by Robyn Donald
‘I—yes, I know.’
He said calmly, ‘Did you know she was married?’
Sanchia looked up. ‘No!’
His face was pitiless, a mask of gold in the last rays of the sun. ‘To a Robert Atkins, I believe.’
Panic beat wildly through Sanchia; dimly she heard her fork hit the table with a soft clunk. Then the low hum of wheels and Terry’s voice instructing her husband to be careful broke into the drumming silence. A moment later the Spences emerged from the house with a trolley.
Only once before in her life had Sanchia been so pleased to be interrupted.
‘How was that?’ Terry asked, efficiently removing the empty plates.
‘Fishing for compliments?’ Caid asked with a smile.
Terry grinned at him. ‘A woman needs to be appreciated,’ she said, ‘and a cook even more so.’
‘It was delicious, as ever. Thank you.’
Sanchia said, ‘On a scale of ten it probably ranks around fifteen.’ Her voice sounded a little higher than normal, but not enough to be marked.
Terry beamed. ‘Just wait until you’ve tasted this!’
‘Something new?’ Caid’s brows rose. ‘How many times did she make you try it, Will?’
‘Five,’ the caretaker said dismally, helping Terry unload dishes. He went on, ‘Though I didn’t mind—it’s good.’
Salmon fillets glowed rosily over scallops that had been sautéed in a nutty oil, and Terry had chosen to match the seafood with a pasta that combined—against all odds—Italian and Asian flavours in a glorious homage to both. All appetite fled, Sanchia wondered how she was going to control the churning in her stomach enough to force down a couple of mouthfuls.
‘Enjoy,’ Terry bade them as she and Will disappeared back into the house.
‘She’s a wonderful cook,’ Sanchia said, taking crisp lettuce from a bowl as she tried to control her jumping nerves.
‘Superb.’
Was he going to return to the subject of Cathy? Not if she could prevent it! ‘And you take it entirely for granted.’
Caid drawled, ‘What do I take for granted?’
His tone was a warning, but she wasn’t going to back down. ‘Brilliant staff, and this house—only a holiday house to you, but much grander than normal people ever aspire to—and the helicopter to ferry you around above the clogged roads. All the ways the very rich insulate themselves from the rest of us.’
‘Go on,’ he said silkily when she stopped.
Sanchia took a deep breath; might as well be hung for a sheep… ‘Even the hundred and twenty thousand dollars you say you’ve been cheated of can’t be more than a financial irritation. I suspect that what really galls you is being outwitted.’
Easily, almost conversationally, he said, ‘You’d better believe it, Sanchia. And also believe that I’m going to pursue whoever defrauded me until I’m satisfied that the perpetrator has paid—fully.’
Cold foreboding settled between her shoulders and scudded down her spine.
He lifted his glass again in a taunting salute. ‘I’ve worked for everything I’ve got, and so did my father. My mother, too. She ran the office in the early years and held off having children until the business was solvent. When he died she sold everything—her jewels, their art collection, every house but this place—to keep the business solvent. She’d have sold this too if I hadn’t stopped her.’
‘I didn’t know that,’ Sanchia said in a muted voice.
‘Of course luck has played a part in Hunter’s success, but it’s been luck underpinned by bloody hard work. That’s why I don’t consider a hundred and twenty thousand dollars a small deal.’ He glanced towards the house. ‘It represents a lot of sacrifices made by my mother. And I despise thieves; I’ve worked too hard to feel anything but contempt for someone who wants to steal from me.’
‘Yes,’ Sanchia said quietly. ‘I can understand that.’
He settled back in his chair, his smile a dangerous mixture of enjoyment and mockery. ‘How did a Puritan come to have a mouth like yours?’ he murmured. ‘Soft and red and passionate—all promises and innocent provocation—yet held under ferocious restraint. Have you ever been tempted to ease up on that control, Sanchia?’
His voice had been designed for seduction, she thought confusedly, deep and steady and deceptively smooth with a fascinating abrasiveness just below the surface; when he turned his wicked, unsparing charm onto her she longed to surrender.
A surrender that would end in terror and humiliation.
Attack, she thought, leaning forward. ‘Did you have to take lessons in seduction,’ she asked sweetly, ‘or were you born knowing how to do it?’
He bent across the table until his face was a mere six inches or so away. Caution urged a retreat, yet Sanchia refused stubbornly to move. Bold blue buccaneer’s eyes imprisoned hers; in them she read a determination that set alarm sirens shrieking.
‘Your beautiful mouth is a bit too smart,’ he said quietly, and kissed her.
She tried to shake her head, but it was too late; the moment his mouth claimed hers a ferocious blast of desire overruled her last pleading remnant of common sense.
Demanding, confident, his kiss stole everything from her, rendered her witless and without will-power under the lash of need.
When he pulled back she made a soft sound that registered dismay even as she strove to subdue her violent, clamorous hunger.
‘Yes,’ he agreed, his voice uneven, a lean hand splaying on the table as he got to his feet and came around the table in a noiseless rush.
He pulled her upright and into his arms. Still dazed, Sanchia stared into a face honed by consuming need.
While she drowned in his smile, he bent his black head and kissed her again, on her mouth, and then her eyelids, and when she lifted her head in mute entreaty his knowledgeable lips found the tender line of her jaw and the sensitive length of her white throat.
Dazzled by deep-seated emotions that scared her more than the unleashed sensuality raging through her bloodstream, Sanchia knew that never again would she be able to smell the scent of jasmine without remembering this moment.
For a second—a fraction of a heartbeat—she relaxed in his arms, hoping that at last she was free of the terror.
Only to feel it surge like a hideous beast in her unconscious. With a low, anguished cry she began to struggle.
Immediately she was free. Her breath blocked her throat; swaying, she put out a hand and supported herself on the table. Beneath her acutely sensitised fingertips the texture of the fine linen cloth felt rough, abrasive.
Eyes guarded, his face set in dangerous, unsmiling lines, Caid said, ‘I keep trying to find out when your mouth will deliver on the promises it makes. One of these days you might trust me enough to tell me why it doesn’t.’
‘No,’ she said heavily, stiffening her spine.
‘Why, Sanchia?’ His voice was almost gentle.
Staring down at the wavering lights of the candles, dancing like witchlights in the rapidly thickening dusk, she said woodenly, ‘Because there’s nothing to tell you.’
Because if she did, he’d feel sorry for her, and pity was the one emotion she didn’t want from him.
There was a moment’s silence, during which she kept her gaze fixed on the cutlery.
Steel reinforced his words as Caid said, ‘Or nothing you can bear to tell me?’
Desperately, her brain racing, she muttered, ‘Caid, I know there’s—something between—’
‘You know I want you,’ he interrupted with brutal honesty.
‘Why? I’ve seen photographs of the women you take out. I know there’s a huge gulf between them and me,’ she retorted, pride bringing her head up. ‘A man who finds Leila Sherif attractive isn’t going to look at me unless he has an ulterior motive.’
With eyes as piercing as the kiss of a sword-blade, he said, ‘I don’t know what blind idiot made you feel inferior—perhaps the same one who made you so terrified of your own sexu
ality—but I give you fair warning: I want you, and that has nothing to do with anyone’s plans for the Bay.’
While she stared at him he smiled again and touched the pulse that beat wildly in her throat. ‘And you want me,’ he said softly before he took a step back. ‘Even though anything beyond a kiss frightens the hell out of you. One day you’ll tell me why.’
Never. Fighting for control, Sanchia managed to produce a sketchy shrug. Sickening remnants of panic churned through her, scrambling her brain, tormenting her with glimpses of things that might have been if only she hadn’t gone to live with Cathy—if only…
What poet had said that if only were the two saddest words in the language?
Sanchia angled her chin and sat down again, staring at Terry’s delectable meal as though it was salvation. ‘I find you very attractive,’ she said as calmly as she could, clamping down on the aching need, the yearning that had never left her. ‘But I realised three years ago that apart from that attraction we have nothing in common. I didn’t want an affair then; I haven’t changed my mind.’
He stood a few feet away, a shadow on the rapidly darkening terrace. The small lights of the candles flickered, warming the sculpted lines of his face, burnishing the dark skin into glowing bronze. He looked like a barbarian warrior, a man of iron and blood, as he demanded, ‘Is that why you ran away? Because you thought we had nothing in common?’
‘Yes,’ she said, and it was only half a lie. Refusing to look at him, she pushed a piece of salmon under the pasta, then dropped the fork onto her plate because her hand trembled so much. The tiny tinkle of sound counterpointed the slow hush of the waves.
‘Perhaps,’ Caid asked with ruthless, exquisite courtesy, ‘you could explain a little further.’
She sensed disbelief in his tone, his stance, a hand in one pocket, rocking back on his heels as he looked at her. She said curtly, ‘You know exactly what I mean. I didn’t then—and I don’t now—feel like playing Cinderella to your Prince Charming. Especially as I’d be demoted to scullery maid again when it was all over.’
‘I’ve always thought the interesting thing about that story is that the prince didn’t care whether she was a scullery maid.’ The words bit into the soft, warm air. ‘He insisted that every woman in the kingdom try on the abandoned shoe.’
She’d never thought of this before, and couldn’t afford to consider it now. ‘I didn’t break your heart three years ago, Caid. A month later you were burning up all the gossip columns with that stunning model, Florencia someone.’
The moment the words left her mouth she knew she’d give anything to recall them, but it was too late.
She saw a flash of white in the darkness as he smiled. The dark aura of danger faded slightly as he came back to the table and sat down. Still smiling, he said calmly, ‘Just Florencia on its own. Eat up. You’re staring at Terry’s wonderful—and much appreciated—’ he emphasised drily ‘—food as though it’s a nest of scorpions. You can relax; you’ve made your attitude plain. I don’t come on to women in my household, so you’re safe in your cold little cocoon until this business with the house is dealt with.’
‘Do you know how arrogant you sound? My household!’
He grinned. ‘I’m half-Greek,’ he told her, ‘and it goes with the genes. Don’t make the mistake of thinking I don’t mean exactly what I say. I believe in honesty and openness, but I also believe that in nature man is the hunter and woman his natural prey—that he pursues her until she chooses him or refuses him.’
Although laughter glinted in his eyes as he scanned her outraged expression, he wasn’t joking. ‘I do accept equality of the sexes, however—so if you want to pursue me I promise I won’t feel harassed,’ he finished with an ironic tilt of his head.
‘Being half-Greek,’ she said, shaken yet valiant, ‘is no excuse for strutting.’
His handsome, compelling face broke up into laughter.
Somehow he’d blindsided her. His frank avowal of pursuit had set every sense drumming turbulently, but his laughter soothed the panic his words—and his tone—had caused.
Before she could speak he said matter-of-factly, ‘I hope you’re not going to let your irritation with me stop you from considering my suggestion carefully.’
She gave him a baffled look. ‘What suggestion?’
‘The one I’m about to make. Now that I know how much the Bay means to you, there’s no reason why you should lose it entirely. We could come to some arrangement so you’d still have a home here. Not the bach, of course—that will have to be demolished.’
First the threats, now the sweetener, she thought sardonically. No matter what happened, the Bay was truly lost to her; Great-Aunt Kate had made it impossible for her to own it, and once she’d done what she had to do, she’d never go back.
Trying hard to be fair, she admitted silently that Caid wouldn’t drive her away. Wrenched by a horrifying mixture of frustration and bitter grief, she said disjointedly, ‘I won’t accept anything from you—when I own a house it will be through my own efforts.’
‘It still could be,’ he said, watching her with an enigmatic interest that sent tiny shudders through her.
Colour burned up through her skin, fired her eyes, almost set her black hair ablaze. ‘Not that way,’ she said between her teeth.
The sun fell suddenly over the horizon and the waiting night pounced. Caid’s smile was a masterpiece of irony. ‘I don’t know what you think I meant, but I certainly wasn’t suggesting you sleep with me in payment. I don’t need to buy sex, Sanchia. Eat up, or Terry will think you don’t like her food.’
Silently, her appetite completely gone, Sanchia picked up her knife and fork. ‘To coin a cliché, I’m not that sort of woman,’ she said recklessly.
She was not any sort of woman—the thought of sex sickened her. The flake of salmon she ate tasted like flannel.
Caid sat gracefully down opposite her. ‘I remember. No sordid affairs. Is there any man on the horizon?’ His voice was insultingly casual.
A second stretched uncomfortably while she dithered. Eventually she returned, ‘It’s really none of your business.’
‘As long as you respond to my kisses as passionately as you do, it’s my business,’ he drawled insolently.
Sanchia pushed some more fish around her plate. ‘That’s just physical attraction,’ she said, glad that the rapid twilight hid her scorching cheeks. ‘I’d have thought you were sophisticated enough to know that it means very little.’
‘Oh, I know that. But do you?’ As her mouth compressed he said blandly, ‘Eat up, Sanchia. Perhaps we should keep to uncontroversial subjects for the rest of the evening. What do you think about the latest Booker Prize winner?’
The following day she stared along a dusty secondary road and said accusingly, ‘This is the way to Macgregor’s Bay.’
‘Yes.’
‘I came here once on a school outing and loved it.’ Sanchia cleared her throat. Stupid to be disappointed; it made sense to develop the most exquisite beaches, and Caid was famous for his financial acumen. ‘How many houses have been built there?’
‘Five.’
Surprised, she asked, ‘Surely there’s room for a lot more than five?’
‘Other developers had every intention of cutting it up into twenty sections,’ he said levelly.
When Sanchia waited he went on, ‘My development manager decided that the infrastructure wouldn’t take it—the road’s too narrow and widening it would cost a packet and be unsatisfactory.’ He sent her a measured, inscrutable glance before fixing his gaze back onto the road. ‘I agree. Five houses are enough.’
Ten minutes later Sanchia had to admit that the firm’s architects had done a brilliant job. A semicircle of white sand on the southern edge of one of Northland’s slender, twisting harbours, Macgregor’s Bay was sheltered by a high, grassy headland from the winds and waves that pounded in from the Pacific.
The almost completed houses had been skilfully tucked between th
e access road and the beach, at a distance from one another yet close enough for a sense of community. Landscaping had begun, but the place was empty of people.
As she fell in beside Caid on the beach, he took a minuscule Dictaphone from his pocket and made sharp, pertinent comments into it. Safe behind the darkened lenses of her sunglasses, Sanchia watched. The man who’d been resolutely pleasant and uncontroversial since dinner last night became subtly transmuted; his face grew harder, more angular, and his voice rang with cool detachment and authority.
This, she thought, was the real Caid Hunter, the ruthless, unsparing autocrat who ruled a growing empire. And he hadn’t acquired that empire by being nice to people.
Halfway along the beach he clicked the Dictaphone off. ‘There’s a covenant on the gardens. They have to be drought-proof.’ He looked up at the dry, shaggy headland. ‘When the autumn rains arrive that hill will be planted in native trees—the Department of Conservation has collected seeds from the few patches of local bush that are still left and grown them on.’
‘They’ll need care for some years.’ The wild, salt-laden winds of winter and the arid heat of next summer would kill any untended plant.
‘We’ve installed temporary irrigation. In two hundred years the headland might look a little as it did when the first Europeans came to New Zealand.’
‘That would be wonderful,’ she said.
‘You sound startled.’ Both words and tone goaded. ‘Did you think we’d walk in here, blast everything flat and build apartment blocks along the beach?’
Bending, she tried to yank a twist of dry grass from her sandal. When it resisted she slipped off her sandal, balancing on one leg while she shook the straw out. Casually, Caid took the hand she held out for balance, supporting her with a warm, strong grip.
‘Not exactly startled,’ she said when the stem was free. She dropped the sandal and slid her foot back inside, pulling her hand away from his. Her voice wavered as she went on, ‘You must admit that most developers only make a token gesture with a few palms and pohutukawas.’