“Jacinta, I’ve wanted you ever since I saw you.” Letter to Reader Title Page PROLOGUE CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE CHAPTER TEN Copyright

“Jacinta, I’ve wanted you ever since I saw you.”

Paul continued. “I couldn’t sleep for wondering what your pretty mouth would feel like under mine....”

Dazzled, she sighed, and he took what he wanted, filling her with his taste—mate, dark and mysterious—overwhelming her with expertise, summoning her hidden wildness in response to his passionate mastery.

When at last the kiss ended, they were both breathing erratically, and he surveyed her tender mouth with eyes that were narrowed and lit from within, purposeful and determined on conquest.

Desire clutched at her heart. In a soft, tentative voice she said his name, loving the sound of it on her lips, shaping her mouth to his liking, to her need. “Paul,” she breathed....

Dear Reader,

It is the happiest of omens that the publication of my fiftieth book, A Forbidden Desire, should coincide with Harlequin’s fiftieth anniversary. It’s been a long and pleasant association, and I wish everyone at Harlequin and all our readers a very special celebration.

Because so many readers have asked over the years, “But what about Paul?” I’ve given this happy ending to the man who lost Aura to Flint in Dark Fire. Although red-headed, too, Jacinta is quite different from Paul’s lost love, just as he has altered in the years since Aura married his best friend. A Forbidden Desire brings their stories to a conclusion, although there is always a chance that you might catch glimpses of them in future books!

Thank you all very much for your support. I hope you enjoy the books that are still on their way as much as I have enjoyed writing them for you. If you’d like to contact me, write to:

Robyn Donald

P.O. Box 18240 Glen Innes

Auckland, New Zealand

A Forbidden Desire

Robyn Donald

www.millsandboon.co.uk

PROLOGUE

HE REFUSED to look across the crowd of people dancing beneath the intense, dark Fijian sky, but a frown half hid his hard blue eyes. He resented this awareness, this almost psychic summons, mainly because he was accustomed to thinking of himself as a restrained man, easily able to control the emotions that prowled in the cage he’d fashioned for them five years ago.

For some reason, tall, slim Jacinta Lyttelton rattled the bars of that cage. It didn’t help that she was completely unaware of her power, or that he didn’t know why the hell she possessed it.

Ignoring a woman who’d been trying to catch his eye for the past four days, he let his gaze roam to the pillars on the edge of the dance floor.

Heat gathered inside him. Yes, there she was, clad in one of the neat, not quite fashionable dresses she wore in the evening. She was standing alone and watching the dancers, looking interested rather than wistful.

The day before, as he’d sat talking to her mother in the shade of the leaning coconut palms, the same insistent tug at his senses had pulled his gaze away from the older woman’s thin, lined face and along the hot white coral sand.

‘There’s Jacinta,’ Mrs Lyttelton had said, smiling, her face alight with pleasure.

To his dazzled, suddenly feral eyes Jacinta had appeared as an embodiment of the fecund extravagance of the tropics, a glowing, sumptuous creature whose hair collected and intensified the sun’s rays, a woman gleaming in the soft, humid air like a spirit of fire and desire.

An urgent hunger had slowed and thickened his blood. Although he’d tried to summon his usual ironic detachment to combat it, the violent physical reaction swamped both will-power and discipline.

He’d been disappointed and relieved when she got closer and the fiery goddess turned into an almost plain woman, tall, too thin, her breasts hidden by a large, faded cotton shirt, only her long, lightly tanned legs hinting at that promise of hidden passion.

Watching her now, he felt his gut clench and his body spring to painful life as he was gripped by the unmistakable burgeoning of desire. Thank God the torches that flamed around the dance floor cast enough shadows to hide his response.

The flaring light touched her pale skin with fire and licked with adoring incandescence across the aureole of her hair. The previous day she’d worn the thick, tumbling curls pulled back in a practical ponytail, but tonight she’d left it unharnessed, and the bright abundance shouted an invitation.

Dragging his eyes away, he concentrated his blue gaze on his hand on the table, saw with astonishment the rigid curl of his fingers as he fought for control. Within inches of those dark fingers flowers lay in artful, casual glory—vivid scarlet hibiscus, frilled and suggestive, and the cool, smooth stars of frangipani, their creamy restraint belied by the sweetly pervasive, erotic perfume. He wanted to crush them in his hands—he wanted to pick them up and heap them on a bed for her and take her on it for long, passionate hours until she surrendered completely and eagerly to his will.

A couple of hundred years ago he’d have believed that Jacinta Lyttelton had bewitched him. Oh, he’d always been susceptible to brilliant colouring, but the women he desired had invariably been beautiful, with a certain mysterious allure that excited the explorer in him.

Jacinta possessed neither. Skin of translucent ivory and big hazel eyes—even a soft, red, inviting mouth—were dominated by a straight, high-bridged nose and subdued by a round chin. Good legs and delicate ankles and wrists didn’t compensate for the hollows at her collarbone, the angular body. Apart from that astonishing colouring, he thought, trying to be coolly dispassionate, she had no presence.

His bizarre reaction—the urge to carry her off to the nearest bedroom and stamp his imprint on her so starkly that she never looked at another man—was a sexual aberration, a primitive, freakish eccentricity caused by some delusion.

Which was just as well, because she had enough to deal with at the moment. One glance had told him that her wheelchair-bound mother was dying. He had no idea why mother and daughter had chosen to stay at this expensive resort hotel in Fiji at the hottest time of the year, but Mrs Lyttelton was enjoying it and the affection between mother and daughter was obvious.

His eyes narrowed as one of the hotel guests, a tall, brawny Australian with shoulders as wide as a barn door, approached the woman in the shadows.

A primal jealousy fogged his brain; he was on his feet and halfway across the room before he realised he’d moved. Even as he told himself that he was behaving like a fool he felt an unusual aggression tighten his muscles and fill him with unrepentant hostility.

The Australian didn’t even see him, grinning, he said something that brought a smile to that soft red mouth, and turned to go out onto the beach.

Jacinta waved a hand and turned back to her survey of the dancers.

Relaxing his headlong pace, he watched the man go out into the dark night, but his skin was tight and the heavy, hungry need that prowled though him snarled softly, thwarted of legitimate prey. Noiselessly he walked up to her, some savage part of him enjoying the little jump she gave when she became conscious of his presence.

‘Would you like to dance?’ he asked, masking his emotions with the smile he knew was one of his greatest assets.

She looked startled, but after a moment said, ‘Yes. Thank you.’

He wanted her to stumble, be heavy on her feet, not know the steps. But she was like the wind in his arms, a fragrant, spice-scented wind, swaying seductively through the languid flowers of the tropics, warm, flowing silkily against him

Every cell in his body shouted in triumphal recognition. Anger at his helpless response cooled his voice. ‘Is your mother not well enough to come tonight?’

‘She’s just tired’

The faint huskiness beneath her voice smoothed across his skin like silk velvet. ‘Is she enjoying the holiday?’

She looked swiftly at him, and then away again. The thick curls moved slightly as she nodded. ‘She’s having a wonderful time,’ she said quietly. ‘Everyone’s been so kind.’

Because he couldn’t trust himself to say anything that wouldn’t increase her distress, he remained silent. Unfortunately that meant his mind could concentrate on the multitude of signals his rioting senses relayed—like the fact that her eyes were actually green, and that the hazel effect came from little gold flecks embedded in the cool depths...

Like the curve of her brows, slightly darker than her hair, and the deeper colour of her lashes as they lay on her skin, casting mysterious little shadows...

Like the tiny creases at the corners of her mouth that gave it an upward tilt...

Like the faint scent of her skin—pure essence of enchantment, he thought grimly.

Like the brush of her breasts across his chest, and the sleek strength of her long legs as they negotiated an elderly couple enjoying themselves enormously doing what looked like a forties jitterbug.

Anger—sheer and hot and potent—only fuelled his runaway response. Of all things, he despised being at the mercy of his emotions; it had been five years since he’d felt such an elemental hunger, and even then he hadn’t been tormented by this intense immediacy, this compulsion.

Thank God he was leaving tomorrow. Once back in New Zealand and deprived of nourishment, this obsession would starve and he’d be his own man again.

CHAPTER ONE

‘MY COUSIN Paul,’ Gerard said in his pedantic way, ‘is the only man I’ve ever known to decide that if he couldn’t have the woman he loved he’d have no other.’

To hide her astonishment Jacinta Lyttelton gazed around Auckland’s busy airport lounge. ‘Really?’

Gerard sighed. ‘Yes. Aura was exquisite, and utterly charming. They were the perfect match but she ran away with his best friend only days before the wedding.’

‘Then they couldn’t have been a perfect match,’ Jacinta pointed out, smiling a little to show she was joking. During the nine months she’d known Gerard she’d learned that he needed such clues. He was a dear, kind man, but he didn’t have much of a sense of humour.

‘I don’t know what she saw in Flint Jansen,’ Gerard pursued, surprising her because he didn’t normally gossip. Perhaps he thought some background information might smooth her way with his cousin. ‘He was—I suppose he still is—a big, tough, dangerous man, bulldozing his way through life, hard-bitten enough to deal with anything that came his way. He was some sort of troubleshooter for one of the big corporations. Yet he was Paul’s best friend right from school, and Paul is a very urbane man, worldly and cosmopolitan—a lawyer.’

Jacinta nodded politely. Perhaps Aura Whoever-she’d-been liked rough trade. ‘Friendship can be just as mysterious as love. Your cousin and Flint must have had something in common for it to last so long.’

The same taste in women, to start with!

Her eyes followed a small Japanese child, fragile and solemn but clearly at home in such surroundings, her hand lost in that of her mother.

My biological clock, Jacinta thought wryly, must be ticking away. Twenty-nine wasn’t over the hill, but occasionally she was oppressed by a feeling of being shunted quietly out of the mainstream, banished to float peacefully and dully in a backwater.

‘I could never understand it,’ Gerard said, for the fourth time turning the label on his cabin bag to check that he’d addressed it. ‘She and Paul looked wonderful together and he worshipped her, whereas Flint—oh, well, it doesn’t matter, but the whole sordid episode was incredibly hard on Paul.’

Being jilted would be incredibly hard on anyone. Jacinta nodded sympathetically

Gerard frowned. ‘He had to pick up the pieces of his life with everyone knowing and pitying him—and Paul is a proud man. He sold the house he and Aura were going to live in and bought Waitapu as a refuge—I suppose he thought he’d get some peace half an hour’s drive north of Auckland—but then Flint and Aura settled only about twenty minutes away! In a vineyard!’

Jacinta composed her face into a sympathetic expression. Gerard’s loyalty did him credit, and this wasn’t the time to tell him that things had changed. Nowadays guilty couples didn’t retreat to some far-flung part of the world and live in abject, if happy, retirement

‘When did this all happen?’ she asked.

‘Almost six years ago,’ Gerard said in a mournful tone, fiddling with his boarding pass and passport.

Almost six years! Jacinta said mischievously, ‘What about that exquisitely beautiful woman you pointed out to me in Ponsonby a couple of months ago? You didn’t exactly say so, but you implied that she and Paul are very good friends.’

Gerard blinked and stood up. ‘He’s a normal man,’ he said austerely, ‘but I doubt very much whether Paul intends to marry her. She’s an actress.’

As well as being kind, loyal and pedantic, it appeared that Gerard was a snob.

A voice on the communications system announced that passengers for Air New Zealand’s flight from Auckland to Los Angeles should make their way through the departure gate.

Gerard bent down and picked up his bag. ‘So don’t go falling in love with him,’ he directed half seriously. ‘Women do, and although he doesn’t like hurting people he’s broken hearts these last five years. Aura’s defection killed some essential compassion in him, I think.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Jacinta said dryly. ‘I’m not planning to fall in love.’

‘Not until you’ve finished your Masters,’ he said, and to her astonishment bestowed a swift peck on her cheek. ‘I’d better go.’

She hoped she’d concealed her startled response. ‘Have a great trip, and I hope your research goes well.’

‘It will, but thank you. Enjoy the summer,’ he said, ‘and work out exactly what you want to do for your thesis. Have you got the books?’

‘Yes, and your list of suggestions to mull over.’

He nodded and turned away, tall, slightly stooped, his fair hair shining in the lights. Watching as he made his way through the people, Jacinta thought he always seemed out of place except when he was lecturing. Anyone looking at him would immediately pick him as an academic. If his projected book was a success he might turn out to be one of the youngest history professors in the country.

At the gate he turned and waved. Smiling, she waved back, waiting until he’d disappeared before turning to go down the escalator to the car park.

An hour and a half later she opened the car door just a hundred metres from a glorious beach, and unfurled her long, thin body and legs.

Sun-warmed, salt-tanged, the air slid into her lungs—smooth as wine and just as heady. The big grey roof of a house loomed above the dark barrier of a high, clipped hedge—Cape honeysuckle, she noted, eyeing the orange flowers—and the lazy mew of a gull smoothed across the mellow sky.

New Zealand in summer; for the first time in years, anticipation coiled indolently through her. Not that it was officially summer—November was the last month of spring—but it had been a weary, wet, grinding winter and she was eager for the sun.

A half-smile lifted the corners of her controlled mouth as she unlatched the gate and walked up the white shell path, amused at how pale her narrow feet looked. Ah, well, a few walks along that sweep of sand she’d seen from the hill would soon give them some colour. Although she turned sallow in winter her skin loved summer, gilding slowly under layers of sunscreen.

The house was huge, a white Victorian villa superbly settled in a bower of lawns and flowery borders, sheltered from the small breeze off the sea. The scents of the garden and newly mown lawns were concentrated into an erotic, drugging perfume.

She hoped that the man who owned all this appreciated it.

‘My cousin Paul,’ Gerard had told her when he’d suggested she spend the summer at Waitapu, ‘was born into old money, and because he’s both hard-headed and very intelligent he’s added considerably to the paternal legacy.’

Obviously. The house and the gardens bore the unmistakable sheen of affluence.

A bead of sweat gathered on each of Jacinta’s temples. Before leaving town she’d clipped back the hair that reached halfway down her back, but during the drive the curly, slippery tresses had oozed free. Tucking a bright ginger strand behind one ear, she walked up three steps onto a wide, grey-painted wooden verandah and knocked at the door before turning to admire the gardens more closely.

She must look madly out of place here, Jacinta thought wryly, dressed in clothes without a vestige of style. And although she was tall enough to be a model she hadn’t been granted a model’s grace.

Her green-gold gaze roamed across the felicitous mixture of trees and shrubs, lingering on the slim grey trunks of a giant cabbage tree, each smooth branch topped by a sunburst of thin leaves. At its feet nasturtiums and Californian poppies struck sparks off each other.

The soft wind of the door opening dragged her smiling attention away from a gaudy orange and black monarch butterfly. With the smile still lingering, she turned. ‘Hello, I’m Jacinta Lyttelton...’

The words dried on her tongue. She knew that handsome face—the strong jaw and arrogant cheekbones—as well as her own. The intervening months hadn’t dimmed the brilliance of those eyes, a blue so intense they blazed with the colour and fire of sapphires. Yet in spite of that clarity they were oddly difficult to read.

Suddenly aware that the trousers she wore were five years old and had been cheap to start with, and that her tee-shirt had faded to a washed-out blue that did nothing for her, Jacinta realised she was standing with her jaw dangling. Clamping it shut, she swallowed, and tried to repulse a sudden, insistent warning of fate advancing inexorably, mercilessly on its way, crushing everything in its path.

‘Welcome to Waitapu, Jacinta.’ His deep, flexible voice wove magic, conjured darkly enchanted dreams that had dazzled her nights for months.

Fortunately her numbed brain jolted into action long enough to provide her with the location of their previous meeting.

Fiji.

The lazy, glorious week she and her mother had spent on a tiny, palm-shadowed resort island. One night he’d asked her to dance, and she’d been horrified by her fierce, runaway response to the nearness of his lean, big body. When the music had stopped he’d thanked her gravely and taken her to the room she had shared with her mother before, no doubt, rejoining the seriously glamorous woman he was on holiday with.

And for too many weeks afterwards Jacinta had let herself drift off to sleep on the memory of how it had felt to be held in those strong arms, and the faint, evocative fragrance that had owed nothing to aftershave—the essence of masculinity...

An embarrassing flash of colour stained her high cheekbones.

Damn, she thought helplessly. How unfair that this man was Paul McAlpine, her landlord for the next three months.

Hoping desperately that her weak smile showed nothing of her chagrin, she said, ‘I didn’t know you were Gerard’s cousin.’ She tried to sound mildly amused, but each word emerged tinged with her discomfiture.

‘Whereas I,’ he said, ‘had a pretty good idea that the Jacinta I met in Fiji and Gerard’s Jacinta had to be the same person. He mentioned your height and was rather poetic about your hair. It didn’t seem likely there’d be two of you about.’

He was the most handsome man she’d ever seen in her life, the impact of his strong, regular features emphasised by his startling colouring. Not many men of his age had hair the warm ash blond of childhood, so close to gold, and blue eyes without a trace of green or grey, and those who did were usually afflicted with pale brows and lashes that made them look pallid and juiceless. Paul McAlpine’s were a brown so dark they were almost black.

On that hot, enchanted Fijian atoll he’d smiled—a smile both utterly compelling and completely trustworthy. It had been almost too good to be true, that smile.

No sign of it now. The chiselled mouth was straight and the narrowed eyes aloof.

Jacinta’s face set. Gerard’s Jacinta? He’d merely repeated her sentence construction; of course he wasn’t implying that she and Gerard had some sort of relationship. Nevertheless she felt she should make it very clear that Gerard was simply a good friend.

Before she could do that, Gerard’s cousin said smoothly, ‘Unfortunately there’s been a hitch in plans. You can’t stay in the bach because penguins have moved in.’

Wondering whether she’d heard correctly, she stared at him. ‘Sorry,’ she said inanely, wishing her brain hadn’t fogged up. ‘Penguins?’

‘Little blue penguins are quite common around the coast. Normally they nest in caves, but sometimes they find a convenient building and nest under the floors.’

Surely he couldn’t be serious? One glance at those eyes—so cool they were almost cold, limpid and unshadowed—told her he was.

‘I see,’ she said numbly. Until that moment she hadn’t realised how much she wanted to get away from Auckland. A kind of desperation sharpened her voice. ‘Can’t they be removed?’

‘They have young.’

Something about his glance bothered her, and she stopped chewing her bottom lip.

He added, ‘And they’re protected.’

‘Oh, then I suppose... No, they can’t be disturbed.’

‘They make gruesome noises when they return to their den at night—like a demented donkey being slaughtered. They also smell of decaying fish.’ He met her suspicious glance with unwavering self-possession. ‘Would you like to go and smell them?’ he asked.

Unable to think of a sensible reply, Jacinta shook her head.

‘You’d better come inside,’ Paul McAlpine said.

Within seconds Jacinta found herself walking down a wide hall and into a beautifully decorated sitting room. Windows opening out onto an expansive roofed terrace looked over a lush lawn bordered with flowers and shrubs, with glimpses of the sea through sentinel pohutukawa trees.

Jacinta thought fiercely, I am not going back to town.

It would be like returning to prison.

And where had that thought come from?

‘Sit down and I’ll get you some tea,’ Paul McAlpine said with remote courtesy, and went through another door.

Reluctantly Jacinta lowered herself into a very comfortable armchair and contemplated her legs, almost as ungraceful as her too-thin arms. Why on earth had she chosen to wear trousers of such a depressing shade of brown?

Because they were the best she had and she couldn’t afford new ones. What did it matter? She didn’t care what he or anybody else thought, she told herself sturdily, and knew that she lied.

‘Tea’ll be ready soon,’ Paul McAlpine said, startling her with his swift reappearance.

Averting her eyes from his broad shoulders, and the way his well-cut trousers hugged muscular thighs, Jacinta swallowed. She even thought she could smell the elusive male fragrance that still infiltrated the occasional dream.

With a shock strong enough to be physical, she braved the icy brilliance of his eyes.

‘Don’t look so tragic, Jacinta. I have a suggestion to make.’ There was a faint, barely discernible undertone to the words, a hint of cynical amusement that startled her.

Especially as she hadn’t realised she was looking tragic. Taken aback, certainly, but ‘tragic’ was altogether overstating the case. Her hackles rose as he sat in the chair opposite her, so completely, uncompromisingly self-sufficient that her spine stiffened and she angled her chin in mute resistance.

Jacinta had no illusions about her looks; she knew that her height and thinness and the clearly defined, high-bridged nose that dominated her face were not redeemed by thick, violently ginger hair, or green eyes hazed with gold and set beneath straight, dark copper brows. Accustomed to feeling out of place amongst the chic women she saw everywhere, she was nevertheless outraged that Paul McAlpine should make her feel the same.

‘Yes?’ she said, aware that she sounded curt but unable to alter the tone to her usual confidence.

‘I have several spare bedrooms,’ Paul McAlpine told her. ‘You’re more than welcome to use one. My housekeeper lives in a flat at the back, so you won’t be alone in the house with me.’

No sarcasm sharpened that beautiful voice, nothing even obliquely hostile glimmered in those blue eyes, but the skin pulled tight on the nape of Jacinta’s neck as a shiver of cold foreboding slithered the length of her spine.

‘That’s very kind of you,’ she said warily, ‘but I don’t think—’

He smiled. It was a smile that had probably stunned more women than she’d had showers. Silenced by its impact, she had to swallow when her words dried on her tongue.

Calmly, almost blandly, he said, ‘If you feel awkward about living here with me I’ll stay in a flat I own in Auckland.’

‘I can’t drive you out of your house,’ she said, feeling both irritated and awkward.

His dark brows inched inwards. ‘I believe that you had to move out of your flat, and as Gerard’s sold his apartment you can’t go there. I spend quite a lot of time either travelling or in my flat in Auckland; a few extra nights there won’t be much of a hardship.’

What would it be like to own several houses?

After one swift, circumspect glance Jacinta realised she didn’t have a chance of changing his mind. Thoughts churned around her mind, to be promptly discarded. She didn’t have enough money to stay in a motel or rent another flat; the main advantage of Paul McAlpine’s bach had been that it was free of charge.

He watched her with eyes half hidden by his lashes, waiting with a sort of vigilant patience—the remorseless tenacity of a hunter—that intimidated her in a way she didn’t understand.

For heaven’s sake! She was letting the aftermath of one dance ten months ago scramble her brain entirely.

With enormous reluctance she finally said, ‘Then—thank you. I’ll try not to get in your way.’

‘Gerard said you’re starting on your thesis.’

‘Did he?’ she said non-committally. ‘What about Christmas?’ she asked. ‘Will the penguins be out from under the bach by then?’

‘It’s unlikely.’ An enquiring eyebrow lifted. ‘Were you planning to stay in the bach over Christmas?’

This would be her first Christmas alone. Through the lump in her throat she said raggedly, ‘Yes. My mother died only a week after we came back from Fiji.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said quietly. ‘That was hard for you.’

Looking away, she nodded, swallowed and went on, ‘I never had the chance to thank you for your kindness to her in Fiji. You left the day before us, and I—’

‘I wasn’t kind,’ he interrupted. ‘I liked her very much, and admired her gallantry.’

‘She liked you, too.’ Jacinta paused to steady her wobbly voice. ‘She really enjoyed talking to you. It made her holiday. She was so determined I shouldn’t miss anything...’

Cynthia Lyttelton had insisted Jacinta use the facilities at the resort, pleading with her to swim, to sail, to go snorkelling. ‘Then you can tell me all about it,’ she’d said.

Because the resort staff had been kind and attentive to her mother, Jacinta had given in. When she’d returned, salt-slicked and excited, after her first snorkelling expedition, Cynthia had told her about this man who had joined her beneath her sun-umbrella—handsome as Adonis, she’d said, and funny, with a good, sharp brain.

Gently, he said now, ‘She told me she didn’t have long to live. I gather she’d been ill for a long time, yet she was completely without self-pity.’

‘She had arthritis, but she died of cancer.’ I will not cry, she averred silently, clenching her jaw against the onset of gnef.

‘I’m so sorry,’ he repeated, and she knew he was.

So many people—considerate, well-meaning people—had told her that her mother’s death must have been a blessed relief to them both She’d understood that they were giving her what sympathy they could, but although often in great pain Cynthia had enjoyed life, and she hadn’t wanted to die.

And Jacinta still mourned her loss.

She nodded, and they sat without speaking for some moments while she regained control of her emotions.

Eventually she looked up, to meet a gaze that rested on her face with unsettling penetration. Instantly his lashes covered his eyes, and when they swept up again there was nothing but that vivid, unrevealing intensity of colour, hiding all emotion, all speculation. His sculptured mouth had thinned to a straight, forceful line.

A firebrand plummeted to the pit of her stomach. Instinct, so deeply buried in her unconscious she’d never known of its existence, stirred, flexed, and muttered a warning.

What am I getting into? she thought.

Common sense, brisk and practical, told her she wasn’t getting into anything, because she wouldn’t allow herself to. Paul McAlpine might look like every woman’s idea of a dream hero, with his golden hair and athlete’s body and disturbing mouth, but she didn’t have to worship at his shrine if she didn’t want to.

‘I usually have a quiet Christmas,’ he told her. ‘Anyway, it’s almost two months before we have to think of that. Our tea’s probably ready, but if you’d like to come with me now I’ll show you where the bedrooms are and you can choose one.’

Stiffly she got to her feet and went with him in and out of five superbly furnished bedrooms, all with both double-hung and French windows leading onto the encircling verandah. Just like something from a glossy magazine.

Jacinta refused to be impressed. In the end she chose one with a view of the sea solely because it had a long, businesslike desk on one wall.

‘This one doesn’t have its own bathroom,’ Paul told her, ‘but there’s one right next door.’

‘It’ll be super, thank you.’ Outside, the verandah had been furnished with a lounger and several chairs. Below the wooden balustrade flowers frothed and rioted. The room was pleasantly cool, with a daybed in one corner and an elegant Victorian dressing table, less ornamented than most of its kind. ‘It looks lovely,’ Jacinta finished sincerely. ‘Thank you.’

‘It’s nothing.’

The negligent disclaimer was delivered in a deep voice, its obscurely equivocal intonation setting her teeth on edge.

She was being paranoid.

Well, it was probably normal. Although earlier that year she’d endured an unpleasant experience with a man, eventually her suspicions regarding masculine intentions must fade. Unfortunately it wasn’t going to be a speedy process. Even with Gerard, who couldn’t have been nicer, she’d found herself searching for sinister motives.

And now she was doing it again. Possibly because Paul McAlpine was so—so—well, so gorgeous. Her nervousness didn’t mean she sensed anything ulterior; it arose from her physical awareness of him, which was her problem, not his. Behind Paul McAlpine’s air of calm, confident good humour was simply that—calm, confident good humour.

Any ordinary woman would be jittery and a bit overwhelmed when confronted by one of the favoured few, a golden man with everything, including a presence that automatically made him a man to be noticed.

Exhausted, and therefore easily influenced, she simply needed time and peace to catch up with herself again. And here, in this beautiful, peaceful place, she’d get them.

Especially if her host was going to be away a lot.

They were halfway down the hall on the way to the kitchen when he said, ‘Gerard tells me he’s doing research for another book. I thought he’d just finished one.’

‘Yes, but he found out that an old rival of his is intending to move in on his territory so he thought he’d better get going on this one and pre-empt him. Even in the academic world things can get rough when it comes to ego and staking claims.’

‘I see. Is he planning to spend all his leave in the archives?’

‘I think so. It was organised in such a rush that I’m not too sure of his plans.’

One eyebrow arched in a manner that showed only too clearly what Paul McAlpine thought of that, but he said nothing more. As she accompanied him Jacinta thought acidly that it was impossible to imagine this man ever doing anything on impulse.

In the spacious, very modern kitchen he introduced her to his housekeeper, a large-boned, blue-jeaned woman in her late thirties called Fran Borthwick, who smiled at her and said, ‘Welcome to Waitapu. The tea’s ready. Where do you want it?’

‘I’ll take it into the conservatory,’ Paul said serenely, lifting the tray.

Jacinta returned the housekeeper’s smile and went with him.

The conservatory, a delicious Victorian folly, was equipped with rattan furniture upholstered in muted stripes. Jungly tropical growth sprouted from splendid pots; in one a huge frangipani held up white and gold flowers, their sweet scent reminding Jacinta forcibly of the week she’d spent in Fiji.

‘Would you like to pour?’ Paul McAlpine invited, setting the tray on a table.

Jacinta’s gaze lingered too long on his elegant, long-fingered hands—hands that promised great strength as well as sureness. Resenting the mindless response that shivered across her nerve-ends, she said, ‘Yes, of course,’ sat down and lifted the teapot.

He liked his tea without milk and unsugared. Spartan tastes, Jacinta thought as she poured, then set down his cup and saucer.

It was an oddly intimate little rite, one that seemed right for the old-fashioned house and teaset. Ruthlessly ignoring the niggling edge of tension that sawed at her composure, she drank her tea and made polite conversation, wondering as she listened to his even, regulated voice whether authority and imperturbable good humour was all there was to Paul McAlpine.

No, he wouldn’t have reached the top of his profession without intelligence and, she suspected, ruthlessness.

No doubt with women, too. The lover Gerard had pointed out that day in Ponsonby was a woman so beautiful she’d dazzled. However she was not the woman who had been with Paul in Fiji.

Perhaps he was promiscuous. Was that what Gerard had been hinting at with his reference to broken hearts?

Her quick revulsion at the idea was a warning, as was her conviction that he was too fastidious for crude promiscuity. All she knew about him was that he’d been kind to her mother, he’d been jilted—and he’d had two lovers in ten months.

And he danced well.

When his cool voice broke into her memories she jumped guiltily, and had to pull herself together to answer his question about her degree.

‘I majored in history,’ she said.

‘Yes, of course. Gerard’s speciality. That’s where you met him, I suppose?’

It was impossible to accuse him of prying. He must, she thought—surely irrelevantly—be hell in a courtroom. Any witness would be lulled into a sense of security by that lazy, calm voice that expressed nothing more than interest.

But he must have heard the reservation in her voice when she replied, ‘I—yes.’

Dark lashes almost hid his eyes. ‘I believe he offered you bed and board in his apartment. That must have been very convenient.’

Tautly she responded, ‘He realised that things were—difficult—where I was living, and very kindly told me about a flat a friend of his wanted looked after while she took up a scholarship in England.’

For a moment the classically shaped mouth straightened, but when she looked again it was relaxed, even curved in a slight smile. ‘Flatmates can be trying, can’t they.’

It was not a question. Trying to lift the flatness of her tone, she agreed, ‘Oh, they certainly can.’

‘It sounds as though you had the ones from hell’

‘He—one was not—not congenial.’ She put her cup and saucer down, relieved when they arrived on the table without any betraying chinks.

Paul said nothing, and after an awkward moment she went on, ‘Gerard found me in the university library one night and realised that I was having a bad time.’

‘Ah,’ Paul said smoothly, ‘he’s always found it difficult to cope with tears.’

She fastened down her indignation. ‘I wasn’t crying,’ she told him firmly, and added, ‘He’s very kind.’

‘I’m sure he is,’ Paul said, his voice soothing, almost mesmeric. ‘Why can’t you stay in your flat over the holidays?’

‘A friend of the woman who owns it has moved in.’

When Gerard came back in February he’d go into his new house, a house with a flat joined to it, and she’d have a home once more. There was no reason she shouldn’t tell Paul McAlpine that, but she fenced the words behind her teeth.

‘And now you’re waiting for the results of your final exams. Getting your BA has been a long haul. I believe there was a gap between the first two years and the last?’

Had her mother told him that her arthritis had become so bad after her daughter’s second year at university that Jacinta had to give up her studies and come home to take care of her? No, she’d been a very private woman, so it had to have been Gerard. Hoping he hadn’t coaxed Paul to lend her the bach by implying that she was a deserving case, she said evenly, ‘Yes, nine years.’

‘What do you intend to do when you’ve done your Master’s? Teach?’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t think I’d be very good at that.’

Judicially, he observed, ‘I shouldn’t think there’s much call for history masters outside the halls of academe.’

Why was she so—so nervous about her plans, so secretive? Because she didn’t yet know whether they were possible—and because she didn’t like the prospect of appearing a fool. ‘Probably not,’ she agreed, feeling ineffectual and foolish.

Goaded by his measuring look, she added, ‘Actually, the Master’s degree is a promise I made to my mother.’

There, that would show him she wasn’t just drifting.

‘And you always keep your promises?’

‘Yes.’

Without haste her unwilling host surveyed her face, his vivid blue gaze roaming the thick, now untidy mass of her hair, its damp curls clinging to the margins of her high forehead.

Heat burned through her skin. Straight copper brows drawn over her long nose, she met his scrutiny with defiance, knowing that the golden specks in her eyes would be glittering against the green matrix.

Starry Eyes, her mother used to call her when she was a child.

She could read nothing in Paul’s scrutiny beyond a cool assessment that prickled her skin and tightened her muscles in a primitive reflex, but when his glance moved to her wide, soft mouth she jutted her chin, fighting back a response in which anger and a forbidden excitement warred.

She didn’t want this overwhelming physical attraction. It was something she’d never experienced before, and it was dangerous.

Paul’s enigmatic gaze didn’t drop any further—and that, she thought angrily, was just as well. Although his scrutiny was too impersonal to be a leer, he’d checked her out beyond the bounds of politeness.

‘“Mine honour is my life”,’ he quoted.

Shakespeare, of course. An equivocal note in his voice scratched at her nerves again. ‘Something like that,’ she said curtly:

Each word dropped into the tense silence that stretched between them—humming, she thought edgily, with unspoken thoughts, with emotions she didn’t intend to examine.

Just when she thought she was going to have to break it, he drawled, ‘Very worthy.’

‘Hardly.’ She wondered why his words should sound like a warning. ‘Every child learns the importance of keeping promises.’

‘But children often forget as they grow older.’

Too late Jacinta remembered Aura, who had broken her vows to him in the most dramatic way. She opened her mouth to say something—anything—then closed it again when a covert glance at his shuttered expression warned her that nothing she could say would help ease the tension.

He asked her about the new fee structure at the university, and while they discussed the implications Jacinta forgot her reservations, forgot that almost insolent survey of her face. His astute, acerbic sagacity made her think hard and fast, and his understanding of people’s motives startled her with its blend of tolerance and cynicism.

‘Gerard seems to think you’ll get honours when you do your MA,’ he said, the blue eyes indolent behind his lashes.

Some obscure note in his voice made the comment ambiguous. ‘He’s a bit prejudiced,’ she said stiffly. She might be Paul’s guest, but she didn’t owe him any more revelations.

‘We’re always inclined to be prejudiced about the people we’re fond of,’ Paul McAlpine said.

She looked sharply up, but those eyes, so transparent she could drown in them, hid his thoughts very effectively.

‘Or those people we’ve taught,’ she returned, just as pleasantly. ‘I’ll unpack now. Shall I take the tray through to the kitchen?’

‘I will;’ he said, getting to his feet and lifting the tray.

Although Jacinta always noticed hands, it was uncanny that the sight of his sent a tiny shudder of sensation chasing down her spine. Walking back along the hall, she felt an odd weight in her breasts, a kind of tingling fullness that embarrassed and irritated her.

Oh, be sensible, she told herself with self-derisory crispness, trying to be blase and objective. It was hardly surprising that she should be attracted to him. He was magnificent—a splendid figure of a man. There was something about him that made her think of sanity and freedom and enviable, disciplined self-assurance.

Paul McAlpine would probably never find himself in a situation he couldn’t control.

Lucky man, she decided crossly, blinking as she stepped from the shaded verandah into the bright light of the sun.

CHAPTER TWO

EVERYTHING Jacinta owned except for some stored furniture was contained in two suitcases. In the back seat of Gerard’s car, neatly strapped in by the seatbelts, were a computer and printer, and on the floor several boxes of books.

Not a lot for almost thirty years, she thought wryly as she began to ease a suitcase out of the boot.

‘I’ll take that,’ Paul said from behind.

Jacinta didn’t quite stop herself from flinching, but hoped that her swift step away hid her involuntary reaction. ‘Oh—thanks,’ she said vaguely.

The sun gleamed on his fair hair, gilded his tanned skin. When he picked up the second case in one steady lift, muscles flexed smoothly beneath the fine cotton of his shirt. Oddly breathless, Jacinta reached into the back seat, fumbling with the seatbelt that held the computer in place.

A seagull laughed mockingly, its wings catching the light so that it shone silver, a mythical bow in the sparkling sky. Jacinta hauled the computer out and set off with it after the man who walked so easily up the white path and into the cool shadow of the house.

He put the suitcases onto the floor of the room she’d chosen and said, ‘I’ll bring in the printer.’

‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘I can do it; you must have work to do.’

‘Not today,’ he said gravely.

Frankly helpless, she stood in the centre of the room with the computer in her arms and watched him go. Oh, lord, she thought dismally, walking across to the desk. Biting her lip, she turned and settled the computer into place on the desk.

He looked like a white knight, handsome and easygoing, a golden man—if you could ignore that strong jaw and the hint of hardness in his chiselled mouth. But from behind he looked like a Viking, walking with steady, long-legged, distance-eating strides across a world that trembled before him.

And although imagination was a prime requisite for her next venture, at that moment she wished she didn’t possess quite so much of it.

He brought the printer in, and watched while she set it up. She did that because there was no way she’d open her suitcases in front of him. As it was, she was beginning to think that agreeing to stay here had not been a good decision.

While the test pattern ran through she said tentatively, ‘I think we should discuss some sort of—of arrangement while I’m here.’

Those intimidating brows lifted again. He didn’t say anything.

Jacinta imagined rods of steel going from her head to her heels. ‘Money,’ she said succinctly.

Eyes the same colour as a winter sky, cold and clear and piercing, moved from the screen to her face. ‘You are Gerard’s guest,’ he said, his voice as unyielding as his expression. ‘He asked me to make sure that you were all right while you were here. Money doesn’t enter into it.’

She tried again. ‘Nevertheless I’ll pay for my food.’

He shrugged, his unreadable gaze never leaving her face. ‘If it’s that important to you, work out some sort of board payment with Fran,’ he said negligently. ‘As for anything else, just treat this as your home.’

She frowned. ‘I don’t want to intrude.’

‘Oh, you won’t,’ he said quite gently, and smiled.

God! That smile was as uncompromisingly explosive as Semtex. Jacinta had to draw in a deep, shaken breath before she could even think. Fortunately the printer whirred and chirruped, letting her know it was ready for work. Turning, she stared blindly at it, swallowed, and said, ‘Thank you.’

‘That looks very like Gerard’s set-up,’ Paul observed, his voice almost bland.

‘It was,’ she said shortly. ‘When he got a new one he gave me this. They’re obsolete as soon as you buy them, unfortunately. Not worth anything.’ And she stopped because she’d started to babble, to explain, and she’d made a solemn vow that she was never going to do that again. The experience with Mark Stevens had cured her of ever justifying her actions to any man.

No man was ever again going to believe that he had the right to question what she did or what she thought.

Ever!

One brow drifted upwards. ‘Aren’t they? Not even as trade-ins?’ Paul suggested evenly, and went out across the verandah into the sunlight.

Jacinta glowered after him. Did he think she was sponging off Gerard? Well, she didn’t care! Not even if he did look like something chivalrous from a medieval tapestry, she thought sardonically, opening the wardrobe door and surveying the cavernous depths.

First of all she’d unpack, and then she’d go for a short walk—no, first she’d go and see the housekeeper and establish some ground rules.

She was almost in the hall when she realised that Paul was on his way back again, this time carrying a cardboard carton.

‘From the weight of this I assume it’s books,’ he said.

Nodding, Jacinta firmly directed her gaze away as he set the box down on the floor. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

‘I’ll get the others.’

She knew how heavy those boxes were; Gerard had helped her carry each one out to the car. Yet the weight didn’t seem to affect Paul at all.

Jacinta looked with respect at his shoulders and said again, ‘Thank you.’

‘It was nothing,’ he said, and left her, to reappear before she’d opened the first carton.

Once all the boxes were inside, he showed her the door to the bathroom and said, ‘Make yourself at home,’ before opening a door that presumably led into his bedroom.

Jacinta stood for a moment staring after him, her stomach gripped by some strong sensation. Hunger, she thought. You didn’t have any lunch.

On the floor of the front passenger seat there should have been another carton, packed full of food. She’d brought everything in her pantry, supplementing it with groceries and perishables in the small town twenty minutes away, the town where she’d also taken out a temporary membership in the local library.

It wasn’t there.

So Paul must have delivered it to the kitchen. Sure enough, when she’d made her way there, she saw the carton on the bench.

‘Oh, he did bring it in here,’ she said.

Busy kneading bread, Fran Borthwick smiled. ‘Yes.’

‘Tell me where to put everything.’

After the housekeeper had done that, and the food was stacked away in a well-stocked pantry, Jacinta explained that she wanted to contribute something to the housekeeping exchequer.

‘Have you talked this over with Paul?’ Fran asked, sounding surprised.

‘Yes.’ Jacinta repeated what he’d said.

Pulling off a chunk of dough, the older woman kneaded it expertly into a loaf and placed it into a baking tin. She said, ‘Well, you pay whatever you feel is right. As far as meals go, breakfast’s at seven. If that’s too early—’

‘No, no, that’s fine,’ Jacinta told her hastily.

‘OK. Lunch at midday, afternoon tea at four, and dinner at seven-thirty.’

‘When P—Mr McAlpine isn’t here I’ll get my own meals,’ Jacinta said.

Fran gave her an approving glance. ‘Good. There’s always salads and stuff like that in the fridge.’

Back in the bedroom, fortified by a salad sandwich and a banana, Jacinta unpacked her suitcases and set out her books along the back of the desk. Then, obscurely comforted by her familiar things, she changed into shorts and a light shirt and slathered herself in sunscreen. With a wide-brimmed straw hat crammed over her ginger curls, she set off to explore.

About three acres of garden dreamed around the house, sheltered by the hedge on all sides except the seaward one. Even the salt winds couldn’t get directly at it; pohutukawa trees leaned over both lawn and sand, forming a wide, informal barrier that would save Paul McAlpine from the indignity of having stray yachties peer into his house.

Seen between the swooping branches and dark, silver-backed leaves, the bay glittered, as blue as his eyes and as compellingly beautiful.

Jacinta wandered across the lawn and found a flight of steps that led out onto the sand, already sizzling under the hot November sun. Some people, she thought, remembering with a shudder the grim little house in which she’d spent most of the past nine years, had all the luck.

She didn’t regret giving up her studies to care for her mother. In spite of everything there had been laughter and joy in that farm cottage. Still, she couldn’t help thinking wistfully that her mother’s long, pain-racked purgatory would have been more bearable in a place like this.

Fishing a handkerchief from her pocket, she blew her nose. The last thing she wanted was for Cynthia Lyttelton to be still enduring that monstrous, unbearable agony and complete loss of autonomy, but her death had left an enormous gap.

For years Jacinta had made all the decisions, done all the worrying. Grief, and relief that it was all over, and guilt about that relief, and exhaustion, had formed a particularly potent cocktail, one that had rendered her too lethargic to realise that Mark Stevens had begun a campaign to control her life.

Picking up a stone, she straightened and skipped it across the water.

Looking back, her slowness to understand the situation still astonished her It had taken her three months to realise what was happening and leave the flat.

Another stone followed the first across the water.

With Gerard’s help she’d got through that with very little trauma, and doing his housework three days a week had helped her save enough money to see her through the summer holidays without working.

All in all it had been a hard year; she was probably still not wholly recovered from her mother’s death, but the crying jags were over, and the stress of trying to find some sort of balance, some firm place to stand, had gone. She’d come a long way in the last six months.

Oh, there were still problems, still decisions to be made. She had to work out what sort of life she wanted, and of course there was always money...

But for the moment she didn’t have to worry about any of that. She had another promise to her mother to fulfil, and three months in this perfect place to do it.

Lifting her face and half closing her eyes, she smiled into the sun. Light danced off her lashes, the film of moisture there separating the rays so that they gleamed like diamonds.

Living in the bach would have been perfect. She’d probably only have seen Paul once or twice in the three months, instead of finding herself practically cheek by jowl with him.

Still, she’d manage. She was much stronger than she’d been before, much better able to look after herself. And it didn’t really matter that she lusted a bit after Paul McAlpine. So, no doubt, did plenty of women. At least she recognised what she felt as straightforward physical hunger and didn’t mistake it for anything more important.

The ringing of small, melodious bells filled the air. Jacinta stopped, watching and remembering. Outside the window of the cottage where she’d lived with her mother was a cherry tree, and each spring her mother had waited for the tuis to come and glut themselves on the nectar.

Just ahead, beside a transparent veil of water that ran over the sand, stood a clump of flax bushes. Strappy leaves supported tall stems with bronze- and wine-coloured flowers, mere tubular twists of petals with dark stamens protruding from the tip.

Yet in those flowers glistened nectar, and a tui, white feathers bobbling at its throat, sat on the stem and sang his spring carillon.

When Paul said her name Jacinta yelped, whirling to say angrily, ‘Don’t do that, for heaven’s sake!’

Paul frowned. ‘Your nerves must be shot to pieces.’

‘No! I just wasn’t—I didn’t—’

‘It’s all right,’ he said, his voice deep and sure and strangely soothing.

As the tui broke off its song to indulge in a cacophony of snorts and wheezes, interspersed with the sound of a contented pig, Paul put a hand on her shoulder, grounding her until the sudden surge of panic died away to be replaced by a slow combination of emotions—keen pleasure, and peace, and an oblique foreboding.

Swiftly she stepped away. ‘Unusual birds you have here,’ she said, snatching at her composure. ‘Penguins that bray like donkeys, tuis that mimic pigs...’

‘That’s normal for both of them. Is it normal for you to jump like that whenever anyone comes up behind you?’

‘No, but I didn’t hear you and I suppose I am a bit tense. I thought that by now I’d be nicely ensconced in a bach with just the sea for company. Instead, I’ve been hijacked.’ She smiled tentatively and his frown disappeared, although his gaze was still keenly perceptive as it rested on her face. ‘Where is the bach, by the way?’

Dropping his hand, he nodded to where a road left the main one and ran over the headland to the south. ‘In the next bay,’ he said.

She nodded too, not quite knowing what to say. The tui forgot its barnyard imitations and went back to foraging for nectar. Jacinta enjoyed the iridescent sheen of its plumage as the thin stem swayed in the sunlight—greens and purples, blues and bronzes, brighter by far than oil on water.

Every sense she possessed was at full stretch, so that she heard with keen pleasure the susurration of the waves on the beach, felt the heat and the wind on her tender skin, inhaled salty air and tasted her own emotions in her mouth, a sharp delight edged with wanness.

Paul didn’t seem in a hurry to leave, so they watched the bird until Jacinta was unnerved enough by the silence to ask, ‘What’s the name of this bay?’

‘Homestead Bay.’

She laughed a little. ‘Of course. What a glorious place to grow up in.’

‘I’m sure it would be,’ he said calmly, ‘but I’ve only owned it for five years or so.’

A note in his voice steered her well away from that topic. Too late she remembered that he’d bought it after he’d been jilted by the lovely Aura. Stumbling slightly, she asked, ‘Is that the Coromandel Peninsula on the skyline?’

‘And Great Barrier Island.’

Gloating, her eyes dreamy, she murmured, ‘It’s so beautiful.’

‘I think so,’ he said smoothly.

Jacinta stiffened. However banal and ordinary his words, there always seemed to be a subtext, some oblique intonation or cool, fleeting amusement adding an extra meaning to what he said.

She couldn’t help but feel that in some subtle way Paul McAlpine neither liked nor trusted her.

And that was ridiculous, because she didn’t know the man well enough to interpret either his tone of voice or expression. As well, he was a lawyer, trained to keep his features under control.

Although she was prepared to bet that they’d never been exactly open and candid. There was too much self-discipline in that beautiful mouth, and in spite of their vivid colour his blue eyes were surprisingly opaque, hiding Paul McAlpine’s emotions very well.

She said abruptly, ‘Gerard said you’re a lawyer.’

‘Most of my work is in international law,’ he told her, a hint of reserve flattening his tone.

So he didn’t want to talk about it. Neither had Gerard. ‘Very high-powered,’ he’d said. ‘He deals with governments.’

Whatever that meant. As Paul’s career seemed to be off-limits, she said, ‘And is this a working farm?’

‘Certainly. It’s a stud; we breed Blonde d’Aquitaines, French beef cattle. We’d better go for a short tour to orient you.’

That not-quite-lazy, assured smile sizzled from the top of her head down to her toes, curling them involuntarily in her sandals. He knew very well the effect he had on women.

She returned his smile, pleased by the slight narrowing of his eyes as she said courteously, ‘A good idea. I don’t want to end up in the bull paddock.’

‘Our bulls are normally placid enough,’ he said. ‘However, it is a good idea to keep away from them. Any large animal can turn dangerous.’

Like the man who owned them, she thought, startled by the insight. Ignoring a mental image of that easy self-reliance transformed by violent emotion into something much darker and infinitely more hazardous, she asked dulcetly, ‘Do you think that pastoral farming has any future in a world that appears to be going green and vegetanan?’

A slight lift of one dark brow recognised the provocation in her question, but he gave a reasoned, restrained reply. This man would scorn an emotional response, an argument based on anything but facts.

Legal training again.

Another thought slipped so stealthily into her mind that it had taken possession before she realised its existence. Had he been hurt by his emotions, hurt so badly that he no longer indulged them?

Not that he looked like someone too wounded by love to risk it again, she thought after a snatched glance at the strong, clear-cut profile. Still, she suspected that his pleasant, approachable attitude was armour. She didn’t know what lay beneath it, but she’d be prepared to bet that it would take intense goading to penetrate his shield of self-contained authority.

Gerard, who seemed to still have a mild case of hero-worship for his older cousin, had once told her that Paul never lost his temper.

Not even when Aura had told him she was going to marry his best friend?

As they walked past woolsheds, and an implement shed where brightly coloured monsters lurked, and beneath darkly needled macrocarpa trees along a fenced, metalled race that led to other paddocks, they talked objectively, intelligently, about the world and where it was possibly headed.

Jacinta filed little snippets of information away like hiding treasure. Paul McAlpine moved with a tightly leashed vitality that was at odds with his indolent appearance. He looked at each topic of conversation from both sides; he had a sharp, incisive mind; he enjoyed discussing issues, but when the conversation became personal he blocked.

He needn’t worry, she thought when at last they came back to the house. She’d be as detached and dispassionate as he was.

But these next three months would have been a lot simpler if those penguins hadn’t decided to take up residence beneath the bach...

If only she had the money to say thanks, but no thanks, and walk away.

Unfortunately, her mother’s legacy covered only her tuition fees—although since their rise ‘covered’ was hardly the word, and if they rose again next year she’d be in trouble. Her student’s allowance paid the rent and bought her soap and shampoo and other necessities.

And she was being silly, letting Paul get to her.

She’d certainly make sure she paid her way here. Even if she did look and feel like an unsophisticated hick, she thought ironically as they turned back, she had her pride.

Inside the cool house, Paul said pleasantly, ‘Dinner is at seven-thirty. If you’d like a drink first I’ll be in the conservatory around seven.’

‘Thank you,’ she said non-committally, giddily aware of herself, of the way her long limbs moved, of the way her hips swayed, and the fact that her hair had once more slipped free of its clip and was clinging to her hot cheeks.

Back in her bedroom, she switched on the computer, opened a file, typed ‘CHAPTER ONE’, and then hesitated, before picking up a very old dictionary of quotations she’d bought for fifty cents in a garage sale. She found the lines quickly, from Shakespeare’s Richard the Second.

Mine honour is my life; both grow in one

Take honour from me, and my life is done.

A hard creed, she thought; a creed for a strong man who held to a spartan belief.

Thoughtfully she closed the book, sat down in front of the computer screen and began to write.

At first the words came easily. She’d told the story so many times to her mother that she almost knew it by heart. The unicorn snorted, its blue eyes shimmering in the moonlight, she wrote. ‘Very well then,’ it said smugly. ‘Don’t blame me when the Master realises what you’ve done. I did my best to stop you.’

But after she’d typed a page she stopped and read it, frowning. It looked—clumsy. And whenever she tried to summon the unicorn’s image, its blue eyes had a disconcerting trick of changing to other eyes—quite different ones, cool and distant and enigmatic.

She got to her feet and glowered out of the window. The garden looked very desirable, the lounger eminently appealing.

Doggedly, Jacinta sat down at the desk again. She had promised her mother she’d write this and she was going to do it, even if it did look raw and childish and unformed on paper.

An hour later she got up and walked across to the French windows, trying to recall the look in Paul McAlpine’s eyes when she’d told him that the computer equipment had been Gerard’s.

Perhaps, she decided, trying to be fair, he had reason to worry about his cousin She knew and Gerard knew that she wasn’t trying to sponge off him, but to an outsider it could look that way. He’d lent her his car, would have lent her money if she hadn’t refused it, and out of the kindness of his heart had organised this chance to fulfil one of the promises she’d made to her mother. He didn’t know anything about the other promise she’d made, the one she was actually working on now. She owed him a lot.

And, talking of the car, she’d better see where she could garage it, because salt winds were notorious for causing rust. But before she bearded the lion in whatever den he was ensconced she’d go for a quick walk to the gate and back.

Out in the garden she smiled and clipped a leaf from the lemon verbena Her mother had loved its citrus perfume, sharp and delightful, and always had a bush of it in the garden. And now she was dead, but the world was still beautiful beyond belief, and it was an insult to her not to enjoy it.

Blinking, Jacinta unlatched the gate and walked through it straight into a pair of hard, masculine arms.

For a moment she thought she’d managed to stumble into Paul McAlpine’s grip, but the voice that said, ‘Oh, sorry, I didn’t know you were there,’ was younger than his and lighter, the New Zealand drawl more pronounced.

‘No,’ she said, stepping backwards, ‘I’m sorry, I wasn’t looking...’

Dark eyes rested on her face with unmistakable appreciation, and the smile he gave her was open and guileless and very infectious.

‘Dean Latrobe,’ he said. ‘I’m Paul’s farm manager.’

Jacinta returned his smile and told him her name, adding after a short pause, ‘I’m staying here.’

‘Oh, yes, the lady who’s supposed to be spending the summer in the bach,’ he said, and grinned again. ‘Paul was ropable when I told him no one would last a night there.’

‘I imagine he would have been,’ she said, laughing a little. ‘But he very kindly offered me a bed for the holidays just the same.’

‘If you’ve got the keys,’ he said, ‘I’ll put your car in the garage. It is your car, isn’t it?’

She said hastily, ‘No, it belongs to Paul’s cousin. He’s in America at the moment.’

‘Yeah, thought I recognised it.’ He ran a knowledgable glance over it. ‘He was up a month or so ago. Got the keys?’

‘I’ll get them from my room,’ she said. ‘But there’s no need for you to put it away—if you’ll just show me where the garage is...’

‘All right,’ he said obligingly.

Jacinta hesitated. ‘I’d better ask Paul first.’

‘Why? There’s room in the garage. Trust me, he won’t throw his cousin’s car out.’

Well, no, he hadn’t thrown his cousin’s protégée out, but that didn’t mean he wanted her there.

‘He’s a hard man,’ Dean Latrobe said cheerfully, ‘but he’s not unreasonable.’

In other words she was being silly.

‘Trust me,’ Dean Latrobe said, and winked at her.

He was nice, and there were no undercurrents in his smile or his voice. She laughed back at him and turned to go through the gate.

And there was Paul, the magnificent framework of his face clamped in aloof austerity, eyes slightly narrowed as they went from her smiling face to his manager’s.

Startled, Jacinta stopped. ‘I thought I should put the car away,’ she blurted. ‘Is that all right?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘I just have to get the keys.’

Courteously he stood aside. Again absurdly self-conscious, she walked swiftly past him and up onto the verandah, found the keys in her bag and ran lightly back.

To find that Dean had gone.

Paul’s vivid eyes dwelt on her face with a chilling lack of emotion.

Her smile probably flickered, but she said easily, ‘If you’ll point me in the direction of the garage, I’ll put the car away.’

But Paul said calmly, ‘I’ll come with you,’ and opened the car door for her.

Slowly she climbed in and waited. Because it gave her something to do, she wound the window down and made little fanning motions with one hand, saying as he lowered himself lithely beside her, ‘This car really heats up in the sun.’

‘Do you use it often?’

Recalled to herself, Jacinta hastily set the engine going and put the car m motion. ‘Not often,’ she said aloofly. Once a week to pick up groceries from the supermarket, in fact.

‘Turn left,’ Paul said.

The drive ducked under an archway of Cape honeysuckle and over a cattlestop into a large gravel courtyard at the back of the house. A garage, doors open, formed one wing

When the house had been first built, the other wing had probably been workshops and the laundry; possibly the pots of flowers at a door indicated a conversion to the housekeeper’s flat. Between the two wings stretched the rear wall of the house. In the centre of the courtyard a well-planted herb garden surrounded an arbour where a glorious apricot rose bloomed with prodigal lavishness.

Jacinta concentrated hard on getting the car into the garage, braking with relief as the car slid to a stop beside a substantial continental saloon.

‘You drive well,’ Paul commented as she unfastened her seatbelt.

‘Thank you.’ She quelled a sharp pleasure.

‘No wonder Gerard trusts you with it.’

‘He made sure I could drive properly first,’ she said, getting out and putting an end to the conversation as she shut the door a little too heavily.

Walking beside him to the back door, she wondered what on earth was happening to her. Nothing, she thought in profound irritation. She was simply overreacting to a man who attracted her very much on a physical level.

Clearly he felt no such attraction, which was just as well.

It might be more sensible to go back to Auckland and work over the holidays, but why should she run away? She could cope; this inconvenient awareness would die soon, and she’d promised her mother she’d write this book before the year was over, which left her only two months.

One day, Jacinta thought, she was going to earn enough money to give her some control over her life.

‘I should perhaps mention that Dean is engaged,’ Paul said evenly

It took her a moment to realise what he was getting at, and when she did her first instinct was to laugh. For heaven’s sake, what did he think she was—some sort of femme fatale, dangerously attractive to men?

That first response was followed by anger. Far more likely that he thought she was so desperate for a man that she’d flirt with anyone!

‘That’s nice,’ she said agreeably, just managing to keep the note of mockery from her voice.

His swift glance scorched across her profile, bringing her senses to full alert as his mouth curled in a tight parody of a smile that revealed a glimpse of white teeth.

‘Very nice,’ he said, his voice suspiciously bland. ‘Her name is Brenda and she teaches maths at the local high school.’

The colours of the garden sang in violent juxtaposition, and as Jacinta’s eyes met his, half-hidden by his lashes, the blue gleaming like the sun on ice, she took a quick, impeded breath.

Beneath that unhurried, confident surface was a primitive streak a mile wide, and she’d do well to stay away from it. This man was every bit as fiercely predatory as a lion.

‘Is she local?’ she asked, because it was easier, less threatening, to speak than to stay silent.

His smile faded, and she was left shaken, wondering if she had been stupidly romantic when she’d compared him to a lion.

‘She’s the daughter of one of the oldest families in the district,’ he said serenely.

A lion, for heaven’s sake! How hackneyed.

Paul McAlpine was no more or less than a clever man, blessed—or cursed—with the sort of good looks and personality that made him automatically attractive to most women. The premonition, the icy breath of danger that had struck through her, was sheer imagination.

All right, she found him intensely attractive, and, yes, that was a nuisance, but it could be dealt with. It would pass, as such things do when ignored.

He held the back door open and Jacinta went through ahead of him, welcoming the room’s cool refuge from the heat and the blinding light outside.

‘I’ll see you at seven,’ he said.

It was an unequivocal dismissal, and although she’d been about to say exactly the same words, they stung.

With her shoulders very erect, she went down the hall and into her bedroom.

CHAPTER THREE

ONCE there, Jacinta didn’t immediately go back to the computer. Slowly she walked across the room to stop in front of the dressing table and frown into a mirror burnished by that generous, silvery gleam that comes with age.

Perhaps that was why she looked different. Her mouth was fuller, redder, and the green in her eyes was highlighted by golden speckles. Even her skin had some colour in it—a tawny flush that brightened its usual pallor.

‘Oh, grow up!’ she said crossly, loudly, and turned her back on her reflection and went across to the desk.

Making up the story had been comparatively simple; she and her mother shared a love of fantasy literature, and one day, when Cynthia had been racked with pain and unable to read, Jacinta had tried to take her mind off her agony by soliciting her help with a story she’d had wandering through her mind for weeks.

Her mother had enjoyed the experience so much she’d insisted on an instalment each day, eventually asking Jacinta to write a book from the notes she’d made.

But what had seemed satisfying and complete when she told it was now a chain of words with no interest, no resonance, words that sat flatly on the page and produced no vivid images.

Jacinta was frowning at the screen when Paul McAlpine’s voice jerked her head upright. He was outside, speaking to someone in the garden, and although she couldn’t discern his words she could hear that he was amused.

And she realised what was wrong with her manuscript. When she’d told the stones to her mother the tone of her voice had provided colour and shading, drama and humour, despair and desperation. She’d have to use words to do the job.

‘Thank you, Paul,’ she said softly.

So absorbed did she become that when she next looked at her watch it was ten minutes to seven. Hastily she saved, backed up and shut the machine down, then gathered her sponge bag, towel and orange cotton wrap and went down the hall to the bathroom.

After another quick shower she dried herself, pulled her wrap on and hurried back to her room. She was almost at her door when hairs prickled along the back of her neck. Instinctively she flashed a swift glance over her shoulder.

Paul was standing in the door of his bedroom. Jacinta’s pulse suddenly hammered in her throat as she registered the impact of his scrutiny right through to the marrow of her bones. He didn’t say anything, but she could see dark colour along his cheekbones that both excited and astonished her.

‘I won’t be long,’ she croaked, opening the door and sliding through it as fast as she could

All right, she commanded her thudding, skipping heart, stop that right this minute! You’re just going through delayed adolescence, that’s all You’ll get over it.

And probably any man would be interested in a woman—however thin—who was walking about with nothing on underneath her worn cotton dressing gown. That was the way this sex thing worked; it certainly didn’t mean that he wanted Jacinta Lyttelton, just that his hormones had been activated.

The wrap unpeeled from her damp body, she got into her bra and pants, then looked through her clothes.

Of course she didn’t have anything to wear for a pre-dinner drink with a high-powered international lawyer who lived on a dream farm beside the sea. Something floaty and silken would have done, or casually chic resort wear, but she owned nothing like that.

Her hand hovered over a neat, fitting blouse of vivid orange silk and her teeth sank into her bottom lip. It was her only impulse buy of the past ten years, and she’d not even have considered it if her mother hadn’t been with her in that small, spice-scented shop in Fiji, urging her to forget for once their cramped budget.

She’d never worn it, although the hot, bright colour magically transformed her hair and skin and the tight, short-sleeved underblouse and flowing skirt lent her body a grace she didn’t really possess, especially when she draped the floating silk veil over the ensemble. The sari was fancy dress, calling far too much attention to its wearer.

Still, she thought, her eyes feasting hungrily on the intense hues, when she could afford clothes again, she’d choose those colours and to hell with basic black!

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