by Susan Napier
His father had come through his by-pass surgery with flying colours, and Rachel was grateful when his doctor restricted visitors to immediate family only for a further few days. She had a feeling that Kevin Riordan was too shrewd to be taken in by the kind of charade which had convinced his wife, and if he asked Rachel flat-out in front of Matt whether she was in love with his son, she feared she didn’t know whether the lie she was supposed to admit would also be the truth she was trying to deny.
On the third evening after the operation, Rachel was waiting on the ward for Matt to finish his visit so that they could go to dinner when she was surprised by a familiar voice.
‘I understand that congratulations are in order…’
She whirled around to face the tall, handsome man in a pin-striped suit. ‘Neville! I didn’t know you were back…’
‘Not before time, it seems.’ Neville’s cool grey eyes were checking out her ring. ‘So it’s true. I didn’t believe that Matthew would risk throwing his hat into the ring again, not when he’s still carrying a torch for poor Leigh…’
Rachel didn’t think her expression had changed, but the cordial politeness on Neville’s flat face congealed.
‘Ah, I see he’s told you his wife’s tragic story. I don’t suppose he happened to mention that my mother died of Parkinson’s disease? A long, slow degeneration that turned my father into a bitter old man who drank himself to death. I went through hell until I tested free of the Parkinson’s gene. I loved Leigh, but I know my own limitations. Sickness disgusts me.’ His nostrils flared as he looked around him in distaste. ‘I would have been no good to her if she’d got ill. Matt was far better equipped to play the white knight. It was what he’d wanted all along, after all. He still blames me, but how was I supposed to know that Leigh would turn out to be so emotionally unstable?’
Rachel’s pity warred with her discomfort. ‘I don’t think we should be talking about it—’
‘Aren’t you in the least bit curious to hear the other side of the story?’
‘I’m sure Matt will tell me anything I want to know.’
‘Are you sure? Oh, he’ll tell you everything you could find out from other sources—after all, he knows you run a detective agency—but what about the really damning secrets? The ones that aren’t on any public records…?’
His knowing smile sent a trickle of ice down her spine. ‘I really don’t think this is the time or place—’
He flicked a glance over her shoulder and picked up her hand. ‘Quite right. How about a cosy chat over dinner some time?’
She couldn’t believe his audacity. ‘No—I—Matt—’
His mouth twisted cynically. ‘Lunch, then? Surely he can’t object to that?’
‘Object to what?’ asked Matt, coming up beside them.
Rachel pulled her hand away, flustered when Neville didn’t easily let it go.
‘Rachel and I were just talking about having lunch. Hope you got my faxes, old boy…thanks for keeping the seat warm for me. How’s Uncle Kevin?’
‘He’s resting,’ Matt clipped.
Neville bristled with challenge. ‘Are you telling me I can’t even see him?’
The two men squared off at each other, then Matt shrugged with impatience. ‘Of course not, go ahead—just be aware that he doesn’t know about Rachel and I yet…’
‘Really? How interesting? More family secrets?’ Neville’s smile was redolent with meaning as he tilted his head towards Rachel and strolled off down the corridor.
Matt turned to Rachel, his eyes stormy. ‘He asked you to lunch? Did you accept?’
Rachel was casually dressed in trousers and a cotton sweater, for they were dining at a waterfront café, but she was wearing high-heeled sandals, and now she was glad of the opportunity to coolly look down her nose at him.
‘What do you think?’
For a moment his narrow face remained tight with fury, then his bunched jaw relaxed. ‘I think I’m being unreasonably jealous.’
‘Of me, or of Leigh?’ she dared.
His darkened eyes moved over her proud face. ‘Oh, definitely of you,’ he said softly. ‘In spite of that stupid, knee-jerk reaction I know you’re nothing like Leigh.’
And yet it was Leigh with whom he had fallen so helplessly in love…
She looked in the direction that his cousin had gone. ‘Admiration and envy can be quite a poisonous mix. It strikes me that Neville would quite happily cause you trouble if he could. Have you considered that he might be behind any attempt at a smear…?’
She found Matt already one step ahead of her. ‘I haven’t discounted him, though it’s not really his style. If the pictures fell into his hands I suppose he wouldn’t let the opportunity go to waste, but he’d consider it beneath him to stoop to such methods himself. Nor would he like the idea of being anyone else’s tool. His ambitious schemes tend to be more lofty. And I don’t see him continuing to target Dad after his heart attack. Apart from the fact he’s genuinely fond of my parents, he wouldn’t want his spite to reflect back on himself and jeopardise his position in the family. And don’t forget he’s been in Japan for the past two and a half weeks.’
So…maybe this wasn’t a solo effort, she mused. Maybe he had an accomplice. It was an idea worth following up, she thought to herself as they left the hospital.
The next day she had told Matt she was working late at the gym, but to her dismay he turned up far too early to collect her, looking vastly out of place in his dark suit and tie as he propped himself against an exercise bike and watched her chivvy one of her regulars into adding an extra set of reps to her weights programme. The sight of Rachel in stretch shorts and a cropped T-shirt under her cutaway leotard seemed to afford him endless fascination.
‘I exhausted myself just watching you,’ he murmured, handing over her towel and water bottle at the end of the session, licking his dry lips as he watched her blot the perspiration from her face and throat. ‘You stood over that poor woman like a drill sergeant…’
‘That “poor woman” is one of the country’s leading aerobics competitors. She pays me to make sure she doesn’t slack off!’
He looked around the gym. ‘You work a full day and then come and do this? And sometimes work in the mornings as well…also at a very physical job? No wonder you nearly fall asleep over dinner some nights.’
He was checking up on her? ‘Well, you can’t say I’m not fit enough to handle it,’ she said, not knowing whether to be flattered or insulted. She flipped the towel over her shoulder, hoping he hadn’t noticed her nipples beginning to show through her exercise bra and damp T-shirt. ‘Excuse me, I’m going to have a shower.’ She made the mistake of looking over her shoulder as she left, and found his eyes fixed on the rolling flex of her bottom in the thin Lycra shorts
Later, as she devoured a chocolate mousse to replace some of the calories she had worked off, he returned to the topic. ‘Tell me, Rachel, when do you get any spare time for yourself? I notice Frank Weston doesn’t have to moonlight to make ends meet. You shouldn’t have to hold down more than one job to survive.’
‘And I wouldn’t have to if you gave Westons the KR contract,’ she said facetiously. She noticed he had no problem appropriating her precious spare time! ‘How about it?’
‘Only if you agree to sleep with me first,’ he responded with equal sarcasm.
He was so confident that she was joking! On the one hand it was infuriating; on the other it indicated a complete faith in her integrity.
‘Fine! Let’s do it!’
She had the pleasure of seeing him winded. ‘Fine? What do you mean—fine?’
‘I accept your offer. It’s a deal!’
He recovered quickly. ‘You know damned well I don’t have the power to do any such deal,’ he growled. ‘Nor do I want it. Neville’s back, thank God—it’s his decision. I want nothing to do with it.’
She looked at him through her lashes. ‘What if I agree to sleep with you anyway?’
H
e stilled, staring across the table. ‘Do you mean that?’
She hesitated, and nodded.
He let out a rough sigh of pent-up frustration. ‘Hold that thought! You do choose your moments, lioness…I’m flying to Sydney on the red-eye tomorrow morning.’
Rachel’s reckless heart felt as if it had been plunged into ice.
‘Only for a few days,’ he added swiftly, and her heart shuddered back into life. ‘I’ve already postponed this meeting twice over the last couple of weeks, and now that Dad is out of the woods I can’t put it off any longer. But I’ll be back for your birthday.’ He leaned forward, placing his hand over hers on the table and gripping it hard. ‘I look forward to resuming this discussion when I get back…’
Discussion? What was there left to talk about? A panicked sense of urgency made Rachel wish that he would simply whisk her straight back to his bedroom for a quick consummation, but the knowledge that he would be walking out of the door before dawn put the brakes on her impatient desire. No more than he did she want this first time to be a snatched interlude that would set the scene for future brief encounters. When she made love to him she wanted to do so at leisure, with no distractions, anxieties or interruptions…
The next three days were merely a confirmation of what she had already suspected. They were flat and colourless and she missed Matt more than she would have believed possible. She tried to fill some of the emptiness by putting in overtime at Westons, checking up on Neville, who proved disappointingly clean, and digging into some of the back files that yielded some unexpected and unsettling results.
Matt rang each night for long, lazy chats, but the conversations were inherently unsatisfying as Rachel struggled not to blurt out her newly discovered feelings. It was too late to worry about being hurt, but she wanted to see him, touch him, look into his eyes before she surrendered her wary heart completely into his keeping.
Typically there was only a briefly inscribed card from her parents on her birthday, but there were e-mails, cards and a gorgeous Thai-silk suit from Robyn and Bethany, and at the office she was given a cake and a group-signed card ribbing her about wrinkles.
Having no appointments at the gym, she’d expected the evening to lag as she waited for Matt’s flight to get in, secretly hurt by the fact that he had refused her offer to greet his plane. But as she was preparing to leave work Lannie came dashing breathlessly into her office to tell her that a limo driver was asking for her.
Thinking it was one of their security chauffeurs, Rachel was disarmed when she was handed an armful of red roses and a sealed note in memorable green ink.
Go with Kale. He knows what to do. Happy Birthday.
Kevin Riordan’s chauffeur professed ignorance as he led her out to the car and placed a glass of champagne in her hand for the mystery ride, but Rachel soon discovered to her amusement and delight that their destination was Auckland’s most exclusive beauty clinic. There she was treated to a sinfully sybaritic experience—bathed in mud, wrapped in towels, soaked in a spa, plucked, waxed, massaged in oils, given a facial, a hairdo, a manicure, a pedicure—and generally wallowed in the sensuous luxury of top-to-toe pampering. Like a harem girl being prepared for her master, she thought with a giggle.
She emerged tingling with vitality and filled with a glorious sense of physical well-being that increased when Kale informed her that his instructions were to take her home to change and then on to Matt’s country house for dinner.
Matt’s face, as he opened the door and saw her standing there in her new peacock-blue silk suit, her glowing cheeks flushed with excitement and her hazel eyes alight with warm pleasure, reassured her that she was making the right decision. This man was not one she wanted to let get away!
‘Happy Birthday. You look even more gorgeous than I remember,’ were his first words, his glittering gaze taking in the short, narrow skirt and fitting, short-sleeved jacket with its stand-up collar and an array of tiny silk toggles marching down her front.
‘Thanks to Robyn—she sent me this,’ husked Rachel, fiddling nervously with a toggle under his wildly flattering gaze. In blue-black trousers and shirt, his hair still damp from a shower, he made her knees weak. ‘And thanks to you. It was a wonderful present. I’ve never been to a beauty spa before; it was a totally new experience…’
The flames leapt in his eyes at her gratifying admission. His arm snaked around her waist and he pulled her inside, kicking the door shut on the world as his mouth came down on hers. ‘I’m glad. I want to give you lots of wonderful new experiences,’ he murmured, rediscovering the silky contrast of textures inside her mouth.
As she followed him through to the room where he had first entertained her she noticed him discreetly rotating his left shoulder and wincing.
‘What’s the matter with your arm?’
‘The taxi was involved in a slight accident on the way to Sydney airport.’
‘My God, were you hurt?’ asked Rachel anxiously.
‘I just jolted my shoulder against the seat belt. Actually, I think the stiffness is more a build-up of tension from having to use my laptop exclusively for the last few days…’
All the blood rushed to Rachel’s head. ‘Why don’t you let me help you with that?’ she heard herself say.
‘Help me how?’ he said, crossing to the cabinet on which an ice-bucket now reposed.
‘Give you a massage…for your shoulder,’ she said steadily.
He halted and turned. His chest rose and fell under the dark shirt. ‘Are you offering to take my pain away?’
She moved closer, deliberately taking his words at face value. ‘If you’re over-tense it’s the perfect way to ease your muscles into relaxing—I should know; I’ve just had one myself. Of course it means putting yourself in my hands—’
‘I rather think I’ve done that already.’
‘But I am fully trained.’
His nostrils flared, the skin on his face tightening as his eyes fell from her lustrous eyes to her smudged lips and her silk-sheathed breasts. I—dinner is almost ready,’ he said reluctantly.
She had never felt less hungry in her life. ‘Is it anything that can’t wait?’
‘You mean like a soufflé?’ His sultry smile was crooked. ‘No, nothing that can’t wait…all night long, if necessary.’
Her smoke-coloured eyelids drooped. ‘It might well take all night…if you’re especially stiff…’
His face flushed. ‘I’m sure I’m going to be a very difficult and demanding case…’ he murmured thickly. He looked around the room. ‘Where do you want to do it? The couch?’
She shook her head as she tried to tamp down her excitement. ‘Too soft—not enough support.’ She pretended to consider the other furniture in the room before turning her golden gaze to his. ‘The bed in your room looked fairly firm…’
She saw his hard throat move as he swallowed. ‘Yes, it is.’
‘Well, then…’ She held out her hand with a glittering smile. ‘Shall we go?’
‘Just a moment.’ He snagged the ice-bucket containing a bottle of champagne and two glasses. ‘In case we get thirsty,’ he told her as he took her hand, and fairly raced her up the stairs.
‘The way you’re jostling it, that champagne is going to fizz over when you try to open it,’ she warned as they arrived breathless in his bedroom.
‘That makes two of us,’ he muttered under his breath as he set the ice-bucket down beside the bed and switched on the lamps. He removed his spectacles and swung eagerly towards her. ‘Now what?’
She moistened her lips. ‘Now you take off your shirt. Have you got any lotion I can use?’
‘I’ll have a look.’ He walked towards the bathroom, dragging open his buttons as he went.
‘In fact, take all of your clothes off,’ ordered Rachel daringly as he clicked on the light. ‘It’ll be more comfortable for you that way.’
There was no sound from the bathroom for long moments, and she was about to investigate when he stepped out.
She sucked in a shaky breath. He was wearing nothing but a small white towel wrapped low on his lean hips, pulling tightly across his strong thighs and exposing a vertical strip of bare skin where the two ends only just overlapped. He stood for a moment, letting her look her fill, revelling in her smoky-eyed approval. Then his muscles meshed smoothly into motion, his skin gleaming like dull satin in the lamplight, as he prowled towards her and handed her a slim bottle of skin moisturiser, and something else.
‘You might find some use for this, too,’ he said, wrapping her fingers around the small foil packet.
She blushed when she opened her hand and saw what it was. ‘I—yes, I probably will,’ she stammered.
‘You started this game, honey,’ he purred. ‘Maybe you’re not quite as brazen as you want me to think you are.’
She tossed her head and strode to the bedside, placing the condom down beside the bottle of champagne. With a flourish she ripped back the navy covers and threw them to the bottom of the bed. ‘Face down on the bed, please.’
He paused with one knee on the edge of the mattress, putting the towel to indecent strain and revealing a flash of dark hair against the pale skin of his groin. ‘As I recall, the last time you invited me to have a massage I ended up tied to the bed.’
‘Lie down, please,’ she said sternly, sliding a pillow under his shoulders as he settled on his stomach, his face turned towards her on the white sheet.
Her hands went to the zip at the back of her waist and she watched the ripple of tension invade his entire body. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I don’t want to get any lotion on my new skirt.’ She took it off and placed it—neatly folded—on the bureau.
He gave a tortured groan when she strolled back to stand by the head of the bed. ‘You wicked tease…’
She smoothed a finger down the white lace suspender that secured her gauzy stocking, and back up to the high-cut side of her white silk thong. ‘Not at all. It’s a matter of practicality,’ she lied. ‘Stockings are much cooler than pantyhose in the summer.’
