by Susan Napier
His attempt to distance himself from her provoked Rosalind into pure mischief.
‘Yes, Luke and I have never seen each other before in our lives,’ she purred, with an innocent flutter of her lashes that was more telling than any number of torrid looks.
A faint flush rose on Luke’s neck as Razak regarded him with a brief flare of masculine envy before hurriedly consulting his list and ticking off their names.
‘If you’d like to get into the Jeep, I’ll just go and find the other two people I have come to meet,’ he said as he loaded their bags and directed them to the open back seat. ‘Please enjoy the ride. There is very beautiful scenery all the way to the hotel...’
Everything was beautiful, thought Rosalind an hour later as she stepped out onto her bedroom balcony and inhaled a heady brew of tropical scents. The hotel accommodation consisted of a sprawling arrangement of wooden chalets, each containing two-storeyed suites. The rooms themselves cleverly combined stark simplicity with exquisite luxury, so that the guests could pretend that they were roughing it without suffering any of the attendant inconveniences.
By leaning further over the sturdy balcony rail Rosalind could see past the thicket of towering coconut palms and weeping casuarina trees to the broad white smile of the beach with its scattering of wooden sun-loungers and huge, thatched umbrellas.
She turned her head at the sound of a slight scrape, and sighed as she saw a man leaning over the rail of the next-door balcony, which was screened from hers by a wooden lattice panel thickly covered with a glossy dark green creeper.
Instead of some exciting, sexy, fun-loving foreign millionaire, her neighbour was an accountant with an overdeveloped intellect and an underdeveloped social life.
Luke James had a lot to answer for!
CHAPTER FOUR
HIS luck certainly wasn’t improving, thought Rosalind in exasperation as she watched the slinkily clad woman sidle away from the man at the bar with an insincere smile pinned to her glossy lips.
She just couldn’t take it any more. She picked up her tall glass and sauntered over to plonk herself down on the next bar stool.
‘You really have to do something about that technique of yours,’ she announced.
Luke James stiffened, almost spilling his drink as he turned towards her, his dark eyes flicking over her shimmering green tube-top and flimsy wraparound skirt before darting past her to the crowded table of laid-back revellers which she had just abandoned.
The fiery sunset had provided a magnificent backdrop for diners at the hotel’s open-air terrace restaurant but the thick, velvety darkness had long since fallen and most people had drifted away to the disco or to watch the nightly ‘entertainment extravaganza’ provided by staff and local cultural groups. Others, pursuing quieter interests, were strolling the moonlit beach, or entertaining privately in their chalets.
‘I beg your pardon?’
Rosalind plucked a cherry from the bristling array of fruit decorating her Mai Tai, tossing it into her mouth and enjoying the lush burst of alcoholic flavour on her tongue as she studied his wary expression with faint amusement. She couldn’t blame him for being suspicious ; after all, she had been rather obviously ignoring him ever since they’d arrived.
But she had magnanimously decided to stop trying to avoid him. In a resort as small and exclusive as the Palms it was virtually impossible anyway. Instead of fading obligingly into the background in the past couple of days, eclipsed by the far more colourful company at the hotel, Luke James had managed to snag at her attention constantly. He was almost always alone, undoubtedly hampered by the shyness which those who didn’t know him might easily interpret as off-putting aloofness.
Rosalind felt sorry for him, aware of his frequent, surreptitious glances in her direction. While she had been merrily acquiring new friends and acquaintances with her usual speed he had remained uncomfortably out of place amidst the relaxed holidaymakers. At least tonight he had left his laptop in his room—this afternoon he had been using it under one of the umbrellas down on the beach, a solitary figure absorbed in his own little world, seemingly oblivious to the fun going on around him. The man obviously needed taking in hand!
‘Your technique for picking up women,’ she explained, licking her cherry-slick fingers. ‘Although I must admit you seem to have the picking-up part down pat. It’s what happens afterwards that seems to be your problem.’
‘Afterwards?’ His winged eyebrows whipped into a steeply defensive slant.
Rosalind’s eyes creased with amusement as she realised that he had placed a sexual connotation on her innocent words.
‘After you’ve delivered your opening lines,’ she said demurely. ‘You’re supposed to follow them up with some witty banter that fans the sparks of attraction into a mutual conflagration. You’re acting more like a wet blanket than a bellows. What made her suddenly change her mind?’
‘Who?’
‘Her.’ She jerked her head in the direction of the woman who had now zeroed in on another solitary male at the other end of the open-air bar. ‘The hot-looking lady who was chatting you up just now.’
‘She wasn’t chatting me up,’ he denied irritably. ‘We were merely having a polite conversation.’
Wow! Talk about being uptight! Rosalind rolled her eyes at his obtuseness. ‘She bought you a drink, for goodness’ sake; how much more of an invitation do you need?’ She tilted her bright head towards him, lowering her voice confidingly so that he had, perforce, to lean towards her. ‘She was coming on to you, Luke—I recognised the body language even if you didn’t. She was zinging you with those coy up-and-under looks, snuggling up to your side, making sure you got an eyeful of that impressive cleavage...and there you were, as stiff as a post—’
‘I beg your pardon?’
Rosalind collapsed into giggles at his outraged growl.
‘I meant your facial expression,’ she told him when she’d finally managed to stuff the laughter back down her throat. ‘The way you were holding yourself.’ She went off into another spate of giggles, almost falling off the stool, as she realised she had uttered another unintentional double entendre.
He looked as though he would like to throttle her, had he possessed the courage. ‘Really?’ he muttered sceptically through clenched white teeth.
‘Yes, really. I...er...kept my body-language observations strictly above the waist,’ she said, straight-faced, and then she couldn’t resist teasing him by looking down at his shoes and stroking her gaze slowly up the long masculine legs, encased in pale cotton trousers, which were wrapped around his bar stool.
All his casual clothing had an expensive kind of crumpled elegance that suited his lanky frame. He looked a far cry from the dithering nerd-in-a-suit she had met at the airport, but that was still the image of him that she carried foremost in her mind. However, she had noticed on the beach that his modest swimming boxers exposed some surprisingly well-defined leg muscles and her breath caught in her throat as her eyes reached his splayed thighs and the taut fabric across his hips revealed another unexpectedly well-defined aspect of his masculinity.
Her eyes skipped a survey of his short-sleeved white shirt and shot to his face, which, she discovered with a jolt, looked as heated as she felt. His slight flush gave her back the confidence to laugh huskily, as if she hadn’t almost been hoist by her own petard.
‘So...one minute you and she are having a nice, polite conversation and the next she’s backing off as if you have the plague,’ she said, propping her elbow on the bar and picking out more fruit from her glass. ‘You were the one doing most of the talking. What on earth did you say to her?’
His eyes narrowed as he watched her devour a slice of pineapple with voluptuous pleasure. ‘If you must know, I was merely telling her about one of my more intricate cases.’
The pineapple nearly flew out of her appalled mouth. Accountancy?‘ she squeaked. ’You have a beautiful woman flirting madly with you and you talk books and ledgers?‘
> ‘It was a very interesting case,’ he said mildly.
‘Maybe to another accountant! She wasn’t, was she...an accountant, I mean?’
‘She said she was an exotic dancer.’
There was a small, incredulous silence. ‘Safe to assume she isn’t one of life’s intellectual giants, then,’ Rosalind said drily. An exotic dancer on the make and Luke had managed to let her slip through his fingers. If he had tried he couldn’t have done a better job of lousing up! ‘For goodness’ sake, couldn’t you find something more exciting to talk about...like the weather?’
‘But she asked me about my work,’ he protested.
‘Yes, but she didn’t really want to know all the gruesome details,’ Rosalind told him. ‘It was just an opening gambit, like asking what star sign you are or whether you have a light for her cigarette .. :
‘I don’t believe in astrology and smoking damages your health.’
Rosalind kept a firm grip on her sense of humour. This was going to prove more of a challenge than she had thought. ‘Do you have to take everything so literally ? Boy, do you ever need help! Luckily I’m on hand to give you a few lessons.’
‘Lessons?’ His hair was ruffled by the warm off-shore breeze, a few glossy strands stirring and lifting to fall forward in twin curves on either side of the central widow’s peak. He looked endearingly untidy for a few seconds before an absent hand slicked his hair back into its former neatness. Rosalind resisted the urge to reach up and restore the tousled look, which softened the sweeping angles of his narrow face and made him look more relaxed and casual...even rather sexy in a rumpled kind of way!
‘In the fine art of flirtation. And don’t say you don’t need any because tonight was a rerun of what happened to you last night at the poolside buffet and today on the beach: initial feminine advance followed by hasty retreat. So far you seem to have a perfect strike-out rate where women are concerned.’
‘I didn’t realise anyone was keeping score,’ he said tightly.
‘Just call it a neighbourly interest.’ She grinned, draining the rest of her drink. ‘Don’t take it too personally. People-watching is one of the accepted pleasures of being on holiday. The trick is not to let the watching take the place of healthy interaction—’
‘Of which you’ve been having plenty, without apparent discrimination against age or sex!’ he shot back. His mouth immediately compressed, as if he was angry at himself for the acid outburst. Following his brooding gaze to the uninhibited group of men and women with whom she had enjoyed her dinner, Rosalind guessed that his words had been prompted by a combination of wounded male pride and envy of her easy popularity. She forgave him instantly and defused the comment by dropping into characters.
‘Mmm, being irresistibly likeable is such a trial,’ she drawled in an impeccable aristocratic whine. ‘One is constantly in demand, but one must do one’s duty, mustn’t one, dear chap? Noblesse oblige and all that...’
Anyone else would have gratefully picked up the cue to gloss over a faux pas, but Luke’s smile was a perfunctory twitch. ‘I’m sorry if I offended you. I didn’t mean to imply that I thought you were promiscuous.’
Didn’t you? popped into Rosalind’s head as she met his unblinking gaze and wondered at the challenging gleam in the obsidian depths. But then she noticed his hands swivelling his drink round and around on its paper coaster, and the tension inherent in the gesture reassured her that the defiant glimmer in his eye was merely a reflection of one of the flaming torches which provided the hotel’s beach frontage with its romantic ambience.
She sighed and shook her head. ‘You take life too seriously, Luke—no wonder you’re having trouble handling a simple holiday flirtation! Unless... You are interested in women, aren’t you?’
Now he did blink, shattering the illusion of steely-eyed concentration. His olive skin darkened a tinge. ‘Of course I am!’
‘These days it pays to check.’ She grinned, patting his bare forearm. She was surprised to feel the same electric hum that she had felt when she’d touched him on the plane. Last time she’d put it down to engine vibration; this time it must be the delayed punch of the Mai Tais she had been drinking.
‘So, Luke,’ she said, removing her hand and flexing her tingling fingers, ‘do you want my help or not?’
His look, under the reckless brows, was unreadable. ‘And if I said “not”?’
She tilted her chin and stared down her pert nose at him. ‘Then naturally I’d steer clear of you for the rest of my stay. After all, I wouldn’t want to interfere with your enjoyment of the wonderful, fun-filled, friend-crammed holiday you appear to be having.’
She wasn’t surprised to see a brief flare of alarm in his eyes. ‘Er... exactly what would this “help” of yours entail?’ he enquired cautiously.
‘You mean what would you be letting yourself in for?’ The temptation to be outrageous was too much. She batted her eyelashes at him and said throatily, ‘Why don’t you buy me a drink, big boy, and find out?’
‘Big boy?’ He was startled into a dark chuckle. It was smooth yet rasping, a very masculine sound of appreciation that was all the more appealing for its undertone of reluctance.
At last she was getting somewhere! ‘Too blatant?’ she asked impishly.
‘Erina was much more subtle,’ he admitted, hiding the curve of his mouth against his glass. Rosalind watched the transparent liquid break against his lips and thought that if he was running true to form he was probably drinking mineral water.
‘Oh, right! Miss Exotic Dancer was subtlety personified ... in a dress that was cut to her navel!’ she said sarcastically. ‘What did she call you?’
‘Darling.’
Rosalind snorted, conveniently forgetting how often the word was abused by her profession. ‘How hack neyed. She obviously has no imagination. No wonder you gave her-the brush-off.’
‘It was vice versa, remember?’
‘Only because you didn’t give her a chance to glimpse the debonair man of the world beneath the accountant,’ she said, already busily working out scenarios in her head.
He looked down into his glass, obviously struggling with some strong emotion. Gratitude, probably, thought Rosalind. ‘It’s very kind of you to take pity on me, but I don’t like to encroach too much on your own holiday...’
‘Oh, it won’t take me more than a few days to whip you into shape,’ said Rosalind confidently, wishing he would be less self-effacing.
‘It sounds painful.’
‘Stop being so negative. It’ll be fun! You get a chance to explore your hidden potential and I get to play Pygmalion.’
‘As long as you don’t start giving me elocution lessons,’ he said, so drily that for once she missed the joke.
‘Oh, no, your speaking voice is one of your strong points...smooth and mellow, with just a hint of gravel in the undertone. And you have a sexy little hitch to some of your words. No, we definitely want to keep the voice.’
One eyebrow rose in an ironic slant, independent of the other. ‘Thank you.’
Rosalind was impressed afresh by the whimsical charm of those wayward brows. ‘Stick with me, kid, and this time next week women like Erina will be begging you to debit their balance sheets!’ She gave him a lascivious wink and was amused to see him flush as he uttered another abrupt, almost unwilling laugh. It gave her a surge of odd, almost possessive satisfaction to watch his tightly compressed personality visibly unfold, although he obviously had a long way to go yet!
‘I’m scarcely a kid,’ he said stiltedly.
‘Why, how old are you?’
‘Twenty-eight’
‘Wow! That old, huh?’ Dancing green eyes mocked his claim to maturity. ‘How old do you think I am?’
His eyes flicked over her with unflattering speed. ‘Thirty-five?’
‘Ouch!’ She laughed. With her supple, energetic body and elfin features she knew very well that she looked younger than her years. She licked her finger to place an imaginary s
troke beside him in the air. ‘Score one to me, Grandpa. I’m twenty-seven.’
‘So I should be the one calling you kid,’ he shot back with commendable speed.
‘I may be younger in years but I suspect I’m decades older in worldly experience.’ She chuckled, slyly swiping his glass in lieu of the Mai Tai he had failed to replenish. He made a half-hearted attempt at retrieval which she avoided by leaning back, giggling when the tube-top stretched alarmingly low over the smooth swell of her breasts, threatening to let them pop free. He froze and she directed a teasing look at him over the brim of the stolen glass before throwing back her head and dispatching the contents in a single swallow.
Mineral water it was not!
Rosalind choked on the ball of fire that exploded when the thick, oily fluid came in violent contact with the back of her throat, and grabbed gratefully at the cocktail napkin that appeared under her streaming eyes.
‘My God, what in the hell was that?’ she spluttered when she had recovered sufficiently to discover she still had a voice, albeit one that was cracked and croaky.
‘Russian vodka, straight.’
Rosalind shuddered. ‘You drink it raw? What are you, some kind of masochist?’
‘It’s an acquired taste, I agree.’
‘Acquired taste! It’s amazing you have any tastebuds left after drinking that stuff. It’s like liquid fire. And it has a kick like a kangaroo!’
‘I have a high tolerance for alcohol...something to do with my biochemistry, I believe.’
Trust Luke to have a boringly logical explanation for his dangerous taste in drinks. ‘Lost opportunity there, Luke,’ she chided wheezingly. ‘You should have hinted at a shadowed past...that you may have acquired your liking for Russian vodka in Moscow, but the circumstances are not something you’re at liberty to discuss.’
‘You mean I should lie?’
‘I said may, didn’t I? It’s not lying, exactly. It’s weaving a romantic tale around the truth to make it a bit more interesting.’ She sniffed. It was a mistake. The potent fumes lingering in her throat expanded into her nasal passages and made her eyes water furiously again. She abandoned the ridiculous argument over semantics and mopped at the brimming tears before remembering that she had applied a bold amount of mascara to her dark-brown-dyed eyelashes to make them look thicker and longer. ‘Oh, no!’ She raised her face to his. ‘Has my mascara run?’
