In the Australian Billionaire's Arms

by Margaret Way

  It made her head spin. She wanted to pull him down on top of her. Press herself into him. Revel in the weight of his body on hers. She wasn’t strong enough to withstand the tongues of flame licking at her. The little moans she kept hearing, pathetically, were hers. Her back was arching off the floor, her yearnings painfully clear. The stabbing sensations between her legs had become pain. At long last she was totally awakened to passion. Worse, her body, regardless of her mind, was demanding consummation.

  “You’re so … beautiful,” he murmured.

  It sounded as if he lamented the fact. His kisses, though long and deep, were taunting in their fashion. He knew she was desperate for more of him. She knew it as she knew his feelings of guilt. She shared them. Had dear, kind Marcus actually poisoned any hope of anything real between them? There was such turbulence in the air it was crowding the tiny space of common sense that remained in her head.

  Don’t let him know just how desperately you yearn for him. Don’t do it. You will never meet his needs or the Wainwright expectations.

  “How do I stop kissing you?” he muttered against her throat. “Is there a way?”

  “You could let me up.” She felt feverish with excitement, yet she found sufficient strength to speak coldly.

  “I don’t want to let you up. Ever!”

  “Even when I want to be free?”

  His answer cut to the truth. “You weren’t free from the moment you looked into my eyes. Your will is falling short of your desires, Sonya,” he mocked her.

  “As is yours.” She gave a broken laugh. “I thought, as you’re always telling me, David, I’m expert at concealing myself?”

  “It’s high time we settled that. How many other men have kissed you?” He couldn’t resist suckling her full lower lip. It was aquiver, so soft and lush.

  “My father, long dead,” she confessed, in a strange offkey whisper.

  That sobered him. She had never mentioned her father. “Sonya, you must tell me about him.” He swung back onto the floor, staring down at her, with such intensity in his eyes surely she would respond.

  Only she didn’t. “Let me up, David,” she ordered.

  “Certainly, my lady.” He stood, drawing her to her feet, but keeping a steadying arm around her. He was acutely aware of the trembling in her body. He understood. He was a million miles away from being calm himself. “Why don’t you lie on the sofa?” he suggested. “I won’t bother you. I’ll sit here.” He pulled out an armchair. “You must talk, Sonya.”

  “It’s rather terrible, the gift of love,” she mused. She didn’t take the sofa; she sat straight. “Rapture on the one hand. The real possibility it will be taken away on the other. In my experience love has meant loss. I’m not talking romantic love. I’ve shielded myself from that. I thought it wise. I have not been open with you and others, because I’ve found it so difficult to surrender my trust, David. Do you believe in heaven?” She looked at him, her heart in her eyes.

  “If I did, Marcus will be there.” Grief showed on his handsome face.

  “So you don’t?”

  “One needs a whole lot of faith, Sonya. Faith is believing in something for which there’s no proof. I keep an open mind on a possible afterlife. That’s all.”

  “My parents were very good people,” she said, looking down at her locked hands. “My grandmother. They believed in heaven.”

  “Do you?”

  She arranged her thick plait over her shoulder. “How can I? Again, in my experience it’s the good people who die. Bad people prosper.”

  “And the bad people are?” He kept his eyes trained on her, hoping her practised composure was about to crack open.

  “My family.”

  “Family?” He frowned, thoroughly perplexed, but he stayed quiet. If he stayed quiet she might confide in him. David sat back in his chair, staring across at her.

  She didn’t speak again for a full minute. Her reticence was so well ingrained.

  “Sonya, my parents want to meet you,” he prompted her. “They’d like to ask you some questions. Surely you agree they’re entitled to some answers? Marcus was my father’s brother. They were very close. My mother loved Aunt Lucille. Marcus had asked you to be his wife. He gave you a magnificent ring. They know about that as they have to.”

  The emerald of her eyes darkened. “I tried to give it back.”

  “So where is it?” He suddenly thought to ask. “Valuable things need safekeeping.”

  A madness got into her. “You want to see something to surpass your precious emeralds?” A blaze of challenge came into her face, her beautiful eyes flashed.

  “So show me,” he invited, wondering what this was all about.

  “Wait and see.” She sprang up, rushing down the corridor.

  Moments later, she was back, holding something in her hands. A small book of some sort? he thought. An old photograph in a very unusual leather-bound case, dark green, gold-tooled. She sat down beside him breathing with enormous excitement. “You may look.” She passed the case to him with very real reverence.

  It was oddly heavy for its size and it had a tangible aura. It also gave off an aroma like woody incense. There were sparkling tears in her eyes.

  “Sonya!” He set the case down a moment to stare at her. “Whatever is this?” There was such a look on her face it would make a strong man weep.

  “Open it.”

  It was a command.

  He didn’t attempt any levity. He knew it would be a huge mistake. But as he took the case into his hands he felt a strange tingling. It ran up his arms, like shivers of electricity, and struck a chord in his body. He even had to bunch his hands. “What am I holding—a relic of some sort?” He knew she was deeply religious. Her background, of course.

  “Come, open it.” Her hand fell imperiously on his arm. “I have guarded it with my life.”

  She sounded tortured.

  “Sonya, I’ll do everything I can to help you.” He felt such a protective surge she could surely feel it? “Are you in trouble?”

  “David, I didn’t steal it,” she told him, almost kindly. He released a breath. “Thank God for that!”

  Two sides of the case opened out, like a triptych. Very carefully, as though he was handling something precious and very rare, he opened one side, and then the other.

  He possessed a good eye, refined as it was, growing up surrounded by beautiful things. Still he had to gasp, “God, is this real?” He was staring down in stunned amazement at what was an extremely old and valuable, if not priceless, icon of the Madonna.

  “Not God, the Madonna,” she announced, leaning into his shoulder.

  Whatever scenarios he had imagined, it was never this. “But this is extraordinary! You must tell me about it.” The Madonna’s headdress and robe, the framing all around the icon, the ornamentation on both sides, were studded with precious stones—diamonds, rubies, sapphires, emeralds— and embellished with seed pearls. The halo around the Madonna’s head was gold leaf. Her crown, studded with diamonds, had the unmistakable gleam of twenty-four-carat gold. The expression on the beautiful Byzantine face was mournful. The Madonna was not carrying The Child.

  He shot her a piercing glance. “Are you sure some museum isn’t after this as we speak? For pity’s sake, Sonya, if you didn’t steal it, and I believe you, did someone close to you?” Surely one wasn’t allowed to carry a precious icon out of whatever country it came from, he thought. Poland, Hungary? It was obviously Roman Catholic.

  “Be certain of it, David,” she said, with a proud lift of her chin. “It was not stolen. The icon has been in my family for centuries. It was the only thing my grandmother could spirit out of Hungary in 1945 when the Russians were advancing.” Her voice broke. She gave a little choking sob, which she quelled in an instant.

  “Sonya, you’ve stunned me with this,” he said slowly, even if it did explain so much about her. “I regret I’ve sometimes taunted you about your aristocratic connections. Now it appears you have them
. Could you tell me your grandmother’s story? It sounds important.”

  She sank back against the sofa. “I don’t share my secret with anyone,” she said. “Now there is you.” She began to speak in what seemed to him a trancelike voice. “My maternal grandmother’s name was Katalin Andrassy-Von Neumann. She was the only one to escape the Russians under the protection of a family servant. My greatgrandfather, Count Andrassy-Von Neumann, and Katalin’s older brother, Matthias, remained at the palace. My greatgrandfather’s brother, Karoly, got together as much of his fortune as he could, then fled with his family to the United States. They all survived and became very rich. Maybe a lot richer than the Wainwrights.” She shrugged ironically. “The Russians captured my great-grandfather and Matthias. They were never seen or heard of again. My grandmother lived the remainder of her life in far away Norway. She was forced into marriage with a member of the loyal servant’s family after the old man died. My mother was married off too. She managed to escape. She found her saviour in my father. He was Austrian, of good family and thus a man of influence. I never knew the icon existed until I was sixteen. Not long after that, my parents were killed in a car crash.” She stopped abruptly.

  “Are you okay?” He spoke very quietly, concerned for her, but anxious not to stop the flow.

  “Why not?” She gave a discordant laugh. “I’m speaking to you, aren’t I? It is costing me an effort.”

  “I can see that. Sonya, I’m so sorry. We can stop now if you want to.” It didn’t seem right to upset her further.

  Only she took up her story. “I am an orphan of the storm. I will go to my grave believing the crash that killed my parents was engineered by my cousin, Laszlo. He now calls himself Count Laszlo Andrassy-Von Neumann, though he is not entitled to.” She was speaking with outright contempt. “I never feel safe even in this country of peace and freedom where everyone says exactly what they please. I need to feel safe, David.”

  “So you thought you would have been safe with Marcus?”

  “He had so much to offer,” she said mournfully. “I’m not talking about his money. I mean his kindness, his generosity, his protective feelings towards me. I wanted to let him into my life eventually. Only I found I couldn’t marry a man I did not love in the romantic fashion. My feeling for Marcus was not like that. He would have been so perfect as the uncle I had long wished for.”

  He readily saw that. “Humour me, won’t you? Start again and go slowly. Tell me about this Laszlo character. Where does he live?”

  “Not here.” She shuddered. “He has vast interests in the United States and in Hungary. The estate has been returned to him as the rightful heir along with many of the stolen paintings and so forth. He divides his time between the United States, a country so good to his father and him, and Hungary. He is Hungarian through and through. He wants the Madonna.”

  Why wouldn’t he? “This is quite a story.” Indeed his eyes were dazzled by the glitter given off by the many precious stones that decorated the icon. And Sonya had had it in her possession all this time. “One to marvel over really. Princess Michael of Kent and her mother took refuge here in Australia. Quite a few Jewish families, once immensely rich, came here to live out the rest of their shattered lives. Marcus knew one such lady. A great lady, he always said.”

  “Many European and Russian families have such stories,” she said. “I should tell you Laszlo never does anything himself. He has people to carry out his wishes; do all his dirty work. He wasn’t even in Germany when my parents were killed. The authorities said it was an accident. I know my mother went in fear of Laszlo. I can’t talk any more about this.” She bent her shining head.

  “I’m grateful for what you have said, Sonya. It explains so much. But surely with all his resources this Laszlo was able to make contact with you?”

  “Track me down, don’t you mean?” She gazed at him, her eyes matching the glitter of the emeralds.

  “Well—yes.”

  “He hasn’t so far,” she said. “I’ve been extremely careful. I train myself well. Who would think a young woman who worked in a florist shop would have a priceless icon in her possession anyway? Why should I be poor when I could be rich? Some people, heathens, might even pry out the stones. They would be worth a fortune. But that would be sacrilege. The icon remains with me. I am the rightful heir. Not Laszlo. I know it. He knows it.”

  There was big trouble brewing here, David thought. Sonya had long been under cover, but now that cover was blown. Ironically through her connection with his family. It was his family who now bore the responsibility of protecting her. “I think you should get out of this apartment,” he said, decisively.

  She faced him directly. “No!”

  “Then you’re not thinking straight,” he told her, tersely. “You’ve had considerable exposure in the press. No country on earth is isolated these days. Our own press will be trying to find out all they can about you. I made an attempt that came to nothing. But it will all change. What is your real name? “

  She smiled ironically into his eyes. “It matters?”

  “Of course it matters.” He spoke sternly, in an effort to get through to her.

  “So, would you believe Von Neumann? I am Sonya Von Neumann. My father’s family had connections with the Andrassy-Von Neumanns. That’s how my mother met my father.”

  “Then surely after the tragedy there was some member of his family to protect you?” Even now he knew she wasn’t giving him her complete trust.

  “Never to protect me,” she said with some bitterness. “To take me over. Control me. Marry me off to one of them. That wasn’t going to happen. My grandmother was the heir, the only one remaining. She died. Next in line, my mother. You know her story. Now me. I am Countess Andrassy-Von Neumann under the old system, now defunct. Laszlo is not the count, but he doesn’t care. He calls himself that. Ergo, it is!”

  He frowned in concentration. “So tell me, Sonya, what is it you want? You obviously haven’t resolved your burning issues. Is it your plan to oust your cousin? Are you now thinking of starting proceedings that could cost millions of dollars and drag on for years? You might have inherited real money from Marcus, but from what you tell me Laszlo is a very rich man with far greater resources to fight you. Most likely if he’s poured money into the country of his birth he will have support in high places.”

  She sank small pearly teeth into her lower lip. “This I know. I can’t fight him. I’d like to if only to prove he does not have a legitimate claim. It could take years out of my life. I don’t want to go back to Hungary. I am happy here. He is family. He is male. I know he will have done everything in his power to restore the estate. He can even call himself the count. But he cannot have the Andrassy Madonna. That is mine!”

  “But you fear he wants it very badly?”

  “He wants it with a passion,” she declared, very passionate about it herself. “It is supposed to have great spiritual powers. Laszlo holds himself to be head of the family. The family icon should be in his possession. The monetary value of the icon is not of importance to him, although it would be near priceless. The Madonna was always regarded as the family’s most treasured possession.”

  He sat back. “And where exactly do you keep this priceless possession? Don’t for God’s sake tell me at the back of a drawer?”

  “I am not going to say anything further.”

  “No, you’re rather foolishly going to go back into your shell,” he said shortly, pinning her narrow wrist. “You don’t trust me?”

  “I am not going to tell you,” she repeated, sounding driven. “And you can give your parents a message. I will not be interrogated.”

  It took an effort to keep his tone level. “You need help, Sonya,” he said quietly. “If you can only say so much to me, maybe you could speak to a professional? You’ve had to keep far too much bottled up. You’ve had to harden your heart.”

  “I didn’t do such a good job with you,” she pointed out with some hostility. “I try to no
t think of you but you get closer and closer.”

  “It works both ways, Sonya,” he said, holding onto her. “I held my uncle very dear.”

  “And I did not?” She was suddenly furious. “Maybe you think I am telling you a fairy story?”

  He held her stormy gaze. “The icon makes it real. Everything about you falls into place. It must have been really bad living with the constant fear of discovery?”

  She relaxed very slightly. “Laszlo had my parents killed. He will pay.”

  How? he wondered. “You could go public,” he offered a suggestion with feigned seriousness. “You could never confront him yourself. Did you think that’s where Marcus could step in?”

  “No, no!” She shook her head. “Marcus was for protection. Laszlo will move heaven and earth to find me if he learns I’m here in Australia. He has dangerous people he can and will use.”

  “Not with me and my family in your life,” he assured her. “Just tell me this. Could someone find the icon if they searched this place thoroughly? A professional, not a common or garden thief.”

  She swallowed. “They would have to be very, very good.”

  “Get real, Sonya!” he exclaimed. “If Lazlo sent someone he or she would be very, very good. That’s why we need to get you out of here.”

  “To where, David?” she asked, clearly agitated. “Join you at your apartment? Join you in your bed?”

  “You can stop that right now,” he said. “Has anyone ever tried to force sex on you, Sonya? Someone in the past?”

  “Men can be cruel!” she said.

  He groaned, afraid of what she might explain. “Some are. Most aren’t.”

  “The answer you require is no. I am—and you are hearing correctly—a virgin.”

  For a long moment he couldn’t formulate a word. Was she telling the truth? She was an extremely beautiful young woman, twenty-five, but she did have that touch-me-not air. “I don’t know if I should believe you,” he said slowly. “How could you escape a love affair or two?”