A Virgin for the Taking

Trish Morey

You really can’t travel to a place like Broome, Western Australia, without burning to set a book there. Set between the stunning Kimberley and the turquoise Indian Ocean, the town imparts a real sense of drama, romance and passion. It’s a fascinating town, with a fascinating history, marked by isolation, incredible hardships, colorful characters and the quest for riches—first by the collection of pearl shell for mother-of-pearl, but more recently for the cultivation of the magnificent South Sea pearls themselves, truly the most beautiful pearls in the world.

This book is dedicated to the town of Broome and to its people, a special breed for a very special place.

And very special thanks to the moon, for doing its thing that cloud-free night by rising spectacularly over the tidal flats of Roebuck Bay and making that wonderfully special phenomenon, the Stairway to the Moon.

Simply the most romantic place on earth.

Simply magic!

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

EPILOGUE

COMING NEXT MONTH

CHAPTER ONE

ZANE BASTIANI stepped on to the tarmac of Broome International Airport and felt the late wet-season humidity close around him like a vice. He glanced skyward in irritation, to where the source of the melting heat shone so unforgivingly above.

He’d forgotten about the heat. Other things had slipped his mind, too—like the sharp blue of the sky, the clear salt-tinged air and the sheer quality of the light. Nine years of dreary London weather and grey concrete architecture had disarmed him completely. He felt like a foreigner in his home town.

Nine years.

Hard to believe it was so long since he’d left with just his name and the conviction to make it big time on his own. Not that he’d wasted a minute of it. Now, with a terrace house in Chelsea, a chalet in Klosters and the chairmanship of the most aggressive merchant bank in London, he was well on his way.

And for every one of those nine years he’d been waiting for his father to call and admit that he’d been wrong, but when the call had finally come it hadn’t been from his father at all.

‘Not critical,’ the doctor had assured him, ‘but Laurence asked to see you.’

He’d asked to see Zane.

It might have taken a heart attack, but after all the bitterness between them, any request had to be worth something.

So Zane had taken the first flight out of London to anywhere that might offer the fastest connection with this remote north-west Australian location. His platinum credit card had taken care of the details.

He shrugged the kinks out of his shoulders as he headed for the terminal, steeling himself for meeting his father once again. When Zane had been just a kid growing up, Laurence Bastiani had always seemed larger than life, always the big man with the big voice and the big ideas who’d never succumbed to as much as the common cold. It made sense that it would take something like a heart attack to stop him in his tracks. Even so, it was impossible to picture him now, lying ill in hospital. His father would hate it. He’d probably have checked himself out of there already.

Inside the arrivals’ terminal, ceiling fans spun languidly overhead, stirring up barely more than a breeze as travel-weary passengers began to crowd around the luggage carousel.

His one hastily packed leather bag, its red Priority tag swinging, came through first. He reached down, hauling it from the carousel, then headed towards the exit, making for the line of waiting taxis, increasingly aware the fine cotton of his shirt was already heavy with perspiration.

How long would it take to re-acclimatise to Broome’s tropical temperatures, given he’d been away so many years? Not that it really mattered, he thought dismissively as he curled himself into a taxi and snapped out a brisk command to the driver. He’d be back in London long before there was any chance of that happening.

CHAPTER TWO

THE CRASH TEAM had departed, the tubes and needles removed, the equipment turned off. Strange—she’d grown to hate that incessant beeping of the monitor over the last couple of days with its constant reminder of Laurence’s increasingly frail condition. But right now Ruby Clemenger would give anything to have that noise back—anything to break the deathly quiet of the room—anything at all if it meant that Laurence was still really here.

But Laurence was gone.

Her eyes felt scratchy and swollen, but there were no tears, not yet, because it was just so hard to accept. And so unfair. Fifty-five was way too young to die, especially when you had the vision and energy of Laurence Bastiani, the now late head of the largest cultured South Sea pearl operation in the world.

Even now he looked like he was sleeping, his hand still warm in hers. But there was no tell-tale rise and fall of his chest under the sheet, no flicker of eyelashes as if he was merely dreaming, no answering squeeze of his fingers.

She let her head fall forward on her chest, her eyelids jammed together as she tried to see past the yawning pit of despair inside her. But logic had deserted her tonight just as swiftly as Laurence’s unexpected departure. And now all she could think about were his final words to her, half whispered, half choked, his fingers pressing urgently into her flesh as the attack that had finally taken his life overcame him.

‘Look after him,’ he’d managed to whisper. ‘Look after Zane. And tell him—I’m sorry…’

And then the monitor’s note had changed into one continual bleep and her thoughts had turned to panic. A heartbeat later the doors to the room had crashed open to a flurry of blue cotton and trolleyed machinery and in one swift blur she’d been expertly manoeuvred outside.

By the time they’d let her back in it was over and she’d never had a chance to ask him what he’d meant and why the son who hadn’t bothered to contact his father the best part of a decade should need looking after or why Laurence felt he was the one who should apologise for his son’s neglect. And she’d never had a chance to demand to know why the hell Laurence would expect her to be the one to do it.

But she had no time to squander on the prodigal son. After the way he’d neglected his father, Zane was so low on her radar he didn’t register. Right now she’d lost her mentor, a father figure and an inspiration. Most of all, she’d lost a dear friend.

‘Oh, Laurence,’ she whispered, her voice cracking under the strain. ‘I’ll miss you so much.’

The door swung open behind her. She sniffed and took a calming breath. The staff would be wanting her to leave so they could complete the formalities. She lifted her head to acknowledge their presence.

‘I’m almost ready,’ she said, only half turning towards the door. ‘Just a moment longer, if that’s okay.’

There was no immediate response, no drawing back and closing of doors, and a strange feeling of unease crawled its way up her spine. Her back straightened in reaction, her arms prickling into goosebumps as the room chilled to ice-cold.

‘I’d prefer to visit with my father alone.’

Her head snapped around to where the stranger with the ice-cold tone filled the doorway. And yet, for the briefest second, her heart skipped with recognition—until harsh reality resurfaced, snuffing out her momentary joy.

Oh, they might have been Laurence’s eyes she’d been staring at, with their same dark caramel richness, the same shape and heavy-hooded, almost seductive lids. But whereas the older man’s eyes had been filled with a mixture of affection and respect, their corners crinkled with laughter over a shared joke or with natural delight at discovering the perfect pearl, the eyes turned upon her now were cold and imperious.

Zane, she realised, her first-impression sensors screaming a red-light warning. So what that he was Laurence’s son?—clearly that didn’t make him her friend.

His body language made that more than plain. His unyielding stance was imbued with antagonism, from his unshaven jaw and short finger-combed dark hair to his designer black jeans and hand-crafted leather boots, planted on the tiled floor like they owned it. Even the contrasting white shirt failed to soften the impression, instead only emphasising his olive skin and dark features. He wore power like a birthright.

She forced her aching back ramrod straight in her chair as his icy gaze swept over her, noticing when it finally came to a halt where her fingers rested, still curled around his father’s hand. Disapproval came off him in waves, but she pointedly maintained her hold. She had a right to be here even if he didn’t like it. And he obviously didn’t. Too bad.

And yet, whatever his faults, part of her recognized that he had to be hurting, too. Despite the two not speaking for years, his father’s death must still have come as a huge shock. Even just one day ago Laurence had been expected to make a complete recovery, so when Zane had boarded that plane from London, the prospect of his father’s death would have been a remote and unlikely possibility. He would have to be made of granite not to be affected by what he’d discovered once he’d arrived. Nobody could be that hard. Nobody could that insensitive.

‘You must be Zane,’ she said, trying to steer some kind of course through the jagged ice floes cluttering the atmosphere between them. ‘I’m Ruby Clemenger. I worked with your father.’

‘I know who you are,’ he snapped.

She blinked and took a steadying breath, instantly rethinking her earlier assumption. Maybe he was that hard and insensitive, after all.

‘I am sorry about your father,’ she persisted, trying again, if only for Laurence’s sake, because even if she didn’t give a rat’s about Zane, she’d wanted so much for Laurence to have his last wish met. She shook her head. ‘He wanted so much to see you. But you’re too late.’

His eyes narrowed in on hers, intensifying their laser-like quality.

‘Too late?’ he repeated. ‘Oh, yeah, it sure looks that way from where I’m standing.’

She shivered in the frosty atmosphere. Why did she get the distinct impression he was talking about more than his father’s untimely death?

Zane battled to hold his mounting irritation in check. Trust her to be here. He hadn’t seen a single photograph of his father over the last few years that hadn’t also featured this woman clinging to his arm. Ruby Clemenger—his father’s constant companion, his father’s right-hand woman. His father had always been a leg man, and, judging by the long sweep of golden limbs tucked beneath her on the armchair, nothing much had changed.

But right now all he wanted was for her to use those legs to get out of here. This was his father, his grief, his anger. He’d travelled the best part of twenty-four hours, only to be cheated out of seeing his father by one. He didn’t want to share this time with anyone, let alone with the likes of her.

At last it seemed she was taking the hint. The spark of fight that had flared in her azure eyes had dimmed as she unwound herself out of the chair, her movements slow and deliberate, like she’d been sitting too long. But still she didn’t move away from the bed, her filmy skirt floating just above knee length.

Even in their jet-lagged state his eyes couldn’t help but notice—he’d been right about the legs. But now she was standing, it was clear her attributes didn’t stop there—they extended much further north, an alluring mix of feminine curves and sun-kissed skin, of blue eyes framed by dark lashes and lips generous enough to be begging to be kissed—just the way he liked them.

Just the way his father liked them.

Bitterness congealed like a lead weight inside him. She had to be at least three decades younger than Laurence’s fifty-five years; with a body and a face like hers, his father hadn’t stood a chance—she was a heart attack waiting to happen!

As he watched, she lifted the hand she’d been holding and pressed it to her lips before gently replacing it at Laurence’s side. Then she leaned over and smoothed a thumb over his brow. He watched her dip her head, the loose tendrils of her whisky-coloured hair falling free of the clasp at the back of her head as she kissed his father on the cheek one final time.

‘Goodbye, Laurence,’ he heard her whisper. ‘I’ll always love you.’

The words struck him like a blow deep in a place already overflowing with rancour and tainted by a cynicism borne from working on some of the ugliest corporate take-overs in Europe. Her performance was no doubt all for his benefit. He knew what people were capable of when there were fortunes at stake.

Ruby Clemenger was merely an employee of the Bastiani Pearl Corporation, although clearly her ‘duties’ extended way beyond her jewellery design. Of course, she would know the Corporation was worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Would she hope to establish there was more to the extracurricular arrangement she had with his father than mutual-needs fulfilment? Was this her way of staking a claim on the business now that Laurence was gone?

She’d have to try one hell of a lot harder than that if it was.

‘How touching,’ he said, the bile rising in his throat, his patience at an end. ‘Now, if you’re quite finished?’

Her back went rigid and she stilled momentarily before reaching out her hand to Laurence’s cheek one last time. Then she turned and, with barely a glance at him from her glacial blue eyes, side-stepped around Zane and slipped out of the room.

Her scent lingered in her wake, fresh and light in the clinical hospital atmosphere.

Seductive.

Irritating!

He growled his frustration out loud as he moved closer to the bed where his father lay. He was tired, he was jet-lagged and he was angry. His race halfway around the world had been for nothing; as a man who prided himself on beating every deadline thrown his way, the fact that he’d been cheated out of this one cut bone-deep.

But worse still was the realisation that, even with all that going on around him, still he could be swayed by the lingering scent of the last person he should be thinking about—his father’s mistress!

‘Can I give you a lift to the house?’

Ruby had been waiting outside Laurence’s room the last twenty minutes for Zane to emerge. And when he finally had, he’d pointedly ignored her and her question and headed directly to the nurses’ station to talk to the medical staff.

Personally, she didn’t care less where he stayed or how he got there, her only wish being that he’d turn around and disappear under whatever rock he’d been hiding under for the past decade, but Laurence’s request kept pulling her back. ‘Look after Zane,’ he’d implored her. And if he had been able to think fondly about a son who hadn’t bothered to get in touch with him for nigh on a decade, then she could at least be civil—if only for Laurence’s sake.

The staff slowly filtered away, one retrieving a bag for him from inside the nurses’ station. So, he’d come direct from the airport? He’d need a lift somewhere, then. She pushed herself from the chair and tried to forget how much she disliked this man already.

‘I wondered if you’d like a lift to the house?’ she repeated.

He turned towards her, his features and his jaw set hard as he swung the bag up over his shoulder. The action exaggerated the broad sweep of his chest, revealing all too clearly the power in his muscled arms. Though his build was similar to his father’s, he was taller and more threatening than Laurence had ever been. She felt tiny alongside him.

‘I heard you.’

‘And?’

‘And I can take a cab.’

‘That would be pointless, seeing as I’m going there, anyway.’

‘Is that right?’ One eyebrow arched as his eyes glinted with what looked like victory. ‘And why would you be doing that?’

For just a moment she hesitated, the arrangement she’d had with Laurence and accepted as normal suddenly sending alarm bells through her. Things were going to have to change, and soon—it was one thing to share a house with Laurence, who’d been more like a father to her than a colleague; it was another thing entirely to imagine living there with his son, with his overt hostility and his latent danger. She could feel the heat rising in her cheeks as she stumbled over her answer.

‘Because…I live there.’

His lip curled. A live-in mistress. ‘How very convenient,’ he said. ‘My father must have enjoyed having…’ your services on tap ‘…your company.’

She angled her chin higher while her eyes remained glued to his. ‘Your father was a remarkable man. We shared a special friendship.’

‘I’ll bet,’ he said dismissively. His father had a habit of forming ‘special friendships’. The last one had cost Laurence the respect of his son and the complete breakdown of a father-son relationship. He was determined this one wouldn’t cost him a thing.

It was only a short trip from the hospital to the house, but the BMW’s air-conditioning made driving the clear winner over walking. Zane spent the brief journey staring out the windows, reacquainting himself with his old neighbourhood and trying to ignore the scent that reminded him exactly whose car and whose company he was in.

But at least she didn’t talk. He had too much to assimilate right now to continue their battle of words. Already he could feel a tidal surge of bone-tiredness, the legacy of both his long journey and its unexpected conclusion, creeping up on him, numbing his senses and his mind until there were only two things he could be certain of.

His father was gone.

And life for Zane Bastiani was about to radically change.

There was little prospect it would be for the better.

Ruby steered the car into a driveway, pulling up outside the sprawling colonial bungalow that had been Zane’s home for the first twenty years of his life. He uncurled himself slowly from the car, feeling a sudden and brief burst of warmth that had nothing to do with the brilliant sunlight as he took in the sight of the building.

London and his former life had never seemed so far away.

Built in the nineteen-twenties when pearl shell was gold and those who owned the pearl-lugger fleets were kings, the house was surrounded by wide verandahs and lattice fences lushly covered with flowering bougainvillea, a colourful invitation to the airy and cool interior.

The empty interior.

Bitterness seeped from a wound barely crusted over despite the passing of time. His mother had loved this house, the rambling, high-ceilinged rooms and timber floors, the large windows designed to let the slightest cooling breeze flow through. And she had loved the tropical gardens, which were always threatening to turn to jungle and overrun the house if left unchecked.

His sense of loss changed state inside him, becoming tangible, a solid thing deep in his gut. He could feel it swelling until it cramped his organs. He could taste its bitter juices in his mouth.

‘Welcome home,’ he muttered under his breath.

‘Are you okay?’

He absorbed her words rather than heard them, just one more element to the mix of sensations and memories that reached out to snare him and drag him back into the past.

‘My grandfather bought this house from one of the last of the old Master Pearlers,’ he said without shifting his focus, reciting the story he’d heard so often from his mother. ‘Laurence was just a kid back then. The pearl-shell industry was slowly dying and Grandfather put everything else he had in the new cultured pearl technology. He had a dream to become the first of the new breed of Master Pearlers.’

‘And he made it,’ she said. ‘Between your grandfather and Laurence, it’s quite a legacy they’ve left. Bastiani Pearls is now worth a fortune.’

Her words knifed through his thoughts, slicing them to ribbons, and he turned the full force of his glare on to her.

What was it with these mistresses? Anneleise could never stop thinking about money, either. Even at their last unexpected meeting, just two days before his desperate and now pointless rush to Australia, she’d staggered him by expecting some sort of compensation from him for finally getting it through her silvery blonde hair that it was over. And when he’d laughed out loud, she’d let go with the tears and lamented the opportunities she’d missed while Zane had held her undivided attention.

Even if that were anywhere near the truth, she had plenty of trinkets from their brief liaison that she could hock to tide her over if it came to that. Not that she’d take long to find another mark, if indeed she hadn’t already in the time since they’d parted company. She certainly was stunning enough, with her alabaster skin and a fragile femininity that had made him want to protect her at first—until he’d discovered her fragility extended character deep. But at least now he was free of her and her parasitic tendencies. He’d had enough of grasping women, every last one of them.

‘Is something wrong?’ she asked, her attitude making it clear that she resented his intense scrutiny.

He turned his gaze away, pulling his bag from the boot and slamming it shut. ‘Let’s go inside,’ he said.

Her skirt flirted around the backs of her knees as she led the way up the short set of stairs to the verandah and once again he found himself caught in the heady trail of her scent, the damnable price of chivalry.

His eyes took a moment to adjust as they entered the elegant bungalow. He looked around. The house might have been built over eighty years ago, but his mother had always seen to it that whatever renovations were made over the years had provided the most up-to-date conveniences while retaining the character of the colonial era. He let go a breath when he realised that Ruby’s tenure hadn’t impacted upon his mother’s vision.

‘I asked Kyoto to have your old room prepared in case you stayed,’ she said, turning slightly towards him. ‘I hope that’s okay.’

He paused, not believing what he’d heard. ‘Kyoto’s still around?’ It was inconceivable that he was still alive. The former Japanese pearl diver had worked for his family for years, first as cook and then housekeeper. He’d seemed a gnarled old man when Zane was just a boy. ‘Surely he’s not still working?’

She nodded, a watery smile temporarily lighting up her features. ‘Mostly he supervises now—we have a cook and cleaner to do the heavy work.’ He watched the wobbly smile slide away. ‘But I said he should go home today. He’s devastated by the news.’

She pressed her lips together and spun away, turning her back on him, but not before he’d recognised the crack in her voice, the slight tremulous quality to her movements as she’d uttered that last word that told him she was either trying very hard not to cry or, if Anneleise was any guide, trying her best to make him think she was. Anneleise could have written a thesis on the artful use of tears—although he doubted she’d ever shed a sincere one in her life. Why wouldn’t Ruby be armed with the same arsenal? It probably came with the job description.

‘Well,’ she murmured, her back still to him, her voice low and strained as she rubbed her brow with one hand, ‘I’m sure you don’t need me to show you where your room is. I’ll leave you to settle in.’

He could just walk away, keep walking down the passageway to his old room. He could just ignore her and let her know her ploy had left him completely unmoved. He should just walk away.

But the urge to show her that he wouldn’t fall for her tricks was too great. She needed to know that he knew all about the games women liked to play when there was money at stake. She needed to know that he wouldn’t be falling for any of them.

He reached a hand to her shoulder, ignoring her startled flinch at his grip as he steered her around to face him.

He overcame her resistance, tipping up her stiffly held jaw with one hand until there was no way she could avoid his gaze any longer. Slowly, reluctantly, her eyes slid upwards, until their aqua depths collided with his. In the first instant he took in the moisture, the lashes damp and dark, and he had to acknowledge she was good, very good, if she could bring on the tears that readily.

But then he saw what was inside her eyes and it slashed him to the core.

Pain. Loss. Mind-numbing desolation.

All of those things he recognised. All of those things found an echo in a place deep down inside himself, something that shifted and ached afresh as her liquid eyes seemed to bare her soul to him. It was an awkward feeling, uncomfortable, unwelcome.

He watched as she jammed her lips together as a solitary tear squeezed from the corner of one eye. Momentarily disarmed, acting purely on instinct, he shifted his hand from her chin and gently wiped the tear from her cheek with the pad of one finger. Her eyelids dipped shut, her lips parted as she drew in a sudden breath, and he felt her tremble into his touch.

Gears crunched and ground together inside him. This wasn’t going the way he’d expected at all. Because she wasn’t the way he’d expected.

‘You really cared about him?’

The question betrayed his thoughts, clumsy and heavily weighted with disbelief. But there was no time to correct it—the thought that Laurence meant more to her than a mere provider of luxury and cash somehow grated hard on his senses.

She dragged in a breath and pulled away, shrugging off his hand as she backed into a cane lounge. ‘Is that so hard to believe? Laurence made it easy to want to care about him.’

Her rapid admission changed everything, transforming his confused thoughts into sizzling hot anger in an instant as the facts slotted back into their rightful place. Laurence had ‘made it easy’. No pretence, no circumspection. She’d admitted how it had been between them with barely a blink! And it was exactly what he’d expected. No wonder she felt so crushed. She’d lost her sugar daddy along with her cash flow.

‘Yeah. I’ll just bet he made it easy.’

She edged closer, her head tilted, as if she couldn’t have heard him right. ‘I’m not sure I understand you. What exactly do you mean?’

‘It’s hardly that difficult to work out. A rich old man with a taste for pretty women and who could afford to make having one around worth her while.’

If he hadn’t been jet-lagged, if he hadn’t been awake throughout too many flights over too many time zones, maybe he would have had a chance of fending off her next attack. As it was, he didn’t see it coming.

Her flattened palm cracked against his cheek and jaw like a bullet from a gun.

Instantly she recoiled in horror, her eyes wide open, the offending hand fisted over her mouth. She waited while he drew in a long breath and rubbed the place she’d made contact, the skin under his hand already a slash of colour. But he didn’t react, not physically, and she felt the shock ebb away, felt her panicked heart rate calm just enough to match the simmer of anger that still consumed her.

‘Well, you sure pack a punch,’ he drawled, working his jaw from side to side, his eyes narrow and hard like he was assessing her all over again.

‘Nothing more than you deserved.’ He’d asked for it all right. Why would he think that about Laurence? Why would he think that about her? ‘And don’t think I’m going to apologise. I don’t have to take that kind of garbage from you.’

‘Because you can’t handle the truth?’

‘You’re unbelievable! You really believe I’m here for Laurence’s money?’

‘Most people would be lured by it.’

‘Then I’m not “most people”. I don’t want his money. I never have.’

‘Then why else would you have been living with him, a man old enough to have been your father?’

She laughed then, mostly because she knew that if she didn’t laugh, she’d probably cry with the injustice of it all. He was so wrong. He didn’t know his father. He didn’t know her. He knew nothing.

‘I pity you,’ she said, much more calmly than she felt. ‘Obviously you’re completely unfamiliar with the words “friendship” or “companionship”.’

He snorted his disbelief and her anger escalated to dangerous levels again. But this time she was determined to keep control. She had to try to remember what Laurence had asked of her. She dragged in a deep breath, battling to stay rational and calm, in spite of his attack.

‘Just because you were incapable of showing your father any respect or affection…’ she shook her head ‘…don’t assume everybody else was.’

His eyes narrowed dangerously, the resentment contained within so hard and absolute, it glistened. ‘So you looked after him out of the goodness of your heart? You stayed merely to keep him company? Next you’ll be expecting me to believe you really loved him.’

‘Somebody had to! God only knows he got nothing but grief from you.’

She jerked herself away, wanting to get out of there, wanting to get as far away from him as she could, but a steel grip on her arm stopped her dead, preventing her escape. She turned, indignant, but the protest died on her lips the moment she saw his face, his features contorted with fury.

‘Don’t you try to take the high moral ground with me. You have no idea what I felt for my father or why. None at all.’

She fisted her hand and wrenched at her arm unsuccessfully. So instead she leaned closer, so close she could feel the anger coming out of him like heat from an open fire. But his anger was nothing compared to hers—she was angry enough for both of them.

‘You’re right,’ she agreed, feeling her lip curl in contempt. ‘I have no idea what you felt or why. But whose fault is that? Mine, for being here when your father needed support, or yours, for not caring enough to be here yourself?’

CHAPTER THREE

HOURS LATER, as the first unlayering of the night sky heralded the coming dawn, Zane had given up on sleep. He lay on his bed in the room that had been his for more than half his life, the accumulated photographs and trophies from his youth still exactly where he’d left them. If he closed his eyes, he could almost imagine he’d never left. But he knew he wouldn’t be thinking about how things used to be. Because the last few hours had shown him that all he’d be thinking about was a woman with fire in her eyes and venom on her tongue, a woman built like a goddess and who fought like a she-cat.

Even last night, when she’d lashed out and slapped him, she hadn’t backed away. She’d come back for more and she’d given more. And even when she’d agreed with him, in their final exchange, she’d hit back with such a sting in her parting comments that when she’d yanked her arm against his grip once more he’d had no choice but to let her go.

She had some spirit. He wrestled once more with the sheets as he tried to get comfortable. What would she be like in bed? He’d lay odds that she’d show as much life out of her clothes, if not more, than she did in them.

He punched his pillow one final time before giving up, swinging his legs off the bed and making for the en suite, dragging his hands over his troubled head. What the hell was wrong with him? It didn’t matter what she was like in bed, he was hardly about to pick up where his father left off!

Besides, he had more pressing problems to turn his mind to now. There would be all kinds of things to deal with: a funeral to arrange, the future of the business. Naturally he’d be expected to fill Laurence’s shoes for the time being, but plans would have to be made for the longer term. He might as well make a start on it before Ruby could interfere. She might have held a high place in Laurence’s ‘affections’, but, now he was here, things were going to change.

Kyoto was waiting for him in the kitchen when he emerged, finally feeling more human after a long hot shower and fresh clothes.

‘Mister Zane!’ Kyoto shouted in welcome as he approached, his wrinkled face contorted between half-toothless smile, half anguish. ‘It’s so good you’re home. I make you breakfast, “special”.’

Sinewy arms suddenly wrapped tightly around him in a rapid embrace before releasing him just as quickly and returning to the task of scrambling eggs as if they’d never touched him. Zane smiled to himself. Kyoto’s broken English was just the same, but he could never remember a time when he’d ever been so physically demonstrative. It was strangely touching.

‘It’s good to see you again, too,’ he said sincerely.

‘Your father,’ Kyoto said, shaking his head as he heaped a plate full. ‘I am so sorry.’

‘Thank you,’ he said, right now feeling Kyoto’s loss more than his own, as hot coffee and a heavily laden breakfast plate with a stack of toast on the side was placed in front of him.

Kyoto disappeared, muttering sadly to himself as Zane made a start on breakfast in the large, airy room. It was hours since his last real meal and Kyoto’s cooking had never been a hardship to endure, least of all now. He’d almost made his way through the mountain when Kyoto returned and something else appeared on the table before him. He blinked in cold hard shock as he recognised the small padlocked wooden chest.

The old pearler skipper’s box had always sat in pride of place on his father’s desk and now it sat in front of him, bold and challenging. Mocking.

A relic of a former era, when natural pearls were real treasure and the rare bonus discovered while collecting the mother-of-pearl shell itself, any such pearls were deposited through a small hole in the lid and so kept secure during the lugger’s time at sea.

But it was hardly pearls he knew the box contained. More like dynamite.

‘Your father said you were to have,’ Kyoto said in response to Zane’s unspoken question.

Zane set his plate aside and drained the last of his strong coffee, never taking his eyes off the chest. The wood had aged to an even richer golden patina than he remembered, the metal handle and lock scratched and scarred by the passage of time, the tiny key clearly in place. Inviting. Taunting. Because it was hardly the chest his father wanted him to have. It was the contents. And Zane knew exactly what was inside.

Did his father honestly not realise Zane knew, or was he merely trying to press the point home—a bitter reminder of the circumstances of his leaving? No question, Zane decided. Of course he would have known. Clearly his father hadn’t asked to see Zane in order to settle their differences. He’d called for him to rub them in!

His mind rankled with the stench of the fetid memories. He’d been just a young boy home on school holidays when he’d sneaked into his father’s office under the cool verandah and had been exploring through the desk drawers until he’d come across a small battered key. Instantly he’d thought of the box on top of the desk, the box that had been locked as long as he could remember and which had always intrigued him. So he’d scrabbled up on to his father’s wide jarrah desk and tested the lock. It had clicked open on the second scratchy attempt. With a thrill of discovery he’d removed the lock and the metal plate from the catch. He remembered holding his breath as he’d lifted the lid to peer at whatever treasures lay inside.

And he remembered the crush of disappointment when he’d found it only contained a stash of old letters. Barely half-interested by then, he’d picked the first from the top of the pile. He’d opened the folded sheet, only to stare at a letter from his father to his so-called Aunt Bonnie, his mother’s best friend. There was a list of numbers and something about a house and a monthly payment that made no sense at all to his young mind. But there’d been no time to linger over it once his nanny had discovered him in the room he’d been forbidden to enter and warned him never to look in places he shouldn’t in case he learned something he never wanted or needed to know.

For a while he’d wondered what she’d meant but then he’d found a new game to play and gone back to school and he’d forgotten all about it. Until that day, nine stark years ago, when he’d been reminded of the letter and its contents and suddenly it had all made perfect sense!

He heaved a sigh as he considered the box, the stain of bitterness deep and permanent in his mind. What was his father really playing at, leaving him the box like this? Did he expect him to read the entire contents—no doubt their love letters—making sure Zane knew the whole sordid truth? Was this all Laurence thought Zane deserved after walking out nine years before? Was this to be his inheritance? Zane couldn’t help but raise a smile ironically as he contemplated the box. He wouldn’t put it past him. His father had never been known for his subtlety.

But he wasn’t playing into that game. He’d read enough all those years ago to last him. The box could stay closed.

Kyoto whisked away his plates and swept around the kitchen, cleaning everything he touched until it gleamed.

‘More coffee?’ he offered, interrupting Zane’s thoughts.

Zane responded with a shake of the head, giving the box a final push away as he stood. He didn’t need any reminders of the past. He had Ruby to do that.

‘Thank you, Kyoto, but no. I need to get started on a few things. Is there a car I can use while I’m here?’

‘Yes, yes.’ He nodded. ‘But you are home to stay now, for good?’

Zane dragged in a breath. His immediate plans for the company included making the long-term arrangements that would ensure his speedy return to London and his businesses there. Of course, there would be ramifications of his father’s sudden death to deal with—someone would have to take over the running of the pearl business; he’d source a manager somehow—but staying wasn’t an option right now. ‘We’ll see, Kyoto,’ he replied noncommittally. ‘First, I just need to make sure the company gets through this difficult stage, without my father’s hand to guide it.’

‘Not a problem,’ Kyoto offered, waving away his concerns with a flick of his tea towel. ‘Miss Ruby take care of all that, no worry.’

Zane stilled, a knife-sharp feeling of foreboding slicing through his thoughts. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Miss Ruby already at the office. She take care of everything.’

If indigestion came in a colour, it would be red. If it came in the shape of a woman, it would take the form of Ruby Clemenger.

She sat now in his father’s office, behind his father’s desk, like she owned it, making notes on a laptop computer as she studied an open file on the desk.

‘You haven’t wasted a minute, I see,’ he said, announcing his presence in the same sentence.

She looked up, momentarily startled, before the shutters clamped down on her eyes again, turning them frosty blue. Guarded.

‘I expected you’d sleep longer.’

He smiled. ‘So you thought you’d get a head start on running the company before I woke up?’

She frowned. ‘And why would you possibly think that?’

He gestured around the spacious office. ‘Because you’re here, barely twenty-four hours after my father’s death, in his office, occupying his desk.’

She put down her pen and leaned back in her chair—his father’s chair—her eyes narrowing to icy blue channels. ‘Is that what you’re worried about? That I might want to take your precious birthright away from you? That I might steal your inheritance and whisk Bastiani Pearls away from you while you’re not looking?’

‘You wouldn’t stand a chance!’ He squeezed the words through lips dragged tight, his jaw held rigid.

She smiled, a smile that exposed her even white teeth but extended no further. ‘Then maybe it’s just as well I’m not interested.’

‘So how do you explain being here now?’ he demanded, moving closer to the broad desk. ‘It’s Saturday. Not exactly office hours.’

I had to get out of the house, she thought. I had to get awayfrom you. But she wouldn’t say it. Didn’t want to admit the blatant honesty of her thoughts, even to herself. Instead she steeled herself against his approach and said, ‘I have work to do. Laurence and I were involved in a project together last week when he took ill. The file was still on his desk. And I really didn’t think he’d mind me borrowing his office for a while.’

‘What kind of work?’ he demanded, shrugging off her sarcasm like he expected it.

She surveyed him as he made his way around the desk to her side, taking in the cool-looking chinos and fine-knit shirt, resenting every lean stride he took closer to her. He was dressed for the heat, so why was it that her temperature was suddenly rising?

Damn the man! She’d told herself all night—she’d promised herself—that now they’d got their first meeting out of the way, now that they both knew where they stood with each other, that she’d be immune to his power and his sheer masculine force. And finally she’d convinced herself that that would be the case, that she could wear her anger like steel plating around her. But she’d been kidding herself. Otherwise, why else would she have fled the house at first light? And why else would she be feeling the encroaching heat of this man like the kiss of a blowtorch?

Her anger was still there, and the resentment—with just one comment, he’d managed to resurrect that in spades—but there was no avoiding the Bastiani aura.

Like father, like son.

Laurence’s power had made him a powerful colleague to work with, a fascinating and inspiring mentor. Zane, though, seemed to take the family trait to a new level, his proximity grating on her resistance, his raw masculine magnetism and fresh man-scent leaving her feeling strangely vulnerable.

‘What are these?’ he asked, looking down at the drawings on the desk, breaking her out of her reflections.

‘The new range,’ she said, feeling a note of pride creep into her voice as he sorted through the designs she’d been working on for over six months. ‘We’ve called them the Passion Collection. The launch is a little over three months away.’

‘Here?’

‘Like all our collections, we’ll launch in Broome first, at the Stairway to the Moon festival, then we’ll take the collection nationwide with an event at the Sydney Opera House one week later. We’ll follow that up with the dealer visits, where we take selected designs to New York and London. No doubt you’ll expect to come along, in Laurence’s place.’

She tried to infuse some kind of welcome note to her voice, but if he was impressed by the demanding launch schedule or wanted any part of it, he didn’t show it. ‘These designs are very ambitious,’ he said instead. ‘Extraordinarily so.’

‘Thank you.’

He looked around sharply. ‘These are yours?’

She nodded. Every last one of them. ‘That is why I was employed here,’ she told him, holding his gaze. ‘I design settings for the pearls the Bastiani Corporation produces.’

‘Then you must realise that wasn’t exactly a compliment. These designs will never work.’

She stilled, not believing what she was hearing. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘These designs—“The Passion Collection”: A Lovers’ Embrace. It’s a fine concept, but don’t you think it’s too ambitious to achieve with just pearls and gold and gemstones? You’ll never pull it off. We can’t have an entire collection based around such a crazy idea. It’s too much of a risk.’

‘It will work,’ she argued, trying to banish the doubt demons that assailed her creative mind at every opportunity without Zane’s input to spur them on. ‘Yes, it’s ambitious, and, yes, it’s a risk, but it’s already in production. And it’s almost complete.’

‘But not finished and not proven. So the Bastiani Corporation is pinning its future hopes on a collection that could be a major failure?’

‘Laurence was passionate about this collection. He was behind it one hundred percent.’

‘Laurence isn’t here now.’

‘But I am. And I’ve been designing pearl collections for Bastiani ever since I started working here—so far very successfully. There’s no reason to think this one won’t be as successful.’

He put down the drawing he’d been holding and swivelled, leaning back against the desk, his hands poised either side of his legs. ‘You’d hardly claim anything else.’

He was too close. Dealing with him while he’d had his back to her was one thing, having him staring her down while hovering alongside was something else. It made her wish she’d pulled on a whole lot more this morning than a floral wrap skirt and a cool, lemon-coloured singlet top. She pushed herself out of her chair, using the pretext of filling her water glass at the cooler, and only turned when she’d taken three steadying breaths.

‘Well, I don’t intend to let Laurence or the company down now,’ she said, in a bid to regain her composure. ‘And while we’re on the topic, did you ever bother to read those financial reports I know your father had sent to you regularly?’ she asked. ‘Did you ever take note of what they told you, and of how the profits of the Bastiani Corporation took off exponentially, when instead of selling cultured pearl stocks and basic design elements, we started selling themed collections twice a year?’

‘And you’re claiming the credit for that, I presume?’ He practically snorted the words out, without bothering to make any attempt to answer her question.

‘No,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I’m not claiming the credit. Laurence took me on as a junior designer when I was barely out of design school. He said he wanted someone fresh, with no preconceived or outmoded ideas of how pearl jewellery should look. So together we worked on the idea of a themed collection, an entire range that would display the beauty and mystique of the most magnificent and highly prized pearls in the world. So, it was Laurence who had the vision, who had the dream of expanding his business in a way the company had never done before. But the designs were all mine.’

She stopped, feeling suddenly heady, as if oxygen was in short supply. All through her impassioned speech he’d sat, coolly surveying her from his position against the desk, his eyes hooded, almost slumberous.

If she didn’t like his attitude, she resented his silent scrutiny even more. In desperation, she took a sip from the glass, trying to fill the space in the conversation, suddenly glad she’d had the foresight to fill her glass now that her mouth and lips had turned desert dry. Condensation beaded as she tilted the glass, running down the side, making tiny rivulets around her fingers. She gasped as two icy drops splashed on to her singlet, leaching into the light fabric in ever-expanding circles.

His eyes followed the movement. He’d been fascinated watching her retreat, seeing her calm herself before facing him and stating her case. He’d been impressed by her no-nonsense sense of her own worth in the company—in spite of himself.

But right now he was more impressed with the way the droplets of water were soaking tantalisingly into the fabric of her top. He liked what it did to rattle her composure. He liked even better what it did to her breasts. In an instant they’d firmed and peaked and, like an invitation he couldn’t refuse, he was drawn closer.

‘You’re turning out to be a woman of considerable talents,’ he murmured, as he bridged the few steps between them. He came to a halt immediately before her. She was tall enough, but still she had to turn her head up to look him in the eye. That was good—that gave him an uninterrupted view of the sweep of her throat and the swell of tanned-to-honey-gold skin that disappeared tantalisingly under her singlet top.

She swallowed as he reached out a hand between them, her eyes wide like a startled doe’s, fearful and uncertain. He put his fingers to the pearl choker at her throat, lifting it gently from her satin smooth skin, feeling the pearl’s warmth where it had lain against her flesh.

‘And is this one of yours, too?’

She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t move, as a fear she hadn’t felt in a long time resurfaced, threatening to swamp her. Danger, she recognised. The man meant danger. He was way too close, way too imposing and when he’d reached out a hand she’d thought—Oh, Lord, just the way he’d been watching her breasts had felt like the graze of a man’s hand. And if his gaze could be that powerful…If he’d reached out to touch her there…

But instead he’d picked up her choker, the trace of his fingertips against her throat a tingling trail, searingly heated, shockingly intimate. She shuddered under his touch, a rush of realisation, some sixth sense alerting her that this danger was like nothing she’d known before. This brand of danger was more potent, more powerful and much more magnetic.

‘It’s beautiful,’ he said, his voice husky and low and further tugging on her senses as he examined the piece. ‘Just like its wearer.’ His eyes lifted till they met hers. ‘Did you design it?’

Breath rushed into the vacuum of her lungs. But she couldn’t let herself reflect on what he’d just said, even though his rich dark eyes seemed intent on making her forget everything else. She had to concentrate on the necklace—and on what he’d asked.

It shouldn’t be so hard, not to talk about one of her favourite pieces. Suspended on a band of nitrite, the single gem was held in place by an intricate coil of gold. The pearl, a magnificent eighteen-millimetre perfect round, had been a gift from Laurence following the success of their first collection. It had seemed appropriate that she should wear it today.

‘I made it,’ she admitted at last, reaching up to her neck instinctively, only to encounter his hand still cradling the piece. For a second their fingers brushed and lingered—and she saw something fleeting skid across his eyes, a spark, a surge of flame, and a corresponding heat pooled low in her belly.

‘That’s some pearl,’ he murmured without letting go, his eyes now on her lips and not on the pearl at all. But there was no time to consider why that should be so, not with his mouth hovering near, the subtle tugging pressure he was exerting on her choker drawing her closer.

She swallowed, tried to make her mouth work, her senses filled with the scent of him, warm and woody and wanting her.

‘Thank you,’ she whispered, already imagining the taste of his lips on hers, already liking it. ‘Laurence gave it to me.’

He blinked, his eyes changing from caramel warm to granite cold in an instant. Then he dropped the choker and straightened.

‘No doubt you made it worth his while.’

The mood shattered, with her thoughts in total disarray. This time when her fingers found her pearl they circled the precious gem like it was a talisman, praying for it to give her strength. But she would need more than a pearl if she intended to keep this man at bay.

So she gathered her thoughts and bit back, ‘Oh, yes. I’d certainly like to think so.’

Anger lit the eyes filled so recently with desire. Anger and disgust.

‘Tell me it’s not true,’ he demanded. ‘Tell me you didn’t sleep with my father.’

She stared up at him and allowed herself a half-smile. So he wasn’t disgusted with her? He was disgusted with himself, disgusted that he could be attracted to someone his father had slept with. Maybe Laurence’s gift would protect her after all, because as long as Zane saw her as the pearl master’s mistress, she would be safe from him. And, more importantly, she would be safe from her own quavering resistance.

‘I don’t have to tell you anything! It’s none of your business.’ She moved to go around him and return to her desk, but his hands grabbed hold of her shoulders, dragging her in, imprisoning her close to him.

‘Did you?’

She looked down at his hands. ‘I’m surprised you can even bear to touch me.’ Then she focused her gaze until it was needle sharp and hitched one eyebrow provocatively. ‘Or are you merely intent on ensuring you inherit all your father’s assets?’

She didn’t wait for his response. She shrugged off his hands and marched to the desk, collecting up her designs and plans. ‘Excuse me, I’d love to stay and chat, but I have work to do. And then I’m going home—to pack.’

‘Why? Where are you going?’

‘I don’t know,’ she admitted halfway across the room. ‘But it’s going to be bad enough working with you until the launch. There’s just no way I can stomach the thought of living with you, as well.’

‘What do you mean,’ he called out behind her, ‘“until the launch”?’

She dragged in a breath and slowly swivelled around, sending up a silent apology to Laurence as she did so. But it wasn’t so much that she wouldn’t honour his deathbed request, she told herself, she was merely putting a time limit on it.

‘I’m giving my notice, Zane. I’ll stay until the launch of the new collection. I’ll finish what I have to do. But then you won’t have to put up with me any more. I’ll be leaving Broome—for good.’

CHAPTER FOUR

LAURENCE HAD CLEARLY had other ideas. A few days later both Ruby and Zane sat dumbfounded in Laurence’s former office as his executor explained the terms of his will.

‘I don’t understand,’ Ruby said uncertainly. But it wasn’t that she hadn’t heard the lawyer the first time; it was just that it made no sense.

Derek Finlayson breathed an apologetic sigh. ‘I realise it’s a lot to take in right now, but basically what it comes down to is that you and Zane have been bequeathed equal shares in ninety per cent of the Bastiani Pearl Corporation. As of now you each control forty-five per cent of the business.’

‘But…’ She looked around for help, but Zane wasn’t giving any. He sat, rigid and fixed, his face a tight mask. ‘But I don’t want it.’

Zane swung his head around, the disbelief in his features reading like an accusation.

She shook her head. Nothing made sense. Just last weekend she’d moved her things out of the house and into a cabin at the Cable Beach Resort. It was five-star luxury all the way, but that wasn’t the reason she’d chosen it. It was because it was about as far away as she could possibly get from Zane. And she’d figured it would only be for the short term. Already she had some interviews lined up with jewellery manufacturers in Sydney. In the past few years, she’d made herself a solid reputation with the Bastiani Corporation. The successful launch of the Passion Collection would seal it. If all went well, she’d be on her way out of Broome in just a matter of months.

But if she stayed…

She couldn’t let herself think about what that would be like. Right now she knew she’d be gone from Zane and his poisoned atmosphere in less than three months. She couldn’t bear to think about what it would be like to have to survive any longer than that.

‘I don’t want it,’ she insisted, her throat squeezed tight. ‘I don’t understand why Laurence would have done this at all. In fact, I’ve already started making arrangements to leave Broome for good. I have job prospects. I won’t even be here—’

The solicitor removed his glasses and rubbed the crinkled bridge of his nose and looked like he was about to say something, before he stopped suddenly, as if thinking better of it. Instead, he gave a measured sigh and replaced the glasses, peering intently through them down the long sweep of his nose at her. ‘Clearly, under the terms of the will,’ he started, his words delivered slowly for more effect, ‘Laurence expected you to remain here in Broome to co-manage the corporation with Zane. Maybe you might want to take a moment to reconsider your position? The remaining ten per cent of the business will be apportioned among the employees and house staff based on length of service to the company. They will need the business run profitably for their benefit, as well.’

‘Let her go,’ Zane interrupted. ‘She doesn’t want to stay! I’ll buy her out.’

Derek Finlayson blinked and directed his grey steely gaze towards Zane. ‘I understand your distress, Mr Bastiani, but it’s your father’s wishes that I’m concerned with right now. Laurence clearly wished for both you and Miss Clemenger to manage the business for the benefit of all the stakeholders. But, after all, it’s been Miss Clemenger who’s been working alongside Laurence for several years now. Right now she would be more familiar with the actual business. It’s crucial she stays, you must see that.’

‘I haven’t exactly been sitting on my hands, myself. I have businesses of my own to take care of in London.’

‘Your father provided for that,’ said the lawyer, riffling through his notes, letting the acid in Zane’s comment slide by. ‘Ah, yes, here it is. You’ll have whatever time you need to return to London and do a handover. I can run you through the details later.

‘Now, Miss Clemenger,’ he continued, ‘Laurence clearly knew how you felt about looking after the business and the employees. And he trusted you to champion those rights and to carry on his vision—to keep the Bastiani Corporation at the forefront of the industry in both pearl design and innovation. He trusted you to look after the company’s profitability for not only your benefit, but for theirs, as well. Is there anything else I can say that will help convince you?’

‘But if she doesn’t want to stay—’

‘No!’ Ruby wheeled her head around, blue eyes clashing with seething brown. ‘Mr Finlayson is right. Laurence wanted this. He wanted me to stay. I’m not about to walk away from my responsibility to the business or to the employees. And there’s just no way I’m going to let Laurence down!’

Derek Finlayson’s lips pulled into an unfamiliar smile as he pounded the table with his fist. ‘That’s the ticket! Laurence would be proud of you, my dear. As for you, Zane, how long do you think you’ll need to hand over your businesses? That is…’ He regarded him through shrewd eyes, his eyebrows arched ‘…if you do intend to return to Broome to co-manage the business?’

‘Oh, I’ll be back,’ he said, looking at Ruby, his hostile eyes incinerating the air between them. ‘Make no mistake about that.’

‘How did you manage that?’

The lawyer had gone, the room was empty of everyone except her and Zane, yet the atmosphere still felt too crowded, too thick with tension, too thunderous with his snapped words.

Her mind a whirl, Ruby barely registered his question over her own panicked second thoughts. She was trapped. She’d been so close to walking away, just twelve short weeks away from being free, and now she was locked into the Bastiani Corporation, effectively shackled to a man she despised. Shackled by pearls. Had Laurence had any concept of what he’d done to her?

“Look after Zane,” his father had begged. She wanted to laugh. From what she’d seen, Zane needed nobody to look after him. But she’d look after the company, she had no problem with that. But as for Zane, Zane could look after himself.

‘What an extraordinary coup.’

‘What do you mean?’ She responded absently as his words finally filtered through, more intrigued right now that he saw things so differently to her. Why on earth would he think this was what she wanted? The concept that she was now suddenly worth a very large fortune, in addition to what her own family connections provided her with, was no compensation for her growing fears.

Laurence had done her no favours.

This was no beneficial bequest.

This was a sentence.

‘It’s not like you’re family. You’re merely an employee. So how did you manage to convince my father to leave you forty-five per cent of the company?’

She dragged her eyes away from the bookshelves she’d been staring through and looked up at him, trying to blink away her confusion.

‘I did nothing to “convince” him. I had no idea your father decided to frame his will that way. Why would I?’

‘No idea?’ He snorted his disbelief. ‘You lived with him and you make out you didn’t know? Surely you can understand that’s just a little difficult to believe.’

She shook her head. ‘Of course I didn’t know! I told you I was resigning. You knew I was leaving. Why would I have made those plans if I’d known anything about Laurence’s bequest?’

‘Don’t play the innocent. You never had any intention of leaving! Not while you had a chance of benefiting in my father’s will. Saying you’d stay till the launch safely covered you there.’

She sighed, raising both her hands to the ceiling. What was the point of trying to convince him? What did it matter what he thought? ‘It doesn’t matter what you believe,’ she acceded. ‘The fact is, Laurence has given me no choice. I have no option but to stay.’

He laughed, harsh and bitter, seizing on her admission. ‘Funny how quickly a few hundred million dollars can make you change your tune. Of course,’ he mocked, disbelief dripping from his words, ‘we know it’s not really the money.’

‘I don’t care about the money! Not for me. But if I leave, what happens to the employees? You’ll be gone for how long? Who would manage the company? How is that going to carry on Laurence’s vision? I can’t do that to people I worked with, that Laurence wanted to be looked after. I can’t do that to people like Kyoto, after all his years of service.’

‘You’ll stay for the sake of the employees? How noble of you.’ He leaned up close. ‘Pardon me if I don’t believe there isn’t just a smattering of self-interest involved.’

‘No pardon necessary,’ she hissed back. ‘I wouldn’t expect you to believe anything, let alone the truth. You’ve shown a marked absence of that ability ever since you arrived back in Broome.’

‘And you’ve shown a remarkable inability to admit to the truth! Why do you pretend to be something you’re not? Why do you pretend not to understand what is so obvious to everyone else?’

She put her hands on her hips. Damn the man for his constant slurs and sordid innuendoes. ‘So what is it that’s so obvious to everyone else, Zane? What exactly do you mean? Maybe you should get it right off your chest.’

‘You need it spelt out? Okay! Why the hell would my father leave you such a huge share of the company? Forty-five per cent! You’ve already admitted my father was special to you. So why would he leave you a fortune if you weren’t something very much more than special?’

A rush of blood surged and crashed in her ears, urging her to fight.

‘You’re saying your father settled a fortune on me for living with him—for being his mistress. Is that right?’

‘Got it in one.’

‘Why is it with you that everything has to come down to sex?’

‘Doesn’t it?’

She wanted to disagree, but then, wasn’t this exactly what she wanted him to think? If he hated her for sleeping with his father, then he wouldn’t want to touch her, and if he didn’t touch her, then she’d have a chance of resisting this bizarre magnetism of his, she’d have a chance of not falling victim to his power.

So instead of giving in to the inciting jungle beat of her heart and lashing back a reply in the negative, she embarked on a different course. Arching one eyebrow provocatively, she pasted on a sultry smile and pushed her chest out conspicuously. He liked her breasts, he’d already made that more than clear. And then, as if on cue, his eyes followed the movements of her bustline, his gaze hot and hungry, and her smile widened. She knew she was baiting him, but it was no more than he deserved. He’d already made his mind up about her and it suited her purposes. Why not go with his prejudices? Why not play them for all they were worth?

‘Well, you’ve sure got me there, Zane,’ she said, her voice intentionally husky as she ran one hand slowly down the curve of her hip. ‘You know damn well I was special to him. Obviously our relationship meant a lot more to him than I realised. I never expected him to be quite so generous in return.’

The scarlet hue to his skin deepened as his throat corded and kicked out a pulse.

‘You know,’ she said in mock understanding, placing a flirty finger along her cheek as her tactics bore such luscious fruit. ‘I know what your problem is. I suspect maybe I was even more special to him than his own son. That’s what really gets your back up, isn’t it Zane? He loved me, and not you. That’s what you can’t abide. That’s why you hate me so much, isn’t it?’

He propelled himself a step closer, his movements charged with super-anger, his features contorted with rage, and Ruby’s heart skipped a beat. Why was he so angry when she was merely agreeing with whatever tawdry views of her he already held? His enraged features told her she’d more than made her mark—she’d gone too far!

‘Zane…’ she uttered, taking an instinctive step backwards as he powered closer. ‘I didn’t mean—’

The pulse in his brow hammered visibly, his eyes wild with turmoil, and whatever she’d been going to say was forgotten in the broiling atmosphere.

‘Of course he loved you more than he loved me. Why wouldn’t he want to?’ he said, his voice strangely soft, at odds with his entire posture. He reached out a hand and she could see the tension in his corded muscles, his tight skin. She flinched, but his hand moved to one side, to touch her hair, to softly curl a loose strand around his finger, to curve the back of his hand over her cheek as his eyes travelled over her face, burning a trail down to her shoulders, her bustline. Then lower….

She swallowed. ‘No,’ she whispered, sensing the danger had shifted gears and taken a new direction—a new direction that had her body humming with interest instead of shrinking away in fear. She licked her lips, her breathing suddenly shallow and unreliable as if he’d burned up the oxygen between them. ‘I didn’t mean that. I was wrong—’

He hushed her mouth with a finger from his other hand, stopping her words and her breath in the same instant. His scent wound its way into her, his taste leached into her recently moistened lips and his touch was so tender. So tender when he should be so angry.

She didn’t want him to be tender. She wanted him angry. Angry was consistent. Angry she could deal with. But this sudden tenderness…

Somehow this was infinitely more dangerous.

‘You were right,’ he admitted at last, dropping the hand at her mouth to skim down her throat and over the fullness of her breasts like an electric charge that made her gasp involuntarily as it scorched a trail all the way down. ‘You obviously gave him something I never could. But I have to ask myself one question. For a forty-five per cent share in the company, for something like two hundred million dollars—’

He hesitated, his face just a hair’s breadth away from her, his pause like a vacuum between them while his heated gaze continued to read her eyes, to caress her lips, as brazen as a torch brand on her flesh while the gentle pressure on her hair kept her close. And then his head tilted as his lips curled up into a thin, contemptible smile.

‘Well, it sure begs the question—just how good are you in bed?’

CHAPTER FIVE

LIKE A GUNSLINGER’S trigger finger, her hand itched to let fly. His face was temptingly close and already she knew how satisfying it could be to crack her open palm against that arrogant visage. But too often lately with this man she’d let her emotions rule her actions and she’d lashed out either verbally or physically, only to immediately regret her lack of control. She wouldn’t let herself give in to that base instinct again, no matter what the provocation.

Instead, she jammed her fingers into a tight knot behind her back and forced out a laugh even while her nails dug sharply into the flesh of her palms.

‘I wouldn’t give that a second thought,’ she said, flicking her head away, yanking the curl of her hair from his reach. ‘Because that’s the one thing you’ll never find out.’

Triumph fizzed in her veins as she turned for the door. She’d done it! She’d kept her cool and put him well and truly in his place.

He watched her stride away, her chin thrust high as if she’d just won some major battle, even though her movements still looked wobbly, almost as if she was having a hard time making the transformation from warm and soft to cold and aloof. And she had been only too warm and soft and alive a moment ago. He’d felt her sculpted perfection under the glance of his hand. He’d sensed her feminine power. She was magnificent when she was enraged, and yet with a vulnerability that cracked any hard edges right off.

No wonder his father had fallen so hard. He suppressed a growl. He didn’t want to think about her with his father! To throw herself away on someone like him—what a waste!

But if she’d thought she’d got away with the last word—bad luck.

‘My father always was a sucker for a bit on the side,’ he reminded her, ‘but for all the millions you’ve been gifted, I sincerely hope he got enough bang for his buck.’

Her eyes blazed with fury in a face flushed with rage. ‘How dare you!’ she fired, wheeling her body around to confront him, her stance aggressive, ready to fight. ‘You can say or think what you like about me—I don’t care!—but I will not stand by and hear you denigrate your father’s memory. What kind of son are you that you can say such things when Laurence is barely cold in his grave? Your father was a man of integrity—not that you’d have any concept what that means!’

His eyebrows rose of their own accord. So she still had fight? He had to hand it to her, she didn’t give up easily. But then, given the right financial incentive, she’d soon buckle.

‘Trust me,’ he assured her, as he leaned back lazily against the desk. ‘I know more about my father than you give me credit for.’

She laughed. ‘I’d sooner put my trust in a crocodile!’

‘Come, now, Ruby,’ he soothed, setting his voice to bored reasonableness. ‘You know you don’t have to defend my father any more. So drop the act. You’ve got your reward. Why not take it?’

‘What? You seriously think I consider Laurence’s bizarre bequest as some kind of reward? By forcing me to work alongside you? A prison sentence would be more appealing right now.’

He pushed himself away from the desk towards her. ‘For once, I couldn’t agree more.’

Her eyes narrowed as he moved closer, as if surprised by his ready agreement, her body becoming more erect, more defiant with each step he took.

‘Clearly neither of us wants to have anything to do with the other. So I have the perfect solution.’ He smiled. ‘I’ll buy you out. I’ll pay for your share of the company with cold hard cash. You can be out of Broome on the first available flight. Out of here and able to take advantage of those job opportunities you’ve got lined up elsewhere. Not that you’ll need a job ever again with what you’ll walk away with.’

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