‘Only you, Skye, would have believed it couldn’t or shouldn’t have happened. I’m not a block of wood and I’m certainly not as easily manipulated as Bryce Denver. But before you brand me as the ultimate villain,’ he said roughly, ‘it’s not entirely my fault that we can’t keep our hands off each other!’
He waited as she absorbed this and knew she would blush. Which she did—another cause for grim satisfaction, he found as that pink tinge beneath her smooth skin ran all the way down her slender neck. He paused to marvel at the fact that he could still make her blush then his mouth hardened because he still couldn’t work out whether this innocence was something he loved or something that exasperated him mightily.
Skye, seeing that hardening, suddenly decided she’d had enough. She picked up her cap and bag and fled for the door.
He caught her easily enough, picked her up and carried her, kicking and struggling, back to the bed where he sat down with her in his arms. ‘Stop it,’ he said quietly. ‘You must know me well enough by now to know I’m not some kind of monster.’
Skye sat up in his lap and eyed him furiously. ‘No, I don’t! I don’t think I know you at all any more and, Nick, one of our great problems was that we didn’t know each other properly.’
‘That’s why you’re determined to run away again?’
‘Yes.’ She was clipped and severe.
He laughed softly and hugged her briefly. ‘All right. Off you go.’ He lifted her up with his hands around her waist and set her on her feet. ‘I think the first flight comes in around eleven o’clock today.’ He got up himself and headed for the shower.
Skye was sitting in an armchair when he came out.
He raised a wry eyebrow at her and started to pull on his trousers.
‘It’s all very well being superior, Nick,’ she said stiffly, ‘but this is my room and I might as well wait here.’
‘Which you’d forgotten to take into account earlier?’ he suggested with some satire.
Skye was silent as she mentally berated herself for sheer stupidity. In fact, when she’d woken and seen how deeply asleep Nick was—he could sleep like a log anywhere—her first impulse had been to just slip away.
Flights et cetera had raised their head with her as she’d showered, dressed and packed, but, perhaps most of all, leaving with no explanation. So she’d decided to wait until he woke, then try and explain things rationally to him. Only to be confronted by a Nick as she’d never seen him before, which had prompted a headlong, thoughtless flight.
He reached for his olive-green shirt then came to sit opposite her with it still in his hands. ‘When we go, we’ll go together, Skye. But you’re right—I think we might leave Lizard and Mrs Watson to rest in peace.’
She stared at him and thought involuntarily how beautiful he was. The skin of his shoulders was sleek and tanned, the sprinkling of dark hairs on his chest disappeared beneath his trousers along with a taut, hard diaphragm. The muscles in his arms were smooth and powerful and his wet hair lay flat against a well-shaped head.
All of which—and she swallowed beneath the weight of it—brought back memories of the night before.
Then it struck her that she’d never stopped to wonder whether he was handsome in a conventional sense. There was so much personality in his face together with those often expressive, sometimes enigmatic, always fascinating dark eyes, you had no need to sum him up feature by feature; the whole was simply dynamic. She had sometimes marvelled that she, Skye Belmont, could be everything to this man.
As she looked into his eyes now and found them supremely enigmatic, all the old doubts, and some new ones, came back to plague her. How to get through to him, though…?
‘I want to go home, Nick,’ she said steadily. ‘I thank you very much for all you’ve done but I’m not convinced there’s any reason for us to…try again.’
‘That’s rather remarkable—I thought we broke the scale last night?’ he drawled, and slid his arms into the olive-green cotton.
She watched him button up the shirt fixedly. Anything rather than having to encounter his eyes. ‘It probably happens to you all the time.’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘Well, I’m sure Wynn is capable of a bit of scale-breaking, for example.’
He smiled unexpectedly. ‘I have no idea. You’re not still worried about Wynn?’
‘I…you…no…uh…what do you mean?’ This time she looked straight into his eyes without stopping to think, her own a very puzzled blue.
‘I didn’t sleep with Wynn.’
She blinked. ‘But…I mean, you said you consoled each other!’
He shrugged and reached for his socks. ‘Emotionally but not physically. I did try to tell you this, Skye,’ he added as she looked astounded. ‘You gave me to understand you weren’t interested.’
‘But Wynn herself…’ Skye stopped.
‘Told you otherwise?’
‘No! But she might just have well have shouted it from the nearest treetop.’
‘If so, that was only her way of bolstering her ego. Or,’ he meditated, ‘perhaps you were being supersensitive?’
‘That does it!’ Skye stood up decisively. ‘I’ve had enough insults from you this morning, Nick Hunter! I’m going to breakfast.’
He slid his shoes on, raked his fingers through his hair and said sweetly, ‘Me too—I could eat a horse. Fantastic sex always did have that effect on me. Which was why you were such a delight to know, Skye.’
She wasn’t sure whether she growled audibly but she certainly felt like it.
How do you break through a brick wall? she wondered as they lingered over coffee.
It was a hot, clear day and they’d eaten their breakfast with only the most mundane conversation between them.
Then he said, ‘Would you like another swim before we take off?’
‘Take off for where?’ she asked cautiously.
‘We’re a long way from home; we’ll have to break it up a bit—Great Keppel?’
‘No, the mainland somewhere, Nick, or not at all.’
‘Mackay, Rockhampton, Gladstone?’ He eyed her wickedly. ‘Not terribly exciting, Skye.’
‘I’ve had enough excitement to last me for a while.’ Her tone was slightly bitter.
‘Skye…’ he paused and looked out over Anchor Bay ‘…I don’t think I’ve told anyone this but the prospect of stepping into my father’s shoes has never entirely appealed to me.’
She put her cup down carefully and frowned at him. ‘What do you mean?’
‘He’s talking about relinquishing the reins completely and going to live on an island. Once he gets Pippa sorted out, that is.’
‘But—you would have known this was coming, wouldn’t you?’
He gestured. ‘Some time in the future, naturally. Not as actual reality, though. And it doesn’t mean to say I relish it.’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s an awful lot of responsibility.’
‘Do you mean you wouldn’t be able to go away and do your own thing?’ she asked as a little window seemed to open in her mind so that she frowned suddenly. ‘You’d be really tied down…’
He shrugged. ‘Well, put it this way, to get where he got, my father made it his whole life. To take it on to the next century could require the same dedication. I don’t know whether I—have that dedication.’
‘I’ve seen you in your office,’ she said slowly. ‘You—can look like the ultimate tycoon, you sound like one when you’re not—’ She stopped and bit her lip.
‘Making love to you?’ he murmured wickedly.
She absolutely refused to blush this time although he had, on one occasion, locked the door of his office, told Florence via the phone that he wasn’t to be disturbed under any circumstances, and done just that on the broad, comfortable settee.
To Skye’s relief, when she’d come down from the cloud nine he’d elevated her to, it had been long past five o’clock and everyone else had gone home, inc
luding Flo. Even so, she’d taken advantage of the luxurious bathroom attached to his office suite, so she could leave the building at least feeling as if she looked normal.
‘Heady days, those were,’ she commented as she sat on the veranda of Lizard Island lodge, refusing to be discomposed.
‘As you say,’ he replied a shade dryly.
‘Why are you telling me this now, Nick?’
‘I thought it might give you a new insight into me, that’s all.’
‘I don’t see how it could affect us—’
‘But you have told me that one of our big problems was how little we really knew each other,’ he countered.
She sat back, feeling confused. ‘True, but that’s all the more reason for you not to want to be pinned down by a wife. Look at it this way: if you do step into your father’s shoes, there’ll be even less time for a wife—from what you’ve told me. And if you don’t, although I can’t visualize that, Nick,’ she said honestly, ‘you’d be free to roam the world doing other things.’
He looked wry. ‘It’s quite a dilemma.’
She sat up and put her elbows on the table. ‘I wish I could help. I mean on a friendship level,’ she said with a frown. ‘Have you discussed this with your father?’
‘No.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s always been his greatest wish that I do take over.’
She paused to think about Nick’s father. She’d liked him. He was unostentatious although a stickler for propriety and it wasn’t hard to see that he lived and breathed his minerals empire.
Perhaps, it occurred to her, and her eyes widened, Nick’s mother had pursued her own career as much as she had in a form of self-defence against a man who was rarely there, as for any other reason. Was that why his mother had worried about what she, Skye, was getting herself into? Could it be a case of like father, like son in their own different ways?
Could Nick himself have been conditioned by his parents’ marriage to expect something similar from his own wife?
‘Skye?’
She blinked and Nick came into focus again. She bit her lip and said hesitantly, ‘Maybe your father is more intuitive than you give him credit for?’
‘I doubt it if he’s considering burying himself on an island,’ he said impatiently.
‘It doesn’t sound like him, though.’ She wrinkled her brow. ‘It might be a test to see how it does appeal to you. Even on an island, in this day and age he’d be able to keep in touch.’
Nick looked at her with sudden amusement. ‘By the way, he was extremely annoyed with me for letting you slip through my fingers. I can’t help wondering—’ he frowned slightly ‘—whether the two have anything to do with each other.’
‘As in how?’
‘As in pointing out to me that it’s about time I settled down,’ he said somewhat dryly.
‘That would be the last reason you should get married for, Nick,’ she said thoughtfully.
‘Perhaps,’ he conceded, then stood up abruptly. ‘OK, let’s shake the dust of Lizard from our shoes.’
‘Where?’ she asked as they took off.
‘Brisbane,’ he replied briefly.
‘But I thought…’
‘We’ll land at Rocky to refuel. We should make Brisbane before it’s dark.’
She glanced at him. He had earphones and a mike on and there was something unusually uncompromising in the set of his mouth. ‘Nick,’ she said tentatively, ‘I feel as if I’ve let you down.’
His dark eyes were penetrating as he glanced at her briefly but he only said casually, ‘Not at all, Skye.’
‘I mean I really wish I could help, especially after the way you helped me, but getting back together could only compound the problem, don’t you think?’
‘There’s only one valid reason for us to get back together, Skye, and that would be if we found we couldn’t live apart.’
‘Well, I agree absolutely—’
He laughed softly and not entirely pleasantly. ‘I knew you’d say that.’
She flinched. He saw it and shrugged. ‘Look, don’t worry about it. There is an alternative.’
She stared at him with her lips parted as her mind raced.
‘You could connect up with a commercial flight at Hamilton Island if you preferred. You’d get to Sydney in one hop by tonight.’
It was like a blow over the region of her heart and it must have shown in her expression because he said cynically, ‘What were you expecting, Skye? That I suggested we forget about getting married and just resume intimate relations? As we did last night,’ he added pointedly.
She licked her lips and wondered desperately what she had expected. ‘No. Uh…I guess it was like having the door slammed in my face but…but then I obviously can’t help,’ she said barely audibly. Then she decided to be hanged for a sheep. ‘Nor was Hamilton Island the most tactful suggestion.’
‘Because of Wynn? And the fact that I may be tempted to break the scale with her?’ he drawled.
‘Possibly,’ she agreed tautly. ‘However, you go ahead and do what you like. I will go home in one hop!’
‘Skye—Hamilton Island happens to be handy and have a lot of flights—’
‘I’m not a fool, Nick. So does Mackay, Rockhampton, Gladstone—’
‘Yes, but they’re all further on than Hamilton and in this state of—war mightn’t it be a good idea to curtail this encounter?’ he shot back.
‘You’re the one who declared this war!’
‘No, Skye, you’re the one who invited me to sleep with her last night then got up and packed her bags this morning.’
‘Well, I’m glad I did,’ she said proudly. ‘There was always an unfinished kind of aura about our affair, Nick. Now I’ve done that, I’ve said a last goodbye. So take me to Hamilton; I really can’t wait to get home.’
He did just that.
There was not a tear in her eye as they floated over the Whitsundays in a strained silence and landed on the island. Nor when she said goodbye formally to him after he’d insisted on organizing her flight for her—fortunately she only had a twenty-minute wait. They were like two strangers, and his dark eyes were hard and cool.
He said as she was about to board the jet, ‘Take care, Skye. And don’t forget to go and see my mother.’
‘I won’t. You too. Goodbye, Nick.’ And she turned away without waiting for his reply. Nor did her composure crack, not even as she walked through the terminal at Sydney and realized she didn’t give a damn who recognized her and she’d taken no precautions against it.
Then she saw her mother coming towards her with open arms.
‘Mum!’ They hugged. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Nick rang me,’ Iris Belmont explained. ‘He said…he… Oh, Skye, my darling, don’t cry…’
‘I’m better, Mum. Promise,’ Skye said as they ate dinner in the restaurant. She’d told her mother almost everything, more than she’d ever told her before.
The restaurant was closed, actually, but it had been a busy evening and Skye had been only too happy to help out. Iris was still minus a chef.
‘But—’ her mother hesitated ‘—you don’t think he might have been right? You did seem to have an awful lot going for you.’
Skye looked at her mother affectionately. ‘I think you might have been right. There’s a lot more to Nick than appears on the surface. But one thing he’s not right about—he can’t call all the shots—when he feels like it.’
Unbeknownst to Skye, Iris decided wisely not to pursue the subject. She said instead, ‘I wish you’d told me how you felt about crowds!’
Skye grimaced. ‘So do I but I didn’t want to worry you, and I hadn’t really realized that it was growing, I guess. But that may be a thing of the past now too.’
‘You will go and see Margaret Hunter, though?’ Iris stared at her anxiously. ‘I spoke to her and she doesn’t think you should just let it lie and assume it’s all over.’
Skye sighed. ‘Perhaps another—’
�
��Oh, Skye,’ her mother entreated, ‘please. I have such faith in her!’
‘Mum, it’s difficult,’ Skye protested, and was astonished to see sudden tears in her mother’s eyes.
‘The thing is,’ Iris said intensely, ‘she also knows my side of the story. We had quite a long chat.’
‘Oh—all right,’ Skye conceded. ‘I’ll give it a few days, though.’
‘You will not, Skye Belmont.’ Her mother rose and reached for the phone. ‘You’ll do it tomorrow!’
In the event, Skye was more than happy to confide in someone the next day, because she was not only furious but also not at all sure she could handle fame ever again.
She’d woken to find herself splashed all over the front page of a morning newspaper. She’d been snapped with Nick in Cairns, snapped at Lizard, snapped in the airport lounge on Hamilton Island and, most devastating of all, snapped, obviously in tears, with her mother at Sydney airport. Why was Skye crying? the caption asked. Did her reunion with Nick Hunter fall flat?
‘I can’t believe it! I hate it,’ she said passionately to Margaret Hunter in her pleasant consulting room, pointing to the paper.
‘My dear—’ Nick’s mother was small, slim and grey-haired but she had his dark eyes ‘—I know it’s awful but you have to learn to live with it.’
‘Tell me how,’ Skye pleaded desperately. ‘Nick said wanting to disguise myself was not…normal, but surely anything that avoids this has to be plain common sense!’
‘There are two separate issues here, Skye,’ Margaret said gently. ‘An invasion of your privacy which, quite justifiably, has made you hopping mad. But that’s not the same thing as a morbid fear of crowds.’
Skye subsided.
‘How…is Nick?’ Margaret asked tentatively then, as if she’d been in two minds about asking.
‘Fine—uh—’ Skye paused to study the woman who was to have been her mother-in-law and couldn’t help but observe that she was troubled. ‘Haven’t you—? You sound as if you don’t—know.’
Margaret grimaced. ‘Nick and his father had an almighty row over him breaking up with you, Skye. We haven’t seen him since.’
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