Captured by the Billionaire: Brooding Billionaire, Impoverished Princess

Collecting a light wrap, she thought indignantly that being kissed by Alex had somehow turned her into a different person—a woman irritatingly sensitive to his every look, to every inflection in his deep voice. A woman who found herself sighing over the way the corners of his mouth turned up whenever he smiled—even the shape of his ears and the fact that the sun struck glints of red from his black hair!

Neither she nor Alex wanted a drink before dinner, so they went straight in to their meal. The woman who brought in the dishes was introduced as Caroline Summers, the housekeeper. In her mid-thirties, she had a pleasant smile and a briskly competent manner that Serina liked.

And she was a brilliant cook. Suddenly hungry, Serina applied herself to an entrée of grilled mussels with bacon and almonds.

‘It’s one of my favourites,’ Alex said, ‘and I noticed you enjoyed seafood at the dinner for the wedding party, so I assumed you’d like this.’

After one mouthful she said enthusiastically, ‘It’s delicious. Is it a New Zealand favourite?’

‘I don’t know where Caroline found the recipe, or if she made it up. Ask her when she comes back. One of these days I’m probably going to lose her to a restaurant, but in the meantime she seems content enough to stay here while her children are young. Her husband is the livestock manager on the station.’

‘The station?’ she enquired.

‘In New Zealand and Australia a large farm is called a station.’

Grateful for the neutral subject, Serina asked questions diligently while they ate, enjoying the sound of his voice, the sight of his lean, tanned hands across the table, the warmth from the flames in the fireplace, the silence of the darkening countryside…

She learned that Haruru had been his father’s inheritance, that his mother had been the link through which Alex was related to Gerd and his brother Kelt—they shared the same New Zealand great-grandfather. And she deduced that, while Alex called the station home, the corporation he ran kept him too busy to spend much time there.

She learned that Haruru in Maori meant rumbling.

‘There’s a waterfall in the hills that can be heard rumbling through the ground for some distance,’ Alex told her.

‘How?’

‘It’s volcanic land, and it’s probably a trick of acoustics.’

Above all, she learned that the delicious irritant of her attraction to him had deepened, turning into something darker and more dangerous—something that might teach her the meaning of heartbreak…

CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_f1909012-e733-5dbe-90c5-bf6ca9e639f2)

THAT night Serina slept well and the next morning Alex showed her around his garden, but for the first time ever she couldn’t fully concentrate on the beauty and harmony of flowers and foliage and form. Her attention was fixed on the man beside her.

She wondered dismally if this—whatever—she felt for Alex was going to destroy her pleasure in gardens.

Not that it could be love. The mere thought of that shocked her.

She couldn’t afford to love him. He’d made his attitude brutally clear; the unfulfilled desire that pulsated between them indicated a relationship, nothing more.

It was a relief to get into the Land Rover for a quick overview of the station. The track wound up to an airstrip along a ridge, providing a magnificent view over green hills and bush-clad gullies and the Pacific Ocean, a wide stretch of brilliant blue under the bright winter sky.

‘Tomorrow we’ll go down to the nearest beach,’ he told her on their way back to the homestead. ‘I hope you have some warm clothes with you?’

‘Of course I have,’ she returned crisply. ‘But you don’t need to entertain me, you know. Tomorrow I’ll see about hiring a car so I can visit some of the gardens in the guidebook you found for me.’

He gave her a narrow glance. ‘Have you ever driven on the left?’

‘Oh, yes,’ she said absently, trying not to look down the hill. Although the track was well-maintained, the ground fell away sharply on her side without any barrier and she refused to let him see how nervous she was. Heights intimidated her.

But he must have sensed it because he slowed the Land Rover down. ‘When? And how much?’

Warmed by his unspoken consideration, she said, ‘I used to visit Doran at his school in England. Also, when our nanny was ill I drove down to Somerset quite frequently to visit her.’

And on other occasions when she’d been checking out gardens and interviewing their owners.

He said, ‘So you’re experienced on both sides of the road.’

‘And I’m a careful driver.’ Scrupulously, she added, ‘I did once set off from an intersection and head straight towards the wrong side. I was lucky—there was no other traffic, but it scared me and I’ve been supercautious ever since.’

‘If there had been other traffic you’d probably have kept to the left,’Alex said. He glanced at her. ‘You don’t need to hire a car; I’ll drive you around.’

‘I can’t ask you to do that,’ she protested, hiding her quick flare of pleasure.

‘You didn’t,’ he said, reacting instantly when a bird sunning itself in the gravel flew up suddenly in front of the Land Rover.

Serina’s sharp intake of breath wasn’t necessary. Without stamping on the brake, Alex slowed the vehicle but held it to the line.

‘Never try to avoid a bird or an animal,’ he said calmly. ‘Probably more people have been killed taking abrupt evasive action than actually hitting something. Always stay on the road, and on your side if it’s a public road.’

‘Surely it’s human instinct to try not to hurt anything?’ she protested, feeling her tense muscles relax.

‘Control it. You’re good at control.’

Serina flushed. Except when he touched her…

He added, ‘Unless you’re faced with hitting another person and, even then, you need to weigh the consequences.’

Soberly, she said, ‘I hope I never have to.’ She returned to the original subject. ‘But you don’t need to drive me—you must have plenty of things to do without that. I’ll buy a good map and I’m capable of finding my way around.’

‘I can spare the time.’

When she began to object again, he said, ‘Serina, I know lots more people—and gardens—than whoever wrote that guidebook, and most of them aren’t open to the public.’

Serina was torn. She had to make this visit worthwhile, which meant seeing as many gardens as she could fit in. The more material she gathered, the better.

For worthwhile read profitable, she thought as the track they were on joined another wider and more travelled one.

But the real reason for her reluctance to have Alex for a chauffeur was the intensity of her response to him.

Thoughtfully, she said, ‘There are occasions when you sound like my father in his most aristocratic mood.’

His tone matching hers, he responded, ‘I do not feel in the least like your father.’After a taut few seconds he added dryly, ‘Or your brother.’

She glanced sideways, her heart thumping erratically as she took in his autocratic profile. He might not work on the station, but his hands on the wheel were strong and competent. Some wicked part of her mind flashed up an image of them stroking slowly across her pale skin. Heat flamed deep within her, and she had to stare stonily ahead and concentrate on a flock of sheep in the field.

‘One of them is cast,’ Alex said, and brought the Land Rover to a stop.

Serina opened her door and scrambled down too, eyes on the sheep lying in the grass, its legs sticking out pathetically. ‘What’s the matter with it?’ she asked as Alex swung lithely over the wire fence.