Bargaining with the Billionaire: The Blackmail Bargain / The Billion-Dollar Bride / How To Marry a Billionaire

CHAPTER SIX

WHAT followed was one of the most exhausting afternoons Peta had ever endured. ‘And that includes haymaking,’ she said wearily over a restorative cup of tea in a small, unfashionable café that made, Liz assured her, the best latte south of the equator. The tea was excellent too.

Liz laughed. ‘Admit that you thought all Aucklanders—especially shopaholics—were effete weaklings.’

‘I’m not that much of a hayseed,’ Peta told her loftily, ‘but I had no idea you were going to drag me around a couple of hundred stores and boutiques.’

‘Seven,’ her companion corrected. ‘And now that you’ve stocked up on caffeine and tannin again, let’s get your hair done.’

The stylist took them into a private room. Watching him in the mirror, Peta felt he spent an inordinately long time just letting her hair ripple through his fingers while he frowned at her reflection.

‘Good bone structure,’ he finally pronounced. ‘And I’m not going to mess about with colour—it’s perfect as it is. I’ll cut it a little shorter and show you a couple of ways to put it up.’ He glanced at her hands and shuddered. ‘One of the girls will give you a manicure.’

He was a genius with the scissors, but the manicure turned out to be an exercise in sensuous pleasure. On the way home Peta was very aware of the soft gloss of sheen on her nails, and wondered if Curt would like the way they seemed to make her fingers even longer.

No, she thought desperately, what the hell are you thinking?

It couldn’t be allowed to matter. Unfortunately, it did, and the next few days stretched out before her like an ordeal, one with an infinite possibility of consequences.

All of them bad.

Remember what happened to your mother, she ordered. Unless you’re a princess, loving a dominant man leads to misery. The intense, reluctant attraction she felt for Curt was only the first step on the perilous road that had led to her mother sacrificing her individuality, her talent and her freedom to the jealous god of love.

But her mother’s tragedy seemed thin and insubstantial, as though Curt’s vitality drained life from her memories.

Halfway home, her eye caught the parcels and boxes in the back of Liz’s hatchback. While Peta’s hair and hands were being groomed, the other woman had collected a range of accessories.

Assailed by an empty feeling of disconnection, Peta stared out at the busy streets.

I don’t belong here, she thought sombrely.

Like a girl in a fairytale, carried off across some perilous border between reality and fantasy, she was lost in a world she didn’t understand and prey to dangers she barely recognised.

The greatest of which, she thought with a flare of worrying anticipation, was waiting for her in that gracious old house.

Curt had snapped his fingers and people had obeyed, whisking her out of her familiar world and transporting her wherever he ordered them to. She’d obeyed too, because she was afraid of what he could do to her life if she didn’t.

And because you don’t want Ian to fall in love with you, she reminded herself.

It was too easy to forget that.

‘A good afternoon,’ Liz said with satisfaction. She drew up on the gravel drive and switched off the engine.

Curt wasn’t at home. Peta knew as soon as she walked through the front door; some invisible, intangible force had vanished. Repressing a sinister disappointment, she went with Liz up to her bedroom.

The next hour was spent trying on the carefully chosen clothes, matching them to the accessories Liz had collected. Peta meant to stay aloof and let Liz choose for her, but somehow she found herself offering opinions, falling in love with various garments, wrinkling her nose at others.

‘OK, that’s fine,’ Liz said when the final choices had been packed away in the wardrobe. ‘And if I say so myself, we’ve done a good job. Those clothes not only highlight your good points, they’ll take you from breakfast to midnight. It’s a pity I can’t tell everyone I dressed you—you look stunning. But in my job I have to be the soul of discretion; Curt wouldn’t have contacted me if I hadn’t been.’

‘I know that,’ Peta said drily.

Liz nodded. ‘You made it a lot easier for me—you’ve got excellent taste and an inherent understanding of what suits you and doesn’t. Now, forget about all this, and just have fun!’

The faintest hint of envy in her tone made Peta wonder just how well she knew Curt, and whether there was perhaps a past attachment between them.

Smiling hard to cover a pang—no, not jealousy—Peta waved goodbye, then turned back to the house, feeling more alone than she ever had in her life. After her parents had died she’d at least been in familiar surroundings. Here she knew no one; even Nadine had left her firm of inner-city solicitors for a holiday in Fiji.

After refusing an offer of afternoon tea from the housekeeper, Peta made her way outside and looked around her with wonder and a growing appreciation. For some reason it seemed rude to explore, so she sat in an elegant and extremely comfortable chair on the wide veranda and tried to empty her mind of everything but the way the sun glinted on the harbour.

When the skin tightened between her shoulder blades, she glanced up, and saw Curt walking towards her.

Awkwardly she got up, angry because she’d weakly followed Liz’s suggestion to leave on the lion-coloured cotton trousers and the sleeveless T-shirt—made interesting, so Liz had announced, by the mesh overlay.

‘They show off those splendid shoulders,’ she’d said, slipping a choker of wooden beads in the same golden tones around Peta’s throat.

She’d agreed because she felt good in the outfit, but now she could only think that the top exposed far too much skin to Curt’s narrowed eyes.

And that’s why you left it on, she thought in self-disgust.

She thought of his mouth on her skin, and to her horror her breasts burned and their centres budded in immediate response. He had to notice.

He had noticed; his gaze heated and his mouth curved in the mirthless smile of a hunter sighting prey.

A combustible mixture of satisfaction, distrust and humiliation drove her to ask harshly, ‘I hope it’s worth the expense.’

His lashes drooped and he stopped and surveyed her at his leisure—for all the world, she thought indignantly, like some pasha checking out the latest slave girl in the harem.

It was her own fault; she’d given him the opportunity to ram home just how much at his disposal she was.

‘Absolutely,’ he said smoothly. ‘Would you like a drink?’

She nodded. ‘Something long and cool would be lovely.’

‘Wine?’ Curt suggested, walking up the steps to the veranda.

She said jerkily, ‘Yes, please, but I’d better have some water first. I’m thirsty and I don’t want to drink too fast.’

‘Wise woman.’ He poured a long glass of water from a jug with lemon slices floating on the surface, and handed it over. Surprisingly, he poured another for himself before indicating a recliner. ‘Sit down; you look tired. Did Liz wear you out?’

Somehow lying back on the recliner seemed too intimate, as though she was displaying her body for his scrutiny. She chose a nearby chair instead. ‘I had no idea trying on clothes could be so exhausting.’

Curt smiled and sat down in another chair. He’d changed from the formal business suit into a pair of light trousers that hugged his narrow hips and muscular thighs. His short-sleeved cotton shirt was open at the neck.

So much untrammelled masculine magnetism took her breath away. Peta took refuge behind her glass and fixed her gaze on the view.

‘Liz is a perfectionist,’ he observed, ‘and like her mother, she’s ruthlessly efficient. We’re not going out tonight, so you can go to bed early if you want to.’

She took another mouthful of water, letting it slip down her throat. ‘I thought the idea was to show ourselves off.’