by Susan Napier
When he was gone and Elizabeth turned around her eyes had instantly found the arrogant man whom her uncle had said she couldn’t miss.
He was third in line at the check-in desk, frowning fiercely after a rapidly retreating figure in a dark coat whom Elizabeth ignored, assuming that it was some minion who had delivered His Highness to the airport and managed in the process to annoy him in some way. She had been shocked by the pony-tail and surprised at the sight of jeans beneath the stylish brown trench coat he wore, but, not particularly fashion-conscious herself, she presumed that even millionaire businessmen were glad to get out of suits on occasion, and J.J. Hawkwood was obviously in a sartorial class of his own. She had nervously made her way to the adjacent queue and embarked on her trail of minor catastrophes.
Someone rattled the toilet door now and Elizabeth reluctantly acknowledged that she had lingered as long as she could. She put her sunglasses back on and practised an enigmatic expression in the mirror.
Neither J.J. Hawkwood nor her own fears were going to defeat her. To do a great right it was often necessary to do a little wrong. From now on discretion would be her watchword.
Elizabeth Lamb: undercover operative!
CHAPTER THREE
ELIZABETH slipped back into her seat and re-fastened her seatbelt, saying primly as she did so, 'Thank you for the loan of your shirt.'
'My pleasure,' J.J. Hawkwood murmured, studying her dignified expression with a veiled amusement. 'It suits you far better than it ever did me.'
She was unnerved by the faint hint of possessiveness in his amused look, and Elizabeth's blood boiled at the facile compliment.
She muttered a frosty reply and looked for her magazine to rescue her from any further conversation. To her frustration she realised she must have left it in the front pocket of her economy-class seat. She couldn’t even sneak a peak at the file Uncle Simon had given her, not with the subject sitting right beside her.
'Perhaps, since you're wearing my clothes, we ought to introduce ourselves.'
His silky suggestion sent a wave of panic thrilling through Elizabeth's veins.
'I think the hostess has already taken care of the introductions, Monsieur Hawkwood.' Goodness, she sounded even prissier than ever, but she didn’t know how else to discourage idle conversation.
Wrong move.
'So she has, Miss Lamb,' he replied equably, but the spark in the silver eyes suggested that he found her evasion annoying and—more dangerous for her—slightly intriguing.
'The hawk and the lamb—a curious coincidence, wouldn’t you say? In the wild we would be natural enemies...' His mouth curved in a thin, predatory smile and Elizabeth was hard put to it not to shiver at the appropriateness of his idle musing.
'Yes, I suppose we would,' she said steadily, suddenly remembering the thick instruction booklet that came with the camera Uncle Simon had given her. She fished it out of the camera bag with an inward sigh of relief. Now she had a substantial excuse to ignore him. It would take her a long time to plod through the whole thing—longer if she also intended to try to actually comprehend what she was reading.
'New camera?'
Elizabeth gritted her teeth. For some reason J.J. Hawkwood was determined to thwart her attempts at aloofness. Was it his wounded vanity? Would he keep pestering her until she paid him the kind of attention he was obviously used to receiving from women? She wouldn’t have thought his ego would be so insecure.
'Yes—I mean, no...it's borrowed—from a relative.' Her hands tightened on the cover as she realised that she was telling him more than he needed to know. Stick to minimal answers, Beth!
He leaned towards her to look over her shoulder at the print, close enough for her to inhale the crisp, clean male scent of him, unmasked by cologne. ‘Interested in photography?'
In her nervous state she almost snapped out the truth. Just in time she remembered the image she was supposed to be projecting. 'It's a hobby of mine.'
'Oh, really? What kind of camera do you normally use?'
Oh, God, had she unknowingly blundered on to one of his own interests? Elizabeth lowered the booklet, completely rattled by now. She must try and convince him that she was utterly dull and boring and quite undeserving of any further interest.
'When I said hobby, I meant that I like to have lots of pictures as permanent mementoes from my holidays, that's all,' she told him in a monotone.
'Where exactly in New Caledonia are you spending your holiday?'
Elizabeth stared at him, cornered. If she tried to avoid answering he really would get suspicious. Isle of Hawks,' she admitted stiffly, her voice sinking to its natural level.
His eyebrows rose. They were thick and dark and extremely eloquent, expressing a speculative amusement. 'Alone?'
'Yes.' The clipped reply was a terse warning which he blithely ignored.
'And what are you looking to find on your solitary holiday... peace and quiet? A place to relax? Or are you looking for something more exotic... excitement, glamour, romance—a lover perhaps...?'
His outrageousness destroyed her intention to bore him into silence, guilt adding to the intensity of her outburst. It's none of your damned business what I'll be doing!'
She went pale when he laughed.
'In the circumstances I think it is.'
'What circumstances?' she demanded raggedly, wondering whether she had blown her cover already.
'Why, that you're a guest of mine, of course,' he said smoothly. 'I would be a poor host indeed if I didn’t attempt to find out whatever it is people come to my island looking for, and do my best to provide it for them.'
'Surely you don’t have to conduct the surveys yourself. Don’t you have employees to attend to those petty details for you?' Elizabeth began. Employees like Serena Corvell!
'It's my attention to petty detail that has made Ile des Faucons one of the finest resorts in the world,' he said with an arrogance that took her breath away. As if the people who lived and worked at the place played a lesser part in its success than the corporate head who paid only flying visits when he could fit it into his busy schedule...and then only when he was combining it with an adulterous affair!
'So... what is your heart's desire, Miss Lamb?'
'Nothing that I require you to supply,' she said crisply.
'You sound very sure of that.'
'I am.'
'You're very independent,' he commented. Elizabeth knew that it wasn’t supposed to be a compliment. What he really meant was that she was independent of him. He obviously didn’t like the idea of any woman being beyond his control.
'Well, I hope for the sake of my hotel's reputation that you're wrong. I would hate you to leave Ile des Faucons feeling—unfulfilled...' His accented drawl was pleasant enough but Elizabeth didn’t think that she imagined a touch of angry impatience there. Good. She had finally succeeded in routing his interest.
'Actually, I suppose there is something I want that I'm hoping you can provide,' she said impulsively, goaded to consolidate her victory.
'Oh?'
Her small bow of a mouth unravelled into a smile of malicious sweetness. 'Solitude.'
In the ensuing silence Elizabeth returned her attention to her neglected manual, her heart thudding uncomfortably. She really shouldn’t have made that last comment but it was his fault. If he weren’t an unprincipled lecher she wouldn’t be in this thoroughly disturbing situation. Now, she hoped, he would sulk to himself. She knew the type.
In her mind she had already lumped him with the 'fearful few'—those wealthy, spoiled male university students who, over the years, had made the mistake of thinking that wining and dining their professor's researcher would flatter her into spilling the beans on the contents of the latest test paper which they had been too busy socialising to study for.
Men who were used to getting whatever they wanted when they wanted it were generally ungraceful losers, but Elizabeth always took their sullenly assumed indifferen
ce as a more genuine compliment than their easy flattery.
When the air hostess brought her a replacement glass of champagne Elizabeth sipped it only cautiously and refused the offer of wine when lunch was served a short time later, aware that she had been too on edge to eat any breakfast that morning. The last thing she needed now was to get tipsy. The food was delicious, elegantly presented in lavish servings which Elizabeth normally would have found no difficulty in enjoying. However, the nerves in her stomach were in no mood to relax and she found she could only nibble here and there—another reason for her to resent the man beside her, calmly devouring every crumb on his plate.
Time seemed to pass with excruciating slowness. Elizabeth pointedly bent her head back down over the camera manual when the lunch dishes were cleared away and fortunately her hint was this time accepted without comment. Placing the earphones over his head and selecting a recorded channel, J.J. Hawkwood reclined his seat even further and stretched out with his eyes closed.
Gradually, as Elizabeth became certain from his slow, even breathing that he was indeed asleep, and, envying him his repose, she dared study him.
With the earring on the ear facing away from her, the flamboyant pony-tail tucked beneath his head and the brutally masculine features relaxed he didn’t look half as threatening to her peace of mind. The power of those coldly penetrating, cynical grey eyes was extinguished. Relief surged through her, soothing her fraught nerves. He was just a man, like any other. She mustn’t allow his unexpected appearance to shake her resolve. Granted the task she had to perform regarding him was not one she would have chosen to do, or one that she felt entirely comfortable with but, as Uncle Simon had pointed out, Hawk Hotels had its own corporate security staff so J.J. Hawkwood himself had probably taken advantage of similar surveillance reports in the course of his various business dealings.
What incredibly dark hair and eyelashes he had. Both were thick and glossy, the blue-black eyelashes forming lush crescents just above his high cheekbones. There was not a strand of grey to be seen and the shadow along his smoothly shaven jaw was as singularly dark as his head. Did he dye his hair? Uncle Simon had said that Hawkwood was thirty-eight, and it was unusual for a man of that age in such a stressful position of authority not to show a bit of distinguished grey. The harsh angles of his face, while strong and vital, certainly weren’t youthful, but there was little other physical evidence of ageing.
Elizabeth looked at his thin mouth, controlled even in sleep, and wondered what sort of woman Serena Corvell was to put herself at his mercy. She had a very powerful urge to look at the envelope in her bag, but she decided that, with the way her luck was currently running, he would wake up and catch her red-handed.
Ruefully she conceded that many women would find the combination of raw physicality and cynical charm irresistibly attractive, especially allied as it was with money and power, but Elizabeth's one brush with reckless love had convinced her that passionate physical attraction was an inherently unstable and completely unreliable indicator as to the depth of one's genuine feelings and the worthiness of one's partner.
Of course she wasn’t totally unaware of the brutal sex appeal of the sleeping man—she was still a woman— but she felt protected by her shrewd assessment of his unsympathetic character. He would be hell on wheels to love. Poor Serena Corvell.
Elizabeth wrenched her eyes off the sleeping man, deciding that she was brooding far too much on what didn’t concern her. Heavens, she had much more important things to think about than feeling sorry for a foolish woman who had fallen in love with an accomplished rake.
The old-fashioned word made her smile. But then, she was an old-fashioned girl in many respects. If she hadn’t cared about things like love and honour, respect and loyalty she wouldn’t be here now.
Cautiously Elizabeth leaned towards the window, wondering if she would be able to see the sea through the clouds that flitted past the window. There was plenty of blue down there, but was it sea or sky? She thought she glimpsed a thin white arc that could have been a coral reef and as she leaned further across the sleeping man to see it the plane suddenly shuddered and plunged sickeningly before levelling out again. The hand on which she was leaning slid violently off the arm of the seat and skidded down between two relaxed male thighs.
Elizabeth instantly tried to snatch her hand back but was appalled to discover that the gold chain looped several times around her wrist had somehow become entangled in the buttons of J.J. Hawkwood's fly. Of course, he would be wearing expensive original Levis 501s instead of the common-or-garden zip variety!
The breath hissing through her teeth in embarrassment, Elizabeth twisted and yanked at her captive hand, but the chain, though thin, was strong.
'Whatever you're doing, chérie, don’t stop...but please, be gentle with me...'
Elizabeth froze, her eyes fleeing to his face. He was wide awake and watching with interest her delicately frantic struggles with his fly.
She refused to blush. He must know damned well that her actions were totally innocent. She fixed him with her most haughty stare, somewhat ineffectual behind her dark glasses, and said in the deep, authoritative voice that made students cringe, 'My bracelet is caught.'
' Perhaps if you kept your hands out of men's jeans it wouldn’t happen.'
She gritted her teeth. 'I was looking out the window. The plane hit an air pocket and I fell. It was an accident.'
His eyes fell to the hand trapped intimately across his lap. 'Really?' he murmured, as if he didn’t believe her.
Arrogant jerk! 'Look, are you going to help me or not?' On second thoughts that was a silly thing to say. The blush she had valiantly held at bay overwhelmed her as she waited for the retaliation that she was sure would be mockingly provocative. He seemed to enjoy flustering her. Why, Elizabeth couldn’t fathom.
'What do you suggest?' He was still studying her soft, pale hand with its short, unvarnished nails. Her wrist was caught against the placket of his jeans while her hand arched up, straining not to touch the taut denim where it pulled across his loins.
'Just—' She wasn’t quite game to ask him to unbutton his fly so she said hastily, 'Just untangle the chain. I think the catch must have got looped around a button because I can’t find it...'
'So it did,' he said blandly, and, as if divining her thought, calmly began undoing the flat metal buttons on his jeans, watching her fleeting expression of shocked fascination swiftly superseded by one of conscious distaste.
Anxiously Elizabeth began to try and work herself free, only to have him clasp her wrist firmly and hold it until she stilled her premature movements.
'You're only compounding the problem. Don’t be in such a rush—'
'Then hurry up!' she spat at him.
'Chérie, believe me, the slower you take these things the better it will be—'
'Who for, you or me?' she was driven to snap in a furiously sarcastic undertone. She was acutely aware that just under her hovering palm was the most masculine part of his anatomy, and she had no intention of discovering whether this ridiculous incident was having any physical effect on him. Her imagination, however, was not so easy to control.
He stopped what he was doing, still holding her wrist with one hand. 'Why, Miss Lamb, whatever are you suggesting?'
He was laughing at her. The mouth was still a thin, straight line but she knew that inside he was roaring. Elizabeth had never been more grateful for the dark glasses. She was very close to bursting into tears of fury and distress.
'Just shut up and do it!' she begged him, aware, too late, of a presence in the aisle behind her half-turned back, speaking simultaneously with her hushed outburst.
'Would you like another glass of—oh! Uh—perhaps I'll come back a little later...' The air hostess backed hastily away and now the awful man let his amusement conquer him completely.
'You can put that one in your record book,' he grinned widely. 'You actually made an air hostess blush.'
He lifted both his hands, palms out, still grinning. 'If you think you can do better, Miss Efficiency, go ahead. Do it yourself.'
She almost did. She was that furious. However, one glimpse of indecent silky white bikini briefs topped by a smothering of curling dark hair through the denim gap changed her mind.
She turned her head away and after a moment he resumed his measured movements without comment. It seemed to take an awful long time but Elizabeth didn’t trust herself to make an issue of it. He was surprisingly gentle as he manipulated her wrist and didn’t once brush her unwilling hand against himself as she half expected him to, given the relentlessness of his taunting. With a soft grunt of satisfaction he finally released her.
'I don’t think there's any damage, but you'd better check.'
For a moment she thought he was talking about himself, then she realised he meant her bracelet. She concentrated on it fiercely while he readjusted his clothing.
'OK?'
'Yes. Thank you.' She sounded sullen but she couldn’t help it. The man was a jinx. 'I hope I didn’t damage your jeans.'
'You obviously don’t watch the TV ads. It takes more than a lady in distress to wreck a pair of Levis,' he murmured.
At least he had called her a lady and not a klutz. Elizabeth felt her poker spine soften a little. 'I'm sorry, I wasn’t very polite—' she began tightly.
'I didn’t give you any reason to be.' He disconcerted her yet again by overriding her humiliated apology with a graceful confession of his own. He almost sounded— heaven forbid—gentle! 'My sense of humour is sometimes incomprehensible, even to myself. I'm afraid I'm also liable to be crudely direct at times, especially when I'm taken by surprise—my old army instincts surfacing: shock tactics—react first, ask questions later.'
Elizabeth murmured something meaninglessly polite in exchange. Army? Hardly the sort of training she would expect for a wealthy businessman. Perhaps he had been liable for some kind of National Service. Did New Caledonia have an army? Her curiosity was becoming perilously close to personal. Resolutely determined not to indulge it, it was Elizabeth's turn this time to recline her seat and close her eyes.
