A Ruthless Passion

‘I don’t know,’ she said at last in a muted voice. ‘They were—are—so valiant. They had nothing at all, but they laughed and they were kind to each other and to me. The children liked me. And I had no one else.’

Oh, she did it well. Cynically he thought that she was lucky; those fragile bones made every man long to protect her.

Furious at his weakness, he said, ‘Couldn’t you get out? The Cat Withers I knew would have run like hell in case something happened to her pretty little hide.’

‘Courtald,’ she flashed back at him. ‘I’m Catherine Courtald! And you don’t know anything about me—you never did. You looked at me and your prejudices sprang into life without reason or logic!’

‘I had reason,’ he said caustically. ‘Or are you going to tell me that you were passionately in love with Glen when you married him—that you didn’t even think that with his money you could take care of your sick mother and secure your own future?’

She flushed violently, and her gaze fell, her thick lashes hiding her eyes. ‘I told you then—I was in love with him,’ she said in a stifled voice.

‘How could you be, when you looked at me and you wanted me—almost as much as I wanted you?’

‘Have you never done anything stupid?’ she demanded, squaring her shoulders.

‘Yes. Six years ago I looked at my best friend’s fiancée and lusted after her,’ he said cruelly.

The colour fled from her skin. She made an abrupt gesture, then forced her hands back by her sides, her face into an exquisite mask.

Yet he still wanted to believe her. He strove to control the repressed lust and angry remorse—and a debilitating urge to shelter her.

Aloud he said, ‘It’s a good story, Cat, and you’ve done your research well, but I’m afraid I’m finding it very difficult to believe a word of it.’ He flicked the photograph. ‘Or a picture of it.’

Sheer stubbornness kept Cat upright. She couldn’t go to pieces now; she’d never forgive herself—or Nick—if his dislike and distrust stole Juana’s future.

‘Why don’t you at least make an effort to find out whether I’m telling the truth?’ she asked woodenly, picking up her bag. ‘You can take the money out of next year’s income.’

He lifted his brows. ‘Twenty thousand dollars? What would you live on? Unless you’re planning on finding another rich man to marry,’ he said, adding with pointed courtesy, ‘But as your trustee I have to remind you that if you do that you give up any further claim on Glen’s estate.’

‘I’m planning on finding a job,’ she said between her teeth, and walked across the room.

Without looking at him, she closed the door behind her with precision, listening to the sound reverberate off every shiny surface.

Forcing herself not to flee cravenly, she nodded at the elegant, startled PA, who was hurriedly getting to her feet at her desk, took the lift down and strode out into the sunlight, greedily soaking up the heat. Chills rose through her, tightening her skin so that she felt as though she was suffering from a fever.

Nick Harding fever, she thought desperately. It hadn’t gone away after all—instead it had lodged like a deadly virus inside her, waiting for one look, one touch, to set her afire again.

For heaven’s sake, woman, get a grip, she commanded. You have to work out what you’re going to do if he refuses to advance you that money.

Whatever happened, however she raised the money, Juana was going to have her chance.

CHAPTER TWO

A TENSE week later Cat was walking out of the university library when her companion nudged her and growled, ‘Whooor! Fantasy fodder at eleven o’clock.’

It was Nick, leaning indolently against a long, low car of the sort that had even the carefully sophisticated students looking sideways.

‘What’s my favourite colour?’ her companion asked rhetorically. ‘The colour of the last piece of clothing that man takes off in my bedroom!’

Cat unclenched her teeth to say with a lightness she hoped sounded real, ‘Sinead, you’ve already got Jonathan—don’t be greedy. Anyway, this one would break your heart.’

‘Hearts mend, and from the look of him it’d be a wild affair, the sort you shock your great-grandchildren with.’ She stopped as Nick straightened up and scrutinised Cat. ‘Hey, you know him?’

The spring sun beat down on Nick’s black head, glowed lovingly along the high, flaring cheekbones. He looked like a pirate—ruthless and forceful.

‘I know him,’ Cat said. ‘Not well, but enough to be very wary.’

‘If you don’t want him, introduce me?’ She laughed at the glint Cat couldn’t banish from her eyes. ‘It was worth a try. Go on, off you go—you can tell me all about him tonight.’

Alone, Cat walked over to the car, shoulders held stiffly, her face composed.

Nick’s dark suit clung with the finesse of superb tailoring to his wide shoulders and narrow hips, but the formidable assurance and the slow burn of danger came from him alone.

Foolishly, Cat wished she’d worn her pretty blue suit again; jeans, even when topped by a cream shirt and a jersey the colour of her hair, couldn’t live up to his clothes.

‘Hello, Nick,’ she said as she came up to him, her voice so constrained she sounded like a prim schoolgirl.

His mouth curved into a speculative smile. ‘Cat.’ He pushed the door open and held out a hand for her bag.

After a moment’s hesitation she handed it over.

‘This is far too heavy for you,’ he said, frowning, as he dumped the bag in the back seat.

‘Books always weigh a lot. Where are we going?’

‘Somewhere that isn’t quite so public as this.’

She nodded and slid past him into the car, folding her hands in her lap with a stern mental command to them to stay still. Resolutely she kept her eyes fixed straight ahead, although she registered nothing of the streetscape until they arrived at an elderly Art Deco apartment building beside one of Auckland’s mid-city parks.

‘This isn’t your office,’ she said sharply.

He switched off the engine. ‘No.’

Just one word, but she sensed there was no moving him.

When she reached for her bag he said, ‘It’s all right where it is. I’ll take you home later.’

At her straight look he smiled, a cool, intimidating smile that pulled every tiny hair on her body on end. He was up to something—but what?

‘I’ll bring it anyway,’ she said evenly.

‘Then I’ll carry it.’ He hauled the bag out in one smooth, powerful movement.

The modernised lift whisked them up quickly and silently, but once inside Nick’s apartment Cat noted that the high ceilings and worldly charm had been left intact.

Nick ushered her into a huge sitting room that overlooked a sea of budding branches in the park. The usual municipal obsession with neat rows of flowers hadn’t prevailed there; instead, showered by soft pink petals from a cherry tree, a graceful marble goose acted as a fountain, standing in a pond bordered by clumps of irises and freesias and small, starry, silver-blue flowers.

Grass stretched to a line of oaks; a few weeks previously they’d exploded into huge lime-yellow ice-creams and were now settling down with a dignified, dark green mantle. Their branches stirred with austere beauty in the lazy wind that was all this unusually warm season could produce.