by Robyn Donald
After dinner Chloe went off to bed without protest, asking only that Iona read the book again, and then innocently holding her face up to be kissed before she was tucked in.
Much later Iona checked her soundly sleeping charge. For a few seconds she stood beside Chloe’s bed, picking out her resemblance to her father, and wondering where the little girl had been when her father had holidayed in Tahiti eighteen months ago.
Like so many questions, it would never be answered, but the knowledge of the child’s existence tarnished the memory of those days and nights.
She turned and went out, careful to leave the door open. And, although her bed was huge and supremely comfortable, she lay awake for what seemed a long time before dropping off.
Much later she woke with a start. Lifting herself on one elbow, she strained to hear. Nothing…no sound but the hum of distant traffic…yet something had alerted her. Chloe?
She climbed stealthily out of bed and grabbed her T-shirt and the towel she’d put close by in case her charge woke. Ears straining, she listened again, but whatever had woken her was silent. Perhaps Chloe had murmured in her sleep…
After shrugging into the shirt she peeked warily past her door. Nothing moved in the dim glow of the nightlight. And then her stomach clenched when she thought she heard a sound from the child’s room.
Luke. Of course it had to be him. But she needed to be sure.
She wrapped the towel around her waist, then tiptoed through the door. And stopped abruptly at the sight of the dark form standing beside the child’s bed.
Intensely relieved, she recognised Luke immediately and shot back out. She didn’t hear him move, but he caught up to her before she got to her own bedroom door.
‘I am sorry to have disturbed you,’ he said in a voice pitched to carry to her ears only.
He’d taken off his tie and coat; in the soft yellow glow of the nightlight the fine fabric of his white shirt contrasted starkly with sleek olive skin, showing off the clean, athletic lines of his powerful body.
Inside Iona a treacherous need smouldered back into life, a forbidden, tantalising expectancy she remembered only too well. She swallowed. ‘I heard something,’ she said in explanation, then stopped and swallowed again because her voice sounded oddly breathless.
And she must seem a total idiot, coming out with such an obvious statement.
He nodded, eyes glinting, mouth curving in a smile that shook her defences. ‘You heard me trying not to be heard.’
Quick heat burned through her. The soft T-shirt fabric felt like sacking against her acutely sensitive skin. Her breath locked in her lungs when his gaze fell to her breasts.
To her intense relief a sound from Chloe’s room froze them both.
He said quietly, ‘She’s just turning over.’
Trying desperately to control her chaotic reactions, Iona waited until the child settled into silence again, then pushed open her own door.
Poised for flight into the refuge of her room, she said over her shoulder, ‘She went to bed without any problems.’
‘Good. You got the parcel?’
Thank heavens the dim nightlight couldn’t reveal her scalding cheeks. She said stiffly, ‘Yes. Thank you.’
‘You didn’t like the gown?’
Chapter Four
DAMN him, why couldn’t he pretend he hadn’t noticed? Tiny shivers of sensation scudded the length of Iona’s spine, tightening her nerves, shortening her breath, so that her voice sounded strained when she answered, ‘It’s lovely, but of course I can’t accept it.’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s not—’ she searched for the right word, finally settling on ‘—suitable.’
‘I’m sorry. I must inform my personal assistant that he’s losing his touch.’
The note of amusement in his tone shafted through her. She dragged enough breath into her lungs to say coolly, ‘Don’t do that—he has great taste.’ And, rallying her thoughts into some sort of order, she added, ‘I hope your meeting went well. If Chloe wakes again I’ll deal with it. Goodnight.’
His assessing gaze didn’t waver. ‘You must be a very light sleeper—I was as quiet as I could be when I came in. But perhaps you weren’t sleeping…?’
A slight uplift of tone at the end of the sentence turned it into a question. No, she realised with a jolt of outrage, not a question; he actually wondered if she’d been lying in wait for him.
What conceit! Yet she had to fight back a craven desire to—what? Surrender? He seemed entirely relaxed, but she could sense a humming energy about him, a slow, fierce lick of fire that called to something deeply subversive in her.
She didn’t dare speak in case her voice gave her away. He must have taken her silence for assent because she felt his hand on her shoulder, light yet somehow possessive. His touch sent shivers of anticipation coursing through her, zinging through nerves and cells like heat lightning, dazzling and dangerous and powerful.
Her mind screamed Get the hell out of here, but a more primal urgency consumed her, keeping her still and acquiescent as he turned her.
His eyes glittered and his voice was rough and deep. ‘Perhaps you were thinking—as I have been all day—that we should not ungratefully ignore this gift of time from the gods.’
His hand slid to her back, the other lifting her chin. Excitement hammered through her. The subdued light emphasised the arrogant perfection of his features, the sensuous mouth and intent, elemental hunger in his lion eyes.
‘Tell me you forgot me,’ he ordered, his voice harsh.
Yes, tell him, caution insisted. Lie to him…
‘No.’ The admission came out like a sigh, softly languorous, silken with need and longing.
At last, she thought with a relief so intense it blocked out everything but delight. At last.
She had been waiting for this ever since—ever since she’d looked at the mirror in the penthouse powder room and seen him standing in the doorway. Without realising it she’d been waiting for his arms to close around her and pull her against him, for his lips to touch hers in a deliciously provocative butterfly kiss on the corner of her mouth.
Waiting for the driving beat of his heart into hers, the subtle arousal of his body, the powerful seduction of being protected and desired at the same time…
Waiting for Luke.
And for the sweet, powerful hunger that leapt into life in every cell of her body, filling her with the passion only he could rouse in her.
The shock of realisation sent a rush of sensation through her, tightening her breasts and heating the pit of her stomach. For a few stunned seconds she stayed immobile, until the reality of everything hit her in an elemental, all-consuming flood, weakening her knees so that she swayed into him.
He understood the silent surrender, bending his head so that she felt the soft whisper of his words against her sensitised lips. ‘Good. Because I could not forget you.’
It was like falling into an inferno, a headlong surrender to passion so intense and incandescent the primal, white-hot honesty of desire burned away common sense and caution and the cold chill of reality.
At first his lips were controlled and seeking, but the wildfire intensity of her response must have set fire to him too, because his mouth hardened and the kiss became an act of total possession, deepening into a hunger so blatant it demanded everything from her.
Iona shuddered at the exquisite sensations his touch awakened in her, and his arms tightened, bringing her into intimate juxtaposition with his hard loins. An instant rush of adrenalin stimulated her into complete arousal, recklessly whetting her appetite for him into a sensual clamour that made nonsense of all her forebodings.
She wanted him with a desperate vulnerability that terrified her, jolting her into awareness of what she was doing—what he was offering…
Gasping, she jerked her head back, rejecting the carnal impulses that rioted through every cell and clouded her mind in a haze of heady, dangerous desire.
; He loosened his grip, but didn’t let her go. ‘So, it is still there,’ he said softly. ‘What is it, do you think, this incredible urge to carry you off somewhere and never let you out of my bed again?’
Iona moistened her tender lips, an effort of will almost negated when his kindling gaze followed the tiny movement of her tongue.
For a pathetic second she wondered if his comment meant he might feel something more than naked, unsatisfied lust, but he wasn’t wanting her in his life, only in his bed.
‘Sex,’ she croaked, brutally honest. Sex for him—but so much more than that for her.
He laughed. ‘Then what are we going to do about it?’ he said, and bent his head again.
Iona stiffened, fighting the passionate need that roared back into life. ‘I’ll bite you,’ she threatened.
But the words came out low and husky, intimate and too languorous to impress him. He kissed the pulse that beat wildly in her throat, his lips lingering with erotic effect against the soft skin, so that Iona shivered again, desperately resisting the tempting whisper to surrender, let him take her, lose herself again in the voluptuous enchantment of his lovemaking.
‘I remember your bites,’ he growled, and gently nipped the sensitive pleasure point where her neck met her shoulders. ‘I soon learned that like the tigress, once you used your teeth on me your completion would soon come.’
‘You were wrong,’ she managed, and put paid to every instinct by pulling back, away from the taut magnetism of his body, of the mindless sex he was offering.
Been there, done that, thrown away the T-shirt, she thought wildly as she fought to repress the smouldering pangs of addictive hunger, so close to craving it almost broke through the tattered remnants of her common sense.
‘If I am wrong, why are you trembling?’
She shook her head and pushed against the door. It didn’t give, and she couldn’t think how to open it, until Luke said something in Greek and turned the handle, pushing it back.
‘Go now,’ he ordered, the words low and harsh from between almost clenched teeth. ‘Before I take up the offer your body is making. You want me every bit as much as I want you—at least admit that.’
Indignation at her own weakness lifted her chin, froze her voice. ‘Goodnight.’
Swiftly she slipped through the door and closed it firmly on him, furious at her white-hot reaction to his potent, untrammelled masculinity. Halfway to the bed she had to stop for a few seconds and consciously relax her strained muscles, fight back a hunger that had never gone away.
Shivering, she crawled under the covers. Although she’d left Tahiti convinced she’d get over him, it had taken only one look from him to make her realise his power over her. But until that kiss of a few minutes ago she hadn’t accepted that the feelings she’d stringently repressed were too potent to ignore.
Since Tahiti she hadn’t been able to summon even a flicker of interest in any other man. So why hadn’t she realised that Luke had altered her in a fundamental way?
He hadn’t changed. Oh, he still wanted her, but for her that was no longer enough.
A pang of deep, painful emotion tore through her.
How likely was it that he had stayed celibate? He was only too cynically aware of the charisma of his smile, the intoxicating, dangerous physical presence that backed up his formidable character. Without a cent to his name he’d still be inundated by panting women.
She’d recognised that dark male authority instantly. The impact of his personality—and the heat of his appreciative metallic survey—had overwhelmed her, melting the ice that had kept her heart and body in a frozen limbo.
Oh, stop it right now, she commanded her treacherous brain in disgust.
Go to sleep.
Easier to say that than do it, she thought wryly when she woke the next morning, eyes heavy with too little rest. Not that sleep had helped; she was still tense and wary—and oddly, stupidly, expectant.
The silence probably meant Chloe hadn’t woken before her, thank heavens. A glance at her watch elicited a soft gasp. She’d slept through her alarm. She scrambled out of bed, showered, and got into yesterday’s clothes, grimacing a little at the dampness of the underwear she’d washed the night before.
Moving quietly, she walked out of her room.
‘Good morning.’
With a shocked squeak she jumped. Luke must have prowled up behind her like some predator on the hunt; she hadn’t heard a thing. She took in a jagged breath and turned, catching a black-browed frown.
‘You are not afraid of me?’ he demanded incredulously.
‘Of course not,’ she defended herself in her crispest voice.
‘Something frightened you?’
She said, ‘I thought everyone else was asleep.’ It was a pretty lame excuse, and she didn’t blame him for the ironic lift of his brows.
‘You are of a nervous disposition? I don’t remember that.’ The words hung for a few seconds, before he said smoothly, ‘Surely it is a disadvantage in someone trained to work with children?’
Admitting he was the only person who affected her so intensely was not an option. Matching his raised brows with her own, she ignored his goading tone. ‘I’m not nervous—I just didn’t expect to have someone come up behind me. Where is Chloe?’
‘She is asleep,’ he told her. ‘Her body is still adjusting to the change in time zones. She will wake up when she is ready. Come and have breakfast—I have a proposition to put to you.’
A pang of shaming anticipation sizzled through her. They were almost the same words he’d used in Tahiti.
Barricades crashing into place, Iona sent him a suspicious glance. He met it with an inscrutable face and cool, dismissive eyes. Clearly the kiss they’d exchanged had had little effect on him.
Chagrined, she chided herself for overreacting so foolishly. But her tone was stiff and cautious when she asked, ‘About what?’
‘I spoke to Neelie—Chloe’s nanny—during the night,’ he said calmly. ‘The news about her mother is not good, and she will have to stay in England for some time—weeks certainly, months possibly. I have more business meetings for the next couple of days, so I need someone to look after Chloe. I am offering you the job until I leave New Zealand—in about a week. Chloe is clearly enjoying your company, and you seem to have formed a bond with her.’
‘I can’t,’ she said, automatically shaking her head. ‘It’s not—’
He broke in. ‘I have already spoken to your cousin, who tells me she can spare you.’
‘How did you contact her?’ she demanded, before she could stop herself. ‘I have her work phone.’
‘I got someone to find her personal phone number,’ he said calmly.
When Iona was angry, Lukas noted with wry amusement, her eyes frosted into a cold clear green.
Memories stirred his body into action. Hair like a waterfall against him, the long, silky strands cool and tactile, and skin as sweet and glowing as a white peach…
Yet always, no matter how passionate her surrender, there was a reserve he couldn’t penetrate. Emotional closeness had never been on the cards with his previous lovers, yet from his first meeting with Iona he’d found himself challenged by her aloofness—a challenge he should have ignored.
He should certainly have been strong enough last night to resist the temptation to kiss her. Without even trying she was a threat to the foundation on which he’d built his adult life. He enjoyed women but trusted no one; bitter experience had taught him that love didn’t last. He was a quick learner, and didn’t need more than one lesson.
Nothing like that kiss would happen again, he promised himself. From now on he was determined to keep the situation on a professional level.
Ruthlessly he forced his mind back to the subject in hand. ‘Your cousin is happy for you to do this for as long as Chloe needs you.’
The businesslike Ms Makepeace had also shown herself to be a good negotiator in organising Iona’s wages and conditions.
&nb
sp; He stated them now, watching her face closely. That steely reserve was very evident as she listened, and he couldn’t help admiring her gritty dignity when she replied.
‘All right.’ Her tone was remote and unemotional. ‘I agree.’
‘You’ll want to collect clothes and make arrangements. You can do that while Chloe and I go to the zoo with your cousin and her sons. I’ve organised a driver for you.’
Her sensuous mouth fell open, was hastily closed, and she lowered thick lashes—a second too late to conceal her surprise. Lukas realised he was enjoying himself. He might regret that kiss—because it was unprofessional—but Iona never bored him.
Did she have a lover, perhaps, waiting impatiently for her? None had shown up in her security check, so almost certainly not. Why? Surely she wasn’t still holding the memory of the dead fiancé close to her heart?
Surprised and irritated by the visceral flash of pos-sessiveness his thoughts aroused, he shrugged them off. Her fiancé had died saving her; naturally she would remember him lovingly.
Their Tahitian affair had been a magical experience, but Chloe was more important to him than any other woman; she needed him as no one else ever had.
Even though Iona made his body sing in a way it never had with any other woman.
‘That’s very thoughtful of you,’ she said then, in a level, aloof voice only a degree or so warmer than ice.
She was still exasperated when she arrived back at the apartment building after scrabbling together a collection of clothes and necessities. Just before she’d closed the door behind her, she had gathered up the references she’d been given when she’d left the nursery school to join Angie.
If Luke wanted proof she’d been a good teacher, she’d take great delight in waving them in his arrogantly handsome face.
The concierge hurried across the foyer to say, ‘If you leave your pack and bag here I’ll see they get up to the penthouse. Mr Michelakis requested that you meet him at the zoo by the elephant house.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘In ten minutes,’ he said urgently.
