by Robyn Donald
“When I saw him across the restaurant in London with a gorgeous chilly blonde,” Siena told her.
Why on earth hadn’t she understood then that the jolt of recognition had spun her world right off its axis? Watching him stride through the hotel restaurant as though he owned the universe had rearranged her life, transforming her into a woman ready to dare dangerously, desperately, even while she accepted there was almost certainly no future for her in a relationship with him.
“Are you sure?” Gemma asked worriedly. “Absolutely sure Nick is the man for you?”
“Certain,” Siena said, with such conviction that Gemma relaxed—although she still looked puzzled, as though she couldn’t believe that anyone like Nick could love Siena.
But all she said was, “Where is he now?”
“Out in the car, I assume.” Siena got them both a glass of water and said wryly, “No, I see him coming up the path as I speak.” Dismay racked her. “With Adrian.”
What followed, she thought mordantly in the car afterwards, was like a scene from a French farce. The two men didn’t shake hands, and although Nick was polite there was no mistaking the chill in his attitude. Adrian looked somehow smaller, his handsome face almost sullen.
And all it would take was one word for Gemma to start crying again.
Fortunately it didn’t last long. Without saying anything Siena handed over to Adrian the small parcel that was her engagement ring. He looked at it as though she’d delivered a snake, and Gemma gave another gulp of dismay, but thank heavens neither said anything.
Within minutes Nick manoeuvred them out of the house and into the car, where Siena sat silently, odd scraps of disconnected thoughts tumbling endlessly though her mind.
After a few minutes Nick said, “What’s your problem now?”
Siena tried hard to sound her usual self. “How can you tell when I’m worrying?”
“It’s not only women who can read body language,” he said dryly. “And stop evading—you do it badly.”
She shrugged. “It’s not exactly a problem,” she said thoughtfully. “It’s just that Gemma doesn’t seem to know exactly how Adrian feels about her.”
Nick sent her an imperious glance. “She probably feels a certain delicacy in confiding to you about him. Keep out of it,” he advised with tough pragmatism. “She’s a big girl now—she’s stolen the man you planned to marry, so she has to live with the consequences. Even as kids you used to rescue her. It’s time she learned to run her own life.”
Siena had to admit the truth of his astringent view of the situation. She glanced out of the window, and realised they weren’t heading for the harbour bridge. “Where are we going?”
“I want to check out my yacht—it’s just finished a refit.”
Relieved he didn’t want to discuss the final painful scene she said, “I didn’t know you had a yacht.”
“Not your sort,” he said dryly.
“You mean a motor yacht? No sails?”
“No sails,” he agreed. “While you were in talking to Gemma I got a call from a friend who’s been holidaying in Australia. He’s decided to see a bit of Northland’s coastline, so he’s chartering the yacht for a week. I want to speak to the skipper and have a look at the way it’s been refitted.”
Siena looked sideways, allowing her gaze to linger on the lines and angles of his profile. “I suppose your friend is travelling in a private jet?”
His mouth curved. “Yes. Why?”
“I feel as though I’ve fallen down a rabbit hole like Alice.” She asked suddenly, “How long did it take you to get used to all this stuff—the yacht, the houses, everything?”
“The yacht I bought for my mother,” he said. “As for the others—well, I told you the plane’s to deliver me in good shape when I need to be on top of a situation. Both yacht and plane get chartered when I’m not using them. I’m not fond of staying in hotels. I’d be a lying fool if I said I don’t enjoy the good things I can buy, but I’ve always known that people are what matter.”
Although he hadn’t directly answered her question, she felt she’d learned something more about him. He was so difficult to understand, only revealing tiny glimpses of the complex man beneath the sophisticated exterior.
Nick’s yacht was moored where the city met the harbour, at a huge marina almost beneath the harbour bridge. Siena got out of the car and went up the gangway, scrupulously keeping her eyes ahead.
Nick had such presence, even in a T-shirt echoing the dense colour of his eyes and a pair of casual trousers that clung to narrow hips and long legs. Siena’s stomach tightened, and an intoxicating pleasure shocked her with its swift intensity.
Nick glanced down, caught the absorbed interest in her expression. He did his best to ignore the rapid charged lust that blazed into life whenever he saw her—or even thought of her.
He had no idea what she was thinking, or how she really felt. Not that it mattered. He had her where he wanted her.
The captain came down to meet him. Nick introduced them, curbing a sudden ignoble tension when he noticed the hastily concealed appreciation in the other man’s eyes.
“Phil and I need to discuss a few things, but I shouldn’t be long,” he told Siena. He could have got one of the crew to show her over the vessel, but he was reserving that for himself. “Have a drink here on the sundeck, and when we’ve finished I’ll take you around the yacht.”
When he came back she was chatting to the stewardess, drink forgotten, her curls blowing free in the salt-smelling breeze.
They looked up, and an animated Siena informed him, “Libby and I went to school together and we’ve been catching up.”
With resigned eyes she watched the ex-head girl of her grammar school go a little pink when Nick’s lazy green eyes raked her face. Startled by the unwarranted jealousy that stabbed through her, Siena had to stop herself from moving uncomfortably, because she had no right to feel any sort of possessiveness.
Libby excused herself, and Nick asked, “Finished your drink?”
Siena caught sight of the neglected glass. “I didn’t even start it.”
“Sit down and drink up. There’s no need to hurry,” he said.
The smile that accompanied his words was a masterpiece; as well as lazy amusement it revealed a potent awareness that sent yet more excitement sizzling from the crown of her head to the ends of her toes.
Stop that right now, she commanded her wayward body, and concentrated on draining the glass.
To get through this charade without ending in deep trouble she had to keep her head, and sighing over Nick’s smile was not going to help her do that.
So she firmed her mouth and said the first thing that came into her mind. “I’m impressed.”
“I wonder why I got the idea that you weren’t?”
“Come on, who wouldn’t be impressed by all this marine glamour?”
“You don’t have to pretend—you used to be very contemptuous of motor yachts. I recall you telling me once that true sailing meant you had to have actual sails. Anything else was just boating.”
Strangely warmed that he remembered, she produced an elaborate sigh. “I do wish you wouldn’t keep reminding me of my brattish, snippy phase. And I’m impressed because you chose a motor yacht that’s clean-lined and sturdy. She looks as though she’ll be kind in any sea.”
“She is.” Hot, bright sunlight highlighted his angular features. “I know sailing yachts are far more sexy, but my mother was alive when I bought this for her, and she needed a comfortable vessel.”
“And the yacht is named after her?” From the wharf she’d noted the words Laura Blaine on the stern.
“Yes. She grew up on a Pacific trading vessel in the Islands. She loved sailing, but by the time I commissioned this she’d developed rheumatoid arthritis. She was barely able to hold the bottle of champagne to christen her, but she relished the chance to explore the Gulf.”
Siena looked up to meet his direct, almost speculative gaz
e, and her stomach contracted in a spasm of tight pleasure. I want you—now, she thought urgently, hoping to heaven it didn’t show in her face.
Amused, he said, “I did actually have a mother. In fact, you met her fairly regularly.”
“It never occurred to me you’d hatched from a pod,” she said smartly, “and of course I remember her. I liked her a lot. She must have had a romantic childhood, yet I bet launching the Laura Blaine was one of the high points of her life.”
“And?” he said.
“And what?”
“What else was going through your mind?”
She blushed hotly, cursing her betraying skin when his scrutiny sharpened. Hastily assembling her thoughts, she said, “Nothing important. Just that although the Laura Blaine is lovely there’s something about actually being under canvas that no motor yacht can match.”
“My mother would have agreed,” he told her. “Her father was owner and skipper of one of the last of the sailing traders, and she loved the life.”
“It must have been a wrench to give it up and come ashore.”
Something darkened his gaze, sending a chill through her. Then it vanished and he said noncommittally, “Yes.”
Her pleasure was strengthened by a deeper and more elemental emotion. When her eyes met his she recalled the feel of his mouth on hers, on the soft skin of her breasts, girdling her waist with a chain of kisses …
A shiver, torridly sensuous, as though every nerve had been stroked with a feather, swept across her skin. She turned away so he couldn’t see her face.
What did he expect of her now? He hadn’t touched her since that openly possessive kiss in front of her parents’ house, and she wanted—craved—his arms around her with a fierceness that worried her.
But he stayed aloof while he showed her around the yacht. Like his house in London, it had been decorated by a professional, yet somehow it echoed the personality of its owner.
“I like it,” she said as he showed her the master stateroom. She glanced up at him, then away again. “It looks superbly comfortable, and practical too—perfect for a yacht.”
The cabin was dominated by a very large bed. Hastily Siena’s gaze skidded past it to thoroughly approve of the fully stocked bookshelves and the sofa. A lush green plant in a pot brought freshness, and on one wall an abstract oil somehow conveyed the mood of a serene sea under starlight.
Nick indicated a door. “You might want to check out the bathroom.” He grinned at her. “Yes, I know it’s called the head, but because I often have guests who are not sailors I’ve slipped into the habit of calling it the bathroom. I’ll meet you up on deck.”
Once inside the bathroom she turned, wrinkling her nose at the multitude of reflections of herself from the mirrored walls.
I do wish my hair would behave. She washed her hands and pushed an errant curl back from her cheek. The reflections joined her in an elaborate sigh.
Ah, well, she had long ago accepted that not only did she barely make five feet four, but she also possessed hips and breasts, unlike her mother and her sister. One of her early boyfriends had called her a pocket Venus, which had been flattering—until he’d set eyes on Gemma and immediately tried to transfer his allegiance.
“It’s a wonder I don’t have a complex,” she told her reflections, who all grinned somewhat evilly with her. Then she drew in another deep breath and set her jaw.
Clearly insanity beckoned; only the weird held conversations with themselves.
But a bubble of excitement gave a glitter to her smile that it had never had before, and the anticipation she’d been feeling since Nick had suggested they pretend to be lovers sharpened into something keener and more potent.
That kiss made it seem as though he intended it to be a real relationship, not one in name only.
It was just as well she refused to hope, because back on deck when he said, “Time to go,” his aloof tone set an immediate barrier between them.
They drove back to his house almost without speaking. Once there, Nick said, “I’ve work to do, which will take me at least an hour. What would you like to do? Swim?” He nodded at the infinity pool that seemed to merge with the sea on the horizon.
Several brisk laps of the pool would surely douse the longing that ached through her.
She said, “Yes, that would be great—oh, bother.”
“What?”
“I don’t have any togs with me,” she said, dismayed. “I knew I wouldn’t be swimming in England, so I didn’t take them with me, and although I collected some gear from home just now I didn’t think of togs.”
Negligently he said, “Swim in whatever you like. The pool isn’t overlooked by any other property, so you’ll be perfectly safe.”
Feeling rebuffed, Siena watched him walk away, all long, smoothly co-ordinated panther strides. Uncontrollable memories of the night they’d spent together in Hong Kong surged up from her wilful unconscious; she swallowed, took a couple of deep breaths, and switched her gaze to the water lapping in the pool.
She needed a swim desperately. It might cool her head—and the other parts of her body that were uncomfortably hot, as though Nick’s presence had set off a chain reaction of tiny electrical shocks.
And it looked hugely inviting out there—the shimmering blue pool surrounded by borders of lush tropical greenery and vivid blooms reflected back like lamps under the water. There was both a shady terrace and one for sun-lovers, furnished with elegantly comfortable recliners, several of them wide enough to take a couple.
He had the complete ensemble—the pool for burning off lust, she thought with a twist of excitement in the pit of her stomach, or recliners for surrendering to it.
Had he made love to anyone here?
No, she did not want to know the answer to that one—unless it was a negative. Even then, it was none of her business. But it took another deep breath and the very firm squelching of a pang of jealousy before she got to her feet.
But neither the water nor a bout of fierce swimming cooled her emotions. Swimming in bra and pants wasn’t exactly comfortable, but it was better than lounging in the sun and mulling over things she was never going to ask Nick. Better still, it was a way of exhausting herself; surely physical effort would eventually quench the smouldering desire that ate away at her self-control, at her sense of herself?
Questions buzzed through her mind like angry bees. What did Nick intend? She still didn’t know, and he wasn’t giving anything away. Was he regretting the passion they’d shared? The long, maddened hours spent making love?
But there was one question she’d kept closeted in some dark recess of her brain. Now, at what she felt was a turning point in her life, she forced herself to face it.
Why had he made love to her so tenderly when she was nineteen, and then left her?
Had he been bored, or embarrassed by her inexperience?
And why hadn’t she asked him when they’d met again? Shame? Anger? Bewilderment? No, she admitted, stroking more slowly now, it had been fear.
She’d been afraid to ask because whatever answer he gave would hurt too much.
She wished now she’d asked her father more about Nick’s childhood, and then grimaced, because of course her father wouldn’t have told her.
If anyone were to, it would have to be Nick, and why should he? It was clearly still something he didn’t want to talk about.
In the end she scolded herself for being foolishly obsessive, and concentrated with all her will on her breathing, keeping her thoughts at bay by recounting her swimming coach’s instructions.
Until she lifted her streaming face from the water and saw Nick, already in the pool. Startled and suddenly shy, she sank beneath the water.
Seconds later a jerk on her arm opened her eyes wide as she shot to the surface, Nick’s hand locked almost painfully around her wrist.
“Are you all right?” His expression grim, he tipped her head back and examined her face. “What the hell were you doing?”
He let his eyes drop, and something kindled in them, banishing the last of his concern. Loosening his grip, he asked quietly, “Why?”
“I didn’t expect to see you here.”
His brows drew together. “I live here, remember? And don’t tell me you’re afraid of me, because I won’t believe you.”
Of course she wasn’t afraid of him; she was afraid of what her aching, vulnerable heart might lead her to say … to do.
“It can’t be an hour since I got in the pool,” she accused, defiantly refusing to let her gaze linger on his broad, bronzed shoulders and chest.
“I cut things short. I also said I wouldn’t look, so you didn’t need to sink to the bottom.” The pause that followed gave his next words extra emphasis. “And you may be noticing that, apart from once, I’ve very nobly—and with great difficulty—refrained from anything more than one glance, just to reassure myself you were still breathing.”
Colour burned through her skin, but before she could say anything, he went on with an edge to his tone, “Although why are you worrying? Not only have I seen every inch of your delectable body, I’ve kissed almost all of that exquisite skin. At the time, you didn’t seem to mind.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
SIENA’S eyes widened and colour flooded her skin as she searched in vain for some snappy comeback.
Nick’s laugh came from deep in his throat. “I didn’t know you could blush all over.”
“You said you wouldn’t look!” she accused, hot-cheeked and agitated.
“I’m only human. It’s like watching a white rosebud turn pink. Did you put sunscreen on?”
The abrupt shift from darkly sensual appreciation sent an odd little shiver though her. “Of course I did,” she muttered.
He turned her around and said, “But you can’t reach the centre of your back. I’ll get it.”
Siena watched him take two strokes to the side of the pool and haul himself out. Although he was wearing togs, they revealed far more than they hid as water streamed in sheets of silver light over a body honed and muscular, sleek yet powerful.