“Shall we go?” he breathed into her curls.
“Thank you,” Kayla said gulping, her hand covered the pendant. “I’ll just get my purse.”
He waited with the gaggle of females, smiling down at them as they clucked and praised his choice. Kayla bustled out of her room carrying her veteran black purse, its cracks and worn metal clasps betraying its age.
“Ladies,” Roland said graciously as he ushered Kayla out.
She was in the elevator before she spoke. “It’s beautiful,” she said regretfully. She put a gentle hand on his sleeve. “I love it, truly,” she continued. “But I can’t accept something so valuable.” Her round cheeks were crimson.
“Of course you can. It’s a mere trifle, my dear.”
She shook her head. “It’s worth a small fortune,” she corrected softly. She peeked at her reflection in the stained gold mirrored panels of the elevator car. “It’s perfect. But it’s too much.” She blushed harder. “I’ll wear it this evening, but then I’ll have to give it back.”
“I choose it to enhance your beauty,” he said. “Wear it and know how lovely I find you.” He kissed her lips gently and she felt his breath warm them.
Kayla’s hand left the pendant and she smiled brilliantly at him. “It does make me feel beautiful,” she exclaimed. “Thank you.”
CHAPTER SIX
Roland was taken aback by Kayla. First she had dared to interrogate him this morning. He had tolerated her impertinence because he was so surprised by how drawn and white she had become. He had left her rosy and happy and had returned to find her pale and strained.
But this rejection of his gift was more disturbing. What was Kayla after? Her reticence was outside of his experience. Women did not return his gifts. They worked hard to earn more. He leaned forward in the elevator and brushed his lips against hers. There, that should fix her. It was uncanny how often he had to refresh a spell with this stubborn woman. It was as if she had some built in immunity to his dragon magic. But that was of course impossible.
In the restaurant, Kayla was anxious and despite Roland’s calming spell her hazel eyes were cloudy and her plump shoulders hunched and tense. She sat across from him picking nervously at her food which was unlike her. He usually savored her frank enjoyment of her meals. Tonight she was merely moving her succulent crayfish and the tender asparagus that flanked it from one side of her plate to the other.
“What is it, my heart?” he heard himself implore. It was a new experience for Roland to have a dinner companion who was so clearly distracted and he did not care for it. But he disliked the melancholy on his Kayla’s face even more.
“Oh, Roland, I can’t get it out of my head that on Tuesday one of the examiners is going to spring an alternative explanation for my thesis on me.” The corners of her mouth drooped.
He put his hand out and she laid hers palm down on his. He felt the tingle to his toes, but tonight Kayla seemed oblivious to the spark between them. Worry had grooved taut lines on her smooth face.
“Is there one?” he asked her.
Kayla shrugged jerkily and his necklace moved. The candlelight refracted flashes of brilliance that danced over the white tablecloth. “I thought of three — well Dr. Whitcomb and I thought of three — and I answered them. But what if there is something I’ve overlooked?”
“Is that likely?”
A deep, gusty sigh revealed her distress. “Dr. Okla is furious with me and Whitcomb. We destroyed the research of one of his students. Her committee read our assessment and told her to start over or quit. She chose the latter. So I’m wondering if he plans a little revenge on Tuesday,” she admitted.
Inside his fashionable suit Roland’s chest involuntarily broadened in battle readiness. He controlled his rage. “Wouldn’t that be unprofessional?” he asked calmly.
She nodded. “But all too human.”
“Why does he think it’s your fault.”
Kayla poured the whole story out. How Dr. Whitcomb had asked her to take a preliminary look at Stephanie Dodson’s statistics. How she had found anomalies and re-done the math, only to find that nothing added up. That Dr. Whitcomb had run Stephanie’s numbers through a program designed to show up non-random number use. It had found that Stephanie had almost certainly deliberately falsified her data.
“And this is your fault how?” Roland asked sternly.
“I pulled the plug on seven years of her work,” said Kayla sadly. “I feel so bad for her.”
“So, you’d prefer that she was awarded her doctorate for bad science?”
“Of course not!” Kayla was shocked.
“So you did the only thing you could,” Roland pointed out. “Why should Dr. Okla blame you?”
“For making him look foolish,” she said. “That’s human nature.”
“And you think he’ll take revenge by sabotaging your defense?”
“I’m afraid he will. I can’t get it out of my head that I’ve overlooked something. That if I hadn’t been in such a rush to get this done and dusted, I’d have seen the flaw,” she confessed.
Roland set himself to restoring Kayla’s spirits. It was a most unaccustomed role. He had not intended to devote the evening to comforting this lovely woman, but to finally claiming her. He had planned his seduction carefully. First, the jewelry. Then the leisurely, sensual meal where they could look flirtatiously into each other’s eyes. And then ditching his driver and taking her to a hotel.
But Kayla’s sad eyes had to be coaxed up to his, and even then they were abstracted. He gave up on seduction. He was not about to make love to a woman who was thinking about everything but him. He would just have to wait until after Tuesday. At least the issue of the necklace had been laid to rest. But when he kissed Kayla good night at her door, she shyly pushed it open and drew him inside.
“I’ll get the box,” she whispered. And before he knew it he was putting his gift back in his pocket and she was shutting her door.
Roland returned to his limousine frustrated and disgruntled. He cast a jaundiced eye at his young Maori driver. Waimarie Te Paka was sitting bolt upright and alert. He fairly simmered with unspoken approval as he got out of the driver’s seat to open Lord Voros’ door. The young dragon shifter was pleased that they were driving away from Kayla’s place. Roland nodded brusquely to Waimarie and got in and asked to be returned to his hotel.
Even with bulletproof glass between them, he could detect Waimarie’s complacent satisfaction at his quick return from Kayla’s flat. Those damned Maori dragons were so puritanical. He had been forced into behaving like some Victorian gentleman caller lest one of Te Kanewa’s grandsons disclose Lord Voros’s low morals to him. He had not foreseen that complication when he had accepted Te Kanewa’s dragons into his service.
He could see Waimarie’s thick neck and partially shaven skull ahead of him. Blue-black tattoos like the tangled tentacles of some fierce sea creature wound their way up his muscular neck to disappear under Waimarie’s peaked chauffeur’s hat. They continued on his cheeks and chin in elaborate spirals that indicated his rank and status.
The sacred process of ta moko, the traditional Maori art of tattooing, was extremely painful, as the tattoos were first incised and then the wood ash pigment driven in with chisels. All of Voros’s fifty assignees were deeply and intricately tattooed, displaying not only their high rank, but also their fortitude on every inch of their bodies.
Roland glared at the massive neck and shoulders of his driver and pondered his frustration. How long had it been now since he had first decided to take his lovely Kayla? Four weeks! Four weeks of self-denial. Even in Switzerland where he knew half a dozen women who would happily have amused him, he had thought of nothing but luscious, sensual Kayla. He was not used to containing his appetites. He was Voros. He slaked his dragon-sized lusts as and when he pleased. It was intolerable that he was constrained by the foolish mores of others.
But Watatoni Te Kanewa, Dragon Lord of the Tasman Islands, was a stern and un
compromising traditionalist. The Maori dragons had only one mate and they did not marry until they had both proved themselves worthy. Male and female could not touch until they had passed many trials. Roland did not even want to know what was expected of a warrior and his destined bride, although he did not expect to be exempted from these tortures if Lord Te Kanewa gave him one of his precious granddaughters to wed.
In the meantime, he had better not flaunt his sex life before his straitlaced sword bearers. He had already decided it was too much to expect that Te Kanewa’s grandsons would keep secrets from him. Besides which his brawny warrior-bodyguards were useful. It was true that he was more than capable of self-defense but revealing himself in dragon was a non-starter. But just a glimpse of those resolute Maoris in their human form would make any criminal rethink his plans.
Which left him where? Trapped between Kayla’s distraction and his sword bearers’ unspoken disapproval. It was as well he had purchased the beach house on the South Island. Once Kayla’s oral examination was over, he could take her there. He would fly the helicopter himself. The Te Paka brothers could remain in Auckland with their cousins. And until Kayla had weathered her defense, he could visit Lord Te Kanewa once more to keep him sweet.
* * *
Dave Foster had a big bunch of flowers clutched in his hands when Kayla emerged wearily from the examination room. He held them out to her, his brown eyes looking his question.
“They’re from all of us,” he said.
Kayla buried her face gratefully in the fragrant yellow roses. Her throat closed when she tried to thank him. After four hours of probing interrogation, her mind was a blank.
Dr. Whitcomb was right behind her. The red satin lining of his black academic gown made a brilliant splash of color beside Kayla’s dull brown suit and cream blouse. His beaming face informed David and the other grad students who were clustered in the hall of the outcome before he spoke. “Dr. Cooper was magnificent.” Kayla could hear the pride in his words.
The group cheered. Kayla looked up in surprise as people rushed to hug her and shouted their congratulations. She had not been aware of having so many well-wishers. “Thank you,” she whispered shyly as she scanned the crowd. Where was Roland?
“We’re going out for drinks and munchies,” declared Petra Mallet. “Come on.” She put an arm around Kayla’s shoulders and pushed her toward the exit.
The door to the examination room opened again and three middle-aged men dressed in academic costumes like Dr. Whitcomb’s came out wreathed in smiles. The graduate students hushed and stood respectfully, but the examiners were jovial and relaxed. They smiled benignly at the group, shook hands with Kayla again, and congratulated her and Prof. Whitcomb.
Dr. Whitcomb cleared his throat. “Mrs. Whitcomb is expecting all of us for a celebration,” he announced. “You can hit the bars another evening. I just have to get out of these robes and give her a call.”
Dave, Petra and the other grad students whooped their delight at the invitation and dragged Kayla off to the grad student lounge to sort out transportation. Kayla let herself be swept off in their midst. She felt dazed with happiness. She had her PhD! She had coped with the barrage of questions and satisfied the committee. And this outpouring of affection from her colleagues was an unexpected pleasure.
She had made no plans to celebrate her triumph — she had not looked past the examination and now that it was past, and she was Dr. Cooper, she felt more than a little stunned. But where was Roland? She checked her new phone and turned it back on. Nothing from him. Or from Aunt Audrey or Uncle Chester.
“Was it brutal?” Petra asked in her ear.
Kayla blinked. She shook her head. “Not really. But I was so nervous that I could hardly hear the first question.” She shuddered in recollection. “But then Dr. Sommers repeated it, and I got wrapped up in telling them about the mechanism by which Heterosaccus gets its DNA into the egg sac, and then everything just flowed.”
Spenser Hollis slapped her on the back. “Did they ask about our test results? Or our procedure?”
“They wanted to know if we had replicated. I think they were impressed when I was able to say we used that process routinely now. Oh, wow, I’m a doctor. Holy Hannah!” Kayla grinned as that reality finally sank in.
The crowd yelled some more. Someone produced a bottle of cheap bubbly and some minute plastic glasses and they toasted Kayla before they divided up and figured out how they were going to get out to the Whitcomb’s house.
It was a long and merry evening and Kayla was giddy from a combination of relief, wine and elation by the time she was using her key to open her front door. The apartment was dark. Moira, Cindy and Shelly were either already in bed or out. Kayla was grateful not to have to face their questions. She found an old pickle jar for her roses and headed for her own room. She checked her phone once again. Still nothing from Roland.
In the morning she called home. “What will you do now?” Aunt Audrey demanded. The mosquito like whine of her peevish voice buzzed unpleasantly.
“More research, I suppose,” said Kayla placatingly. “I’ll have to look for a spot in a lab. Of course I still have my research assistantship with Whitcomb. And he’ll probably offer me post doc work.”
“Will you get a raise?” Audrey Turner went on.
“From Dr. Whitcomb?”
“No. From the man in the moon. Of course, Whitcomb. Don’t be so foolish, girl. I would think that now you have a PhD, you would rate better money. After all the money you’ve spent getting it.”
Kayla swallowed. “I will have to start applying for stuff, Aunt Audrey, now that I’ve got my doctorate. But I have to expect to do a lot of post-doc work in someone else’s lab.”
“I’ll let your Uncle Chester talk some sense into you,” Audrey said in exasperation.
Kayla heard her call to her husband and then Chester Goff’s discontented voice spoke in her ear. “Don’t you have a plan? I don’t know what you want with all that education if you haven’t got a use for it.”
“I was just granted my degree yesterday,” Kayla said defensively. “It’s early days yet.”
“That’s your whole trouble, Kayla. You’ve gone and spent a fortune on your schooling without a thought for your future.”
It took another ten minutes for Kayla to get off the phone. Chester issued a reluctant invitation to her to come to the sheep station to help out with the shearing. Neither her aunt nor her uncle congratulated her. Of course, they just wanted to see her settled in life, but their negativity drained the elation of the previous evening out of her.
It didn’t help that Roland still hadn’t called. But her lovely yellow roses were scenting her bedroom, reminding her that she had friends. And it was Wednesday. She was due to spend four hours in the lab running Whitcomb’s samples. She shook off her gloominess and followed her routine. But it felt weird that for the first time in nearly ten years she had no paper to write. Except, she reminded herself, she did. The committee wanted her dissertation to be submitted to a journal. Or at least an extract of it. So her academic work was far from over.
She looked at herself in her mirror as she dressed in her usual shorts and tee-shirt. Yup, she was still fat Kayla Cooper, probably of mixed race, probably doomed to remain a virgin for the foreseeable future. But she had her doctorate, her research, and a life. She couldn’t spend her time moping over a guy, no matter how hot he was, or how attuned to him she felt. If billionaire industrialist Roland Voros had lost interest in her, it was to be expected. She had to accept it and move on.
After all, what did a girl from a sheep station, a lowly research assistant and part time bar waitress have in common with a wealthy business tycoon? Zip. If he asked her to accompany him to some red carpet event, she couldn’t go. She didn’t have a gem encrusted formal evening gown — or any other kind — to wear. And she rather thought that her good brown suit wouldn’t do. She knew she had looked out of place in all the restaurants he had taken her to.
The most important event in her life had passed unmarked by the guy she was in love with. Diamonds or no diamonds, did she need the words to know that she was unimportant to Roland Voros?
CHAPTER SEVEN
The fierce February sun beat down relentlessly on the troop of men pounding the beach with rhythmic stamping and synchronized sweeps of their long wooden spears. Roland Voros, stripped to the waist, and wearing only the traditional loincloth of the Maori warrior was sweating. As each drop trickled over the freshly incised and tattooed design over his left breast the pain of that area throbbed. He was careful not to let his agony reach his face. He was Voros and he did not flinch.
Watatoni Te Kanewa and his two eldest sons stood before their troop of dragons and led them through the paces of the intricate war dance, preparing them for battle. For three days the tireless Maori dragons had trained and danced and feasted. Standing shoulder to shoulder with his sword bearers had bonded Roland to his men as nothing else could have done.
But it had been a surprise this morning when Lord Te Kanewa had introduced his tohunga ta moko, Whina Te Kanewa. “You have the heart of a Maori,” he announced. “You may bear the mark of valor if you choose.” He turned to his Whina. “Lord Voros is to be wed, let his heart announce its fidelity.”
It was a challenge as well as an honor. To be tattooed at all was to have your rank and status openly acknowledged. The chest was not the most honorable spot for a tattoo. That was the face, where you flaunted your high worth to all. But Europeans were technically not permitted the sacred decoration at all. Lord Te Kanewa was both honoring him and announcing his adoption into his tribe. Was he also declaring him a fit bridegroom for one of his legendary granddaughters?
Just what did those words of the Lord of the Tasman Islands mean? Was he promising one of his invisible granddaughters to Roland? For despite the size of the settlement, and the cultivated fields of sweet potato, taro and other roots, and the traditional meals cooked and served him, he had seen no female younger than fifty during his stay. But he knew they were somewhere nearby. He could smell them.
Dragon's Successor (BBW/Dragon Shifter Romance) (Lords of the Dragon Islands Book 2) Page 5
