by Robyn Donald
Mouth and throat dry, she said harshly, ‘I don’t have a dryer, I’m afraid.’
He gave her a satiric glance. ‘Don’t worry about it.’
When she dithered, he finished smoothly, ‘Of course, I could take off my trousers and drape them over the veranda railing. The sun’s hot enough to dry them.’
Knowing that he was deliberately taunting her, she swallowed. ‘If you want to, yes. I’ll shower now.’
Why, oh, why had he taken it on himself to come? The tycoons she’d met previously had minions who did all their grunt work.
Probably because he thought he could talk her into bed, she thought, hot with shame. And he so nearly had…
‘You have a shower here?’
‘Of course,’ she said crisply, grabbed an armful of clothes and disappeared into the bathroom, wishing fervently that she could take refuge in the shower until the chopper returned. However, the only water supply was an elderly corrugated-iron tank behind the house, replenished by rain from the roof. And in Northland spring rain had to last over summer.
Also, she had to pack. Racked with shameful frustration, she settled for her usual efficient and speedy scrub, then turned off the taps with a vicious twist of her wrist.
Once out and dry, she shrugged into cotton trousers and a floaty coverall in darkest green voile, skimming her hair back from her face before applying the merest shimmer of lip gloss. She wasn’t going to hide behind a mask of cosmetics; it would make Prince Marco Considine too important.
Still fully clothed, he’d finished cleaning out the fridge when she walked back into the room; he gave her a long cool look before carrying the chilly bin through the door onto the veranda that overlooked the sea.
Even then, with her back to him and tossing her clothes into a suitcase, she felt his presence like…like a caress, she thought angrily, slamming the door of the wardrobe. Ruthlessly ignoring her taut nerves, she picked up her bags and took them out onto the veranda.
Big and lithe and totally relaxed, Marco was leaning against an upright and looking out across the bay. Although the gentle whisper of the waves would have covered the slight sounds of her progress across the wooden floor, he turned immediately, his handsome face a burnished bronze mask that stretched her already taut nerves as she deposited her pack by the rail.
‘Give me that.’ He straightened up and held out his hand for her laptop.
‘It’s not heavy,’ said, her fingers tightening on the handle.
He said with a cool interest that made her very wary, ‘Is this stubbornness a characteristic of yours, or do you save it for me?’
With the aloof precision she’d been practising in the shower, she said, ‘It’s only a laptop.’
‘I was brought up to believe that no woman should carry anything heavier than her handbag,’ he said with an ironic smile. ‘Or a child.’
A fierce, powerful yearning ached through her. Horrified, she realised she was imagining a child—their child—a little girl with her mother’s red hair and grey eyes, and her father’s proud features, softened by the promise of great beauty…
A low throbbing banished the fantasy. The chopper was coming in fast and low across the hills.
‘Perfect timing,’ said with a cool, compelling smile that didn’t reach his eyes, and took the laptop from her, hefting the heavy chilly bin in his other hand. ‘Let’s go.’
They reached Auckland in the late afternoon, landing on the roof of a building in the downtown area. Normally Jacoba would have enjoyed the flight over the city between its twin harbours, one opening out onto the wild west coast with long black beaches, the other island-dotted and benign. This time, however, she barely saw it.
Once in the air-conditioned confines of the building, she said, ‘When do we start the shoot?’
‘Tomorrow morning. You’re staying in this hotel tonight,’ Marco told her. He glanced at his watch. ‘You have a meeting here with Zoltan in ten minutes.’
He’d withdrawn into a cool, businesslike attitude, setting up a barrier between them. Good, she thought savagely, fighting a sharp regret.
The large, airy suite looked east and north over the harbour. Although beautifully put together, it had the impersonal formality of a place decorated for guests rather than the owner.
She’d seen too many places like this, Jacoba thought, wishing herself back in the sanctuary of her shabby bach.
Not that it was a sanctuary any longer; somehow Marco had breached its walls. She’d never be able to go there without remembering him, she realised on an ache of despair. She glanced at the flowers in a vase, and asked, ‘Why are you here?’
‘To facilitate things,’ he said abruptly. ‘And—’ seductive chime of a telephone interrupted him.
‘That will be Zoltan,’ Marco said, picking up the receiver.
Jacoba gave him a dagger-sharp glare, which he acknowledged with a wry lift of his brows. ‘Yes,’ he said, and put the receiver down.
Haughtily, Jacoba ordered, ‘Please don’t answer my telephone again.’
The prince’s smile held irony and understanding. ‘Sorry, it was an automatic reaction.’
‘You’d hate it if I did it at your house,’ she said in a tone that came embarrassingly close to a snap.
Now why had she said that? She wasn’t likely to ever be in his house. How did his mere presence fry her brain and loosen her tongue?
He examined her with hooded eyes. ‘I’m sure you’re far too well-mannered to commit such a cardinal sin. The director’s on his way.’
Although Jacoba wanted Marco to go, she couldn’t order him out. As he held the power and the purse-strings he had every right to sit in on this discussion with Zoltan.
So she forced herself to appear calm and professional in the conversation with the director, while trying to ignore the prince. It didn’t work; every time she felt his glance, her body reacted with uninhibited excitement, sending her breath swiftly through her lips and the quick clamour of her heartbeat drumming in her ears.
Half an hour later a somewhat smug Zoltan—surprisingly pleasant this time—had left, and she was sitting on the big sofa fighting an odd mixture of relief and chagrin.
‘One day—two at the outside,’ the director had promised.
‘What time do we start?’
‘Six in the morning—a car will collect you.’ He’d glanced at the silent prince and transferred his gaze back to Jacoba with a sly smile. ‘So go to bed early tonight.’
She had given him a glittering look. ‘Of course.’
Clearly the man thought she was Marco’s latest lover. He did, she admitted silently, have reason; although the prince hadn’t touched her or made the slightest effort at intimacy, she recognised a subtle possessiveness in his attitude that exhilarated her as much as it worried her.
In spite of being convinced that she no longer had any logical reason to fear Illyrians, she didn’t dare let herself get close to Marco Considine . OK, she might be pushing it a bit to worry about what the paparazzi would find out if they went looking, but the promise she’d made to her mother on her deathbed still held. She’d never reveal she was Illyrian.
So now she got to her feet and said to Marco, ‘Thank you for taking the time and trouble to bring me back.’
He rose too. ‘It was nothing,’ he said negligently. ‘I owed you—it was my decision to re-shoot the video.’
‘I knew that.’ She asked with a flash of recklessness she should have killed, ‘What exactly did you dislike about the original takes? Were you too recognisable?’
His brows rose. ‘No,’ he said crisply. ‘And how did you know I was the one who pulled the plug on them?’
‘Because if Zoltan had hated them he’d have told me; he didn’t want me, and he’d have been delighted with a chance to prove that I was wrong for the concept. So if he wasn’t the sticking point, it has to be you.’ She waited, and when he didn’t immediately answer added, ‘At the very least, you must have agreed with the person who
made the decision.’
Marco found himself wishing that she was more like other models he’d met—so absorbed in her career that she had little time to give to anything else. This woman was intelligent, and when she looked at him with those huge grey eyes, so clear yet so unreadable, not only did she engage his body but also his mind.
Dangerous…
No, he refused to accept that. He didn’t believe in femmes fatales—but he had to admit that she intrigued him more than any woman had since his callow youth.
‘It had nothing to do with your performance; you’re the consummate professional. There seemed to me to be a difference in atmosphere between the shots with Sean Abbott and the ones with me, and if I noticed it, others will too.’
The truth, but not the whole truth. He added, ‘This is the first perfume the company has produced, and I want the campaign to be the best it can be.’
Again, the truth—but not entirely. She looked at him with those enigmatic eyes, her beautiful face aloof and patrician, a little tense but graceful with her hair falling like living fire down her back, and the raw power of hunger knotted his gut.
His voice hardening, he finished, ‘A huge amount of money is riding on this.’
She dismissed that with a slight twist of her lush mouth. ‘It always comes down to money in the end.’
‘That’s how the world works,’ he said cynically.
Her swift glance accused him of hypocrisy. He added, ‘You employ a very tough agent to see that you get the utmost money for your appearances.’
She shrugged and let it go. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I’ll have an early dinner tonight. You heard your very expensive director give me his instructions.’
‘Yes, and damned impertinent I thought it,’ the prince said curtly.
She shrugged. ‘He wasn’t talking to you—it was directed at me. Directors are despots, but he’s not likely to antagonise the man who pays him. As you say, money is how the world works.’
And because he didn’t seem to realise that her composure was more fragile than tissue paper, she walked across to the door. ‘Goodnight.’ She forced a brisk, impersonal note into her voice.
‘Sleep well,’ he said indolently.
And then he was gone. Closing the door behind him with a ragged sigh, Jacoba leaned back against it, trying to coax her tense muscles to relax. None of her usual methods worked; her whole body felt strung on wires, still alert and jittery with frustrated desire.
At least she believed him when he said he’d leave her alone. She couldn’t see Prince Marco Considine either losing his head to lust, or forcing a woman. That controlled pride was backed by an uncompromising strength of will. A man who’d accomplished as much as he had before he was thirty had to possess both self-discipline and a driving determination that made her shiver.
Ice and steel right through, to match those Considine eyes and that formidable, handsome face.
To him a woman would be a diversion, a pleasant way to relax—but he’d make love with the power and grace of his inherent sexuality…
She peeled off her clothes and turned the shower on to cold to douse the effects of her thoughts, but she couldn’t dampen down the stark hunger that still burned inside her.
How was she going to banish those wild minutes on the beach from her mind—and her heart?
Especially as she was going to be seeing more of him. A series of parties around the world had been planned to launch the perfume, beginning with a gala ball in London . She was to partner the prince at every one.
She forced herself to eat some of the dinner delivered to her, and then took out her mobile phone. Punching in a number, she waited until her sister answered. ‘Hi, Lexie. How’s things?’
‘Fine,’ Lexie said cheerfully. ‘How’s your novel going?’
‘Not.’ Jacoba explained what had happened.
‘Bummer,’ said succinctly, adding with some indignation, ‘And I don’t believe for a second that your work wasn’t good enough. That director’s out to get you.’
Jacoba gave a wry smile. ‘Don’t worry about the director. I’ve dealt with worse than him. How’s Australia ?’
‘Terrific!’, a vet on a working holiday there, bubbled with enthusiasm for some time.
When she wound down Jacoba said, ‘Obviously you’ve added enormously to your portfolio of animals! How’s your money holding out?’
‘Fine. Don’t worry about me—I’m independent now, thanks to you.’
Jacoba had begun to model at sixteen, a couple of years after their mother had manifested the first signs of the illness that eventually killed her. Although Jacoba had enjoyed the glamour of her work, her main ambition had been to give Ilona Sinclair the best medical aid. Too soon, when it became obvious that nothing would help her mother, she began studying investment strategy, determined that Ilona wouldn’t die worrying about her children’s future.
She thought now that if her career had meant nothing else, it had given her mother peace of mind at the end and provided Lexie with the means to follow a vocation she adored.
Her sister asked now, ‘Is everything OK, Jake?’
‘Fine.’ But the word rang hollow.
‘I can tell it’s not.’ hesitated, then asked, ‘Is that Illyrian prince still around?’
‘Yes.’
Lexie was silent for several more moments. ‘Do you think he’s suspicious?’
‘No!’ Jacoba hesitated, then said rapidly, ‘Sometimes I wonder if we’re not being a bit obsessive about keeping our identities secret. I can understand Mama’s fear, but things have changed so much now. Of course she was terrified of the dictator and his secret police. Now that the legitimate prince has taken over I doubt if she’d be worried. I don’t plan to go around telling people I’m Illyrian, but I simply can’t see that it would be a disaster if anyone found out.’
Lexie didn’t answer the implied question. ‘Mama might have seemed a bit paranoid about not ever telling anyone, but she had good reason.’
‘Yes, but Paulo Considine ’s been dead for quite a few years now. I just think it’s probably not so necessary to be cautious.’
‘You’ve met the new ruling prince—Alex, isn’t it? Does he look the sort of man who’d take revenge?’ Lexie asked inconsequentially.
Jacoba hesitated, except that it wasn’t Prince Alex’s dark, good-looking features she saw in her mind. Instead, Marco’s hard, handsome face stayed fixed there.
Revenge? No, but contempt…
Appalled, she realised she’d wanted Lexie to agree that they no longer needed to hide their Illyrian heritage. Although she’d done it unconsciously, she’d been trying to find an excuse to let down her guard with Marco.
‘If you’re thinking about Mama’s tales of blood feuds, no,’ she said swiftly. ‘Prince Alex is a civilised man, not a murderous psychopath. Anyway, why should we worry about revenge? If anyone is, it should be the secret police wondering whether we’re going to demand satisfaction for killing our father and hounding Mama out of Illyria.’
‘There might be more to it than Mama told us,’ Lexie said diffidently.
Shrugging, Jacoba said, ‘There probably is, but it’s past history now. Anyway, it’s not important; I feel a complete New Zealander.’
‘Me too,’ said trenchantly. ‘All that Illyrian stuff has got nothing to do with me. I just want to forget about it.’
A little startled by her sister’s vehemence, Jacoba glanced at the clock on the bedside table, frowning when she saw the time. ‘Fine. Let’s wipe it from our minds. Look, I’d better go. I have an early call tomorrow.’
She went to bed, wooing sleep with a range of relaxation exercises that eventually won her the reward, but when the alarm shrilled the next morning she woke feeling exhausted.
‘Busy night, darling?’ the director enquired as she was being made up. The malicious intonation in his voice ruffled Jacoba’s nerves. He glanced at his watch. ‘How long will it be before you’re finished?’
‘Jacoba, don’t you dare talk!’ the make-up expert commanded fretfully, glaring at him. ‘It’s going to take me another ten minutes to get the lipstick right, and after that we have to anchor that damned tiara into her hair.’
‘Nothing damned about it,’ the director said. ‘It’s worth about a million pounds.’
Jacoba said stringently, ‘And it’s heavy.’
‘Shut up, Jacoba,’ the make-up man shouted.
Ignoring him, Zoltan enquired on a sneer, ‘So you’re not aiming to be a princess?’
‘No,’ Jacoba said indifferently.
It was the start of a long day. Jacoba kept waiting for Marco to appear, and was both frustrated and relieved when he didn’t. Filming with Sean was entirely different; she had to act with him, whereas with Marco she’d been helplessly reacting to his formidable male charm.
Professionally, she used the memory of how it had felt to feel Marco’s strong arms around her, how her body had reacted with helpless sensuality, how she’d felt when he’d smiled at her…
It must have worked, because late in the afternoon Zoltan called a halt.
‘That’s it, girls and boys, fun’s over.’ His gaze rested on Jacoba for a second, then flicked past her. ‘Or just about to start,’ he added on a malicious note, ‘for those of you who are going out.’
The tiny hairs across the back of her neck prickled. She didn’t turn, but her skin tightened as she sensed someone’s noiseless approach.
Still in the crimson ball-dress, she stripped off long satin gloves and put them down on a side-table.
Tall, the powerful lights picking out the tough framework of his unsmiling face, Marco stopped a few feet away. ‘Finished?’ he asked Zoltan.
‘It’s done,’ told him. ‘I think you’ll be pleased with this version. Jacoba and Sean struck sparks off each other.’
‘I hope so,’ Marco said with smooth indifference, his eyes so cold they sent a foreboding shiver down Jacoba’s spine. Without looking at her, he said even more blandly, ‘That, after all, is what they—and you—are being paid for.’
