay with us now. But the cottage is here, and we—oh, Siena, I was so looking forward to seeing you …”
Siena had refused the offer of the cottage and done her best to reassure her, but now she stared around the hotel room as though she’d never seen it before.
“What now?” she said aloud, then caught herself up.
No need to feel it was the end of the world. So it had all happened at once, but friends had emergencies and parents went on long-anticipated cruises.
And fiancés fell in love with someone else.
Nobody ever died of a broken heart. Eventually this dull pain would ease.
She dragged in a sharp stabbing breath. She’d organise her return journey to New Zealand, then go down and wait for Nick in the foyer, tell him she couldn’t go out to dinner with him.
She would, she thought tautly, be extremely boring company, and he’d probably only asked her because he knew her parents were leaving and she’d be alone.
In effect, he’d behaved just like the brother he considered himself to be.
Nick saw her as soon as he entered the foyer. She hadn’t noticed him, and something about the way she was sitting made him frown, and quicken his pace. A friend had once described her—patronisingly—as “a taking little thing”. Tiny and black-haired, with eyes so blue they were a startling contrast to her porcelain skin, she certainly looked doll-like—except for her mouth. Lush, sensuously curved, her mouth was a delicious miracle made for smiles—and kisses.
Now it was pinched, and set in a straight line. She was holding herself stiffly, warding off an invisible blow. Nick swore under his breath and increased the length of his stride.
It was impossible to link Siena with the word defeat, but that was how she looked—as though she’d been knocked to the ground so roughly she couldn’t be bothered getting up again. And she certainly wasn’t dressed for dinner.
Her parents …?
“What’s the matter?” he demanded from two strides away.
She blinked as though she didn’t recognise him. Then with a brave attempt at her usual spark she said, “Oh, a couple of things, but it’s not the end of the world.”
Nothing had happened to Hugh and Diane, then. Hiding his relief, he said more moderately, “So tell me.”
The hands in her lap tensed. No ring, he realised.
What the hell—?
She said, “Well, I think I mentioned I was going to stay with a friend in Cornwall, but that’s off.”
Nick listened to her explanation, nodding when she finished. “So what are you going to do?”
Her white teeth dented her curved bottom lip. Nick’s gut tightened in spontaneous appreciation of that succulent mouth. Damn it, asking her out had been a bad idea; he should never have succumbed to t
he questionable impulse.
Getting to her feet, she said in a rigidly controlled voice, “I’m trying to get a flight back home.”
“And?”
“So far no luck, but I’ll keep at it.” Nick frowned. “So you’ve got a week to spend in London?”
She shook her head. “No.” “Why?”
“Can’t afford it,” she admitted, lifting her chin to give him a direct glance that glittered a challenge. “I have to go home.”
Now was not the time to press her about the absence of her engagement ring. He owed it to her parents to make sure she was all right. “We can discuss your options over dinner. Come on.”
After a moment’s hesitation she shook her head. “I’d really rather not, Nick. I’m not dressed—”
“It’s all right. We’ll eat at my place.”
He saw her waver and felt an odd, irritating triumph when she nodded.
“Very well,” she said quietly, as though too tired to protest further. But once she got up she made a final objection. “Nick, I’m probably not going to be very good company.”
“Why?”
“Oh, nothing important.” Her voice was stronger, more like the Siena he knew.
You’re lying. And you’ll tell me what’s going on before the evening’s out, he thought. The Siena he remembered wouldn’t have let a change in plans affect her like this.
She said, “I’ll go up and get changed. I won’t be any more than ten minutes.”
“You’re fine the way you are,” he told her.
After giving his suit a brief glance she said with a return to her usual tone, “I’ll change.”
Shoulders held very erect, she walked across the foyer towards the lift. Although small, he thought, his loins stirring again, she was in perfect proportion. Well-worn jeans showed off slim, elegantly shaped legs, and the clear pink thing she wore on top marked every curve of breast and hip, and the narrow allure of her waist.
He wasn’t the only one watching her. The receptionist, a boy not long out of his teens, was also following her progress with too much interest. A spurt of anger took Nick by surprise.
He caught the kid’s eye, and was coldly and foolishly pleased when he flushed and with a bobbing Adam’s apple got busy with the computer. Nick transferred his gaze to two other men. Hastily they abandoned their interested survey and disappeared into the bar.
Satisfied, Nick quelled his cold disapproval and waited.
CHAPTER THREE
SIENA eyed her blue dress—a little tired after its outing the previous night, but it was all she had. Nick had somehow managed to overcome her instinctive need to hide away like a wounded animal—aided by her realisation that she’d be better off in his powerful, formidable presence than sitting alone in her hotel room wondering why her only two serious relationships had ended with the men she loved—or thought she loved—leaving her.
That bitter feeling of alienation chilled her. She struggled with the impulse to tear off her clothes and crawl into bed. It wouldn’t work—if she knew one thing about Nick it was that he was determined. One way or another, he’d get her out of her room.
Anyway, self-pity was a loser’s indulgence.
But the prospect of eating anything made her feel sick, a nausea that escalated when the lift started to take her down.
When she saw Nick, darkly dominant and looking more than a little grim, she managed a smile. He didn’t return it. Head held high, she parried his keen scrutiny and a strange alteration to her heartbeat transmuted into racing pulses and a moment of lightness, of keen anticipation.
“I only brought one going-out-to-dinner outfit,” she told him. Heavens, was that her voice—husky and almost hesitant?
Get a grip, she ordered.
“So? You look charming,” he said calmly, and took her arm. “I suppose you travelled with nothing more than hand luggage?”
Rills of sensation ran from his fingers to her spine, spreading out through every cell in a gentle flood. Almost she shivered, and it took a considerable amount of self-control to respond in the easy tone of one old friend to another, “Afraid not. I expected to be here for a week, and as it’s winter on this side of the equator I had to pack warm clothes. I don’t have a home in every capital, with wardrobes full of clothes made specially for me.”
“Neither do I,” he said crisply, nodding to the doorman.
“Just about.”
He gave her a saturnine smile. “I own two dwellings.”
“Which one do you call home?”
For a moment she thought he wasn’t going to answer, but he said finally, “The one in Auckland.”
Strangely that warmed her as Nick guided her into the waiting car.
Once inside he turned to her. “Apart from your friend’s news, did you have a good day?”
“Most of it was great, thank you.” She made him laugh, relating a small incident in a park involving an elderly dowager and a small child, and slowly her tension subsided.
She even thought bracingly, I can do this. I can stay in one piece long enough to last out the evening.
Once she got herself onto a plane she could shatter if she needed to. Nobody would know her, so nobody would care if she spent the whole trip in glum silence.
But first she had to get her ticket changed.
Nick said, “I called my PA while you were dressing. There’s a possibility of an immediate trip back to New Zealand. She might ring while we’re having dinner.”
“Oh—Nick, that’s kind of you, but you didn’t need to.” She glanced at his unsmiling face, and ignored a vagrant shiver down her spine when his lashes drooped. “Your poor PA—she’s probably muttering oaths under her breath.”
“I doubt it. She’s paid well, worth every penny, and accustomed to being on call whenever I need her.”
Siena imagined a prim, super-efficient middle-aged woman, silently and hopelessly in love with her employer. “At night?” she asked without trying to hide her scepticism. “Obviously she has no family.”
“On the contrary, she has two small children.” Nick went on smoothly, “Her husband is the housekeeper in that home.”
Siena digested this in silence. “Very modern.”
“It works for them. You’d probably like them—they’re an interesting couple.”
Absently Siena nodded, but said, “Won’t she need my ticket number and other information? You should have told me at the hotel and I could have got it for you.”
“If she does, tomorrow morning will be soon enough.”
By then the car was slowing down in a quiet street flanked on either side by rows of lovely Georgian houses.
Siena gazed through the vehicle window with appreciation. “If anyone had asked me, I’d have said you’d choose an ultra-modern penthouse in a tower block.”
“I prefer this.”
“Who wouldn’t?” She gave a wry smile. “Actually, it suits you—very studied, very controlled.” And gorgeous … “I can see you as a Regency buck, driving your phaeton and four up to the door.”
“I’d have to check, but I suspect phaetons only had two horses,” he said.
“Trust you to know that,” she said on a half-laugh.
One brow lifted, he looked down at her. “Why?”
“When we first met you Gemma and I decided you knew everything important in the world.”
His beautiful mouth quirked. “Six years’ difference in age can do that. Growing up must have meant sad disillusion for you both.”
He stopped, and for a moment she thought she saw something like regret darken his eyes. Was he remembering that he’d had a hand in shattering more than a few of her illusions?
Probably not. Turning her head so he couldn’t see her face, she pretended to examine the street, serene and gracious in the light of the lamps.
Even at nineteen she’d been worldly-wise enough to know that the link between them was fragile and not likely to last. The knowledge hadn’t prevented her heartbreak, but
at least Nick had never made any promises to her.
She shouldn’t have come with him. When she could trust her voice she said steadily, “Disillusion happens to everyone.”
“To those who still have illusions,” he said, his voice hard and level. “Siena—”
He stopped, his mouth thinning as the car drew up in front of a flight of steps leading to an impressive door.
Right then Siena would have given everything she owned to be somewhere—anywhere—else. The very last thing she wanted from him was an apology for his behaviour five years ago.
Once inside the building she gazed around with undisguised interest and quickly, before he could say any more, said, “Nick, this is lovely.”
“I’m glad you think so.”
The graceful drawing room was furnished with an aura of elegant restraint that echoed her host’s vital, coolly self-disciplined authority. The decorator had married antique and modern pieces with flair and style.
“Whoever did this knew you very well,” she said without thinking.
He ignored the comment. “I think you need an aperitif. Still Sauvignon Blanc?”
“Yes, thank you.” It had been years since she’d told him how much she enjoyed that particular wine, and she was surprised and strangely cheered that he remembered.
It was a New Zealand white, crisp and delicious, and after the first sip she set the glass down and looked at him. That odd kick in her heartbeat startled her again. “You can take the Kiwi out of New Zealand …” she teased.
His smile was a little narrow. “I like other wines as well, but this seemed appropriate for tonight. Here’s to your happiness. Why aren’t you wearing your engagement ring?”
Siena flinched, her gaze falling to her empty finger. Adrian hadn’t stayed around for long, she thought on a spurt of anger. A thin line of slightly paler skin revealed that she’d been wearing the ring for only a short time.
It was still in her hotel room. When she’d enquired about the cost of sending it back, the insurance had been so much she’d been unable to afford it.
It took a lot of willpower to meet Nick’s green eyes, but she parried their unsparing assessment with head held high. She wouldn’t lie to him.