A Reluctant Mistress

by Robyn Donald

  ‘I’m glad you had those years with her,’ Natalia said even more fiercely. Her parents had both loved her. Perhaps Clay’s lonely, harsh childhood explained the courage and initiative that had led to his success.

  The waitress came over, smiled at them both, and asked how their meal was. Clay said, ‘It’s delicious, thank you.’ And when she’d left them, he observed, ‘It’s an unusual restaurant to find in a place like Bowden.’

  Natalia bristled. ‘Why?’

  His lopsided smile teased her. ‘Sophisticated cuisine in the middle of a farming district?’

  ‘A lot of people in Bowden have travelled widely and lived overseas,’ she said, relieved by the change of subject. ‘It’s quite a cosmopolitan place. I thought that was one of the reasons you bought Pukekahu.’

  ‘I live in Auckland, remember?’

  ‘What are your plans for the station?’ she asked, wondering if he’d tell her to mind her own business.

  He wasn’t as blunt, although his smile was tinged with mockery. ‘To turn it into a productive unit.’

  ‘There’s a lot to do,’ she said. ‘The previous owner ran it into the ground.’

  ‘He squeezed it dry,’ he said, and although he spoke without emphasis she felt a cold little clutch of nerves in her stomach.

  ‘It will be great to watch it come back to life again.’

  With cool adroitness Clay steered the conversation into local affairs, so that soon they were discussing a long-lived quarrel over the War Memorial Hall in Bowden. Delighted when she made him laugh by explaining the personalities and complicated district politics involved, Natalia forgot that she was far too attracted to this man—and that she knew even less about him than she had Dean Jamieson!

  From the tangled, acrimonious affairs of the hall committee they drifted on to the state of the economy, and somehow ended up dissecting a novel that had set the literary establishment on its ears. So aware of him that her body was taut with expectation, Natalia sparred and talked and listened, and enjoyed herself enormously.

  Until Phil walked in with Rachel and gave her a wounded stare. When Clay saw Natalia’s smile die, he demanded, ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she said, but of course he knew.

  ‘What did you do to him?’ he asked as Phil and Rachel were shown to a table on the other side of the room.

  ‘I went out with him for two months,’ she said shortly, ‘that’s all.’

  ‘And because of that he acts as though you’ve ruined his life?’

  Natalia didn’t blame him for disbelieving her—Phil was certainly behaving oddly. She muttered, ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

  Relationships, affairs—she was no good at them. Eventually love died and desire fizzled out. Her experience with Dean should have been a salutary lesson; it wasn’t Phil’s fault that she hadn’t learned it. He’d been hurt simply because she’d been foolish enough to want a pleasant companion, a male friend.

  She didn’t have the time or the emotional energy to cherish any sort of relationship.

  Of course if she gave Clay what he so patently wanted she wouldn’t have to find emotional energy; however you prettied it up, the sort of passion he spoke of was nothing more than nature’s instinctive drive to reproduce.

  The arrival of a large, brilliantly attired woman gave her a welcome break from her thoughts. Clay lifted an eyebrow as the woman sailed flamboyantly through the room.

  ‘That’s Soshanna,’ Natalia murmured. ‘She plays the piano—and is extremely good at it.’

  He nodded, smiling as the woman caught his eye and gave him an intimate come-hither glance before seating herself with a flourish. His expression altered slightly; he looked experienced and sophisticated and a little cynical.

  Yes, he knew how to handle himself. Probably no woman would ever break through that impervious self-containment to reach the heart beneath.

  If he had a heart…

  She’d read that children who weren’t loved were damaged for life. Had Olivia’s affection filled his empty heart and taught him how to love, or was Clay doomed to live his life by principles? Natalia’s heart contracted; she was filled with a swift, aching desire to give him everything he’d missed in those wretched first six years of his life.

  He surprised her by asking, ‘How old were you when you moved up here?’

  ‘Ten.’ Her face softened. ‘I adored it. I could run and run and run without having to worry about roads, and I used to stand at the top of the hill and pretend I was flying all the way out to the coast. And then I’d lie down and roll over and over to the bottom. My mother used to scold me for getting grass stains on my clothes, but my father understood.’

  Suddenly embarrassed, she saw that his gaze was fixed on to her face, watchful, unfaltering, like that of the bird of prey she’d first thought he resembled. ‘So you were uncaged,’ he said, startling her with his perceptiveness. ‘I didn’t realise that freedom had always been so important to you.’

  Soshanna had been playing quietly in the background, but at that moment the pianist slid into a moody piece, aching with grief and lost love, threaded with need. Natalia braced herself, then touched her heavy linen napkin to her lips, hiding behind it for a second.

  ‘What is it?’ Clay asked abruptly.

  ‘Nothing.’ She forced a cheerful note into her voice as she anchored the napkin in her lap with one hand.

  Oh, Phil, she thought, wondering how she’d managed to arouse such emotions in a man she merely liked. When he’d told her this song spelled out everything he felt for her she’d severed their relationship—too late. Had he requested it, or was it just a coincidence?

  She looked at Clay and felt a disturbing jolt of reaction. He was watching her with a cool, analytical regard, as though she was something to be studied.

  This man, she thought ironically, would no more pour his heart out to a woman in a song than he’d fly over the moon. In an odd sort of way he was safe. There’d be no dramatic scenes with him—if they became lovers it would be on his terms, and when the end came he’d finish it quickly and cleanly.

  And, she thought uneasily, she might be the one left with the broken heart.

  Perhaps no more than she deserved.

  The waitress appeared with a dessert menu. ‘Just coffee, thank you,’ Natalia said, watching with awe as Clay chose a pudding from the list.

  He caught her expression and laughed, an intriguing sound, deep and sexy, with a note in it that promised a talent for sensuality. It was a laugh you could remember while you were going to sleep, a laugh to make you smile, dream irresponsible dreams.

  ‘I have a sweet tooth,’ he admitted.

  And a large frame to keep going. Again she felt that disconcerting melting, the urgent, visceral twist of need that weakened her at the same time as it charged her with a hungry energy.

  But she wasn’t going to surrender to it. Why ask for trouble—however desirably it came wrapped? She had no space in her life for Clay. It was simply not sensible to break her heart over a man who wanted a relationship based only on sexual attraction.

  She had to remind herself of this while she basked in his assured, intelligent charm. Exciting though it was to be treated with such unsettling attention, acutely aware though she was of him, an uneasy restlessness chased across her nerves. This disturbing intimacy, this adrenaline-charge of fascination, meant nothing, was going nowhere.

  And she should be glad of it.

  ‘That’s a pensive look,’ he observed calmly.

  Perhaps something of her emotions showed in her expression, because he immediately said with lazy understanding, ‘Pulling down the shutters, Natalia?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she evaded. Accustomed to men who had to be told in clear, distinct words what was wrong with the women in their lives, Clay’s perceptiveness still startled her. His uncomfortably accurate conclusions indicated an extensive, threatening knowledge of women.

  He smiled at her
, his long-lashed gaze glinting with a tempting, dangerous magnetism. In a voice that was deep and smooth and sensual he said, ‘I’m glad I overwhelm you, Natalia. You overwhelm me too. I look at you and I want to lose myself in you, take you so far and so high and so deep that you’ll never remember what it was like before you met me.’

  Her mouth dried. Everything that had happened to her until that moment had been a mere prelude, time to be endured before she had heard Clay say that he wanted her. For a second—a half-second—that terrifying, awe-inspiring feeling of rightness, of oneness, locked her in stasis, even drowning out the clamorous response of her body to his voice, his words, the heated possessiveness of his gaze as it rested on her mouth, and then flicked up and caught her with her heart in her eyes.

  She shivered, and he asked harshly, ‘Are the languishing stares in your direction worrying you? I can put a stop to them.’

  Natalia realised who he meant just in time to stop herself from looking over her shoulder. ‘I’m sure he’s not languishing,’ she said tautly. ‘That makes Phil sound an idiot and he isn’t; he’s a nice man.’ It wasn’t his fault he’d tumbled into an unwise infatuation with a woman who had nothing to give him.

  ‘He watches you all the time, although it’s obvious he’d rather do almost anything else,’ Clay told her, that swift, cold detachment hardening his voice.

  Natalia compressed her lips. She didn’t want Clay taking a dislike to Phil; jobs like his were scarce around Bowden. ‘He’ll get over it,’ she hedged.

  Picking up a spoon, she stirred her coffee, watching the creamy liquid swirl in fragrant spirals. Clay drank his black and sugarless.

  ‘Is he stalking you?’

  ‘No!’ She controlled a lurch of shock. ‘Of course he’s not—in fact, until we saw him in your shed I hadn’t seen him for ages. I don’t know why he’s behaving like this.’

  ‘I understand why, poor devil,’ Clay said evenly, his eyes kindling again as they met Natalia’s. He gave her a narrow, enigmatic smile. ‘Because you’re a woman no man could forget—you have the power to eat into his heart and take over his brain.’

  Natalia drew in a jagged, heavy breath, shaking her head. ‘You make me sound like some—like a witch.’

  ‘Like a fairy woman,’ he said harshly. ‘Beautiful and perilous and fascinating, with eyes that challenge and a mouth that allures and promises and seduces.’

  She was still shaking her head when he looked across the room in unspoken summons, and was rewarded by the appearance of the waitress. ‘We’ll have the bill now, thank you,’ he said pleasantly.

  Smiling, the woman disappeared; in the background Soshanna’s skilful fingers coaxed more—and thankfully different—romantic mood music from the piano, a slow, seductive air sizzling with an undercurrent of passion. Natalia looked blindly down at the white tablecloth, her mind blundering around and around, the sound of his voice echoing in her ears, her heart clenched in bitter pain.

  Because he’d spoken only of desire, of need and hunger and passion, and although she wanted to experience them all with him, she wanted so much more now.

  And that, she thought emptily, was ridiculous; how could you fall in love with a stranger in a few days?

  ‘All right?’ Clay’s voice cut out everything else in the room, warming her, enclosing her, imprisoning her.

  ‘Fine, thank you.’ She picked up her coffee cup.

  The coffee tasted bitter, but it gave her some sort of courage. Almost as soon as she set her cup down for the last time the bill appeared and was dealt with. As they stood up to go Clay looked deliberately over Natalia’s head; after a moment of eye contact he gave a quick nod. Natalia didn’t have to be a mind-reader to decipher the silent exchange. He’d just given Phil a keep-off sign.

  Outside she could feel the clouds pressing down, weighted with rain. The forecast hadn’t been good; neither she nor Clay had to worry about shifting cattle to higher ground, but the farmers on the flats would already have done so.

  In the car he was silent until just before the turn-off; he switched on the wipers as a thin rain sifted down and smeared the windscreen. Then he said, ‘Stay with me tonight, Natalia.’

  ‘No,’ she said steadily, wincing at the amount of discipline needed to get that one word out.

  With headlights on full, a cattle truck surged around the next corner, veering too close. Natalia gasped, but Clay’s strong hands held the wheel on course as the BMW’s tyres bit into loose stones on the edge of the tarseal. The truck swung ponderously back on to the right side of the road and flashed past, swallowed by the night.

  A signpost flicked yellow in the glare of the headlights. Smoothly Clay applied the brakes, and when the BMW had slowed sufficiently he turned the wheel and the big car left the sealed road and hit the first lot of potholes. This behemoth took each hole in its stride, whereas Natalia’s truck rabbited through them with bone-shaking jolts.

  ‘I’ll do the gate,’ she said when they turned off the road.

  ‘Stay where you are,’ he said curtly, and got out, a tall, dominating silhouette, moving with a lithe grace that sent a shiver the length of Natalia’s spine. The rain shimmered down, crystal needles slanting across the beam of the lights. Clay heaved the gate off the drive and headed back for the car.

  ‘Leave it open on your way out,’ she said when he got in. ‘There’s nothing in this paddock. I shut the gate for the same reason I leave a light on in the house—because it looks as though I’m home.’

  ‘Sensible of you,’ he said levelly.

  Good, he wasn’t going to pressure her to sleep with him.

  Disappointment warred with relief, and won. She was, she realised with alarm, not just disappointed; her complicated mixture of emotions ranged from frustration through anger to outrage. She wanted him to kiss her into stupidity, to take the choice from her, to woo her with sex until she couldn’t say no. Her body ached with a keening hunger that almost shut down her brain.

  Not quite, thank God.

  Outside the house he cut the engine. ‘I’ll walk you in.’

  ‘Don’t worry. No one is going to leap at me from the bushes. You’ll only get wet.’

  But of course he came with her, and at the back door he said her name, and when she looked up, knowing what was coming, unable to resist—feverishly delighted because she didn’t want to resist—he kissed her and she went up in flames.

  It was like that—fire and more fire—until all she could feel was the pressure of his mouth on hers, wild and demanding and making no compromises, calling something from her that had never existed before, a piercing desire, a need so acute she longed desperately to abandon herself to it.

  Eventually he lifted his head, and his mouth moved to her eyelids, and then down the long line of her throat, finding the hurried pulse at its base. ‘You smell of Natalia,’ he said thickly against her skin, ‘and you feel like paradise.’

  Each word was a kiss, an incitement to surrender, a brand of possession; heat gathered inside her, insistent, merciless. She whispered his name, and of course he heard it.

  ‘Let me come in with you,’ he said deeply.

  Her breath shuddered through her as she lifted weighted eyelids. His eyes glittered in a face drawn with need, harshly angular, and his ardent mouth seduced her with kisses that sabotaged her will-power, promising her heaven in the honeyed oblivion of the senses.

  Exultant, consumed by pleasure, she almost yielded, but some last remnant of caution warned her in time. ‘No,’ she breathed. And more strongly, ‘No, Clay.’

  His arms tightened around her; he was fully aroused, as aroused as she was. Passion sharpened its claws on her; afraid she was losing the battle, she repeated, ‘No, Clay!’ She clenched her teeth to stop them chattering; her lips were tender, slightly swollen, making a meal of each word.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said in a raw voice, ‘I’m not going to push you, or dog you. I’ll go now—but I’ll wait until you’ve checked the house out. Can
I do the hydroponics for you?’

  ‘No—’

  ‘It can’t be difficult,’ he interrupted.

  This, she thought dimly, was the difference between Clay and Dean Jamieson—Clay was protective, he wanted to save her from going out into the rain and the dark. His consideration warmed her heart and she said, ‘It’s not difficult at all,’ and told him what to do: a matter of reading two dials.

  He kissed her one last time, then set her away from him. In a thick, constricted tone he said, ‘Go in now. Make sure everything’s all right in the house, and come back here to tell me. Then I’ll do the hydroponics and go straight home. I don’t trust myself to come inside.’

  Natalia didn’t trust herself to answer. Without looking at him she pushed open the door, slipped in and closed it behind her. The chain pushed over, she stooped to remove her damp shoes and put them on the mat to dry.

  When she straightened the blood ran to her head. Staggering slightly, she walked through the house checking each dark room, then went back to the door and opened it on the chain. ‘Everything’s fine,’ she said to the still, frighteningly intent man on the other side.

  ‘Goodnight.’

  Calm down, she ordered her racing heart as she closed and locked the door. She was no blushing virgin, although it had happened so long ago she’d almost forgotten what it had been like except that because it had been the first time for both of them it had been clumsy and sweet and soon over.

  Her mother had just died, and it had been obvious her father needed her to work the tunnel-houses with him. She’d made love with her boyfriend almost in a spirit of renunciation, of despair, because although they’d made plans to marry she’d known she’d have no future with him.

  High drama, she thought with a twisted smile as she looked at her watch. And although she’d thought her heart was broken, she’d recovered. So had he.

  The swift staccato of another sudden downpour on the iron roof accompanied her to her bedroom. In the darkness she saw the lights of Clay’s car burn down the drive and swing up the road.