by Miranda Lee
It hadn’t helped that what she had been told was a forty-minute journey from the north-east coast of the Coromandel Peninsula to the island had actually taken over an hour and a half in very choppy seas. After a rushed three-hour drive from Auckland last evening, and an anxious, wakeful night in an uncomfortable motel bed, her close encounter with the Pacific Ocean had not been pleasant.
Since her destination was the private island of a millionaire, Vivian had naïvely expected a luxury launch or hydrofoil to be her mode of transport, not the ugly old tub that she had been directed to at Port Charles. She had also expected the island to be a lush private sanctuary, with beautiful white-sand beaches and flourishing vegetation, rather than a wind-swept, surf-lashed rock in the middle of nowhere. Although the name should have given her a clue, she thought wryly.
Nowhere. She had thought it quaint; now she realised it had been highly descriptive!
What kind of man would drag someone out all this way to conclude a business deal that would have been better, and more safely handled in a city office? Unfortunately, she thought she knew exactly: a man bent on causing trouble. A machiavellian man who would not be appeased by an easy victory. If she was to thwart any of his aims she would have to play his game first.
Vivian came through a small, wind-mutilated grove of low-growing trees and halted, her mouth falling open in shock.
Across a small ridge, perched on a flat tongue of land at the end of a rocky promontory, was a lighthouse. If she hadn’t been so busy hanging miserably over the rail of the boat, wondering whether to cast up her rushed motel breakfast into the sea, she would have seen the tall white tower as they approached the island.
She lifted bleak eyes from the wide concrete base, up, up past the vertical line of four tiny windows to stare at the open balcony just below the diamond-shaped glass panes that housed the light. How many stairs to get to the top of that?
Her appalled gaze sank back down again and settled with overpowering relief on the low, white-painted concrete building that adjoined the towering structure. A keeper’s cottage.
She got a grip on herself. No need to let your imagination run wild, Vivian. All New Zealand lighthouses were now automated. It might even have been decommissioned. She had no business with lighthouses. It was the man in the nice, ordinary, low building beside it that she had come to see!
The narrow pathway across the short ridge was fenced on both sides with white pickets, offering her at least a notion of security as the wind swept up one side of the steep, rocky face and wrenched at her hair and clothes with berserk glee. She touched each picket with her free hand as she passed, counting to take her mind off what lay at either side, aware that her neat bun was unravelling more with every step.
By the time she reached the stout, weathered timber door, she was resigned to looking like a freak. A quick glance at her reflection in the curtained window beside the door confirmed the worst. Her shoulder-length hair, inclined to be wild and woolly at the best of times, was making the most of its partial freedom in the moisture-laden air, and there was no time to try and torture the tight ginger curls back into businesslike obedience. Hurriedly Vivian pulled out the few remaining pins. Now, instead of resembling a lop-sided hedgehog, she merely looked like a frightened lion.
She took a deep breath, straightened the side-seams of her skirt, and knocked loudly.
After several moments she knocked again, then again. Finally she tried the door-handle and found to her surprise that it opened easily. She tentatively edged across the threshold.
‘Hello, is anybody there? Mr Rose? Mr Rose!’ The door closed behind her with a weighty clunk, sounding unpleasantly like the door to a cell.
She walked warily down the short narrow hall and into a large room, sparsely furnished in everything except books—walls of them.
A long, well-used, brown leather couch was drawn up in front of a coal-blackened fireplace and there was a big roll-top desk and chair beside a window overlooking the sea. Another small port-hole window among the books showed the smooth white rise of the adjoining lighthouse tower. There were a few rugs on the polished hardwood floor and a large, smooth-sided antique chest that obviously doubled as a coffee-table, but there were no ornaments or plants, paintings or photographs. Nothing that betrayed the excessive wealth of the owner. Nothing but the books to give the room character...and a rather daunting one at that, thought Vivian, eyeing some of the esoteric titles.
Like the adjacent lighthouse, the house was obviously designed to withstand the constant buffeting of sea-storms, the interior walls made of the same thick, roughcast cement as the outer shell. She wondered nervously whether perhaps it was also designed to endure buffetings from within. The mysterious and formerly benignly eccentric Mr Rose, with whom Marvel-Mitchell Realties had dealt quietly and successfully for years via lawyer, letter and fax, was shaping up to be a chillingly ruthless manipulator. She didn’t doubt for one minute that this wait was designed to make her sweat.
Unless he had never intended to turn up at all.
Vivian shivered. She put her briefcase down by the desk and began to pace, trying to burn off her increasing tension. There were no clocks in the room and she checked her watch frequently as ten minutes ticked slowly past. The captain had said the boat would be leaving again in an hour. If Mr Rose hadn’t arrived by then she would simply leave.
To pass the time, she re-applied her lipstick and brushed her hair, cursing herself for not tucking extra hairpins into her bag, when suddenly her restless thoughts were drowned out by a loud, rhythmic beating that seemed to vibrate through the walls. Vivian turned towards the window to see a sleek white helicopter descending towards a flat circle of tussock just below the cottage.
She felt her temper fizzle bracingly as the craft settled to rest and the door opened and two men got out, heads ducked low as they battled the whirlwind created by the slowing blades.
Nicholas Rose had a helicopter! Instead of her spending an eternity on a heaving boat, he could have had her flown out to the island in minutes! For that matter, he could probably have got to Auckland and back in the time it had taken her to cross the angry patch of water.
She watched as the first passenger, a huge, blond bear of a man in jeans and a sheepskin jacket, stood back and respectfully allowed the man in the dark blue suit to pass him.
Vivian studied the man whom she had travelled all this way to see. Even bowed over, he was tall, and he looked lean and fit, with dark hair and a face that, as he glanced up towards the house, was hard and rugged. He grinned at something that was said behind him and her heart leapt with hope as the grimness dropped away from him and he looked comfortingly sane and civilised. The other one, the beefy blond who shadowed his footsteps with a catlike alertness, had bodyguard written all over him. They disappeared around the back of the cottage. Vivian was facing the door, her hands clasped nervously behind her, when finally, after another agonised age, it opened.
She bit off a frustrated groan when the jeans-clad figure stepped into the room. Another carefully orchestrated delay, no doubt designed to undermine further her dwindling confidence. Or was the bodyguard here to check her for concealed weapons?
Her eyes darted to his face and the breath caught with a shock in her throat. There was a black patch over his left eye, a thin scar running vertically from his hairline to the top of the concealing inverted triangle and from beneath it down over his high cheekbone to the slanting plane of his cheek. The other eye was light brown, and Vivian’s gaze hastily skidded down, afraid he would think she was staring.
His mouth was thin and his face uncompromisingly square and deeply tanned, his thick, straight hair—wheatgold at the ends and several shades darker at the roots—raked carelessly back from the scarred forehead by fingers and the wind, the shaggy ends brushing the upturned collar of his jacket. Darker gold glinted on the angles of the jutting jaw as his head shifted, revealing at least a day’s growth of beard. Even with the eye-patch and the scar h
e was good-looking, in a reckless, lived-in, don’t-give-a-damn kind of way.
Without speaking, he shouldered out of the hip-length jacket and she could see that its bulk had given her a deceptive impression of the man. He wasn’t really the behemoth he had first appeared. Although his wine-red roll-necked sweater moulded a fairly impressive pair of shoulders, and was stretched to accommodate a deep chest, his body narrowed to a lean waist and hips that indicated not an ounce of unnecessary fat. His legs were very long, the muscles of his thighs thick enough to strain the faded denim. His hands, as he tossed the discarded jacket effortlessly halfway across the room to land over the back of the couch, were strong and weathered. Big, capable hands. Capable of hurting...or healing, she thought, startled at the unlikely notion that came floating up through her sluggish brain.
He leaned back against the door, snicking it closed with a shift of his weight, bending his knee to brace the sole of a scuffed leather boot on the wood behind him, crossing his arms over his chest. Vivian forced her gaze to rise again, to discover that she wasn’t the only person who appeared to be shocked into a momentary trance. The single, brown eye was unblinkingly studying her, seemingly transfixed by the vivid aureole of hair surrounding her tense face.
Another man with conventional ideas about feminine beauty! She knew her own myriad imperfections well enough; she didn’t need his startled stare to remind her. As if the scalding brightness of her hair wasn’t enough, her green eyes had the garish brilliance of cheap glass, hardly muted by the lenses of her round spectacles, and a mass of ginger freckles almost blotted out her creamy skin.
Vivian’s left hand lifted to smooth down the springy ginger mane around her shoulders, and she smiled tentatively at him, flushing when he didn’t respond. A small freckled pleat appeared just above the gold wire bridge of her glasses, and she adjusted them unnecessarily on her straight nose, giving him the ‘tough’ look that she had practised in the motel mirror the previous night.
‘Well, well, well...the Marvel-lous Miss Mitchell, I presume?’
His voice was like silk drawn over rough gravel, sarcastically smooth with a rustling hint of hard, underlying crunch.
A voice used to giving orders. To being obeyed. No polite deference or preening arrogance here. Just utter authority.
Vivian clenched her hands behind her back as the unpalatable truth burst upon her.
She would have far preferred to deal with the civilised Suit! A Suit might be persuaded to sacrifice a small victory for an immediate, larger gain.
This man looked too unconventional, too raw-edged, too primitive ever to have heard of the words ‘negotiated surrender’. He looked like a man who enjoyed a fight—and had had plenty of them.
Looking defeat in the face, Vivian knew there was no going back. She had to try and beat him at his own game. But no one said she had to play it solely by his rules.
CHAPTER THREE
‘THE elusive Mr Rose, I presume?’ Vivian echoed his mocking drawl, hoping that she sounded a lot more in control of herself than she felt.
There was a small, challenging silence. He inclined his head, still studying her with the arrested fascination of a scientist confronting a new form of life.
Vivian smoothed her hands nervously down the side-seams of her skirt, and to her horror her fingers encountered the crumpled tail of her blouse trailing from beneath the back of her unbuttoned jacket. Somehow it must have worked free on that nerve-racking climb. Trying to maintain her dignity, she continued to meet his dissecting stare coolly, while surreptitiously tucking her blouse back into the waistband of her skirt.
He noticed, of course, and a curious flicker lightened his expression before it settled back into brooding aggression.
‘So...do we now blithely proceed from our mutual presumptions, or do we observe strict propriety and introduce ourselves properly?’
His murmur was rife with hidden meanings, and Vivian hesitated, wondering whether she was reading her own guilt into his words.
‘Uh—well, I think we know who we are...’ She closed her eyes briefly, cursing herself for her faltering of courage at the critical moment.
When she opened them again, he was metaphorically crouched in waiting.
‘I think, therefore I am?’ he said softly. ‘Very profound, my dear, but I’m sure Descartes intended his philosophy to be applied to something more meaningful than social introductions. However, far be it from me to contradict a lady, particularly such a highly qualified one as yourself. So, we have an agreement that I’m Nicholas Rose of Nowhere and you are Miss Mitchell of Marvel-Mitchell Realties. Welcome to my world, Miss Mitchell.’
He kicked himself away from the door and walked swiftly towards her, hand outstretched. Without looking down, she was aware that he limped. She was also aware of the savage pride in the single, glittering eye which effortlessly dominated her attention. It seemed to flame with a strange inner light, until the almond-brown iris was shot with blazing spears of gold as he came to a stop in front of her, closer than was comfortable or courteous, towering over her by at least six inches as he insolently invaded her personal space.
She accepted his proffered hand with a wariness that proved wise when the strength of his grip turned out to be even greater than she had anticipated. His hand wrapped almost completely around hers, trapping it as he extended the moment of contact beyond politeness into the realm of pure intimidation.
The calluses on his palm as he eased the pressure created a friction against her softer skin which felt disturbingly familiar. It was like the faint warning buzz she had experienced when touching a faulty electrical socket. Indeed, the very air around him seemed to crackle and carry a whiff of burning. It was as if there was a huge energy source humming inside him, barely restrained by flesh and blood.
He released her slightly maimed fingers, the gold flecks in his eye glowing with a strange satisfaction as she stayed stubbornly where she was, lifting her firm chin, refusing to be daunted by his superior size and strength, or by the unsettling reciprocal hum in her own bones.
Surprisingly, he was first to disengage from the silent duel, turning away to sling himself down in the chair at the desk, stretching his long legs out in front of him. He didn’t offer her a seat, just leaned back and regarded her in a way that seemed indefinably possessive. Vivian’s blood tingled in her cheeks and she adjusted her spectacles again.
His thin mouth curved cruelly. ‘Shall we proceed to the business in hand, then, Miss Mitchell? I take it you followed all the instructions in the fax?’
She thought of the tense drive down, the nerve-racking hours alone in the motel, the wallowing boat...and his helicopter. She set her teeth and nodded.
‘Truly a Marvel—an obedient woman,’ he punned goadingly, and Vivian’s flush deepened with the effort of controlling her temper. ‘And, knowing that your company’s successful purchase of my land depends on your pandering to my every annoying little whim, of course you followed those instructions to the letter, did you not, Miss Mitchell?’
This time she wasn’t going to chicken out. She squared her shoulders. ‘No. That is, not exactly—’
‘Not exactly? You do surprise me, Miss Marvel-lous.’
Nerves slipped their leash. ‘Will you stop calling me that?’
‘Perhaps I should call you Miss Marmalade instead. That would be a more descriptive nickname—your hair being the colour it is... That wouldn’t offend you, would it? After all, what’s in a name? “That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”...’
His frivolity was definitely a trap, the quotation from Romeo and Juliet containing a baited message that Vivian could not afford to acknowledge without betraying her tiny but infinitely precious advantage.
‘As a matter of fact, there’s an awful lot in a name,’ she said, ignoring the lure. ‘Mine, for example, is Vivian Mitchell—’
Instead of leaping to his feet in justifiable outrage, he rocked his chair on to its back legs with hi
s booted heels, his expression one of veiled malice as he interrupted her confession. ‘Vivian. Mmm, yes, you’re right,’ he mused, in that low, gratingly attractive voice. ‘Vivian... It does have a certain aptness to your colouring, a kind of phonetic and visual rhythm to it...razor-sharp edges springing up around singing vowels. I do have your permission to call you Vivian, don’t I, Miss Mitchell?’
‘Yes, of course,’ she bit off, his feigned innocence making her feel like a mouse between the paws of a lion. ‘But you requested that Janna Mitchell bring you the documents and co-sign the settlement. Unfortunately my sister couldn’t come, so I brought them instead. Otherwise, everything is exactly as you asked...’
‘She couldn’t come?’ he asked mildly. ‘Why not?’
Having expected a savage explosion of that banked energy, Vivian was once more disconcerted by his apparent serenity.
She moistened her lower lip nervously, unconsciously emphasising its fullness. ‘She has flu.’
Janna was also sick with guilt and remorse, and the combination had made her pathetically easy to deceive. As far as her sister or anyone else knew, Vivian’s prime motive for taking her place on this trip was her desperate desire to get away from everyone for a while.
‘Convenient.’
She winced at the flick of the whip. Not so serene, after all.
‘Not for her. Janna hates being ill.’ Her younger sister was ambitious. As a newly qualified lawyer, working in Marvel-Mitchell Realties’ legal department, she had a rosy future ahead of her, one that Vivian intended to protect.
‘Messes up those gorgeous ice-blonde looks, I suppose,’ he said, casting a sardonic look at her wild ginger mane.
Vivian froze.
‘You knew,’ she whispered, feeling momentarily faint. Thank God the masquerade had only been intended to get her inside the door.
