“I wanted you as soon as I saw you glimmering across the room.

“I give you fair warning,” he continued. “I’m hunting.”

Her jaw dropped. Stunned, she stared at him, imprisoned by the implacable, leashed hunger of his eyes.

“At least you didn’t say that you wouldn’t sleep with me if I were the last man on earth.”

“You’re accustomed to that response?” she asked. “Then it’s time you moved up to a better class of mistress. Not me—I’m sorry, I’m too busy at the moment.”

“So much for honesty,” Clay said ironically, and once more tightened his arms around her.

To her intense humiliation Natalia’s body betrayed her. Although superhuman will held back her rash impulse to signal surrender, she had to fight a bitter battle with untamed need—and he, damn him, knew it!

ROBYN DONALD has always lived in Northland in New Zealand, initially on her father’s stud dairy farm at Warkworth, then in the Bay of Islands, an area of great natural beauty, where she lives today with her husband and an ebullient and mostly Labrador dog. She resigned her teaching position when she found she enjoyed writing romances more, and now spends any time not writing in reading, gardening, traveling and writing letters to keep up with her two adult children and her friends.

Robyn Donald
A Reluctant Mistress

For Barbara and Peter Clendon. The best of friends

and booksellers extraordinaire. Thank you.

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

STANDING in a land agent’s office pretending to check out a couple of likely prospects, Clay Beauchamp looked up sharply when a low, husky laugh teased his ears.

Outside in the street a woman had stopped to talk, and the smoky sensuality of her voice homed straight through his defences, waking his male response to instant, lustful life.

The subtropical sun of an early Northland autumn picked out a head of curls black as a sinful midnight; they looked as though she’d taken to them in exasperation with a blunt pair of scissors, but the bad cut only emphasised their springy vitality. As Clay’s eyes narrowed, she turned her head.

His stimulated hormones surged into clamorous over-drive. Deliberately controlling his physical arousal, he surveyed a face made to star in erotic dreams.

Not that she was pretty—or even beautiful. No, she possessed something much rarer than either—a cool, guarded sensuality produced by the happy genetic accident of a softly voluptuous mouth and large eyes set on a provocative slant. The tempting, tantalising combination of mouth and eyes overshadowed ivory skin and neat, regular features.

Moving slightly so that his unbidden and uncomfortable response was partly hidden by the sheaf of papers in his hand, Clay studied her with speculative, intent interest. Five feet eight, he estimated, with wide shoulders and curved hips that hinted at a generous sexuality—and although she spoke with a New Zealand accent he’d bet some intriguing bloodlines mingled in that lithe, long-legged body.

The man she was talking to interrupted, laughing. Clay frowned. Without the play of speech her face settled into a watchful, disciplined wariness that denied access to her thoughts and emotions.

But that mouth! Full and red and eager when she relaxed, it summoned all too vivid images. What would it take to see that restraint shattered in passion? Sweat beaded Clay’s temples and his breath strangled in his throat as his body reacted with violent enthusiasm to the thought.

Helen of Troy, he thought with annoyed irony, had probably had the same effect on the men who had desired her.

‘She’s a looker, isn’t she?’

The land agent’s nasal voice broke Clay’s concentration. Irritated that he’d been caught staring at an unknown woman with the fervour of a stag in rut, he asked curtly, ‘Who is she?’

‘Natalia Gerner. Her father bought a chunk of Pukekahu Station—it’s the second in the file. Yeah, that one—’ he said as Clay shuffled the papers.

The land agent went on, ‘Would have been about thirteen years ago, when old Bart Freeman from Pukekahu had the Inland Revenue Department hot on his trail for unpaid taxes and he had to find money damned fast. The only way he could come up with the cash was to cut off several parcels of land. Natalia’s father—straight from Auckland, never been on a farm in his life before!—bought one, gave it some damned stupid poetic name and did his best to railroad himself into bankruptcy.’

He snorted as Natalia Gerner laughed outside the small office, the liquid feminine sound sheer enticement. Clay continued looking at the paper in his hand, but the words blurred as every sense sharpened. Resolutely he overrode the unruly demands of his body, forcing his mind back to the business at hand. He’d come here for a specific purpose, and nothing was going to get in his way.

The land agent continued, ‘Mind you, they had bad luck too—her mother died when Natalia was eighteen, then her father dropped dead of a heart attack—three years ago it’ll be now. If you decide on Pukekahu—and you’ll never get land in the North cheaper—she’ll be your neighbour.’

Clay frowned, striving to push Natalia Gerner’s exotic face and sexy laugh to the back of his mind. This was business, and no woman—not even one with a face like a courtesan and a body that hinted at all sorts of decadent pleasures—interfered with his business.

Actually, this was more than business. It was the culmination of years of quiet, persistent, ruthless effort and struggle. He tamped down the flicker of triumph even as he felt it. However leggy and tormenting, the woman with a laugh like Eve wasn’t going to cloud his brain today.

The land agent grinned, his middle-aged face sly. ‘She’s a very generous girl, they say. She and Dean Jamieson—that’s the vendor—had a good thing going there a while back, but it fizzled out.’

Life had taught Clay that too much emotion led to grief and defeat; over the years he’d learned how to discipline his responses, even his pleasures. Yet he had to pretend to read the page of figures and stare at the photograph of a huge Victorian villa in the last stages of disintegration while he struggled to restrain a red tide of rage.

The land agent gave a snort of laughter. ‘She probably thought she had it made then, but he wasn’t going to break up his marriage for her. I heard she got greedy and wanted him to pay her debts off. I don’t blame her—why shouldn’t she get the best out of the situation?’

Clay’s memory summoned only too vividly a seductive mouth, green eyes and skin like ivory silk, a lithe body. His treacherous mind also summoned other images—ones he banished, but not before heat clamped his body, subduing the processes of his brain with a surge of raw lust.

When he could trust his voice he asked abruptly, ‘Why is Jamieson selling Pukekahu?’

He’d already flown over the cattle station, so he knew these photographs had been taken in a very good light—possibly even doctored a little. The paddocks he’d seen hadn’t had fertiliser on them for far too many years.

The older man shrugged. ‘He’s one of the South Island Jamiesons,’ he said. ‘His stepmother—she was Bart Freeman’s daughter—left him Pukekahu when she died, but I suppose it’s too far from his other holdings to make it worth his while to keep it.’

It had, however, Clay thought savagely, been worth his while to strip the place of everything of value, running it down so that it was now worth practically nothing. Yes, Dean would have enjoyed that; it would have satisfied his mean, petty soul.

Perhaps misunderstanding Clay’s continued silence, the land agent said quickly, ‘He’s a very willing vendor.’

Another throb of feminine laughter turned both male heads. Coldly angry with himself, Clay wrenched his attention back to the papers in his hand.

Grinning, the older man revealed, ‘That’s Pukekahu’s farm manager she’s talking to. I doubt if he’ll stay the course. Not enough money, for a start—Phil’s never going to be more than a manager. He’s good, mind you. If you buy the station you couldn’t do better than keep him on, but he has to be told what to do. Easy meat for Natalia; she’ll be bored soon. Won’t take her long to find someone new—there’s always been men buzzing around her.’

Disgusted because he wanted to hear about the woman who was still smiling at Phil Whoever-he-was—even more disgusted because he wanted to claim that smile, that fascinating, vital face, that strong, delectable body—and thoroughly furious at the flare of raw jealousy that sliced through him, Clay said evenly, ‘If I buy Pukekahu it will be because it fits into my portfolio, not because the woman next door is promiscuous.’

The land agent’s face flushed in unpleasant patches. ‘Of course,’ he blustered. ‘Anyway, I didn’t say she was promiscuous! She’s had a rough spin, that girl…’

Something in Clay’s face must have alerted him because he stumbled on, ‘Her father left her with a tunnel-house setup and debts so big she’ll probably still owe money when she’s fifty. The only thing she’s got in her favour is her looks, and I don’t blame her for setting her sights high enough to get herself out of hock. Still, if anyone can make it she will; she’s always been tough and stubborn and she’s a damned hard little worker.’

So she had more than her looks in her favour. Pity about the mercenary streak…

Clay set a discarded sheet of paper down on the desk and pretended to study the next. In a barely interested voice he asked, ‘Why’s she paying off her father’s debts? She isn’t legally obliged to unless they were partners.’

The agent shook his head. ‘Her father borrowed from his friends to set up the tunnel-houses. He planned to grow orchids, but—story of his life!—he was too late for the boom years. When he died Natalia sold just about everything that wasn’t nailed down and realized enough to pay off some of the debt, but the major creditors are an elderly couple. If she reneged on the rest of the loan they’d be left with practically nothing.’

So the carmine-lipped houri had a conscience—an over-active one if it had led to her mortgaging her future for the sake of an elderly couple. Suppressing an odd protectiveness, Clay said curtly, ‘All right, tell me why I should buy Pukekahu.’

This was what he’d come for, this derelict cattle station. That was why he’d chosen this small-town agent who’d probably never heard of his company, Beauchamp Holdings, because nothing would give Dean Jamieson more pleasure than to ratchet up the price of Pukekahu if he knew Clay was buying it.

In fact, he’d probably refuse to sell the place to him, even though he needed the money desperately.

Clay wanted Pukekahu with a hunger that was based on that most dangerous of emotions, revenge, but he didn’t plan to pay a cent more than it was worth.

And he had no intention of letting the fact that Natalia Gerner lived half a mile from its front gate affect him.

CHAPTER ONE

‘LIZ, I can’t go.’ Natalia Gerner rubbed at her brows, erasing a frown. The other hand clenched more tightly around the telephone.

‘Why not?’ her best friend demanded.

‘I haven’t got a partner, for a start.’ Let alone a dress suitable to wear to a masquerade—a masquerade ball, for heaven’s sake! What had possessed the Rotary and Lions Clubs to sponsor a masquerade ball? Reining in her frustration, Natalia tried to sound reasonable and practical. ‘This is New Zealand, not Regency England, and here in Bowden we entertain with barbecues. If we can cook we do dinner parties. Whatever, we don’t do balls.’

Her friend laughed. ‘Don’t be so curmudgeonly—it doesn’t sit well on twenty-three-year-old shoulders. It’ll be a real hoot. Mum and Dad have organised a party, and you have to come. You won’t need a partner; Greg’s home, and he adores dancing with you. Mind you, so does everyone else—you dance like a dream.’

‘I used to do a mean tango,’ Natalia admitted. Her heavy-lidded gaze lifted to the window, dwelt a moment on the curved, half-moon tunnels covered in white plastic and packed full of capsicum plants, then moved on to the paddock where a very small herd of beef cattle grazed placidly in the winter sun.

Liz had never been one to give up easily. ‘We’re not going to do minuets and country dances, for heaven’s sake. And you—of all people—can’t have forgotten how to foxtrot and stuff.’

‘I probably have.’

Trenchantly, Liz retorted, ‘It’s like swimming and riding a bike—you never forget—so stop wimping out. Your father would hate to hear you say no to an evening of fun. And so would your mother.’

Natalia closed her eyes. One of the disadvantages of their long friendship was Liz’s unerring aim at her weakest spots.

With ruthless accuracy Liz went on, ‘And don’t tell me you haven’t got a dress to wear. Remember the silk one I bought in Auckland last year because I hoped it would make my eyes the same colour as yours? Well, you can wear that.’

‘You have beautiful eyes,’ Natalia said feebly, knowing she was losing the battle.

‘Possibly, but we both know they’re not in the same league as yours! I was going to give you that dress before I went to England, anyway.’ Her voice altered. ‘Nat, do come. We’ll have a great time. The Barkers have opened their ballroom and—’

‘I can’t afford it,’ Natalia interrupted.

After a short silence, Liz said, ‘We’ll pay. Nat, please don’t let pride stand in your way—you know you’d do the same for me.’

Natalia chewed her lip. ‘That’s not fair.’

‘Vowing to be eternal best friends on our first day of school gives me the right to be unfair. Ever since your father died you’ve buried yourself up on your hill like Rumpelstiltskin.’

‘You’ve got the wrong fairy tale. I don’t ask riddles and threaten to kidnap babies. And I certainly don’t spin straw into gold.’ Which would have been immensely useful these past three years.

Liz, being Liz, didn’t accept her unspoken capitulation, but insisted on dotting ‘i’s. ‘You held my hand through a couple of broken hearts and assorted childhood traumas—won’t you at least let me do this?’

‘That’s two hundred per cent not fair!’

‘But you’re going to give in to emotional blackmail, aren’t you?’

Natalia unclenched her fingers from the telephone. ‘How much are the tickets?’

‘I’m not going to tell you.’ Real exasperation snapped through Liz’s tone. ‘If you’re determined to be sticky about it, consider yours a birthday present.’ She laughed. ‘Come on, Nat—stay the night, and we’ll get ready together and giggle and pretend we’re seventeen instead of twenty-three, and that I’m not heading off to Oxford to bury myself in mediaeval English texts, and you’re not stuck in Bowden working your heart out because of some quixotic belief that you’re responsible for your father’s debts. For one night we’ll pretend that our lives are going to be the way we wanted them to be when we planned them at high school. Do you remember—I was going to marry Jason Wilson and have his children? And you were going to be a botanist and paint exquisite pictures of native plants. That, of course, was before you fell in love with Simon Forsythe in the seventh form!’

Natalia had to force a laugh. ‘All right, all right, I’ll come,’ she said, ‘but only because I want to see Mr Stephens from the garage in a mask. And I’ll get dressed at your place. I won’t be able to stay, though, because I’ve got to catch the early transport to the markets.’

‘I knew you’d do it,’ Liz said warmly. ‘You need some fun, and we’ll have it, I promise. And don’t worry about a mask, either—I’ve got the perfect one for you!’

Sequinned and frivolous, the exact green of her eyes, the perfect mask flaunted exotic feathers that winged out against Natalia’s black curls. It matched Liz’s discarded silk dress, the most glamorous thing Natalia had ever worn. Demure of neckline in the front, the back swooped down past her shoulder blades towards a nipped-in waist, below which the skirts frou-froued, stopping short enough to reveal a lot of Natalia’s legs.

‘Stop jittering!’ Liz commanded. ‘No, you can’t wear a bra with it, but you look great without one, and, yes, it’s short, but you’ve got truly excellent legs. It’s very, very sexy—I knew it would suit you.’ Without chagrin, Liz smoothed her own slinky black dress before adjusting her black and white mask. ‘But then, everything does. It’s those fine, aristocratic features. They fool everyone into thinking you’re a sweetly pretty girl—until they get a load of those wicked, come-hither eyes.’

‘Come-hither! In other words, I’ve got heavy eyelids. You’ve been reading Regency books again,’ Natalia accused, laughing. ‘I’ll bet your supervisor didn’t know you devoured popular fiction when she steered you into firstclass honours with your MA.’

‘I like Regencies,’ Liz told her unrepentantly. ‘I have this thing for tall, dark, handsome, very rich aristocrats.’

‘You might find one in England.’

Liz sighed. ‘I don’t think they breed them any more.’

As they walked into the splendid ballroom in the district’s biggest homestead, Natalia said, ‘How mysterious and interesting we look. Perhaps we should go around in masks all the time!’

The rest of their party trooped in after them in a cloud of laughter and conversation. ‘Hmm, yes, very mysterious—and ultra-sexy. Even Greg,’ Liz added, casting a quick glance at her brother.

‘He’s a very handsome man,’ Natalia said lightly.

‘But not for you.’ Liz had made no attempt to hide her wish that her favourite brother and her best friend might one day fall in love.

‘No.’

‘Ah, well, perhaps you’ll meet some gorgeous hunk tonight.’ Liz gazed openly around, waving to friends, smiling. ‘I can’t see one,’ she murmured, ‘but there’s Mr Stephens with the Barkers, Nat—and he looks pretty good in a mask!’

Halfway through the evening Natalia admitted that Liz had been right to nag her to come. She’d had a great time, dancing with old friends and flirting lightly with several newcomers, talking to people she hadn’t seen for months.

Waiting until her latest partner had set off to rejoin his wife, Liz hissed, ‘He’s here!’

‘Who?’ Natalia lifted her glass of iced water.

‘The hunk we ordered. Sidle a look towards the door. You can’t miss him.’

More to humour her than anything, Natalia set her glass down and turned her head.

The stranger was definitely unmissable, partly because he was a head above most of the other men. At least six foot three, Natalia estimated, with shoulders in proportion and an air of cool command that dominated the room.

Severe black and white evening clothes contrasted magnificently with golden skin. Light gleamed on wavy black hair, highlighted an autocratic, hawk-nosed face with a square, slightly cleft chin and a wide mouth. Long-legged, narrow-hipped, a conventional black mask emphasising those strong features, the stranger could have walked out of one of Liz’s Regency novels—or an X-rated myth.

He was talking to a woman Natalia didn’t know, a well-rounded creature whose scarlet mask—scattered with tiny chips of mirror glass—couldn’t conceal her look of desperate anticipation, as though she’d just found water in the Sahara.

Natalia didn’t blame her. The stranger’s height and archetypal, dangerous good looks made him stand out, but what compelled attention was his air of vibrant, vital sexuality, a coiled, dynamically masculine magnetism. He had the invisible aura of a man who knew he was attractive to the opposite sex—an inbuilt confidence that set her teeth on edge.

Fanning herself with vigour, Liz made a noise like a vocal leer. ‘I need a cold shower,’ she growled. ‘Do you know him?’

‘Never seen him before.’

Liz grinned. ‘He’s looking at you.’

‘Hope he likes my profile, then,’ Natalia said, turning to smile ironically at her friend. ‘Yes, he’s gorgeous, but men like that have wives, or very glamorous girlfriends who work in television. Guaranteed. Perhaps the woman with him?’

‘A cynical little statement, but you could be right, alas.’ Liz sighed. ‘However, if he asks me to dance I’m not going to let any possible girlfriend concern me. I don’t think he looks married.’

‘Neither did the last hunk I met at a party,’ Natalia said softly, icily.

Liz sighed. ‘Sorry, love, I’d forgotten about Dean Jamieson. Which is what you should do.’

‘I try, but it’s not often a man thinks that the excitement and privilege of sleeping with him should outweigh a few inconveniences like a wife.’ Natalia reined in the anger that still fired her temper whenever she thought of the man who owned the property next door. ‘The only thing that comforts me about that situation is the look on his face when I said, no, thank you, I have this strange, old-fashioned idea that marriage means trust and fidelity, so although you’re a very sexy man I’m not going to bed with you!’

‘He was a rat,’ Liz soothed. ‘You know, I suppose it never occurred to Dean that you’d find out he was married. Just as well my mother has this network of old friends the full length of New Zealand, or you might have been really hurt.’

Natalia shrugged. ‘He hurt my pride and dented my heart a little, that’s all.’

‘More than a little, I think.’

Natalia looked down at her restless fingers in her lap. ‘I was an idiot,’ she said quietly. ‘I suppose I thought he was Prince Charming, and that he might be the one to whisk me off and marry me and rescue me from my life of drudgery. He was funny and intelligent and very attractive, and he seemed genuine.’

‘I’m sure he was genuine.’ Liz’s tone was both understanding and crisp. ‘He saw a woman he wanted, and he didn’t care whether he broke your heart provided he got you.’

‘He didn’t break my heart,’ Natalia said steadily.

‘I know,’ Liz said. ‘You’ve got too much sense to let an attack of wishful thinking blind you for too long.’

‘Thanks for the vote of confidence.’ But Liz didn’t know just how close she’d come to succumbing to Dean Jamieson’s practised charm.

‘Think nothing of it.’

Natalia said evenly, ‘What really makes me mad is that he told everyone in Bowden that I knew he was married.’

‘It was a lousy, malicious, petty thing to do, but at least you know what sort of man he is.’

‘You’re so right. A snake. One I came perilously close to falling for, which gives me a very low opinion of my intelligence!’

Liz primmed her mouth and endeavoured to look affected—difficult when her small face was alight with laughter. ‘Anyone can be taken in once. The important thing is to not let it happen again.’ She relaxed into a sly grin. ‘So I’ll do my best to find out who the newcomer is, and whether he’s got an encumbrance. I don’t think the woman with him is his—she’s too hungry. And he doesn’t look like a man who believes in abstinence.’

Half an hour later, as Natalia was coming back into the ballroom after a swift visit to the cloakroom, she was hailed by an old friend, a man who’d been a couple of classes ahead of her at school. They were laughing together when his wife of six months arrived with the speed, determination and subtlety of a mother rhinoceros seeing a lion examine her infant.

Cold-eyed, proprietorial, she snapped out a thin smile. ‘Hello, Natalia, nice to see you. Max, why don’t we dance this one?’

He looked embarrassed, and suddenly shifty. ‘Oh, yes, of course,’ he said. ‘See you around, Nat.’

Natalia’s lashes drooped as his wife all but dragged him away. Damn Dean Jamieson and his lies. How long was it going to take her to live down the reputation he’d deliberately saddled her with?

‘He might see you around,’ a disturbing masculine voice murmured from behind her, ‘but not if she sees you first.’

Stiff with pride, Natalia turned abruptly, only to collide with a large, immovable object. Before she had a chance to trip, hands clamped just above her elbows. Powerful fingers held her for a moment, startlingly tanned against her pale skin.

Of course she knew who it was.

‘Sorry,’ she muttered, lifting her head to look the stranger in the eyes.

Their impact drove the breath from her lungs. Behind the black silk mask, narrowed tawny-gold slivers were fringed by black lashes in a watchful, almost calculating scrutiny. In spite of that, Natalia was left in no doubt that he liked what he saw.

On the right-hand side of his face a thin, faded scar slashed downwards to the point of his jaw. Although it heightened the forceful, uncompromising power of his honed features, Natalia had to stop herself from tracing it with a finger.

Latent sensation flamed into life inside her—a volatile mixture of fire and ice, honey and gall, velvet and steel that combined in a fierce, terrifyingly elemental hunger.

‘I’m sorry—I knocked you,’ the unsmiling stranger said.

‘No, it was my fault—I wasn’t looking where I was going,’ she returned, reckless in her desire to get away.

One hand slid down her forearm. As she stared, dumbstruck, lean fingers rested on her pulse, testing the rapid, heavy throbbing of her heartbeat in the fragile blue veins.

Face hot, she wrenched free; he didn’t try to hold her.

‘You can feel mine if you like. It’s beating just as fast as yours,’ he purred, his devil-dark voice pierced by a shockingly intimate note.

She couldn’t breathe. Perhaps this was an asthma attack; she’d heard they could come on like this, unexpected, terrifying…

‘No, thanks,’ she said, appalled by her unsure tone.

His laughter shivered through her, stroked her slowly, as sensuous as sleek fur against her skin.

‘Dance with me,’ he said, and without waiting for her answer took her hand in his and led her to the floor.

Later she wondered what on earth he’d done to her, why she hadn’t walked away from him back to her own party. Perhaps the old-fashioned waltz had cast some old-fashioned spell on her, melting her into docility.

Turning her into his arms with practised skill, he swept her on to the floor. Of course he was a brilliant dancer.

As ravishing Viennese music filled the room, Natalia’s brain switched off. For the first time in her life she experienced the mindless pull of desire, existing only through her senses—senses swamped by the man who guided her through the crowds on the floor. Lost in a silent, erotic fantasy, they danced the whole set without speaking.

Until the music changed she’d begun to think he was never going to speak; then, as though that wordless, fiercely intent communion had never happened, he said, ‘I’m Clay Beauchamp, and you’re Natalia Gerner.’

Like its owner, his voice had immediate impact. Its masculine depth—emphasised by an undertone of raw strength—lifted the hair on the back of Natalia’s neck as she retorted, ‘And I don’t like being ordered to dance.’

Although she was staring rigidly over his shoulder she caught a flash of white teeth when he smiled. ‘I’ll remember that in future.’ The fingers around hers tightened fractionally, then loosened.

Natalia stiffened and almost missed a step. ‘Sorry,’ she said tonelessly.

‘My fault,’ he said, and pivoted with a lithe masculine grace.

As they spun she realised he’d used the steps to pull her a little closer. Clay Beauchamp was too sophisticated for the usual overt manoeuvres of men looking for a cheap thrill and a taste of sexual power. His grip was relaxed enough to allow her the illusion of freedom, yet for a suffocating second she felt as though he’d caged her.

It gave her such a shock she lifted her head and pulled back.

When he smiled one corner of his mouth lifted a little higher than the other, giving him a slightly lopsided look that should have reduced that potent male attraction. At the very least he should have looked endearing.

Except that ‘endearing,’ she thought, watching the hard curve of that classically carved mouth, was not a word she’d ever associate with this man.

For the first time in her life, Natalia tripped on the dance floor.

‘Sorry,’ Clay Beauchamp murmured, gleaming topaz eyes raking her face as he supported her. ‘And we were doing so well, I’d even stopped counting one-two-three.’

He waltzed as though he’d been born in Vienna. And he was really getting to her. Time for damage control.

With the cool politeness her mother had drummed into her, she asked, ‘Are you a visitor here, Mr Beauchamp?’

‘Temporarily.’ Amusement deepened his voice.

Natalia hoped she wasn’t spoiled or over-confident, but she’d never been laughed at before. It was a challenge she should refuse.

Unfortunately she’d always found it almost impossible to back away from a dare. Lifting her lashes, she surveyed the powerful, angular face with a glinting appreciation. ‘But surely all visitors are temporary?’ she asked demurely, knowing the moment she’d spoken that she’d made an error of judgement.

This man wasn’t the sort you teased.

‘Not in this case. I’ve bought Pukekahu Station,’ he said indolently.

Guilt roiled with anger and settled icily in her stomach. Resisting it—for what had she to feel guilty about?—Natalia directed a slanting glance at the angular face above hers. ‘How appropriate. You’ve got the right eyes for a place that’s called the Hill of Hawks.’ She was dicing with danger, yet she couldn’t have banished the mockery that flicked through her words.

Outlined with sinister exactness by the black mask, those golden eyes narrowed. ‘And the right nose too.’

Common sense kicking in too late, Natalia forced her voice into an approximation of friendly interest. ‘It’s going to take you a while to bring Pukekahu into profit again. Even the house is falling down. Are you planning to live there?’

‘I live in Auckland.’

She didn’t like the silences: they sizzled with tension. ‘Unusual place for a farmer to live,’ she said lightly.

‘I’m not exactly a farmer. More an agri-businessman.’

‘Ah, one of the new breed of absentee landlords,’ she returned affably. ‘As I said, temporary.’

Her hand—loose on his shoulder—registered a sudden tightening of muscles beneath the superb cloth of his dinner jacket. It lasted for a second only, but she was recklessly pleased that she’d got through his formidable armour.

‘I’ve never heard myself described as an absentee landlord before,’ he drawled. ‘I prefer to think I’m part venture capitalist, part restorer of over-stocked farmland.’

‘How altruistic.’ Her tone oozed blandness, but he’d have had to be stupid not to recognise the caustic lash to each word. And Natalia would bet her next year’s income that Clay Beauchamp wasn’t stupid.

‘You’re an entrepreneur yourself, I believe,’ he said obliquely. ‘Bowden’s capsicum queen, who just happens to share a boundary with Pukekahu.’

It took all her will to say in a bright voice, ‘I’m flattered, but “capsicum queen” doesn’t quite cut it. There’s something inherently unromantic about peppers, don’t you think? Perhaps it’s their shape—so sturdy and blocky.’

‘Are you a romantic, Natalia?’ Clay Beauchamp asked with a subtle, predatory inflection.

Her fault; she’d given him the perfect opening. ‘Not in the least,’ she returned crisply, smiling with sunny nonchalance into his face.

For several seconds he and Natalia duelled, using those most potent of weapons, the eyes. Natalia refused to lower her lashes; in the end he won by the simple trick of dropping that tawny gaze to her mouth.

Not fair, she thought, irrationally elated—but not surprising either. Clay Beauchamp probably never played fair.

‘Good,’ he said enigmatically. ‘Romantics are a real nuisance. And, speaking as an unromantic male, do you wear contact lenses to brighten the colour of those magnificent eyes?’

Until then she hadn’t realised that she was rather proud of her eyes, but what really flicked that pride was that he’d noticed.

Well, she could salvage something. With a deliberate sweep of her lashes, she allowed her gaze to rest a significant moment on the hard line of his jaw and purred, ‘You can’t really expect me to admit to that. However, I’ll confess that I wear lipstick.’

‘So you’re a tease,’ he said, his smile a swift, savage punishment. ‘I’m disappointed—you seem more direct, more open.’

Anger glittered in the depths of her eyes, licked in a flame across her cheekbones. With that cat-like smile still pinned to her lips, she said, ‘I’m every bit as frank as you are.’ There, that should shut him up, because if ever a man held secrets close to his chest this one did.

‘I doubt it.’ Beneath the silk mask his intent stare was pure gold. Without breaking eye contact he pivoted gracefully, and this time the hand across her back came to rest on the heated skin just above her waist.

Although Clay released her almost immediately, and his hand left her skin for a more discreet position, its imprint burned like a brand. Tension sawed through her nerves, producing a feverish need.

Calmly he said, ‘I want you, Natalia. I wanted you as soon as I saw you glimmering like a serpent woman across the room. I give you fair warning—I’m hunting.’

Her jaw dropped. Stunned, she stared at him, imprisoned by the implacable, leashed hunger of his eyes.

‘Not so open, after all,’ he murmured, a taunting amusement not warming his expression. ‘At least you didn’t say that you wouldn’t sleep with me if I were the last man on earth.’

Her brain began to work again, overriding the violent pulse of desire. ‘You’re accustomed to that response?’ she asked, arching her brows in pretended surprise. ‘Then it’s time you moved up to a better class of mistress. Not me— I’m sorry, I’m too busy at the moment—but I can introduce you to several women who might be interested.’ In spite of her attempt at sophisticated repartee she couldn’t banish the bite from her words.

What was it about her that made men think she was easy? Dean had expected her to fall into bed with him, been angry when she refused.

Clay’s long black lashes half covered his eyes. He laughed, a sound that battered the remnants of her composure. ‘So much for honesty,’ he said ironically, and once more tightened his arms so that for a second she was held inexorably against him. Still dancing with a lithe masculine grace, still in perfect time to the music, he forced her to accept the reality of his lean, aroused body.

To her intense humiliation, Natalia’s betrayed her. In her hidden, inner reaches desire worked its physical magic, overwhelming her in a smooth, heated tide. Although superhuman will held back her rash impulse to signal a surrender, she had to fight a bitter battle with untamed need—and he, damn him, knew it!

She’d been attracted to Dean—but this was a wilder, fiercer response, and it scared her. This, she thought, trying desperately to regroup her defences, was the sort of thing that toppled kingdoms.

Clay relaxed his grip. ‘Physical evidence is more trustworthy than words. They often deceive—the body never does.’

If there had been the slightest satisfaction—the faintest note of smugness—in his voice, Natalia would have twisted free and stalked across the crowded dance floor to the other side of the room. What stopped her was the raw catch to his words, the harsh, startled edge he couldn’t conceal. When she looked up, darkness prowled the golden eyes.

And that made her angrily, foolishly confident. Carefully she uncurled the fingers that had dug into his upper arm. Carefully she positioned her gaze over his shoulder.

People moved in a bright kaleidoscope of colour around the floor, the masks turning familiar faces to strangers. Chatter and laughter echoed in her ears, backed by the succulent, achingly poignant sound of a turn-of-the-century waltz—one of her mother’s favourites.

Coolly, deliberately, she asked, ‘Is this your usual mode of attack? A pre-emptive strike with no attempt at subtlety? What follows now—all-out war?’

His tight smile revealed strong white teeth that snapped out one word. ‘Surrender.’

CHAPTER TWO

NATALIA should have laughed in his face. She should have said, Really? with every ounce of sarcasm she could muster, lifted her brows in scorn and disdain and left Clay there in the middle of the dance floor.

Instead her mouth dried and she felt as though she’d fallen into a black hole and was being torn apart by forces she couldn’t fight. Beneath that succinct word there had been a controlled, menacing determination, the remorseless patience of the hunter he’d likened himself to.

She was frightened. She was exhilarated. And that reckless excitement wasn’t tempered by common sense or pragmatism. He’d issued a challenge, one she was so tempted to take up she could taste the wanting—keen, enticing, insistent, dangerous as a drug.

‘I’m not into surrender,’ she parried, surprised to hear a steady voice.

Clay swung her around a couple who’d forgotten their neighbours were watching and were swaying together in an embrace that came close to being embarrassing. ‘Perhaps I am,’ he said, and laughed quietly at the swift flash of fire in her glance. ‘Yes, you’d like that, wouldn’t you, Natalia,’ he said, reading her so perfectly that it was a statement, not a question.

‘I’m very into power,’ she said offhandedly.

But that terrifying, untamed desire stirred again. She felt as though he’d put his mark on her; his scent, fiercely male, filled her nostrils; her fingers tingled, seeking slick, tanned skin. And sensation flowed through her, glowing, fiery, merciless as lava, devouring everything in its path.

This is simple lust, Natalia thought disdainfully, nothing more. Intensely relieved when at last the music died on a flourish, she pulled free of his arms, turning her head away in the hope of disguising the hasty flutter of her breathing.

‘It cuts both ways,’ Clay Beauchamp said unhurriedly, tawny eyes glittering as he held out his arm.

If only her mother hadn’t been so determined to bring up her daughter as a lady! Reluctantly Natalia put the tips of her fingers on his sleeve, straightening her spine as they walked across to the side of the room.

Liz was already sitting there; horrified, Natalia endured a sharp stab of jealousy at her friend’s sunny, unaffected smile at Clay.

Woodenly, she introduced them. ‘Liz, this is Clay Beauchamp, who has bought Pukekahu Station. Clay, Liz Kaiwhare. Her parents own the Tourist Lodge in Manakiwi Bay.’

Dimpling, Liz held out her small hand. With a smile that indicated more than appreciation, Clay took it. Another spear of jealousy rankled through Natalia.

‘You looked wonderful together,’ Liz said with a rare lack of tact. ‘Everyone was watching you—you’re really well matched.’

‘Just what I’ve been trying to convince Natalia,’ Clay said outrageously, mockery glimmering in his golden eyes.

Liz laughed. ‘And I’ll bet she told you she didn’t have time.’ She glanced at Natalia’s unresponsive face, then back to Clay. ‘She works far too hard,’ she said firmly.

Fortunately Mr and Mrs Kaiwhare arrived back then, and the ensuing bustle of introductions silenced Liz.

A little later, however, Natalia—carefully ignoring Clay Beauchamp, still with their group—said half under her breath, ‘Stop trying to matchmake.’

‘Not interested?’ Liz’s eyes widened further. ‘Truly, Nat?’

‘Truly.’ Natalia picked up her glass of water with a jerk that almost spilled it.

Liz grinned. ‘Then you won’t mind if I try my luck, will you?’

The icy water sizzled down Natalia’s throat. Meticulously she put the glass down and contemplated the green-skinned wedge of lime decorating its rim. ‘Not in the least,’ she said tersely, stiffening slightly as she heard Clay laugh.

‘Liar,’ Liz said cheerfully. ‘You’re fascinated by each other. Nat, give yourself a break. One rotten apple doesn’t mean you have to retire to a nunnery.’

‘I haven’t got time for romantic entanglements.’ Or unromantic ones.

Liz leaned forward, her pretty face vengeful. ‘I could throttle Dean Jamieson. He might belong to an old, stiff, rich family with a lot of old, stiff, rich power, but he is a nasty piece of goods. Keeping quiet about his wife, and then spreading it around the district that you tried to break up his marriage was a totally rotten thing to do. Not that it matters—everyone knows he was lying.’

The embarrassment of being warned off only an hour or so previously by yet another wife sprang to Natalia’s mind. ‘Not everybody,’ she said cynically. ‘Thanks to his malice, I’ve now got a reputation.’

‘Only with nasty-minded creeps,’ Liz said with trenchant, partisan bias. ‘They’re jealous because you’re so stunning and you don’t give a cent for the men who try to hit on you.’

Natalia stifled a yelp of laughter. ‘You make it sound as though I’ve cut a swathe through the district!’

‘You could if you wanted to.’ Liz leaned closer and dropped her voice. ‘And you’d better accept that you’re as attracted to Clay Beauchamp as he is to you or you’re going to find yourself in deep trouble. I suspect he’s the bulldozer sort! And as he’s living only a mile away—’

Natalia’s lip curled. ‘He’s not a farmer, Liz, he’s an agri-businessman, so naturally he lives in Auckland with all the other rich entrepreneurs.’

‘Pity,’ Liz said pragmatically.

‘So no more matchmaking, all right?’ Natalia said with emphasis. The band struck up again, a much more modern foxtrot. Gratefully she accepted an invitation from Greg.

‘You’re looking a bit flushed,’ he said, studying her with a professional eye.

‘It’s hot in here,’ she returned. ‘You wouldn’t think it was the first month of winter, would you? I wonder when it’s going to get cold?’

Greg snorted. ‘This is north of Auckland—it never gets cold here. In Dunedin it freezes.’

‘Poor darling,’ she said, primming her mouth. Greg was in his last year at medical school in New Zealand’s exquisite southernmost city. Lifting a hand, she patted his cheek. ‘I remember the first year you went away, and your parents kept getting anguished faxes about the cold—Liz and I knitted you a jersey each for your birthday, and your mother shipped you off an electric blanket. Did you ever wear those jerseys?’

‘Both together, if I remember correctly,’ he said with a grin.

Laughing, Natalia looked over his shoulder and met a blaze of gold. Clay Beauchamp was dancing with Liz; as Natalia’s brows climbed he deliberately looked away from her and into Liz’s small, mischievous face. It felt like a blow.

‘…saved my life,’ Greg was saying. ‘I honestly thought my blood would freeze that first winter.’

Awkwardly she dragged her gaze away from the two striking black and white figures. ‘Good,’ she said vaguely.

Greg frowned. ‘Sure you’re all right? You sound a bit disassociated.’

‘I’m fine,’ she told him crisply.

Within a few moments she’d almost managed to put Clay Beauchamp out of her mind. She and Greg were friends; several years previously he’d fancied himself to be in love with her, only giving up when she told him gently that although she did love him, it was as a brother rather than a lover.

Now they were both satisfied with the way things were between them. When the dance ended, and they were called by friends to the other side of the elegant Victorian ballroom, she went happily with him, staying snug within his arm for the intermission. The next dance was a tango, and she and Greg enjoyed themselves enormously, hamming it up, one of the few couples who dared try it.

Clay Beauchamp, she noticed reluctantly, wasn’t dancing; he’d deposited Liz back with the rest of her party and was talking with a group of the major players in the district, including their host.

‘Nat, I love showing off with you,’ Greg said when it was over and they were the centre of a laughing, clapping group. ‘You dance like a dream!’ He hugged her extravagantly.

‘So, best-beloved, do you.’

Well pleased with each other, they came off arm in arm. Still smiling, Natalia realised that in spite of the disturbing, unsettling, far too intriguing Clay Beauchamp, she was glad she’d come; secure with friends who knew her and loved her she could forget the worry that hung over her like her own private thundercloud.

Back with the rest of their party, she laughed off the compliments and sat down beside Liz, picking up her glass of water. ‘Gosh, I enjoy a good tango!’

‘You were born to do it,’ Liz told her enviously. ‘Well, go ahead and ask me.’

‘Ask you what?’

‘What he said.’

Colour whipped along Natalia’s cheekbones. Had she been so obvious? ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said haughtily.

Her friend half closed her eyes and pursed her mouth. ‘He’s far too sophisticated to discuss one woman with another, is Clay Beauchamp. Although I must say I felt him not looking at you, if you know what I mean. He was utterly charming. We talked about a lot of things and he didn’t lose concentration once, which I thought was pretty clever of him because he just hated seeing you dance with my big brother.’

Natalia put her glass down. ‘Liz, don’t.’

Her friend’s smile disappeared. ‘All right, but it’s such a waste. I hate to go off to England for years and know that once I’m gone you won’t let anyone make you go out and have fun. Sometimes I look at your stubborn, tired face and I could kick your father for leaving you in this situation. OK, sermon’s over.’

Natalia’s eyes stung. ‘I have to keep going, Liz.’

Liz opened her mouth, then closed it.

‘Yes,’ Natalia said with a wry twist to the words, ‘his friends were foolish to lend money to him, but you know how persuasive he could be. He really believed he’d make everyone’s fortunes with the tunnel-houses.’

‘I know. Promise me one thing?’

‘What?’ Natalia eyed her warily.

‘Just have dinner with Mum and Dad once a fortnight, will you? They love having you, and you’ve cried off their last few invitations.’

‘All right,’ Natalia said. ‘Damn, I’m going to miss you.’

‘I’m going to miss you too.’

The band struck up again, and within seconds both were back on the floor. As the evening lengthened, Clay Beauchamp danced with the wives and daughters of the men he’d been speaking to, the district’s most solvent and powerful citizens. Bowden wasn’t exactly cliquey, but it usually took time for newcomers to be accepted so it was mildly unexpected for him to be welcomed into the fold with such enthusiasm.

Although piqued by his apparent lack of interest, Natalia recognised a ploy as old as time: make your interest known, then pull back to whet the appetite of the person you want.

It was disappointing; she’d expected him to be more subtle.

She set herself to enjoying the rest of the evening, and succeeded so well that the last dance came as an unwelcome surprise. Much more unwelcome was that she found herself in Clay’s arms, waltzing.

‘Who taught you to dance?’ he asked casually.

‘My father.’

He nodded. ‘He knew what he was doing.’

‘Indeed he did.’

‘What did I say wrong?’

‘Nothing,’ she parried. ‘Why?’

His eyes were narrowed, the golden fire concentrated and intense. ‘He left you in debt, I gather.’

‘You have been talking,’ she said with a false brightness.

That aloof, tilted smile scorched through to her toes. ‘And I didn’t even have to initiate it. The tango you did with the boyfriend was blatant enough to catch everyone’s eye. People were only too eager to talk about you.’

Oh, I’ll just bet they were, she thought bitterly. She fought with temptation, but it wasn’t fair to embroil Greg in this. ‘Greg’s a friend—almost a brother—not a boyfriend.’

Dark, straight brows lifted. ‘That wasn’t what I heard. They were close to taking bets on how long it would take him to get you into bed. Apparently he’s been trying for years.’

Grittily, her eyes sparking, she said, ‘I’m sorry that men I’ve known and respected for years should be dirty-minded, lying rumour-mongers.’

Although he laughed, no humour glinted in his eyes. ‘It’s a human prerogative to be envious of those younger and better-looking, and to wish young women a happy marriage. Especially when the two they’re talking about are practically making love on the dance floor.’

‘Greg and I were spoofing that tango—as I’m sure everyone else but you realised. And the next time the subject arises,’ she said between her teeth, ‘you can tell them from me that I have no intention of marrying anyone. If I ever decide to, I’ll send a notice to the local newspaper.’

Beneath her hand his shoulder went taut. She felt heat, and a purely male power, and a threat, but his voice was cool and self-contained as he said, ‘There won’t be a next time. At least not while I’m around.’

‘Why?’

He looked over her head, the arrogant features uncompromising. ‘Because I indicated that I don’t find that sort of speculation interesting.’

‘So they just shut up,’ she said with sweet cynicism. ‘How wonderful to have that sort of authority.’

His smile was formidable. ‘You’ve got an acid tongue. I like that.’

Shrugging, Natalia turned her head away and closed her eyes. Just once—just for a moment—she’d allow herself the illusion that she was safe and protected and in good hands. The green, glittering mask concealed her emotions; no one would know she was listening to the driving beat of Clay’s heart, responding helplessly to the strength of his big body against her, breathing in his faint, purely masculine scent.

Neither spoke until the music stopped.

‘I’ll follow you home,’ Clay said as they made their way across the floor.

Natalia bestowed a glittering smile on her old school fellow and his possessive wife. ‘That’s not necessary, thank you.’

‘Possibly not,’ Clay agreed with an infuriating inflexibility, ‘but I’ll do it nevertheless.’

After saying goodbye and thanking her hosts, after arranging a time to get together before Liz left for Oxford, after defiantly accepting Greg’s kiss goodnight, Natalia drove her small utility truck carefully away in procession with fifty or so other vehicles. Most of them eventually turned towards Bowden, but one stayed behind her all the way to the intersection of the main highway and the corrugated gravel road that led to her patch of land, and ultimately to Pukekahu.

The dipped lights in her mirror made her jittery. When at last the Xanadu gateway came into view, Natalia put on her indicator and ducked down the drive, glad that she’d left the gate open.

Puddles shone ahead, eerily reflecting the headlights back at her like a series of tiny fallen moons. She knew where the potholes were, but the man who followed her didn’t. Hiding a kick of nervousness with a muttered curse, she stopped outside the big shed that acted as a garage.

The car behind stopped; telling herself she was being an idiot, Natalia banged down the lock on the truck door and waited with her hand hovering over the horn, eyes stretched almost painfully as Clay’s tall figure unfolded from the car.

Her breath whooshed through suddenly relaxed lips. Quickly she unlocked the door and opened it. ‘Why did you follow me in?’ she asked, trying to rein in a swift, unusual fury.

‘Because I wanted to,’ he said caustically, and shocked her by lifting her down.

Alarmed at the strength of the hands that bit into her waist, she grabbed his shoulders to steady herself. Beneath the black cashmere of his dinner jacket she felt muscles curl and flex. He suddenly seemed very large and far too strong. ‘Thank you,’ she said in a brittle, tense voice.

He settled her on to her feet and let her go. ‘I’ll go in with you.’

‘Thank you again, but I really don’t need you to see me to my door.’

‘I don’t see how you’re going to stop me.’

Now was the time to finish this once and for all. Trying to sound both patient and composed, she said, ‘Clay, I’m sorry if the very light flirtation we indulged in made you hopeful of going to bed with me tonight, but I don’t do one-night stands—’

‘That “light flirtation”,’ he interrupted with nervetightening self-assurance, ‘was a pleasant, mildly exciting preliminary. As you’re being so frank, let me tell you that when we make love it won’t be a one-night stand. I want you, and I know perfectly well that you want me.’

‘How do you know?’ she blustered, his blunt statement exploding an unbidden, erotic charge in the pit of her stomach.

Pale light from the hidden moon sifted through the thick cloud pall, revealing the forceful angles and planes of his face. Clay’s mouth twisted into a smile; Natalia was already stepping back when he caught her wrist and pulled her against him; still holding her wrist, he bent his head. Unerringly his mouth found hers, shaped it to his own.

Made prisoner by the firmness of his mouth, its warmth, its hunger, Natalia sank into suffocating, humiliating need. Her lips softened, parted slightly in the signal of surrender—and Clay straightened.

‘That’s how,’ he said levelly.

Shame washed the heat and carnality out of her, stiffened her spine, hardened her resolve. ‘Clay, I’m not getting involved with you.’

Against the heavy, turbulent sky she saw his head move. Panic warred with exhilaration. More than anything else in the world she wanted him to kiss her again, and that terrified her. She’d never felt like this before, as though everything she’d built her life on was worth nothing without Clay’s kisses.

Staring up at him like a terrorised rabbit, she shivered.

‘What the hell are we doing sniping at each other in the cold?’ he demanded, exasperation sharpening his tone. ‘Get inside—it’s going to rain any minute.’

Summoning her dignity, Natalia pivoted on her high-heeled sandals and stalked ahead of him through the gate, past the daphne bush her mother had planted and the ghostly heads of the luculia, their scents mingling in a glorious combination of musk and citrus on the damp, cool air.

At the front door she took out the key and turned to say meticulously, ‘Thank you for seeing me home.’

‘I’ll wait here until you’ve checked the place,’ he said inflexibly.

No doubt she should be grateful he didn’t insist on doing it himself! Switching on the light inside the door, she marched stiffly down the short hall.

When she returned a few minutes later he was looking out over her small domain; although she’d walked quietly, he swung around before she got to the door.

Natalia’s eyes widened. He’d taken off his mask, as had she. His potent male mystery and glamour should have departed with it, but Clay Beauchamp’s magnificent bone structure gave him a fierce, elemental beauty that was dramatised dynamic power. Natalia had to keep her hands by her sides to stop them from exploring the thin scar reaching from his jaw to the tip of his right eyebrow.

‘I’d expected to be disappointed,’ he said, his magnetic gaze raking her face.

She forced her dazed eyes to gaze levelly at him, forced her unwilling mouth into a taunting smile. ‘And do you like what you see, now the mask is gone?’

‘You lovely witch,’ he said, his voice deep and smoky. ‘We’ve a long way to go before all the masks are off. But it’s going to happen. Sleep as badly as I’m going to.’

He turned his back on her and walked away. Swallowing to ease an arid throat, Natalie stared after him. He had the ideal male form—triangular torso, long, strong-muscled legs, and that steady pace, lazily menacing as a panther’s predatory prowl. At the gate he turned and lifted his hand in a wave that was probably an exercise in sarcasm.

Nerves jumping, she waited until she heard the car start, then slammed the door and stood with her hands clenched until the sound of the engine had died into a silence unlike anything she’d ever experienced.

Shouting meaty, satisfying oaths at the Hereford steer as it ambled carelessly through the teatree and gorse, Natalia dragged black, sticky strands of hair back from her hot face.

‘And stay off my property, or I’ll kill you for dog tucker,’ she finished with vindictive venom, mopping her forehead on the sleeve of her faded T-shirt.

‘If you kept your fences in better repair it wouldn’t be able to wander.’

The crisp male voice had her whirling around to see Clay Beauchamp dismounting from a horse in one swift, easy movement. Why ride a horse nowadays when farm bikes were a much more efficient way of getting around rural New Zealand? Tall, so big he almost blotted out a couple of tree ferns and a gorse bush, he strode towards her, his angular, autocratic face amused as he looked down his nose at her.

His amusement set tinder to her already explosive temper. Unwisely, she returned, ‘Why should I look after your fence? My livestock don’t wander.’ Fairness compelled her to add, ‘And neither do yours, except for this blasted wretch. It keeps breaking in and eating the capsicums. It’s smashed through my electric fences more times than I can count.’

The aristocratic amusement vanished; Clay said abruptly, ‘A new fence will be up shortly.’

‘Good. Until then, keep that damn steer off my land or I’ll shoot it,’ Natalia snapped.

Furious with herself for losing control, she turned to make her way across the small swamp that marked the boundary between Xanadu and Pukekahu. Sweat blinded her, sweat and anger and frustration. The steer had pushed its way into a tunnel-house and that long pink tongue had ruined too many plants.

But, however angry she’d been, she shouldn’t have shouted at Clay. It wasn’t his fault that one steer had damaged the tunnel-house—and she certainly couldn’t blame him for the state of the boundary fence, because it was Dean Jamieson who’d systematically stripped Pukekahu of every asset and refused to spend a cent on the station.

She’d made an idiot of herself.

An insect came barrelling at her, a tiny, threatening missile in the sunshine. Dread kicked in her stomach; she leaped sideways, landed in muddy water with one ankle twisted beneath her, and fell on to her knees with a yelp as pain pierced the skin of her bare arm.

‘What the hell is the matter with you?’ Hands wrenched her to her feet, jerked her out of the water and hauled her across to dry land. Setting her on her feet, Clay demanded harshly, ‘What is it?’

‘Only a bee-sting,’ she gasped, looking at the poison sac left in her arm. He moved, she thought dazedly, very fast for such a big man.

‘You’re allergic to them?’

‘No.’ She dragged in a deep breath and squared her shoulders, forced herself to meet frowning tawny-gold eyes. ‘I’m allergic to wasps,’ she said succinctly. ‘That’s what I thought the bee was—and when it stung me I realised I’d come without my pills.’

Before she’d finished speaking Clay had taken a pocket knife from his hip pocket and opened it. She barely had time to register the cold steel sliding along her heated skin before he’d flicked the poison sac free. Another movement, and she watched, shivering, as the blade was folded back, the knife returned to its place.

‘Careless of you, wasn’t it?’ Clay said pleasantly, black brows lifting.

Natalia had as little liking as anyone for being called foolish, but he was right. In early winter most wasps were slow and easily seen, but the newly mated queens could be aggressive. She’d been lucky this time; normally she wouldn’t have set foot outside the house without her pills.

‘Very,’ she said coolly. ‘But I was too busy getting rid of the steer trashing the tunnel-house to think about wasps.’

Eyes the golden-brown of topaz examined her, travelling from her tangle of curls to her wide, green eyes, and then on to her mouth. His smile acknowledged ivory skin and soft red lips, the female desirability of a body honed by hard work.

It was a purely sexual appraisal, and it was done with every intention to intimidate. Natalia’s skin tightened as more adrenaline surged through her bloodstream, quickening her breath. I don’t need this, she thought savagely, stepping away.

‘Thank you for picking me up,’ she said in aloof dismissal. ‘I’ll be all right now.’

‘You don’t want a ride home?’

Natalia glanced at the patiently waiting horse. Mellow sunlight washed over its black hide. Had Clay chosen the horse to go with his hair?

‘No, thank you,’ she said, and turned her back on man and horse. Stiff-spined, she walked up the hill, bristling under that golden predatory scrutiny until she reached sanctuary in the native bush cloaking the hillside.

Only then did she relax, her breath whistling out between dry lips. If he’d slept as badly as she had, he’d have been sluggish too. Instead, he’d shown her up as a clumsy, forgetful idiot. Why did he have to buy the place next door? It infuriated her that she was totally unable to deal with a man who exuded sex and authority from every pore of that big, lithe, graceful body.

OK, so she’d responded to it. And, yes, her nostrils still quivered at the faint male scent she’d registered when he’d carried her across the swamp, and her skin felt oddly tender where he’d grabbed her.

However, she knew how little it meant. A mixture of attractive packaging and pheromones—abetted by some elemental treachery in the female psyche—had stirred her hormones, but she wasn’t going to surrender to them again. Dean Jamieson had taught her a lesson she wouldn’t forget—she was no more immune to masculine charisma than any other woman of twenty-three.

However, she had more pressing things to do than worry about Clay Beauchamp. Fixing the gap in the electric fence, for one.

It turned out to be one of those days. While the steer had been satisfying its appetite for capsicums it had smashed a vital piece of the hydroponic watering system. Not only that—until she could afford to replace the broken piece, Natalia would have to get up every two hours during the night to check the tunnel-house.

She toyed with the idea of billing Clay Beauchamp; the only thing that stopped her was that he would be entirely within his rights to demand that she pay half the cost of fixing the boundary fence.

Her afternoon was cheered by a phone call from the local supermarket, asking for a couple of boxes of peppers. Whistling, she went out to pick and pack them, then headed off down the road in the truck.

Before she’d got off the gravel road an explosion like a rifle-shot and a sudden vicious yank on the steering wheel sent adrenaline pumping through her. Battling with the wheel, she managed to wrestle the runaway vehicle on to the grass verge and kill the engine.

‘What else?’ she muttered as she got out, hiding her desperation with a ferocious frown.

Everything had been going so well until—until Clay Beauchamp arrived on the scene. He was turning out to be a bad luck charm. It figured, she thought sourly. Clay—what a ridiculous name! It was probably short for Clayton, only he didn’t look like a Clayton. He fitted Clay—or it fitted him; in spite of that worldly gloss he was elemental, earthy, primally male.

She knelt by the offending tyre, wincing at the strips of rubber shredded from it. Beyond prayer. Gravel bit into her knee; she got to her feet and brushed down her threadbare jeans.

Of course the spare wheel didn’t want to come out, and it was filthy. Pressing her lips together, Natalia tugged it free, coughing in the cloud of clinging road dust that accompanied it.

The sound of an engine coming fast made her start; infuriatingly, because normally she wasn’t clumsy, the wheel escaped through her hands and bounced on to the road too close to her feet. After an involuntary leap backwards she snatched at it, but had to watch helplessly as it rolled across the road towards the big burgundy car swinging around the corner.

CHAPTER THREE

CLAY applied the brakes, skilfully controlled the subsequent skid as the car fishtailed, then brought the vehicle to a halt just as the spare wheel hurtled into the driver’s door with jarring, bone-chilling noise. Watching it bounce off, Natalia felt sick.

The burgundy door opened and Clay emerged in a lethal, silent rush. As the wheel spun across the road and eventually fell, he demanded in a deep, raw voice, ‘What the hell is going on?’

‘I’m sorry—I dropped my spare wheel,’ Natalia told him crisply. Or as crisply as she could when her stomach was jumping like a just-caught marlin.

Clay’s mouth curved. ‘Really? Or did you throw it?’ he asked, his slow drawl a contrast to the swift assessment in his glance.

Stung, she said, ‘No. I don’t destroy things.’

He turned back to eye the dented and scratched paintwork of his indecently opulent BMW. Its value would probably wipe off her mortgage and leave some left over, she thought with a hard, rebellious defiance.

Envy was a lousy emotion, especially when it was mixed with self-pity, so she banished it.

‘My door doesn’t exactly look whole,’ he observed.

Natalia bit her lip. ‘It was an accident. I really am sorry. As you can see, I had a blow-out.’

‘I heard it, and thought some fool was shooting.’ He looked past her. ‘We’d better see whether your spare wheel came off better than my door.’

It hadn’t. Natalia stared down at what had been a reasonably good—if filthy—wheel, and the panic that had been building inside her surged to full, shattering fruition.

Clay indicated several dents and a split in the tyre. ‘You need a new one.’

She couldn’t afford a new one. Angling her chin, she lifted her eyes, only to feel something unnerving slither the length of her spine. He was looking at her with coolly acquisitive pleasure. Although his eyes were the same colour as topaz, they lacked the glitter of gems; instead the gleaming gold was speculative, almost lazy with the knowledge of strength and mastery. As her skin tightened, Natalia thought of lions, relaxed, indolent, deadly.

He said, ‘I’ll move my car off the road.’

A breeze swooped down from the hills, tossing a curl on to Natalia’s cheek. Her skin burned as she pushed the hair back with a shaking hand and watched him stride across the road.

Clay Beauchamp was just too much. The way he moved, the compelling aura around him, his very size—all reinforced the autocratic, controlled authority of his handsome face. How could she dislike him, yet be held captive by such a blind, unwilling fascination?

Seething at whatever malignant fate had tossed this series of disasters her way, she walked back to her truck and glowered at the burst tyre while Clay moved his car on to the grass. She didn’t turn as he came up behind her, and he made no noise, but she felt his presence like a shadow on her soul.

‘We’d better put those peppers into my boot,’ he said, ‘and I’ll take you wherever you want to deliver them.’

How she wished she could say loftily, Don’t bother, I can cope. But she couldn’t. The supermarket sourced most of its fruit and vegetables from the markets in Auckland; they used her because she was absolutely reliable and cheap. Glancing at her watch, she said unevenly, ‘I’m going to the supermarket, thank you.’

‘Do you want to take the wheel off the truck? The garage might have a tyre that will fit it.’

‘No, I’ll do that later—the supermarket wants the peppers now.’

‘All right. Lock up if you think it’s necessary. I’ll take the peppers across.’

She was behaving badly. It wasn’t Clay’s fault her tyre had burst, and he had offered her a lift. He had every right to be angry about the ding on his door, yet he hadn’t said anything.

Only what to him was a nuisance was for her a major setback. Not only did she have to buy an irrigation valve, but two new tyres and replace the buckled spare wheel. And the rates were due soon, not to mention the power and the phone bill…

And always—always her father’s debt.

At least her vegetable garden was flourishing, she thought mordantly, watching Clay put the boxes into the car boot. He’d rolled up the sleeves of his shirt; when she saw how easily he picked up the spare wheel and put it in beside the capsicums something coiled within her, coiled lazily and slowly, and stretched, and flexed its claws…

Enough of that, she told herself sternly, and locked the truck before walking reluctantly across to his car.

‘Get in, Red Riding Hood,’ Clay Beauchamp commanded mockingly.

Her eyes narrowed. ‘Why Red Riding Hood?’

His rakish, too perceptive grin told her he’d seen her looking at him. ‘Because you’re accepting a ride with the wolf?’ he said, enough of a taunt in his tone to lift the hairs on her skin.

Natalia had no answer to that, so she took refuge in a shrug. ‘I’m more like the Wicked Witch of the West,’ she muttered, sliding into the front seat, glad of the mud clinging to the soles of her boots, glad that her jeans showed signs of contact with the road and the spare wheel. Let his expensive car learn what honest dirt was.

‘Where’s the supermarket?’ he asked as he turned the engine on.

It purred, and so, Natalia thought wearily, would any woman who felt his hands on her. Lean, competent, they looked vastly experienced, as though no place on a woman’s tender body would be safe from them—or immune. As she gave him directions that hidden hunger inside her stirred again, a repressed sweetness, slow as run honey, powerful and smooth as the best brandy, aching through her.

Why was she so susceptible to handsome men? Her high school boyfriend had been the best-looking boy in the district, and her physical response to Dean Jamieson had lured her close enough to be intrigued by his charm.

But her luck had held—just. Her heart had still been intact when she’d found out about his wife, and she’d turned her back on what could have turned into a messy, sordid affair. She’d emerged with her pride and her independence tarnished, but still intact.

So it was doubly ironic that the only other man who’d made an impression on her since then had also made a large dent in her pride—and was now threatening her independence.

Clay drew into the car park at the supermarket, and insisted on carrying the boxes of peppers inside.

‘I can do it,’ Natalia said, trying not to sound unappreciative. ‘They’re not heavy.’

‘It’s all right; I’m stronger than I look.’

Stressed, she walked beside him into the shop. ‘Thanks, Nat,’ the woman who ran the produce department said. She cast an appraising glance at Clay and smiled with genuine, startled admiration. ‘Just put them here, will you? The usual payment?’

‘Yes, that’s fine.’

Back at the car, Clay said, ‘I hope you get market prices. That’s good stuff you have there.’

Natalia said politely, ‘We have an arrangement that works well for both of us.’

The wide, arrogant mouth compressed a moment, then relaxed into a smile that almost seduced her into an answering one. Oh, he knew exactly what effect he had on a woman!

And why shouldn’t he? Clay Beauchamp probably had to chase glamorous women out of his wardrobe.

He said, ‘Where’s the garage?’

When they arrived he reached for the ruined spare wheel.

‘It’s dirty,’ Natalia said.

‘So?’ His voice had an edge to it. ‘I know what dirt is.’

She didn’t answer. He leaned down to say, ‘You’re beginning to exasperate me, Natalia.’

She lifted her brows. ‘Then I’d better be quiet,’ she said dulcetly, ‘at least until I get home.’

His brows met in a formidable frown. ‘I wouldn’t leave you stuck here,’ he said shortly as he straightened, and hefted the tyre effortlessly into the shop.

‘Hi, Nat,’ the man who came out from behind the counter said. ‘Did you have a good time last night?’

‘Wonderful, thanks, Mr Stephens. Can you order me a tyre for this wheel?’

Mr Stephens looked at it. ‘It’s buckled,’ he pointed out unnecessarily. ‘Do you want another wheel too?’

‘No, I’ll send the good wheel in to you on Monday so you can fit the new tyre.’ In spite of her attempt to sound her normal cheerful self, her words emerged clipped; Clay’s silent presence tugged at her nerves like a comb over wool.

Mr Stephens looked at Clay. To Natalia’s outrage Clay gave a short nod; relieved, the older man turned to her and said, ‘All right, then. I’ll put it on the rural delivery on Tuesday.’

Clay said nothing until they were back in the car. Then, as he turned the key to start it, he said, ‘All your tyres are shot—they’re dangerous, and even if another doesn’t blow out, you’re not going to get a warrant of fitness next time you take the truck in.’

Colourlessly Natalia said, ‘Quite possibly. I’ll contact my insurance company on Monday—no doubt they’ll be in touch with you soon afterwards. I’m really sorry about the door.’

His low laugh had a savage note in it. ‘I understand pride—sometimes it’s been the only thing that’s kept me going. I presume you can’t afford to pay for a new wheel.’

‘You presume too much,’ she said frostily.

There was a moment’s taut silence. Then he said quietly, ‘Point taken. We need to talk about fences. Boundary fences, to be specific.’

That was when Natalia remembered she’d be liable for half the cost of any new boundary fence between Xanadu and Pukekahu Station. She drew in a quick, jolting breath and tried to relax shoulders aching with sudden strain. ‘Yes, of course.’

He said, ‘Come up to dinner tomorrow night. How does seven o’clock sound?’

With rigid precision she said, ‘I’d rather discuss business more formally.’

In a tone that nudged too close to contempt, he said, ‘I don’t discuss business at social occasions. However, if you feel so strongly, come to the office at the homestead at three o’clock tomorrow afternoon.’

Which left her with nothing to say but, ‘Yes, all right.’

He nodded. Biting back hot, unwise words, Natalia sat in tense silence that lasted until they drove past the truck.

Clay asked laconically, ‘What are you going to do about that?’

‘It’ll be OK here,’ she said, hoping she was right. ‘It’s well off the road, so a driver would have to try hard to hit it.’

A stray beam of sun outlined his forceful profile, reinforcing the arrogant cut of his jaw and the symmetrical, autocratic bone structure as he nodded. Natalia looked straight ahead, her expression held under stony discipline.

When he drove into her gateway she said steadily, ‘You can put me down here, thank you.’ The last thing she wanted was for him to see inside her home.

‘You’ll get wet before you’re halfway there—it’s trying to rain.’

Sure enough, one of early winter’s soft showers was gathering around the ridges, ready to billow down the hills and across the narrow coastal flats to lose itself in the wide expanse of the Pacific Ocean.

‘Rain won’t melt me,’ Natalia said, hiding her defensiveness with unemphatic words and a flat tone.

‘So you’re a tough, hard woman.’ The drawled comment was meant to be sarcastic, and succeeded. ‘Why are you so prickly, Natalia?’

‘I have no idea what you mean,’ she said, each word so clearly articulated it could have sliced through ice. As the car drew up outside the ramshackle shed that was both garage and packhouse, she unclipped her seat belt.

His eyes narrowed and his mouth tilted into a mirthless smile, his keen gaze lingering on her hot cheeks. A feverish shiver pulled her skin tight.

‘Your eyes fire up brilliantly when you’re angry,’ he said, the words smooth and taunting.

‘Whereas you become offensive.’ She should be intimidated but she wasn’t; adrenaline pumped through her in a singing, exhilarating flood.

‘What makes you think I’m angry? This offensiveness could be my normal attitude.’

‘I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt,’ she retorted sweetly.

Swift as a striking bird of prey, Clay caught her tense hand and kissed the palm. Lean, tanned fingers tightened around her wrist; Natalia felt their controlled power like a fetter. Then he released her.

As she snatched back her hand Natalia thought she could feel the sensuous touch of his lips still burning on her skin.

‘Don’t dare me,’ he said evenly, his eyes dwelling on the soft curves of her breasts for a heart-stopping second before lifting to trap her gaze. Heat lit the tawny depths to gold, yet she couldn’t see emotion there, nothing but an intense, primal hunger.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.