A Reluctant Mistress

The rest of their party trooped in after them in a cloud of laughter and conversation. ‘Hmm, yes, very mysterious—and ultra-sexy. Even Greg,’ Liz added, casting a quick glance at her brother.

‘He’s a very handsome man,’ Natalia said lightly.

‘But not for you.’ Liz had made no attempt to hide her wish that her favourite brother and her best friend might one day fall in love.

‘No.’

‘Ah, well, perhaps you’ll meet some gorgeous hunk tonight.’ Liz gazed openly around, waving to friends, smiling. ‘I can’t see one,’ she murmured, ‘but there’s Mr Stephens with the Barkers, Nat—and he looks pretty good in a mask!’

Halfway through the evening Natalia admitted that Liz had been right to nag her to come. She’d had a great time, dancing with old friends and flirting lightly with several newcomers, talking to people she hadn’t seen for months.

Waiting until her latest partner had set off to rejoin his wife, Liz hissed, ‘He’s here!’

‘Who?’ Natalia lifted her glass of iced water.

‘The hunk we ordered. Sidle a look towards the door. You can’t miss him.’

More to humour her than anything, Natalia set her glass down and turned her head.

The stranger was definitely unmissable, partly because he was a head above most of the other men. At least six foot three, Natalia estimated, with shoulders in proportion and an air of cool command that dominated the room.

Severe black and white evening clothes contrasted magnificently with golden skin. Light gleamed on wavy black hair, highlighted an autocratic, hawk-nosed face with a square, slightly cleft chin and a wide mouth. Long-legged, narrow-hipped, a conventional black mask emphasising those strong features, the stranger could have walked out of one of Liz’s Regency novels—or an X-rated myth.

He was talking to a woman Natalia didn’t know, a well-rounded creature whose scarlet mask—scattered with tiny chips of mirror glass—couldn’t conceal her look of desperate anticipation, as though she’d just found water in the Sahara.

Natalia didn’t blame her. The stranger’s height and archetypal, dangerous good looks made him stand out, but what compelled attention was his air of vibrant, vital sexuality, a coiled, dynamically masculine magnetism. He had the invisible aura of a man who knew he was attractive to the opposite sex—an inbuilt confidence that set her teeth on edge.

Fanning herself with vigour, Liz made a noise like a vocal leer. ‘I need a cold shower,’ she growled. ‘Do you know him?’

‘Never seen him before.’

Liz grinned. ‘He’s looking at you.’

‘Hope he likes my profile, then,’ Natalia said, turning to smile ironically at her friend. ‘Yes, he’s gorgeous, but men like that have wives, or very glamorous girlfriends who work in television. Guaranteed. Perhaps the woman with him?’

‘A cynical little statement, but you could be right, alas.’ Liz sighed. ‘However, if he asks me to dance I’m not going to let any possible girlfriend concern me. I don’t think he looks married.’

‘Neither did the last hunk I met at a party,’ Natalia said softly, icily.

Liz sighed. ‘Sorry, love, I’d forgotten about Dean Jamieson. Which is what you should do.’

‘I try, but it’s not often a man thinks that the excitement and privilege of sleeping with him should outweigh a few inconveniences like a wife.’ Natalia reined in the anger that still fired her temper whenever she thought of the man who owned the property next door. ‘The only thing that comforts me about that situation is the look on his face when I said, no, thank you, I have this strange, old-fashioned idea that marriage means trust and fidelity, so although you’re a very sexy man I’m not going to bed with you!’

‘He was a rat,’ Liz soothed. ‘You know, I suppose it never occurred to Dean that you’d find out he was married. Just as well my mother has this network of old friends the full length of New Zealand, or you might have been really hurt.’

Natalia shrugged. ‘He hurt my pride and dented my heart a little, that’s all.’

‘More than a little, I think.’

Natalia looked down at her restless fingers in her lap. ‘I was an idiot,’ she said quietly. ‘I suppose I thought he was Prince Charming, and that he might be the one to whisk me off and marry me and rescue me from my life of drudgery. He was funny and intelligent and very attractive, and he seemed genuine.’

‘I’m sure he was genuine.’ Liz’s tone was both understanding and crisp. ‘He saw a woman he wanted, and he didn’t care whether he broke your heart provided he got you.’

‘He didn’t break my heart,’ Natalia said steadily.

‘I know,’ Liz said. ‘You’ve got too much sense to let an attack of wishful thinking blind you for too long.’

‘Thanks for the vote of confidence.’ But Liz didn’t know just how close she’d come to succumbing to Dean Jamieson’s practised charm.

‘Think nothing of it.’

Natalia said evenly, ‘What really makes me mad is that he told everyone in Bowden that I knew he was married.’

‘It was a lousy, malicious, petty thing to do, but at least you know what sort of man he is.’

‘You’re so right. A snake. One I came perilously close to falling for, which gives me a very low opinion of my intelligence!’

Liz primmed her mouth and endeavoured to look affected—difficult when her small face was alight with laughter. ‘Anyone can be taken in once. The important thing is to not let it happen again.’ She relaxed into a sly grin. ‘So I’ll do my best to find out who the newcomer is, and whether he’s got an encumbrance. I don’t think the woman with him is his—she’s too hungry. And he doesn’t look like a man who believes in abstinence.’

Half an hour later, as Natalia was coming back into the ballroom after a swift visit to the cloakroom, she was hailed by an old friend, a man who’d been a couple of classes ahead of her at school. They were laughing together when his wife of six months arrived with the speed, determination and subtlety of a mother rhinoceros seeing a lion examine her infant.

Cold-eyed, proprietorial, she snapped out a thin smile. ‘Hello, Natalia, nice to see you. Max, why don’t we dance this one?’

He looked embarrassed, and suddenly shifty. ‘Oh, yes, of course,’ he said. ‘See you around, Nat.’

Natalia’s lashes drooped as his wife all but dragged him away. Damn Dean Jamieson and his lies. How long was it going to take her to live down the reputation he’d deliberately saddled her with?

‘He might see you around,’ a disturbing masculine voice murmured from behind her, ‘but not if she sees you first.’

Stiff with pride, Natalia turned abruptly, only to collide with a large, immovable object. Before she had a chance to trip, hands clamped just above her elbows. Powerful fingers held her for a moment, startlingly tanned against her pale skin.

Of course she knew who it was.

‘Sorry,’ she muttered, lifting her head to look the stranger in the eyes.

Their impact drove the breath from her lungs. Behind the black silk mask, narrowed tawny-gold slivers were fringed by black lashes in a watchful, almost calculating scrutiny. In spite of that, Natalia was left in no doubt that he liked what he saw.

On the right-hand side of his face a thin, faded scar slashed downwards to the point of his jaw. Although it heightened the forceful, uncompromising power of his honed features, Natalia had to stop herself from tracing it with a finger.

Latent sensation flamed into life inside her—a volatile mixture of fire and ice, honey and gall, velvet and steel that combined in a fierce, terrifyingly elemental hunger.

‘I’m sorry—I knocked you,’ the unsmiling stranger said.

‘No, it was my fault—I wasn’t looking where I was going,’ she returned, reckless in her desire to get away.

One hand slid down her forearm. As she stared, dumbstruck, lean fingers rested on her pulse, testing the rapid, heavy throbbing of her heartbeat in the fragile blue veins.

Face hot, she wrenched free; he didn’t try to hold her.