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www.millsandboon.co.uk
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER ONE
HE HADN’T CHANGED.
It was Tara’s first thought when she saw him across the big, crowded room. There must have been nearly forty people there, standing about in groups with glasses in their hands, some of the men as tall as he, but her eyes found Sholto unerringly, as though he’d called her name. As though her heart, her mind, her body, had recognised his presence and known where to look for him.
What had brought him back to New Zealand?
Business, of course. Herne Holdings, his import and export business, still had a branch in Auckland as well as others in Hong Kong and Sydney, shipping goods from country to country all around the Pacific rim.
Perhaps it was the intensity of her gaze that made him turn his head from the woman at his side and meet Tara’s eyes. She saw the small movement, quickly controlled, that betrayed his discomposure. Something flared in the Prussian-blue eyes below the dark slash of his brows, something compounded of recognition and antagonism, sending a hot shiver along her spine. And then he shifted slightly so that a broad shoulder in expensive charcoal tailoring partially obscured his companion, his sleek black head bent to concentrate on what she was saying.
‘What can I get you to drink?’ Chantelle was asking at Tara’s side. ‘Dry white? Or sparkling?’ Her brown eyes, peeking from under a bouncy fringe, were enquiring.
‘I’d like a stiff gin and lemon,’ Tara heard herself say, wrenching her attention away to focus on her hostess. ‘Happy birthday,’ she added. ‘As instructed, I didn’t bring a present, but I’d love you to pick something you’d like from my shop. Pop in any time.’
She scarcely heard Chantelle’s delighted rejoinder.
Maybe she should just leave. But that would entail some kind of explanation—and besides, Sholto had seen her. She didn’t want him to think she was running away.
She avoided looking in his direction as she accompanied Chantelle to the polished mahogany bar in the corner of the room—which was two rooms, really, the dividing doors pushed back for the party.
Chantelle’s husband, Philip, appeared and greeted Tara with a kiss on her cheek. ‘What can I get you?’ he asked, slipping behind the bar.
Chantelle relayed Tara’s request.
‘Hard day?’ he enquired. The doorbell pealed, and Chantelle hurried off to answer it. Philip poured a generous measure of gin into a glass and topped it with lemon squash, adding a couple of ice cubes and a slice of fresh lemon before handing her the glass. ‘Business booming in the antique trade?’
Tara took a swallow of the drink before answering. ‘Real antiques are rather slow to move, but I’m doing well with other things. Furniture recycled from used native timber taken from demolition sites is a good seller. The prices are not as high as for antiques, so more people can afford them.’
‘Swings and roundabouts, eh? Chantelle says she’s selling more potted plants than cut flowers these days. Sign of the times, do you think?’
A man plonked a couple of glasses down on the curved bar, gave Tara a friendly, interested smile and said, ‘Same again, please, Phil.’
Tara returned the smile briefly and took a couple of steps away, burying her nose in her glass. Philip had made the drink strong; maybe it would calm her leaping nerves.
‘Tara.’
She knew he was near just before the deep, midnight voice spoke behind her. A spot between her shoulder blades, bared by the off-the-shoulder flame-red party frock and the swept-up style she’d imposed on her unruly burnished-bronze hair, felt as though a fiery finger had touched it.
Unconsciously standing taller, she turned slowly, making sure her face revealed none of her feelings, praying that her eyes, more green than hazel when her emotions were disturbed, would not betray her.
‘Sholto.’ She moved her lips in what she hoped was a reasonable facsimile of a smile. ‘I didn’t expect to see you here.’
‘Nor I you.’ Close up he was as devastating as ever, but her first impression had been wrong. There were subtle changes—a fine crease between the black eyebrows, a few more at the corners of the fathomless smalt eyes, and his mouth looked harder, without the faint promise of tenderness that had once been implicit in its firm lines. The light gleamed on his hair, and she realised with a pang that a few strands here and there had turned grey.
‘You look older,’ she said involuntarily. He would be thirty-eight now.
Not even trying to smile, he said, ‘I am—five years older. So are you—but you don’t show it.’
‘You needn’t flatter me,’ she said with a hint of tartness.
‘I wasn’t.’ His gaze moved over her in a chillingly clinical way. ‘You’ve changed, but not aged. Hard to believe that you’re—what?—twenty-seven.’
‘Thank you.’ Tara’s voice was curt. She took another sip of her drink. ‘Are you in Auckland on business?’
He seemed to hesitate before saying, ‘Not entirely, this time.’
Someone bumped into her back, propelling her forward a little, the liquid in her glass slopping up to the rim but not spilling. Sholto reached out and closed his warm hand about her arm, steadying her.
‘Sorry!’ A man holding two beer glasses aloft stepped into her vision, a flustered smile on his face.
‘It’s all right,’ she murmured.
Sholto still held her; she could feel his fingers on her flesh like a brand. He turned, bringing her to his side. ‘We can’t stand about here,’ he said. ‘I’ll find a quiet corner where we can talk.’ He began steering a path through the crowd, taking her with him.
Tara resisted. ‘We should have talked a long time ago, Sholto. It’s a bit late now.’
His fingers tightened fractionally, impatience in his face as he angled his head towards her. ‘I’ve got something to tell you.’
What could he possibly have to say to her? ‘Tell me here.’
A man on the outskirts of a laughing group must have heard the combative note in her voice. He looked round curiously, momentarily catching her eye.
Sholto’s breath feathered her ear as he bent to speak into it. ‘Believe me, this isn’t where you want to hear it.’
He didn’t relinquish his grip, and reluctantly she went with him. Better to capitulate than make a scene.
He led her through a doorway into a short passage and, opening another door opposite, found a switch and turned on the light.
‘Philip’s study?’ Tara hesitated. Chantelle’s husband was the advertising manager of a community newspaper and brought some of his work home. The small room was dominated by a wide desk on which stood a computer surrounded by paper trays and folders. Shelves and filing cabinets lined the walls up to the ceiling.
‘I’m sure Phil won’t mind.’ Sholto drew her inside and shut the door before releasing her arm. There was very little space to move, even though Sholto remained standing just in front of the door.
‘Sit down,’ he said.
The only chair was a leather-covered swivel one before the desk. Tara glanced at it and said, ‘No, thanks.’ She felt at enough of a disadvantage without having him tower over her. As long as she remained standing in her high-heeled red shoes there was only a matter of inches between their respective heights.
Sholto looked at her thoughtfully, then shrugged.
‘So, what’s the big secret?’ Tara asked.
‘It’s no secret—that’s rather the point.’
‘If it isn’t a secret, why on earth did you need to drag me in here? It’s going to look a bit rude, you know. I’ve barely arrived.’
‘I know exactly when you arrived.’ His teeth snapped together.
Fleetingly Tara wondered if he’d been as aware of her presence as she had been of his, even before he looked up and saw her.
He said, ‘I wish I’d known you were going to be here—’
‘If I’d known you were going to be here I’d never have come!’
‘Do you hate me so much, Tara?’ he enquired softly.
Dark lashes swept down to conceal the look in her eyes. ‘As much as you hate me.’
The silence stretched. Then the beautiful, spine-tingling voice spoke at last. ‘I never said I hated you.’
She looked up, her eyes holding his in challenge. ‘You said you loved me—once.’
‘It was true—once.’
She had thought she’d got over being hurt by him, buried her feelings for him in the grave of their dead love. But the dispassionate admission somehow found an unguarded place in her heart, making her inwardly wince.
‘No,’ she said, striving to equal his coolness. ‘You lusted for me. I don’t believe you know what love is.’ Maybe he was incapable of either love or hate. Of any really strong emotion.
He didn’t move, and his face remained stony. ‘If that’s what you want to believe,’ he said, as though it didn’t matter to him.
She had never wanted to believe it. She’d come to that conclusion inevitably, as the result of bitter heartache. His indifference still stung. But she’d matured since their last encounter. ‘Why don’t you spit out what you want to say,’ she invited him, ‘and let me go back to the party? I came here to enjoy myself. And I’m sure the lady you just left is missing you.’
‘Still a good-time girl?’ he jeered, his hands going into his pockets as he leaned back on the door. ‘All right. This isn’t the time and place I’d have chosen, but I’d rather you heard it from me than as party gossip. I would have written to you, if I could find your address. I’m getting married. The lady I left just now is my fiancée.’
Thank God for make-up. Would the light foundation, the touch of blusher, hide the sudden drain of colour from her cheeks? She fervently hoped so. Her hand made a small movement, an involuntary groping for the chair, but she quickly halted it. She wasn’t going to let him know that she felt as if she’d been punched in the midriff, that a strange, hollow void had just opened somewhere near her heart.
Despite the casual stance, his eyes were watchful, as though he was getting ready to catch her.
I won’t let him have the satisfaction, Tara vowed. She lifted the forgotten glass in her hand and swallowed most of the drink, giving herself time to recover. Her voice was admirably steady when she said, ‘Congratulations. You must introduce me. She does know about me?’
‘Of course.’
‘Well—’ she gave him a bright, unseeing smile ‘—I hope it works out for you both.’
‘Thank you.’ His voice was clipped, and for the first time she thought she discerned a faint discomfort. ‘You’re here alone, tonight?’
A pity she hadn’t arrived with some gorgeous man in tow. Trying to recall the woman Sholto had been with, she had a vague impression of pale, smooth hair falling to white, sloping shoulders, of a full mouth and compact curves. ‘Yes, I am,’ she admitted, ‘this time.’
‘I’m surprised.’
‘From choice,’ she assured him coolly. Not that it was any of his business.
A tight smile touched his mouth. ‘I never imagined otherwise. Trawling, are you? I don’t suppose you’ll leave on your own. You’re as lovely as ever—to look at.’
Her eyelids flickered at the brief, deliberate pause. She hoped he didn’t realise how deep the barb had gone. ‘Isn’t it time we went back?’
‘Yes.’ Decisively he took his hands from his pockets and opened the door, waiting for her to precede him.
A perverse impulse stopped her as she was passing him, her eyes defiantly lifting to his. ‘I wish you luck,’ she said, and leaned forward to place a light kiss on his mouth.
That was what it was supposed to be—proof that she wasn’t shattered, that she wished him well. But, tantalised by the warm familiarity of his mouth, the seductive scent of his skin, her lips lingered wistfully.
She felt an answering movement of his mouth, and his hands gripped her shoulders as his lips opened and drove against hers.
‘Sholto?’
At the sound of the enquiring feminine voice, he thrust Tara away so roughly that her back came jarringly in contact with the door frame. She saw the fierce desire in his eyes before they turned murderous and then he dragged them from her to the woman standing hesitantly by the open door to the lounge, where the party went on noisily behind her.
‘Averil.’ Sholto held out his hand, stepping forward to draw her to his side.
As Tara shakily straightened herself, Sholto put his arm about the other woman. ‘This is Tara,’ he said, his voice hard, uninflected. ‘I’ve told you about her. Tara, I want you to meet Averil Carolan, my fiancée.’
CHAPTER TWO
AVERIL GAVE HER a stiff smile. Her eyes were the light, almost achromatic hue of bleached denim. Although she wore high-heeled shoes, her head was barely level with Sholto’s black tie, the pale hair contrasting with his jacket as his arm curled possessively about her shoulders. There’d be blond hairs adhering to the fine wool when he took his clothes off, Tara thought.
Banishing the picture edging into her mind, she held out her right hand. ‘How nice to meet you. I was just giving Sholto my best wishes for you both.’
Averil’s hand briefly met hers. ‘Thank you.’ She glanced up at Sholto, whose expression was enigmatic, his eyes resting on Tara with suspicion lurking in their depths.
The solid feel of the glass tumbler in her left hand was comforting. She tried a social answering smile, and asked, ‘When is the happy day?’
‘Soon,’ Sholto said, as Averil answered, ‘We haven’t decided—’ and then looked at him again, apologetically.
Sholto explained, ‘There hasn’t been time to discuss the details. We only bought the ring yesterday.’
So the engagement was new. ‘I’m sure you’ll work something out.’ Tara kept the smile in place. Turning it on Averil, she said, ‘May I see it—the ring?’
Averil’s left hand was half concealed in the pastel pink folds of her skirt. Tara saw it clench before it was reluctantly proffered for her inspection.
The large oval diamond flanked by two smaller ones suited Averil’s slim, tapered fingers and pink-painted nails.
‘Lovely,’ Tara said perfunctorily, her own ringless fingers clamping even harder on her glass. Tipping it to her lips, she emptied it completely. ‘Well, I think I’ll get myself another drink and join the party. Have a good time, you two.’
She turned away from them, making blindly for the lounge doorway and wending her way back to the bar. No one was there, but she helped herself to more gin from one of the variety of bottles standing on the counter, splashing a liberal amount into the glass before adding squash. Her hand shook and she spilled a few drops.
When she looked about, the room seemed to blur before her eyes, the sounds of chatter and laughter rising to a raucous hum until she wanted to cover her ears.
She held herself tightly together, taking three deep breaths. Perhaps she shouldn’t have poured another gin. The final humiliation would be to get herself drunk and do something stupid. She’d snatched a couple of sandwiches at lunchtime, between customers, and had eaten nothing since. Although she’d never felt less hungry, some food would be a good idea.
As she went in search of it, a warm male hand fell on her shoulder. ‘Tara! Chantelle said you were here! I’ve been looking for you.’
‘Andy—’ Tara turned with resignation. Andrew Paget towered over her, a wide grin showing perfect teeth that went with his over-long flaxen curls, guileless summer-sky gaze and carefully nurtured, brawny frame. A dazzling white T-shirt two sizes too small accentuated his sun-bed tan, and designer-label dress jeans lovingly hugged dramatically muscled thighs and calves.
She couldn’t help smiling back at him. Andy had that effect on women. There was not a lot between his surgically flattened ears to complement the magnificent body and the Greek-god face, but she’d known him when he was an undersized kid with unevenly mown sandy hair and a mouth full of brand-new dental braces. Behind the fragile self-assurance engendered by a late growth spurt and the correcting of his disastrous teeth and ears, followed by a determined regimen of body-building, lurked the child who had endured the nickname of ‘Wingnut’ from the day he started school.
Tara had always had a soft spot for him during the two years they’d both attended the same school, before her father sold his hardware business in a Waikato town to invest in a new business selling how-to books to supermarkets and garages, then later bought out a surplus goods firm in Auckland. When Andy turned up years afterwards working in a sporting goods store in the small suburban mall where Chantelle and Tara had their own shops, his metamorphosis had stunned and amused her.
The women his new image attracted had improved Andy’s confidence considerably, but that in no way changed the basic sweetness of his nature. Only, his conversational powers were extended by any discussion that ranged beyond football, pop songs, the innards of cars and the esoteric mysteries of body-building. He’d got his job less, she suspected, on any perceived sales ability than on the advertising value of his mere presence, kitted out from the store’s range of expensive sports clothing.
‘What did you want me for?’ she asked him.
His grin widened. One thing Andy had learned from the parade of women competing for his delighted attention was a rather obvious form of sexual banter. His gaze dropped innocently over the figure-hugging red dress that stopped well short of Tara’s knees and returned to her eyes, mischief dancing in his.
Before he could say anything, she told him crisply, ‘I need to eat. Put those muscles of yours to good use, will you, and carve me a path to the food?’ She’d glimpsed a couple of tables against the wall of the other room, laden with filled dishes.
Andy took her hand and did as she’d asked, fetching up before one of the tables with a look of triumph. Tempted to say, ‘Good boy,’ and pat him, she settled for, ‘Thank you.’ As she picked up a plate and began placing a selection of nibbles on it, she added, choosing her words more carefully this time, ‘Why were you looking for me?’
Shoving a sausage roll into his mouth, Andy apparently swallowed it whole. ‘Chantelle said you’re on your own.’
‘Yes, I am.’ She hadn’t brought anyone because she figured that would make it easier to slip off home early. These days parties tended to pall after a couple of hours, and she usually avoided them. Did Chantelle think she’d be lost without a partner?
Looking round idly, her gaze skittered away from Sholto and Averil, talking to Philip and another man. Chantelle didn’t know, did she? No, she told herself. If she had, she’d have warned me.
‘So’m I.’ An oyster patty followed the sausage roll, leaving a fragment of pastry on his lower lip.
‘What?’ Absently she reached up and removed the flaky crumb, dropping it onto the edge of her plate.
‘Alone,’ he explained. ‘I don’t know anyone.’
Light dawned. Andy was shy, and had made a beeline for the one person he knew well. Childhood insecurities died hard. ‘I don’t know many people, either. Shall we stick together?’ She smiled at him kindly, then bit into an asparagus roll, cool and bland.
Andy picked up another from the table and popped it into his mouth. ‘Chantelle introduced me to this woman,’ he muttered, furtively looking about the room. ‘Over there.’ Quickly he averted his eyes, and Tara’s curious glance over her shoulder failed to identify which woman he meant.
‘Didn’t you like her?’ she asked, finishing the roll and picking up a club sandwich. Andy was almost fatally friendly. She couldn’t imagine him taking an instant dislike to anyone, especially a woman. He was so overwhelmingly grateful for their interest that he practically fell over himself trying to please them.
‘Like her?’ He looked as though the concept was beyond him. ‘She—she’s a professor! At the university.’ His expression was one of awe bordering on terror.
Tara bridled. What had the woman done—deliberately intimidated him? If so, she was both cruel and a snob. It wasn’t Andy’s fault that he’d not been blessed with an academic brain like some people. ‘What did she say to you?’
‘Say?’ He looked at her blankly. ‘Not much. “Hello,” and “What do you do?” is about all, really.’ He swallowed. ‘I g-got her a drink and then took off to find you.’
‘What’s wrong with her?’
‘Nothing. She doesn’t look like a professor. But how could I talk to her?’
‘Just the same way you talk to me.’ If the professor didn’t like football, cars or pop music, she could at least have pretended to. Maybe she’d learn something. But maybe Andy hadn’t given her the chance.
He shook his head. ‘She’s one of those intelligent women. What could I say to her?’
A smile lurking on her mouth, a pastry case filled with creamed corn poised in her hand, Tara raised her brows at him.
Andy looked at her silently, then blushed to the roots of his golden locks. ‘Sorry, Tara! I didn’t mean you aren’t—I just meant—I mean, she—’
Tara laughed aloud, placing a comforting hand on his bronzed arm and patting it. ‘Never mind, I know what you meant. I was teasing you.’
Relief washed over his superb features. ‘Oh—good. That’s all right, then. I wouldn’t want to offend you, Tara.’
‘You haven’t.’ She picked up her drink and hooked a casual hand into his arm. ‘Come on, let’s circulate.’
She didn’t particularly want to circulate, but she wasn’t intending to lurk in corners all night, either. Unable to stop her eyes from travelling to where she’d last seen Sholto, she found her gaze colliding with his dark stare. His eyes flicked to Andy and back to her face, a corner of his mouth momentarily curling in contempt before he looked away.
Shaken and hot with rage, she tightened her grip on Andy’s substantial arm.
‘Ow!’ he protested, looking down at her in surprise.
Hastily she loosened her fingers, horrified to see the curved indentations of her fingernails showing red against his hair-dusted tan. ‘Andy! I’m sorry!’
Recovering, he grinned. ‘Just give me warning next time, huh? Women don’t usually mark me there! If you like I’ll show you—’
‘No, I don’t like,’ she said repressively. ‘Behave yourself or I’ll throw you to your professor and leave.’
‘Awp!’ He looked cowed. ‘I’ll behave, promise!’
Tara put on a friendly smile and without difficulty struck up several conversations, watching Andy regain some assurance as the women predictably reacted to his looks and diffident charm, and the men regarded him with covert envy.
He seemed to be getting on with a group of mainly young people who shared his musical taste, and she was murmuring an excuse to leave his side when he grabbed at her hand and said in lowered but panic-stricken tones, ‘Don’t go away!’
A young woman with a cuddly figure and halo of short, gingery corkscrew curls had joined the group, and one of the others said, ‘Jane—have you met Tara and Andy?’
‘Hi, Tara.’ Jane gave Tara a smile that lit her rounded, unpainted face, and then turned to her companion. ‘Andy and I met earlier, didn’t we?’
Andy nodded, a strangled sound rising from his throat. His fingers convulsed around Tara’s, making her suck in her breath, but she heroically refrained from complaint.