Praise for Kelly Hunter

“Hunter’s emotionally rich tale

will make readers laugh and cry along with

the characters. A truly fantastic read.”

—RT Book Reviews on

Revealed: A Prince and a Pregnancy

“This is a dynamite story

of a once-forbidden relationship, featuring

two terrific characters who have to deal with the past

before they can finally be together.”

—RT Book Reviews on

Exposed: Misbehaving with the Magnate

“This story starts out on a light, fun and flirty note

and spins into an emotional and heartfelt tale about

coming to terms with the past and embracing the future.”

—RT Book Reviews on

Playboy Boss, Live-In Mistress

About Kelly Hunter

Accidentally educated in the sciences, KELLY HUNTER has always had a weakness for fairytales, fantasy worlds, and losing herself in a good book. Husband … yes. Children … two boys. Cooking and cleaning … sigh. Sports … no, not really—in spite of the best efforts of her family. Gardening … yes. Roses, of course. Kelly was born in Australia and has travelled extensively. Although she enjoys living and working in different parts of the world, she still calls Australia home.

Kelly’s novels Sleeping Partner and Revealed: A Prince and a Pregnancy were both finalists for the Romance Writers of America RITA® Award, in the Best Contemporary Series Romance category!

Visit Kelly online at www.kellyhunter.net

Also by Kelly Hunter

With This Fling …

Red-Hot Renegade

Untameable Rogue

Revealed: A Prince and a Pregnancy

Exposed: Misbehaving with the Magnate

Playboy Boss, Live-In Mistress

The Maverick’s Greek Island Mistress

Sleeping Partner

Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

The Man She Loves To Hate

Kelly Hunter

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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‘The truth is rarely pure and never simple.’

The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde

PROLOGUE

‘HANNAH, wait up!’ Jolie Tanner slipped out of her house yard and slammed the wire gate shut behind her as she raced to catch up with her friend. Usually Hannah called out on the way past, or Jolie waited on the step for her—the plan wasn’t foolproof but they’d been walking to school together since kindergarten and, unless one of them was sick, they had the routine down pat. ‘Han!’

But Hannah didn’t slow down or turn around. Hannah kept right on walking.

Cole walked with Hannah today and that was unusual. Cole was Hannah’s big brother. Big as in seventeen years old and tall and strong and in his final year of high school. Big as in handsome, and popular, and good at absolutely everything.

Cole had shaggy black hair, olive skin, and green green eyes framed by dark curling lashes. Cole left every Hollywood teen heartthrob for dead. Including the vampires.

Hannah adored her brother. Jolie adored him too, although Jolie’s adoration of late had been tinged with an awareness she couldn’t describe. She’d begun to feel tongue-tied around him. She didn’t know where to look or what to do. Hannah had noticed. Hannah had started teasing Jolie about her stupid reactions to Cole.

Was that why Hannah wouldn’t turn around?

Because Jolie knew Cole was too old for her, too everything for her, and that he would never look at her like that. It was just a phase she was going through. That was what her mother had said when Jolie had mentioned—kind of—that she got clumsy around Cole Rees these days. Rachel Tanner had smiled her crinkly smile and told Jolie she’d grow out of it eventually.

Her total crush on Cole Rees was nothing to worry about. It was just a phase.

‘Hannah, wait up.’ Slinging her bag more securely over her shoulder, Jolie began to run to catch up.

‘Just keep walking,’ said Cole.

‘But what do I say?’ asked Hannah, her eyes stricken and her expression piteous. ‘Cole, she’s my best friend. What do I say?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Do you think she knows?’

‘How would I know?’ Cole Rees didn’t know anything any more. He’d thought his parents’ marriage was solid. Not great, but solid. He’d thought his father walked on water. Reality had come as a shock. His father had been having an affair—for over a year now he’d been having an affair. With Jolie Tanner’s mother. His father had admitted it last night in a blazing row. His father wanted a divorce. Cole and Hannah had been upstairs but they’d heard it all. The accusations, the acknowledgement, and then the tears.

So many tears.

Jolie called out again, and Cole kept right on walking. Little Jolie T might have been just a kid but she was already a beauty. Hair the colours of firelight and big grey eyes that seemed to see everything. Jolie’s mother was one of the most beautiful women Cole had ever seen. Jolie would be the same. Just give her time.

And then Jolie was beside them on the footpath, those big grey eyes bright and her red ponytail bouncing. ‘Hannah, did you do the homework for the test?’

Hannah said nothing. Hannah shot him another pleading glance and Cole wished himself somewhere, anywhere, else.

Jolie had been in and out of their home since she’d been tiny. She wasn’t family but she was a part of Cole’s life—a part that he’d taken for granted and been used to. Hannah’s friend. Quirky. Funny. Always scribbling in a little notebook she never would show anyone. Cole had asked Hannah what was in it once. Pictures, Hannah had said, so he’d then had to ask the obvious. What kind of pictures?

All kinds, had been Hannah’s reply. Animals, people, colour. She drew everything.

Cole had found the notion oddly fascinating.

‘Han,’ whispered Jolie again, bringing Cole back to the present with a scowl. ‘Did you do your homework?’

Hannah shook her head to signify no, and then just put her head down and kept right on walking. Not a lot of homework happening in the Rees household last night.

Cole glanced at Jolie and saw the puzzled hurt in her eyes. Grimly he put his own head down and kept walking. Quickly. Silently. Trying to pretend that little Jolie Tanner wasn’t hurrying along beside them, trying to keep up with them, and wondering what on earth was going on.

That was the way the three of them walked to school.

Cole hated every step of it.

Something was wrong. Dreadfully wrong. Hannah wouldn’t talk to her, Cole had ignored her. Cole had disappeared once they’d reached the school buildings. Jolie had been hoping that once he’d gone, she might have more to say.

But Hannah wouldn’t even look at her.

‘Hannah, what is it?’ asked Jolie. ‘Say something.’

‘I can’t be your friend any more,’ she said in a choked voice, and Jolie looked closer. She was crying.

‘What?’ Jolie’s heartbeat tripled. ‘Hannah, what are you talking about?’

But Hannah had fled then, to the classroom, and by recess Sarah wasn’t talking to Jolie, either.

By lunchtime, not one of the girls Jolie and Hannah usually hung out with were talking to Jolie, and Jolie was beside herself. She went looking for Cole, and finally found him coming out of the library alone. He saw her. He tried to walk straight past her.

‘Cole,’ she said, scrambling to keep up with him. ‘Cole, there’s something wrong with Hannah. She won’t talk to me. She’s crying. Cole, she’s so upset. What’s going on?’ Jolie put her hand to his arm to slow him down and gasped as he wrenched violently out of her reach. ‘Please … I … I just want to know what’s wrong?’

‘Ask your mother,’ he said, and his voice sounded harsh and defensive. ‘And don’t touch me.’

Jolie blushed scarlet and put the offending hand behind her back. ‘I won’t touch. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.’ And when he stared at her with burning green eyes, ‘Cole, please. I just … Hannah hates me and I don’t know why,’ she pleaded. ‘Hannah, and Sarah, and now Evie and Bree too. No one will even talk to me.’

‘Why should I care?’ he said finally. ‘Why should I give a damn about you and your problems? Just stay away from Hannah and stay the hell away from me.’

‘But why?’ she whispered, fighting the urge to flee. ‘Cole, I don’t know what’s wrong. Cole, please.’ She didn’t know how else to phrase her question. ‘What have I done wrong?’

CHAPTER ONE

Ten Years Later

JOLIE TANNER might as well have been carrying a dead body as far as level of difficulty was concerned. But there was nothing else for it, so she hauled and she shoved until finally the box was on the ski sled and strapped into place. So what if cardboard packing boxes weren’t meant to endure such treatment? This one didn’t have a choice.

Time to go. Past time to go, but Jolie turned back towards the cabin, her rubber-soled snow boots scrabbling for purchase on the icy step as she pulled the door closed and locked it. Everything was as it should be inside the cabin. Clean, tidy and utterly impersonal. Mission complete.

Climbing into the ski mobile’s driver’s seat, Jolie headed for the gondola next and went through the process of getting the box off the sled and into the waiting ski gondola, grimacing as the box took yet another beating for her efforts. From there she headed for the ski field control tower and parked the ski mobile in its spot beside the door.

The ski mobile rig was Hare’s. So too was the heavy coat he’d insisted Jolie put on before he let her head for the cottage. The two-way radio in her pocket was his too. It had crackled to life a few minutes ago with Hare in his official capacity of ski-field manager telling her to make swift with the time because the weather was getting worse, the last gondola ride down mountain was leaving five minutes ago, and she’d damn well better be on it.

Everything in its place, she unhitched the sled and stored it in the lock-up. Everything in its place—a little phrase Hare rammed home to every employee on the mountain. Everything where it ought to be or you could get the hell off Silverlake Mountain and go down and work the bars and restaurants and ski lodges of Queenstown instead.

‘Is it done?’ Hare murmured as she slipped into the control room and shut the door behind her.

‘It’s done.’ Jolie set the ski mobile keys on the key rack by the door, and the two-way back in its charger on the counter. She pulled the cottage keys from her pocket and held them out towards Hare. These ones had no hanging spot that Jolie knew of. ‘Mama said to give you these, as well.’

When Hare rubbed at one of his arms rather than take them, Jolie set the keys down on the counter. Frankly, she never wanted to lay eyes on them again. She could hardly blame Hare for wanting the same.

‘Never did sit right with me, that arrangement,’ muttered Hare.

‘Yeah, well, you’re not exactly in the minority.’ A truth for a truth and only for Hare. Everyone else got defiant and hostile silence—a defence mechanism that predated her teens. ‘But it’s done with now.’

Death had a way of finalising things.

‘How’s your mama holding up?’ asked the big man. ‘She at the funeral?’

‘No,’ said Jolie wearily. ‘Of course she’s not. She was heading out to walk alongside Lake Wanaka for a while instead. Reckons she’ll say goodbye to him there.’

‘She working the bar this evening?’ asked Hare and Jolie nodded.

‘Yes. You’re invited to come down and drink to the dead tonight, by the way. Discreetly, of course, but it’s on the house. It’s the wake you have when you’re not having a wake.’

‘She loved him,’ said Hare gruffly. ‘You give her that, if nothing else.’

‘I know. It’s just—’ Bitterness didn’t become her; Jolie tried her best to avoid it. But she’d just spent an afternoon removing all traces of her mother from James Rees’s self-indulgent life and remembering in the process exactly how much her mother had given up for him and what she’d received in return. ‘I know.’

Not Hare’s fault, Jolie’s foul mood. Not his fault that he’d been the unlucky employee charged with running herd on young Jolie that first time Rachel Elizabeth Tanner had gone up to the high cabin to be with her married lover. Not Hare’s fault he’d been stuck with Jolie every time after that until Jolie had deemed herself old enough to not need a babysitter any more.

Hare had taught her to ski, taught her the mountain and kept her safe from everything but bitter reality.

Nothing could keep her safe from that.

Things had changed for Jolie after James Rees’s affair with Rachel Tanner had come to light. Jolie’s friends had not remained friends and she’d never really got the hang of making new ones. And when the boys had started to notice Jolie—and they had—Jolie had discovered that former friends could turn into jealous and angry enemies who knew exactly where to hit so as to make the hurt go in deep.

‘You gonna stick around Queenstown for a while?’ asked Hare. ‘Help your mama adjust?’

Jolie shrugged. ‘I can stay a couple of weeks. Then I’ll have to get back to work in Christchurch.’

‘Heard you landed a drawing job there.’ ‘I did.’ Sheer bloody-mindedness and talent had got her a job as a graphic artist for a film special effects company. Sheer bloody-mindedness and talent kept her there. The pay-off being that she didn’t have to deal with reality on a daily basis. Reality was overrated. ‘Could you do it from here?’ ‘Why would I want to do that?’ ‘I don’t know.’ Hare seemed to hesitate. He scratched his head and pulled a frown. ‘Might be different for you here now that James is gone.’

‘I can’t see why. Hannah’s still here. Cole’s still here. James’s widow is here.’ The reclusive Christina Rees. ‘And they still own half the town. They’ve never been inclined to make anything easy for a Tanner.’

‘Wasn’t easy for any of you,’ said Hare gruffly. ‘Could be a good time to let go of old grudges.’

‘Now you’re being rational,’ said Jolie. ‘Interaction between Tanners and Reeses is never rational.’

‘Doesn’t have to be that way,’ said Hare.

‘Yeah, it does,’ she said softly, and opened up to Hare because the big man had always been kind to her and knew more of the real Jolie Tanner than most. ‘Hare, I don’t want to come back to Queenstown. All I ever did here was hide myself away from other people. Put on masks so that people would see what they expected to see. A young girl completely at home in a bar full of strangers. The defiant daughter of James Rees’s mistress. A siren in my own right, fully comfortable in the role. All of them masks, whereas in Christchurch …’ Jolie shrugged awkwardly. ‘I’ve finally gathered the courage to step out from behind the masks and just be me. I kind of like being me.’

‘You’re making friends, then?’

‘Not quite.’ Another awkward shrug. ‘Not yet. But at least I don’t have enemies. That’s something, right?’

‘Right,’ said Hare gruffly.

Now she’d embarrassed him. And exposed herself. Not a place of comfort. Definitely time to flee. ‘You ready to send that gondola downhill yet?’

‘Just waiting on another passenger.’

‘Who?’ The ski field had been closed since lunchtime on account of the unpredictable weather. Jolie figured that all the other employees and skiers on the mountain would have headed downhill hours ago. All except for Hare, who lived on the mountain in a cabin half a kilometre away from the main complex.

‘Cole.’

‘Cole who?’ But Hare wasn’t answering. Nor was he looking her in the eye. Jolie’s stomach began to churn and churn hard. ‘Cole Rees is here on the mountain?’

‘Came up a couple of hours ago. He’s up at the lookout.’

‘Doing what?’

Hare shrugged.

‘But … how can he be here?’ She’d planned her foray to the cabin for a time no member of the Rees family would be anywhere near here. ‘Why isn’t he at his father’s funeral?’

‘Didn’t ask. The man wasn’t looking for conversation, Jolie. He was looking for space.’

And now he’d be sharing space with her all the way back down the mountain. Just Cole Rees and Jolie Tanner and a box full of evidence of her mother’s twelve-year affair with his father. ‘Great,’ she muttered. ‘That’s just great. Any chance of rolling another gondola around so that Cole can ride down on his own?’ The ski lift consisted of several eight-berth sky gondolas and was a twelve-minute ride, top to bottom.

‘None,’ said Hare. ‘Blizzard warning just came in. You’re lucky I’m prepared to run this one.’ He looked out of the triple-glazed window of the control hut and nodded once. ‘Time to go, girlie. There’s Cole.’

Jolie followed Hare’s gaze. And there he was. Cole Rees, large as life. Striding down the lookout path towards the gondola, his raven hair windblown and his pretty face set against the worsening weather. A man so reckless, unpredictable and downright sexy he made Jolie’s insides clench. And that was before she factored in his hatred of all things Tanner. ‘Great,’ she said grimly. ‘That’s just great.’

Jolie grabbed a ratty sheepskin hat with earflaps from the assortment of old lost-and- found attire hanging on the back wall of the tower and jammed it on top of her beanie. The hat wouldn’t be missed, and, besides, she’d give it back. She added a thick black scarf and lost-and-found ski goggles to the ensemble while Hare looked on, deadpan.

‘I take it you’re keeping my coat,’ he said.

‘I’ll give it back tomorrow.’ Not for the first time today, Jolie gave thanks that she’d worn her oldest ski gear. Unisex attire purchased years ago during a mercifully brief phase in which she’d attempted to downplay her looks and her femininity. Her ski boots were black, chunky, overworn and all about getting the job done. Nothing feminine about them either.

‘Hair,’ offered Hare.

‘Oh.’ She took off the hat and goggles, twisted her auburn tresses round and round and then up beneath the beanie, and then jammed the hat back on her head. Her red hair was a legacy from her mother and truly distinctive. Men were fascinated by it. Hairdressers wanted to bottle it. Jolie had no complaints of it, truth be told, but right now she wanted it hidden. She pulled the hat’s earflaps down. ‘Better?’

‘You look like E.T.’s Alaskan cousin,’ said Hare. ‘I take it that’s the point?’

‘Yes,’ she said, snapping the goggles down over her eyes.

‘Or you could be yourself,’ murmured Hare.

‘No, I really couldn’t. Meet JT. J for Josh. He works for you.’

‘Go,’ said Hare with a roll of his eyes. And as Jolie leaned in to embrace her old minder and mentor, ‘Well, don’t kiss me!’

‘Suit yourself.’ Jolie gave him a manly thump on his arm instead. ‘We going to see you at the bar tonight?’

‘If the weather clears,’ said Hare gruffly, glancing at his computer screen and the satellite weather map currently dominating it. ‘Which it won’t. Tell your mama I’ll be down for that drink tomorrow night.’

‘Will do.’

‘And tell her I’m sorry for her loss and mind you say it right.’

‘I’ll say it right,’ said Jolie, with a catch in her voice on account of Hare’s deep understanding of her mother’s position. Brazen bar owner Rachel Tanner—the bar reputedly a gift from James Rees—would get little sympathy from anyone on account of James’s death. Instead she would grieve for her lover in lonely silence. ‘I’ll practise beforehand.’

Hare just rolled his eyes again and looked out of the tower window and up at the sky. ‘Kia waimarie, little one.’ Good Luck. ‘Keep your head down. And close up behind you as you go.’

Hare waited until Jolie was out of the door before rubbing at his aching arm again and letting out a sigh. The girl wasn’t wrong to want to avoid Cole Rees on this of all days, but whether she could was a different matter altogether. Chances were that at some point during the ride down the mountain Cole Rees would look twice at the youth who rode down with him. Chances were that he’d start adding up the inconsistencies.

Hare employed teenagers on the mountain if they had the experience and steadiness he was looking for, but he didn’t take them that small. Ever.

Nor did they come with alabaster skin, a delicate jaw and, if a man could get past those lips—and some couldn’t—eyes the colour of snow clouds.

It’d be Jolie’s eyes that would give her away. No one had eyes like the Tanner women. Not that colour. Not that … challenge that lurked in their depths. A siren’s mix of sensual self-awareness shot through with aching vulnerability.

Fact: a man could get lost in such eyes and never surface.

He’d seen it happen.

And witnessed the carnage it had caused.

‘Eyes down, girlie,’ he whispered. ‘You give that boy a chance.’

Cole Rees put his head down and quickened his stride as he headed for the ski gondola. The weather matched his mood: filthy and unpredictable, his emotions a roiling mess of sadness and regret, anger and defiance. He hadn’t been able to sit through his father’s funeral, not all of it. The glowing accolades had turned his stomach. His mother’s genuine grief had fuelled his fury. His sister’s anxious pleading for him to please not make things worse had only cemented his decision to get the hell out of there before he cursed his feted father to rot in hell for eternity.

There would have been no coming back from that.

His mother the society maven would have crumpled completely.

Hannah, his sister, was stronger than that. Hannah would have made him pay dearly for subjecting the family to yet more scandal.

Only the gossip mongers would have been satisfied, but not for long. They never were.

He’d wanted a woman to lose himself in—and there were plenty around—but even that small comfort reeked of his father’s legacy. Of thoughtlessness and recklessness and appetites not easily sated. And maybe Cole had outgrown thoughtlessness a few years back, and maybe he did his best to check his recklessness, but on that third count he was as guilty as sin.

When it came to women and sexual relationships he didn’t satisfy easily. When it came to the mindless use he would make of a woman’s body tonight and how little chance she had of engaging his emotions, well … no woman deserved that. Better for everyone to simply practise what his late, great father had never practised and do without.

His mother had organised a wake for after the funeral, but Cole didn’t intend to put in an appearance there, either. He’d come up the mountain instead. To mourn his father in his own way and in his own sweet time.

If at all.

The enclosed ski lift was a new addition to the mountain and one he’d been in favour of. It had replaced a series of ageing four-man chairlifts and doubled Silverlake’s profits overnight. The sport of skiing had changed. Braving the elements and putting some effort into getting uphill was no longer part of the on-slope experience. Not any more.

These days it was all about comfort.

He looked up at the gondola control-tower windows and sent his father’s ski-field manager a wave. Why Hare hadn’t been at the funeral was anyone’s guess, but the big Maori always had been a law unto himself.

Loyal to James Rees though. Utterly.

A bundled-up youth stepped out of the tower and headed towards the waiting gondola, slipping into step some distance behind Cole and locking down doors and gates behind them. Cole shrugged the snow off his coat and swiped a hand through his hair once he got beneath the boarding station roof. The gondola door stood open and a duct-taped box sat just inside the door. Cole crossed to the opposite wall of the gondola and leaned back against it, hands in his coat pockets for warmth as he waited for the boy to finish closing up.

Cole wasn’t dressed for the ski fields. Beneath his heavyweight woollen overcoat he was dressed for a funeral. The only concession he’d made towards the mountain had been to exchange dress shoes for snow boots.

It hadn’t been enough. Not for this weather.

The youth finally reached the gondola and slipped inside, shedding snow as he shut the door behind him. Small for one of Hare’s chairlift workers, thought Cole absently. Hare usually employed them bigger. Brains aside, brute force was always an asset on the mountain and everyone who’d ever worked a mountain knew it.

Hare’s sidekick—hell, he was just a kid—settled in beside the box. Feet body width apart, knees slightly bent, he leaned against the wall and window in much the same way as Cole had done. Snowboarder, if the stance was anything to go by. Hardcore, given the mismatched clothes. No fancy be-labelled outfit, no swagger at all, just a quiet competence that drew the eye and held it. This one would be all about the thrill that came of mastering a peak, and the next one and the one after that. Nothing to prove to anyone but himself.

Cole envied him.

His next few months would be all about proving to bankers and shareholders that he was every bit as good as the old man when it came to managing the family holdings. As if he hadn’t been raised from the cradle to just this position—learning the Rees businesses from the ground up at his father’s command. No quarter asked for and none at all given.

James Rees had been told he was dying two years ago. He’d been handing Rees management over to Cole ever since. Teaching by example. What to do. What not to do. And how to recover. Making Cole admire him in so many ways. Making Cole care about the businesses under his control and the people employed within them.

Always two steps ahead of any game, James Rees. Except when it came to thinking that his high-born wife and his stunningly sensual mistress could coexist peacefully in this town.

When it came to that, James Rees had been a fool.

Cole knew what his father had seen in Rachel Tanner—he hadn’t been blind as a boy and he wasn’t blind now. A simmering sensuality that hit a man hard. Unapologetic awareness of a man’s deepest desires. Full knowledge of how to satisfy those desires—a knowledge that Cole’s puritan, well-mannered mother had wholly lacked.

James Rees had wanted. James Rees had taken. He might have even got away with it if he’d left it at that. If he’d only done it once. Or twice.

Instead he’d had to have it all and to hell with the pain it had caused those around him.

The gondola moved off smoothly while still within the protection of the station walls and roof. And then the wind hit, and snow peppered the windows, and the ride got considerably rougher. It was an automatic response for both Cole and the kid to look up at the cable join, just checking, as the wind lashed against fibreglass walls.

The kid glanced at the intercom on the wall of the cable car next, as if assessing the need to contact Hare. Cole glanced at it too.

‘The front’s still a way off, according to the forecast,’ said the boy finally, his voice cracked and barely audible beneath his scarf.

Cole nodded. He’d seen the storm rolling in from the lookout. The kid would have been monitoring radar loops on Hare’s computer deck. Cole adjusted the boy’s probable age upwards a couple of years on account of his composure and conversation. No point trying to judge the boy’s age from his face—about the only thing visible was his mouth.

Lord, what a mouth.

Cole looked away. Fast.

What the hell was wrong with him?

Another gust of wind shook the gondola, slinging it sideways, causing both him and the youth to look up again, always up, to what held them.

Again, the boy glanced at the intercom.

Again Cole studied what he could see of the boy’s face beneath the hat and the goggles and the scarf. And looked away, disquieted.

The wind settled, the gondola steadied, nothing to worry about there. Nothing to worry about when it came to his reaction to Hare’s chairlift operator, either. Today he was just … off. For too many reasons to count.

Only eleven more minutes of this ride to go.

No point staring out of the window at the view; visibility was down to zero.

Nor did it seem advisable to stare at Hare’s lift operator.

That left the box.

Grey-brown in colour, with a removalist’s name stamped on the side. Wet at the bottom with one corner slightly concertinaed in. The top of the box patchy damp too, and hastily taped shut. All function over form, just like the youth standing next to it.

The kid shifted restlessly. Cole beat back the urge to look at him and kept his gaze pinned to the box. Just a wet and battered box. Nothing noble about it at all.

Ten minutes to go.

The gondola began to rise as it neared the first of seven cable tower connections. The hair at the nape of Cole’s neck started rising too. Hare’s youth was studying him now; he could damn well feel it.

And his reaction was pure heat.

The lift shuddered, jerked and stopped.

Cole’s heart thumped hard and settled to an uneasy rhythm. Probably Hare just slowing them down on account of the wind and the approaching tower. But the gondola did not start inching slowly forwards. It stayed right where it was, swinging hard.

Keeping his hand lightly on the handrail, Cole made his way to the two-way and pulled it from its bracing. Just like the kid, he’d worked the lifts on this mountain and plenty else besides. He knew the drills. ‘Hare, you there?’

But Hare did not reply, and neither did the operator supposedly manning the base station. Not good. The kid said nothing, just watched him through those blasted ski goggles and chewed on his full lower lip. Cole’s own lips tightened in reply.

‘Hare,’ he barked. ‘Can you hear me?’ And when there was still no reply he shoved the two-way back on the wall and fished his mobile phone from his coat pocket. No signal. Not that he’d held out much hope for one. White-out did that.

Damn.

The kid dug a mobile phone from amongst his layers too, and started pressing buttons with a gloved hand. ‘No signal here, either,’ he murmured.

‘I’ll call Hare again in a minute,’ muttered Cole.

They gave him ten. Ten minutes of uneasy silence, punctuated by a fascination with this boy that Cole didn’t even want to try to define.

‘Someone should have contacted us by now,’ said the youth finally.

What the kid didn’t say was that not following procedure meant that in all likelihood Hare had problems of his own up there, and heaven only knew what was happening down below. Base station should have been manned or the gondola should not have been running. Standard Operating Procedure.

‘The two-way’s not dead,’ he said. ‘I’ll try some other channels. Might raise someone.’ Anyone would do.

But there was nothing on the other channels except for static.

Another five minutes passed. Another gust of wind slammed into the gondola, stronger now than it had been. The kid’s hands went to the handrail and stayed there as he looked up, always up, to the cable that held them up, his scarf falling away from his face to reveal flawless ivory skin and a jaw that had sure as hell never seen a razor.

Ivory skin? On a ski-lift operator?

‘How old are you?’ The words were out of Cole’s mouth before he could call them back. ‘Fourteen?’ The kid hadn’t even reached puberty. ‘Fifteen?’

‘Older,’ said the boy.

‘How much older?’

‘Considerably.’

Considerably? What the hell kind of answer was that?

‘Nineteen,’ said the kid quickly, as if he had a mainline through to Cole’s brain.

‘Really,’ countered Cole, and the coat shrugged. Cole was beginning to think there was far more coat and hat and scarf than there was kid. Nineteen, my arse.

He ran his gaze over the youth again as if looking for … what exactly? Answers? A reason for his fascination? Because he didn’t swing that way. Never had before. Didn’t think much of starting now.

More minutes passed in uneasy fashion. Not silence—the battering of the wind and the straining of cable fixtures saw to that. But there was no more conversation. And the radio to the outside world stayed ominously silent.

Finally Cole glanced at his watch. Then he glanced at the youth. The boy was still all bundled up, which Cole could fully understand given the plummeting temperature, but what was with the ski goggles staying on? It wasn’t as if the kid was going to be getting out of the gondola any time soon.

‘You live in town?’ asked Cole.

The youth nodded.

‘You live alone?’ Not a pick-up line, may the devil come for his soul if he lied. He needed to clarify his question, clarify it now. ‘Anyone likely to notice you’re missing and raise the alarm?’

‘I wouldn’t count on it. My—’ The boy hesitated. ‘My roommate’s out of town this afternoon and she’ll be working tonight. I come and go as I please.’

Cole sighed and jammed his hands in his coat pockets. So much for the boy’s mommy waiting dinner on him and getting anxious when he didn’t show. Maybe the kid was nineteen. Nineteen, small grown, shacked up with a pint-sized waitress, and perfectly happy with his lot.

Good for him.

‘What about you?’ asked the youth. ‘Is there anywhere you have to be?’

‘Yes.’

‘So … you’ll be missed?’

‘I doubt it,’ he muttered. And if his mother and sister did miss him, the next thought that ran through their minds would probably be relief. ‘I wouldn’t count on anyone being alarmed by my absence, put it that way.’

More silence, broken only by the patter of wind driven snowflakes against the shell of the gondola. ‘At least we have shelter,’ he said. Pity it was fifty metres up and hanging from a cable, a very strong cable, mind. In a blizzard. ‘What’s in the box?’ he said finally.

‘What?’ said the kid, looking startled and scared along with it. So much for idle conversation.

‘The box,’ he repeated gruffly. ‘What’s in it? Anything we can use?’

‘Like what?’ said the boy, and his voice was back to being muffled and scratchy and his face was back to being hidden almost entirely by goggles, hat and scarf.

‘Like food and blankets,’ said Cole. ‘If God was good there would also be Scotch.’ Although given how muddled Cole’s thinking had grown since he’d stepped into this gondola, the lack of fortified beverage probably wasn’t such a bad thing.

‘There’s no Scotch,’ muttered the youth. ‘It’s just some stuff of mine. Mostly junk. I’m finishing up on the mountain today.’

‘Mid-season?’

The kid nodded.

‘Were you fired?’

‘No.’

‘Got a better offer?’

‘Yes.’

‘Somewhere around here?’ It was part of Cole’s job now, to oversee the running of the ski field. It was the only part of the business empire that James had kept tight control over, the only business operation Cole wasn’t wholly up to speed on. If there were staffing problems on the mountain, or if they were losing experienced workers to neighbouring ski fields, Cole wanted to know about it.

‘Christchurch,’ said the kid.

No ski fields in Christchurch. ‘What doing?’

‘Not this,’ said the kid.

So much for the boy being a dedicated snowboarder, following the snow from season to season in search of the perfect run.

Conversation stopped again. The kid eventually sat on the box and pulled his phone from his pocket. Judging by the tightening of the boy’s lips there was still no signal to be had and nothing to do but sit and wait. Or stand and sigh.

‘Are you sure there’s nothing in the box we could use?’ asked Cole eventually. He wasn’t usually one to harp but they’d been stuck here for over an hour now, he wasn’t getting any warmer, and he was definitely looking for a distraction. ‘Even junk has its uses.’

‘Not this junk,’ said the kid. ‘Trust me, there’s nothing in this box you want to see.’

‘Is that statement supposed to make me want to know what’s in the box less?’ asked Cole. ‘Because—trust me—it doesn’t.’

The kid shrugged and declined to answer. Cole studied the boy anew and wondered about the box and what might be in it that would make the kid reluctant to open it in Cole’s presence.

‘Look, kid. Suppose something has found its way into that box that shouldn’t be there. A chocolate bar or fifty. A computer no one’s using. Ski gear that doesn’t belong to you. Do you really think I’m going to give a damn, under the circumstances?’

‘Do you really think you won’t?’ countered the boy. ‘Given that it’d be your family I was stealing from? Anyway—’ the boy’s phone went back in his pocket ‘—there’s nothing stolen in the box. It’s just junk.’

‘If it’s just junk,’ murmured Cole silkily, ‘why are you protecting it?’ And when the kid seemed disinclined to reply, ‘So … you know who I am.’

The kid, teenager, young man, philosopher thief, whatever the hell he was, nodded.

‘Should I know who you are?’

‘No.’

‘Because you seem familiar.’

‘I’m not.’

‘Grew up in Queenstown, though, didn’t you?’ The kid wouldn’t even look him in the eye and for some reason that bit. Was it asking too much to want to get a good look at another person’s eyes?

‘You don’t know me,’ the kid said doggedly. ‘You don’t need to know me.’

‘Seeing as we’re stuck here, I disagree.’ Not a pick-up line, emphatically not. He just wanted to get a handle on what the kid was trying to hide. ‘Didn’t anyone teach you to observe the niceties? Show you how to introduce yourself?’

‘No.’

‘Time you learned.’ It wasn’t as if a handshake would be required. No touching at all. ‘I’m Cole Rees. Cole to most. Rees, if you prefer. I’ll answer to either. Now it’s your turn.’

‘Josh,’ offered the youth with extreme reluctance.

‘It’s customary to provide a surname.’

‘Not where I come from.’

‘Fair enough.’ He’d won one concession from young Josh. Time to make the boy relax before hitting him up for more. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t pull the youth’s employment record easily enough once they got out of the gondola. Right now, though, he wanted something other than information. He wanted to see the kid’s eyes. ‘You ever going to take those goggles off, Josh?’

‘Wasn’t planning to,’ said the youth with a curve to his lips that made Cole suck in a hard breath. The kid’s chin came up. The goggles stayed on. The boy’s stance changed subtly, drawing the eye and confusing Cole’s senses.

‘Rees, if you want me to undress, just say so,’ murmured the boy. ‘Although if we’re observing the niceties, you might want to buy me a drink first.’

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