Mistress For Hire (Harlequin Presents)

by Angela Devine

  Ten minutes later they were all safely installed in the limousine once more, with their luggage in the boot. Matt frowned at an expensive, leather-clad diary and tapped his lower teeth with his thumbnail.

  ‘I’m afraid I’ll have to make two stops on the way to the airport,’ he announced. ‘I need to see my real estate agent briefly about a commercial warehouse that I’m hoping to lease. And I also have to call in to my solicitor’s office to sign some documents at ten-thirty. But I won’t hold you up for too long.’

  The mid-morning traffic was relatively light and they made good time from St Kilda into the centre of the city, but when they reached the real estate agent’s office, they suffered an unexpected setback. Tim, who had been sent inside to enquire about the lease agreement for his uncle, came back shaking his head.

  ‘Sorry, Uncle Matt. He said it wasn’t ready yet. He’s expecting it by courier any time now.’

  Matt gave a faint sigh of exasperation.

  ‘Damn,’ he said irritably. ‘I’ve got some important documents to sign at Lewis, Evans and Price at ten-thirty, so I can’t wait around here. I’ll tell you what, Tim, you stay here and collect the package for me, will you? Take a taxi to the airport when you’re ready.’

  It was all done so naturally that not the slightest suspicion crossed Lisa’s mind. Of course, it did make her feel uncomfortable and oddly elated to find herself alone with Matt, but since he merely stared out the window with an abstracted expression as they skimmed along the freeway, that sensation soon passed. It was not until they were waiting in the departure lounge at Tullamarine airport and their flight began boarding that she guessed anything was really wrong.

  ‘What about Tim?’ she demanded in a voice full of misgiving, as Matt took her arm and guided her into the huge, concertina-like tube that funnelled passengers into the plane. ‘He hasn’t arrived yet. Aren’t we going to wait for him?’

  ‘Oh, there’s no need to do that,’ replied Matt calmly. ‘He’s still got a few minutes yet, and he’ll probably manage to catch the flight by the skin of his teeth. If he doesn’t, he’ll just have to take the afternoon plane.’

  Something in his voice, some undertone of triumph alerted her. As they shuffled into the plane’s interior, suspicion flowered into certainty. Lisa couldn’t just stand blocking the aisle, so she sank down into one of the comfortable blue velvet seats in the first-class section, but there was a look of incredulous outrage on her face.

  ‘You planned this, didn’t you?’ she demanded bitterly. ‘Tell me the truth, Matt. Did you deliberately lure Tim away just so that you could keep us apart?’

  CHAPTER THREE

  ‘DON’T be silly,’ said Matt with an expression of such incredulous amusement that Lisa immediately felt like a particularly gullible six-year-old. ‘You heard what I said to Tim. I told him to join us at the airport. It’s not the first time he’s missed a plane in his life and it won’t be the last. Either the documents I wanted weren’t ready and he stayed to wait for them or he just couldn’t get a taxi in time. There’s no need to think up melodramatic explanations of why he isn’t with us at this very moment. You can’t seriously believe that I enticed him away or that he deliberately skipped off and left you?’

  Lisa stared into those mocking blue eyes with a troubled expression. Skipped off… The words echoed in her head and she almost groaned aloud. Wasn’t that an even more likely explanation than the idea that Matt had deliberately engineered all this? What if Tim had just seen his opportunity to escape from a troublesome situation and simply run for his life? Or had Matt plotted all this? Something in the fugitive smile that flickered around the edges of his mouth made her deeply uneasy. Well, if he had planned it all there was no reason she should just sit here and meekly cooperate! She was a free agent, wasn’t she? She would just get up and leave!

  Even as the thought crossed her mind she realized that her bags containing her best clothes and art equipment were already in the cargo hold of the aircraft and that it would seem very eccentric to jump up and leave the plane right now. The hostesses were already moving along the aisle, slamming the overhead lockers in readiness for its departure. Oh, who cared about seeming eccentric anyway? If she was going to make a break, it would have to be now or never. But was she simply making a fool of herself? Would Tim genuinely arrive on the next plane and wonder what had become of her? She hesitated a fraction too long. While she was still frozen with her hand on her seat buckle, the door that offered the only exit from the plane was suddenly closed by a steward. A feeling of panic and claustrophobia overtook her and she caught her breath.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ asked Matt in a concerned voice. ‘Are you afraid of flying?’

  ‘No.’ She bit back the words, ‘I’m afraid of you’. Instead she said huskily, ‘I’m afraid Tim might miss the next flight, too.’

  ‘Or not come at all?’ mused Matt. ‘Oh, come now, Lisa. In ordinary circumstances I might share your misgivings. It’s true that I’ve just paid Tim’s allowance for the long vacation into his credit account, and he does usually like to go off on rowdy holidays with his friends during the summer. It’s no secret that he finds the family farm dead boring. But with his future wife staying there? Surely not! I can’t believe he’ll desert you if he’s genuinely in love with you. And even if he does, I’m sure I can keep you adequately entertained.’

  She gazed at him in horror as the diabolical cunning of the scheme became apparent to her. If Matt had deliberately planned this, she was going to be stranded alone on a farm in Tasmania with him. The realization made her so furious that she could gladly have slapped the smile off his face. For a moment she struggled with her feelings, then her natural sense of fairness reasserted itself. She couldn’t be sure that Matt had planned it, but even if he had, was his behaviour really any worse than her own? The only thing she could honestly accuse him of was outmanoeuvring her in this war of nerves. If anything, her behaviour was probably even worse than his. Not only had she told Matt a lot of barefaced lies, but something occurred to her now that she had not even considered the previous evening. She had let him pay for her flight to Tasmania. A twinge of guilt went through her at the realization. The whole joke was getting out of hand….

  ‘I want you to know that I’ll pay you back for my airline ticket,’ she blurted out.

  Matt looked at her with a puzzled frown.

  ‘What on earth for?’ he asked indifferently. ‘You’re practically a member of the family now and I did invite you as my guest. I wouldn’t hear of your paying me back.’

  That made Lisa feel worse than ever. Here she was branded as a slut and a schemer and she couldn’t even have the comfort of financial independence! As the plane began to back away from the landing bay, she bit her lip and stared out at the shiny tarmac, half obscured by blurring rain. It only made matters worse to realize that her own behaviour was largely responsible for Matt’s poor opinion of her. Admittedly it was sheer bad luck that they had got off to a bad start. The fact that she had been cavorting around the flat without a stitch of clothing had certainly made matters awkward between them. Yet if she had told him the truth immediately, perhaps the awkwardness could have been smoothed over. Instead Matt had jumped to conclusions and she had lost her temper and told him a pack of lies.

  Now the damage was done, he would probably never believe the truth about her. That, in spite of dressing unconventionally and enjoying the flamboyance of the arts world, she was actually quite a serious person at heart. Probably serious enough even to impress him. Far from being the tart that he obviously considered her, she had had only one love affair, and that had hurt her enough to steer her away from any other involvements. What was more, she would never in a million years have dreamt of marrying a naive boy like Tim just to get her hands on his money. It made her feel hot with rage all over again to realize that Matt thought her capable of such a thing. Well, I don’t care what he thinks of me! she told herself, scowling defiantly. I just don’t care!
/>   ‘Everything all right?’ Matt asked.

  ‘Fine, thank you,’ she said, forcing a smile.

  Yet a faint sigh escaped her as the plane bumped along the runway, gathered speed and then suddenly lurched into flight. Everything wasn’t all right, not by a long way. The man sitting next to her still seemed to radiate a dangerous magnetism that made her feel jumpy and uncomfortable. She wouldn’t have worried so much about it if it hadn’t been for his outrageous proposition the previous evening and the kiss that had followed. The knowledge that Matt wanted her just as badly as she wanted him made the whole situation perilously explosive. Lisa felt like a firewatcher, scanning a tinder-dry forest for the one spark that would set off a violent conflagration. Without Tim’s presence to dampen down the tension between them, she felt an ominous certainty that they were headed for disaster. But what was she to do? She could see no obvious way out and she sat brooding silently over the problem until the plane levelled out and a smiling air hostess began to make her way down the aisle with a refreshment trolley.

  ‘Smoked salmon sandwiches, madam?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘Don’t eat too much,’ warned Matt. ‘I’m taking you to lunch at Eaglehawk Neck on the way to the farm.’

  ‘Where is the farm?’ asked Lisa curiously, suddenly realizing that she knew very little about this unfamiliar world she was about to enter.

  ‘Didn’t Tim tell you? It’s on the Tasman Peninsula about one and a half hour’s drive from the Hobart airport and about a million light-years away from Melbourne.’

  He was right about that. As the glittering dark expanse of Bass Strait gave way to the rugged coastline of Tasmania and they flew over endless forests and mountains with scarcely a sign of human habitation, Lisa felt a strange thrill of expectancy. What was this place like that had produced two people as different as Matt Lansdon and his nephew Tim? Would it be like stepping into a time warp? Was it even possible that she might enjoy herself here? At last the roar of the engines changed and the plane began to tilt and plummet towards the earth. Pewter-grey seas and forest-clad hills tilted past the window at an alarming angle as the plane banked and turned for its approach to the runway. There was a screaming of engines, an uncomfortable pop in her ears, then a bump as the wheels touched ground and they taxied along the runway to land in front of the small terminal building. Here there were no space-age concertina tunnels, just a set of stairs and an exhilarating breeze, laden with the scent of sea air and eucalyptus, that sent Lisa’s auburn hair flying around her shoulders. Within five minutes Matt had claimed their luggage and was glancing at his watch.

  ‘Ready to go?’ he asked.

  ‘Aren’t we going to wait for Tim?’ she protested.

  ‘There’s no need for that. I’ll leave a message at the Hertz desk to tell him to hire a car and drive home when he gets here.’

  There was no reasonable objection that Lisa could make to this, but her uneasiness mounted as they went outside with their luggage on a trolley.

  ‘How are we going to get to the farm?’ she asked.

  ‘I’ve left my car in the long-term car park. I generally do when I go over to Melbourne for a few days. It’s the most convenient thing to do.’

  He led the way to a glossy red Porsche and installed Lisa comfortably in the passenger seat before putting their bags in the boot and going to the office to pay for the parking ticket. As Lisa watched his powerful figure striding between the rows of parked cars, a faint smile strayed around the edges of her lips. Perhaps there was an advantage to old-fashioned men! Tim would probably have left it to her to handle both the bags and the payment. Not that he was at all mean, but he was incurably lazy, unlike his uncle. If Lisa had belonged to the world that Matt Lansdon inhabited, the world of old money and conservative values, would he have found her attractive? she wondered. Well, no, not just attractive. She knew already that he was attracted to her, but would he have liked her? Would he have taken her seriously? Would he have wanted her as his girlfriend without any insulting propositions about making her his mistress? She shook off these disturbing speculations as Matt came back, brandishing a parking ticket.

  ‘Right, let’s go.’

  The airport was tiny and in less than a minute the car was turning down between an avenue of trees where rabbits frisked playfully on the grass and froze into attitudes of camouflage at the sound of each passing car. As they turned on to the main road, the sun abruptly broke from behind a cloud, illuminating the countryside. The silver ribbons of water looped against the backdrop of darker blue hills, shrouded in scarves of mist, suddenly gave way to a landscape that was almost tropical in its brightness.

  ‘Isn’t the light amazing?’ marvelled Lisa. ‘And the scenery is really dramatic, too. I’d love to do some paintings here.’

  ‘So you paint landscapes, do you?’ asked Matt.

  ‘Yes, it’s the only thing I really have any talent for. Of course, Tim’s more interested in—’ She broke off, suddenly aware that she had said too much.

  ‘Tim’s more interested in?’ prompted Matt.

  ‘Oh, well. You know. Social life,’ floundered Lisa. ‘And accountancy. He’s much more interested in accountancy.’

  ‘Is he, indeed? Well, that makes a change from his past attitude to his studies. But never mind Tim. If you’re seriously interested in painting landscapes, we must stop at the lookout at the entrance to the Tasman Peninsula. I think you’ll agree that the scenery there is nothing short of spectacular.’

  He was right, as Lisa soon discovered. When they climbed out of the car in the deserted parking area and strode to the lookout high over Pirates Bay, she gave a low gasp of amazement. How could anyone ever capture on canvas the immensity of that panorama? Craggy headlands plummeted down into seething, dark blue seas, while foaming breakers smashed against their bases. There was a light scattering of holiday homes, but apart from those, dense, jungly vegetation seemed to cover every square inch of the land’s surface, making the place look mysterious, secret, primitive. Overhead seagulls glided silently, their breast feathers flashing white against the dizzying blue enormity of the sky. The place looked untouched, unspoilt, almost as it must have looked to the first explorers who had faced the challenge of surviving and prospering in this beautiful terrifying environment with only their own hard work and resourcefulness to support them.

  For the first time she felt a flash of insight into the character of Matt Lansdon. Yes, she could see him as one of those pioneers. Arrogant and conservative perhaps, but also strong and determined, the kind of man a woman could depend on. An odd little shiver travelled up Lisa’s spine. Depend on? Why was she turning so mushy? In the past she had always had to depend on herself. Matt’s words suddenly broke into her thoughts.

  ‘If you want to see some more of the countryside, I could take you on a tour around the whole peninsula tomorrow.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Lisa, stepping back a pace. ‘But I’m sure Tim will do that.’

  ‘Oh, Tim,’ he murmured, swallowing a smile. ‘Tim. Yes, I suppose he might.’

  Lisa’s suspicions came clamouring back as he escorted her to the car. Matt didn’t sound as if he expected to see Tim for a very long time. What was he up to? Could she trust him?

  The hotel was set high on a bank overlooking the sea. A smiling young man showed them to a table with a panoramic view of the tossing waves whose colours seemed to change moment by moment with the shifting light from emerald to sapphire to a pale, lavender grey.

  ‘Can I get you some drinks, sir?’ he asked.

  ‘Lisa? Something to drink?’

  ‘A sweet vermouth with ginger ale, please.’

  ‘And I’ll have a gin and tonic.’

  ‘Certainly. I’ll bring you those in a moment. And our food menu is on a blackboard in the bar.’

  A dangerous sense of well-being and relaxation began to spread through Lisa’s veins as she sipped the sweet, tingling drink.

  ‘Tell m
e, what kind of food do you like?’ asked Matt lazily.

  Lisa took a deep breath, as if she was inhaling all the aromas of a master chef’s kitchen.

  ‘Every kind,’ she said. ‘The more exotic, the better. Things like octopus and goat’s cheese. Vegetarian food, for preference.’

  ‘That makes sense,’ said Matt, nodding his head sagely.

  ‘Why?’ challenged Lisa.

  ‘Well, you can tell a lot about people from what they eat. Yes, I would have picked you as an octopus person. Adventurous, sensation-seeking, unconventional.’

  Lisa gazed back at him stormily. Somehow he made those qualities sound vaguely indecent.

  ‘What do you like to eat?’ she countered. ‘Roast lamb, steak and kidney pudding?’

  ‘No, those are too hard on my teeth,’ replied Matt in a deadpan voice. ‘I prefer a nice bowl of porridge and a cup of Horlicks.’

  Lisa gave a sudden startled gasp of laughter. She hadn’t thought Matt Lansdon was capable of irony.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said penitently. ‘You seem so stern and conservative, it’s hard to believe you could ever joke about anything. Anyway, I’m sure the roast lamb or whatever they serve will be very nice.’

  ‘You underestimate us,’ said Matt. ‘You may be surprised when you find out what sophistication lurks beneath our conservative exterior around these parts. Come over and see what’s available.’

  He steered her into the bar and watched with an ironic smile as she read the choices aloud from the blackboard.

  ‘Anchovies with sun-dried tomato mayonnaise, grilled emu, guinea fowl marinated in lemon and garlic, brown mushroom ragout, polenta with capsicum, octopus and goat’s milk cheese…oops, I take it all back. I did underestimate you. But there’s no need to smirk at me in that obnoxious way. What are you going to have?’