Mistresses: Blackmailed With Diamonds / Shackled With Rubies

by Lucy Gordon;Sarah Morgan;Robyn Donald;Lucy Monroe;Lee Wilkinson;Kate Walker

  Keir Carmichael might wield a powerful sexuality that still had the power to reduce her to witlessness—might be the only man who could break through to her guarded femininity—but he was a treacherous swine who’d carelessly smashed her life.

  With a smile that showed her teeth, she said, ‘I don’t think that would be a good idea.’

  ‘Why?’

  Keeping the smile pinned on, she said, ‘Because we have nothing in common. We never did.’ Except her father’s firm.

  ‘You didn’t think that four years ago,’ Keir said evenly, his heavy lids and thick lashes almost hiding his eyes.

  Words she’d heard him say to her father rang in her ears. The intervening years hadn’t diluted their poisonous impact, nor her humiliation.

  Anger fired her eyes to gems, prickled across her skin. In a voice as smooth as the honey he’d compared her hair to, she said, ‘Ah, but I was so naïve and easily influenced four years ago.’

  His lashes drooped further. His face was sculpted into the fierce beauty of a predator, all angles and tough, disciplined patience. ‘Naïve, perhaps, but I wouldn’t have called you easily influenced. You were intelligent and passionate and funny, with a maturity that made you seem older than your age. But you’re right—this is no place to be talking about the past. When do you get off for lunch?’

  Why not? They could exchange platitudes and she had the perfect excuse to leave early. And it would get him off her back. If Keir had made up his mind to see her she might as well go along with him. He hadn’t got to where he was by giving up.

  But it would be surrender. Although she might not be able to control her response to him, she could certainly deny him that small victory.

  ‘If you’re asking me to lunch,’ she said lightly, ‘the answer is no, thank you.’ To show that she wasn’t afraid she gave him her most charming smile. ‘It’s been interesting to see you again, but that part of my life is long past and I’ve always felt that raking over old embers is one of the more unprofitable things anyone can do.’ She allowed a touch of malice to shade her voice. ‘And profit is so important, isn’t it?’

  Eyes glittering like diamond shards, he reduced to mere stage scenery the marble floor, the shiny glass cases where skilfully crafted baubles reflected light in a radiance of colours, the sophisticated, carefully composed holiday ambience of the best jewellery salon in one of Australia’s premier resorts.

  ‘Not as important as friends, surely?’ he drawled.

  His words rubbed an old wound. Deliberately relaxing her clenched jaw, Hope said, ‘If you don’t want to buy anything I’m afraid I must ask you to go. My boss doesn’t encourage personal visits.’

  Turning sideways, she groped for the keys to the window cabinet, straightened with them in her hand, and reached for the necklace. Keir’s hand came down over hers, imprisoning it against the smooth, warm roundness of the pearls, the tactile opulence of the velvet pad.

  His touch roared through her with all the subtlety and gentleness of an express train, smashing barriers, shattering four years of effort and self-discipline in one crazy second. White-faced, she said in a tone so low the words barely made it past her lips, ‘Let me go.’

  He lifted his hand, and her treacherous, unreliable, decadent body ached helplessly.

  Keir’s voice was a threatening, fascinating mixture of mockery and powerful sexuality. ‘Who are you afraid of, Hope? Me or yourself?’

  Arrogant bastard! Did he think she’d be a push-over? And why the devil did he want to see her again? There had to be a reason—Keir Carmichael always had a reason for every action.

  Biting back hot, reckless words, Hope said in her most politely colourless voice, ‘Neither.’ She waited before adding delicately, ‘Your…companion…might not like being neglected.’

  ‘Aline is an employee,’ he said, narrowed silver eyes scanning her face, ‘and, for the record, when I’m with one woman I don’t ask another out.’

  ‘That’s very honourable of you.’ She didn’t try to hide the mockery in her words. Inside her head other words drummed—Why this man and no other? Why can’t I get him out of my system?

  The door to the back of the shop opened and Markus emerged. He said something to Chloe, glanced across at Hope and the man with her, then went into the office.

  Of course Keir noticed. He said calmly, ‘Come out to lunch with me, Hope, and we can talk then.’

  His tone implied If you don’t, I’ll stay here until I get the answers I want. Blackmail, delivered with finesse and a ruthless determination to get his own way.

  Hope picked up the necklace.

  ‘Am I supposed to bristle and tell you I’m afraid of no one, then agree to go out with you?’ she asked with spurious interest. ‘Sorry, Keir, but I’ve grown beyond games like that.’ She summoned the sort of smile mothers give to restless, fractious children, and finished kindly, ‘It’s been interesting to see you again. Enjoy the rest of your stay in Noosa.’

  She’d hoped—expected!—to see another flash of temper light his eyes, but that sullen pleasure was denied.

  Instead he looked down into her face and said in a voice that sent tiny shudders scudding the length of her spine, ‘It’s a shame to spoil such a satisfying moment for you, but I give you fair warning: I’ll see you alone before I leave.’

  He turned on his heel and walked out of the shop into the warm sunlight, a dark huntsman moving with a lithe, male grace that caught the eye of every woman in the street. Hope clamped her mouth shut and blinked fiercely, trying to banish his image from her cloudy brain.

  ‘And what,’ Chloe asked avidly, arriving far too late, ‘was all that about?’

  ‘I used to know him once,’ Hope said bleakly. She picked up the pearls and carried them across to the window case. Her bones felt heavy, and when she tried to insert the key in the lock her hand shook, as though Keir had drained her of energy and will-power.

  If it was a hundred years before she next saw him it would be too soon.

  The older woman gave her a curious look. ‘What’s he like?’

  ‘Tough, decisive, and a brilliant businessman,’ Hope told her succinctly, resolutely refusing to look along the street.

  Carefully she slid the pearls into the case, arranging them to show each precious sphere in the very best light. A passerby stopped; sweat dampened her temples as she looked up, but the man who smiled at her didn’t have ice-grey eyes or a face like a battle-hardened Adonis. She stepped back and closed the door and locked it.

  From behind, Chloe said, ‘He’s also very, very rich and powerful—as in immensely, and seriously, and even wickedly powerful. Where did you meet him?’

  Unemotionally Hope replied, ‘He and my father were business associates. That was before the immense, serious and wicked bit, although he was already rich and powerful.’

  ‘With a man like that in your past, it’s no wonder poor Stewart didn’t have a chance,’ Chloe said with a spark of anger in her voice. ‘He hasn’t got what Keir Carmichael has.’

  ‘Keir’s got money,’ Hope said contemptuously. ‘Stewart’s worth ten of him.’

  ‘I know my brother’s a lovely man, but he can’t hold a candle to Mr Carmichael.’ Chloe shrugged. ‘And if you like Stewart so much, why did you send him away a week ago?’

  Because she liked him so much; she’d tried so hard to love him, and it hadn’t happened.

  Hope turned away from the dazzle of Hastings Street and the infectious exuberance of the holiday-makers. ‘It wasn’t fair,’ she said. ‘I didn’t want him to be unhappy.’

  Chloe said quietly, ‘He’s not exactly happy now.’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry.’

  Stewart’s sister shrugged and said fairly, ‘Don’t worry; he’s not so far gone that he’s miserable. He’ll get over it.’

  ‘Of course he will.’ Hope changed the subject. ‘Does Keir come here often? You obviously know him.’

  Chloe shook her head. ‘I read about him in some of Markus
’s business magazines and recognised him as soon as he came in the door.’ She gave an envious smile. ‘He’s got a face that sticks in your memory—I’ll bet it fuels a few erotic fantasies. According to one article, strategists around the Pacific Rim marvel at his energy and his business smarts and his luck.’

  ‘If he’s anything like most whizzkids he’ll be bankrupt by the time he’s forty—and so will a lot of the people who’ve trusted him with their money,’ Hope retorted.

  ‘He doesn’t sound the sort to get himself into trouble. All control and command, with brains and guts and daring to back it up.’ Chloe glanced sideways at Hope. ‘You must have known him pretty well. You looked pretty thick while you were talking.’

  A heated, forbidden pleasure ran surreptitiously through Hope. Ignoring it, she said in her most casual tone, ‘Not very well at all.’

  Chloe’s eyes shifted. ‘Really?’ she asked sceptically. ‘I wouldn’t mind if someone as rich and charismatic as Keir Carmichael knew me as little as he seems to know you.’

  Jealousy smoked through Hope’s defences and stabbed her in the heart. ‘He could choose any woman in the world,’ she said curtly. ‘Why would he be interested in me? Anyway, he’s not a man any sensible woman wants to get tangled up with.’

  ‘Rich men usually find beautiful women interesting! But I know what you mean. He’s probably more than most women could handle. Though it’d be fun to go for the ride.’ Chloe patted her smooth black hair and laughed reminiscently. ‘He’s such a hunk.’

  ‘If you like them big and arrogant and overbearing,’ Hope said with a snap.

  Was Chloe crazy? There’d be no fun in an affair with Keir Carmichael; you didn’t dice with the devil and expect to escape without losing your soul! Hope’s skin tightened as she remembered dark words of passion spoken in a silent room, those long, tanned fingers on her skin, heat and fire and feverish, mindless lust…

  Frustrated lust.

  Keir had been ruthlessly clever, playing her like a particularly silly fish on his skilful, experienced line. Kisses, caresses, smouldering glances, sexy teasing until she’d been wild for him, unable to think, just a heap of quivering responses. Wanting him desperately, she’d offered herself in a hundred innocent ways, and he’d rejected her every time.

  She’d thought him so honourable—until she’d overheard him with her father and found out that to both men she was just a pawn. Devastated, she’d sobbed hysterically to her mother, and for the first time ever Linda Sanderson had defied her husband’s wishes and swiftly, secretly organised her daughter’s escape from New Zealand. Less than twenty-four hours after that overheard conversation, Hope had been on a jet bound for London.

  For a fleeting, depraved moment Hope toyed with an idea. Why not exact a little revenge for the shame and humiliation of four years ago? As soon as the idea reached her conscious mind she dismissed it; revenge was a rotten reason for doing anything.

  Perhaps, she thought sardonically, walking across to the counter, she needed to exorcise Keir before she could allow herself to fall in love with any other man.

  Temptation spread a lush cloak over her, clouding her brain. Why not use this unexpected meeting to put the past into perspective so that she could leave it behind her? Why not give in to this white-hot attraction, and so exorcise it?

  A spasm of sensation contracted in the pit of her stomach, powering her heart-rate into hectic overdrive. Don’t be an idiot, she told herself abruptly. Yes, Keir’s still sexy as hell, but he’s a hard, cold, mercenary robot.

  Just like her father.

  That knowledge would be an armour against disillusion if she—no! She would not meet him again.

  But all that hot afternoon, as she smiled until her cheeks ached and sold enough pretty baubles to keep her boss happy, the thought reappeared, smooth as a snake, insidious, seductive.

  Perhaps she could regain a little of her lost pride if she used Keir as he’d once tried to use her.

  Revenge? Not revenge, she decided with grim desperation, but self-esteem. Although she’d spent the past four years trying to forget him, one look from his crystalline eyes and she’d surrendered again to that mindless enslavement of her senses.

  Excitement rode her hard, glittered behind her lashes, hurried her breathing. When a couple of male customers gave her speculative glances she reimposed control, but behind her cool, helpful manner her body hummed with forbidden excitement and thoughts rushed feverishly through her head.

  If she agreed to his demand for a meeting, was she asking for heartbreak? No; you had to love someone to have your heart broken, and she could never love Keir again. A meeting—a few minutes—wouldn’t tip her life off its foundations…

  She didn’t want to be locked into this emotional and sexual prison for the rest of her life; she wanted to be able to look at Keir Carmichael with adult dispassion.

  When the shop closed it didn’t surprise her to find him waiting for her in the small alley at the rear.

  In a pleasant tone that failed to hide the determination behind it, he said, ‘Come for a drink with me, Hope.’

  ‘All right,’ she said calmly.

  He took her to one of the bars that catered to tourists. ‘I thought you’d prefer somewhere big and noisy and not at all intimate,’ he observed. ‘What would you like to drink?’

  ‘Lime and soda, please.’

  ‘Still as abstemious as ever.’ He made it sound as though she hadn’t changed at all.

  I’ve got news for you, she thought. Four years has made a huge difference to me. It had given her an edge, an advantage, that Keir didn’t understand.

  A waiter materialised at Keir’s elbow, took their orders and disappeared again. Ignoring the rest of the cheerfully informal bar, Keir asked evenly, ‘Why did you leave Auckland so suddenly?’

  Because of this man she’d woken alone on her twentythird birthday in a rented room in a country not her own. It would be immensely satisfying to fling the words she’d overheard at him, to smash that seamless self-assurance.

  But it would also reveal a humiliation that still made her feel sick and ashamed. Her only defence was pride.

  ‘My mother thought it would be a good idea if I saw something of the world,’ she said. ‘I had a chance to go to England.’

  ‘Without saying goodbye?’

  Astonished, she glanced at his hard face. Mildly, because she had to tamp down her anger, she said, ‘You left for America that day, if I remember correctly. I wrote to you.’

  ‘A very stilted little note, thanking me for my kindness.’ He was watching her with narrowed, unsparing eyes.

  A straggling group of men and women, obviously relishing their freedom from children, came into the bar on a wave of laughter and loud chatter. Shrugging, Hope said, ‘I didn’t have much time to write.’

  The drinks appeared. She took a grateful sip of the icy refreshing lime and soda and looked up, keeping her eyes shaded by her lashes, her expression carefully controlled.

  ‘It must have been a sudden decision.’ He paused, then added, ‘You hadn’t said anything about an overseas trip.’

  ‘The opportunity came up very quickly—a friend of my mother’s was going to London and decided she needed someone to go with her. It was too good a chance to miss.’

  Keir lifted his long glass and downed some beer, throat muscles working smoothly. How many times had she seen a man drink? Hope thought despairingly. Probably hundreds; she’d worked as a barmaid and waitress, even as a cook. Had she ever felt that tight jag of hunger in her stomach with any other man than Keir? She didn’t even have to answer.

  Every relationship—if they could be called that—she’d embarked on had foundered on one simple thing. Hope liked men; she found them attractive and fun and interesting—she just didn’t find them sexually appealing.

  Except for this one.

  Was she going to spend the rest of her life longing for the man who had betrayed her?

  Not if she could do someth
ing about it. It suddenly seemed symbolic that today was her birthday; she’d wasted enough time.

  If not sleeping with Keir Carmichael had frozen her in a virginal time warp, perhaps indulging her senses, sating herself with him until she could look at him without a quiver of interest, might smash her a path to freedom.

  The decision that had hidden slyly amongst her muddled thoughts all afternoon emerged sharp and clear in her mind. If she seduced Keir and satisfied this forbidden, frustrated desire, she’d be able to put the past behind her, where it belonged.

  Before, he’d been the one in control, the one who pulled the reins. This time she would make the decisions.

  Hoping he’d read the heat along her cheekbones as a sign of excitement, not determination, and ignoring an age-old instinct that whispered frantically of danger, she said, ‘So tell me what you’ve been doing these past years. Did you and my father finally come to some agreement about his firm?’

  She held her breath and waited for the answer.

  Chapter Two

  ANOTHER gale of laughter from the newcomers gusted through the bar. Heads turned, people smiled or looked disapproving, but Hope sat still, held prisoner by Keir’s unreadable eyes.

  ‘How did you know about that?’ he asked in a detached voice that successfully concealed his emotions.

  Hope lifted her shoulders in another shrug. ‘My father said something about you buying into his business,’ she returned casually.

  ‘I didn’t buy into it, I foreclosed on it,’ Keir said, his tone matching hers, although an intriguing rasp gave the words an edge.

  The conversation she’d overheard four years ago reverberated through her head, echoed in her ears with hideous clarity. ‘He wouldn’t have liked that.’

  ‘No.’

  In her letters her mother had never mentioned Keir’s name, never indicated that her father had lost his firm, but Hope could imagine the repercussions at home, and shuddered inwardly. No one had guessed that James Sanderson had systematically terrorised his wife. Oh, he hadn’t beaten her, but there were forms of abuse as bad as the physical.