The Rich Man's Royal Mistress

The staff had done him proud, setting the white damask with flowers from the warmer North Island—rich apricot and cream roses with a softly intimate perfume. Wine glasses sparkled in the light of candles, and the silver gleamed richly, burnished by the gentle flames.

‘I hope you’re enjoying yourself here,’ she said laboriously.

OK, so pedestrian was all she could summon, but she was damned well going to stick to the conventions.

The problem was, she didn’t want to, and she had the feeling that Hawke Kennedy wasn’t a man who thought much about convention at all.

‘Very much,’ he said gravely.

A molten undercurrent of anticipation robbing her of caution, Melissa looked into Hawke’s enigmatic eyes. ‘I believe you went heli-skiing today.’

And could have bitten out her tongue. Now he’d think she was keeping tabs on him.

Not that he showed it. ‘And thoroughly enjoyed it,’ he said, a faintly cynical tone bringing helpless colour to her skin.

The guide who’d accompanied Hawke to make sure he didn’t ski over a bluff on the way down the mountain had told her there was nothing he could teach his charge about skiing in the Southern Alps.

‘Or anywhere. Good as a professional,’ Bart had said admiringly.

Melissa wasn’t surprised. Hawke Kennedy breathed the sort of competence that attracted instinctive trust.

‘Interesting guy, too,’ Bart went on. ‘Good company, although he doesn’t suffer fools gladly. You should have heard him lay into a snowboarder who thought he had right of way. Never raised his voice, but the kid came away with one less layer of skin. He’ll remember his manners from now on.’

Through her lashes Melissa watched Hawke go across to a tray on a sideboard. He moved with the spare, relaxed grace of an athlete, his big body supple and strong and sexy.

Something shockingly hot and wild twisted inside her. She looked away and started to speak in a voice she expected to sound bright and conversational. To her surprise each word emerged with a husky intonation.

‘You were lucky with the snow. Spring is definitely here.’ She stopped, swallowed and pinned a small, desperate smile to her lips. ‘The forecasters are saying that this will be the last dump of powder for the season.’

‘Almost certainly. I ordered champagne, but would you rather have something else?’

‘No, thank you.’ Already dizzy at just being there, she watched him open the bottle with the minimum amount of fuss, and pour the wine into two crystal flutes.

Handing her one, he said with a smile made dangerous by a hint of challenge, ‘Here’s to meetings.’

Stop fantasising, Melissa told herself sturdily. He is not flirting with you. Or if he is, he probably does it with everyone, including elderly dowagers.

Especially elderly dowagers…

Acknowledging the challenge with a lift of her chin, she raised her glass. ‘To meetings.’

Like her, he barely sipped the delicious liquid before saying, ‘Come and sit down and tell me how you’re getting on here.’

Flames shot up in the huge stone fireplace as she settled into a chair and watched Hawke take the opposite one. He leaned back like a king on his throne, and looked across at her, the austerity of his angular features increased by a trick of the firelight. Melissa felt like the logs in the fire—burning with a mixture of sensations.

Sedately she said, ‘Fine, thank you.’

But that didn’t satisfy him, and before long she was telling him about her experience at the lodge, relishing it when she made him laugh a couple of times. In the next half-hour she found herself settling into something perilously like ease, keenly stimulated by his sharp brain and wide knowledge. Several times she was surprised to catch herself laughing; to her bemused astonishment, she discovered that they shared a similar sense of humour.

The peal of the doorbell interrupted that.

‘Dinner,’ Hawke said, getting to his feet.

Startled, she realised that she’d drunk most of her glass of wine. Not that she could hold the champagne solely responsible for her heightened senses; when she heard Hawke’s voice as he spoke to whoever had delivered the dinner, her insides clenched and that fire smouldering in the pit of her stomach flamed more brightly, burning away another layer of self-control.

This swift, uncompromising attraction had to be based on nothing more than his appearance. She had no idea of his character beyond what she’d read in the newspapers—that he was a brilliant, hard-headed businessman who enjoyed beautiful women.

And who had broken several hearts.

So it appeared that she was one of those shallow women who judged men by their looks. If their positions were reversed, she’d despise him. She despised herself.

Yet he was more than a handsome man. She blinked fiercely, trying to clear her mind of the exhilarating haze that clouded it. The sound of the door closing refocused her churning thoughts, and she realised with an odd jolt that while the two of them had been talking over their wine night had fallen outside, enclosing the lodge in darkness.

‘I’ll pull the curtains,’ Hawke said from behind her.

She took a deep breath and got to her feet. ‘You don’t have to pull them. Look, there’s a button by the door—press it and they’ll close automatically.’

Before she could get there he’d found the button and the drapes swept across the windows, obliterating the lake and the mountains, cocooning the room in warmth and an intimacy that suddenly seemed much too intense.

Melissa came to an uncertain halt, wishing for the thousandth time that she had more poise, yet feeling alive in a way she’d never experienced before. Poised on a knife-edge of stimulation, she felt as though the last half-hour had altered her in some fundamental way.

Rubbish, she told herself sternly. It’s infatuation, just like the monumental crush you had on that French pop star—hormone-driven and mindless.

Her mouth twisted wryly. For a birthday treat, her brother, Marco, had organised a meeting with that singer. Talk about instant disillusion!

He’d been six inches shorter than she was, and resented every inch of that difference. Awed and worshipful, she’d barely been able to articulate, but the mockery in his eyes had stung. The only reason he’d been polite was that Marco owned a massive number of shares in the huge musical empire that held his contract.

Then he’d sworn at a fan who’d approached with an autograph book. And later that evening Melissa had overheard him describe her to a friend.

‘A giraffe with no style,’ he’d said scornfully. ‘But one has to be polite to the rich men—and their clumsy sisters!’

OK, so she could smile now, but at the time she had been cut to the quick.

This had to be the same sort of temporary reaction. Perhaps she should have expected it; she was a late developer. Most of her friends had already moved on from their first affairs to embark on other, hopefully more satisfying relationships, while she’d been far too cautious to allow anyone close to her. Her mother had warned her against fortune hunters prepared to overlook her height and lack of beauty for the lure of access to her brothers.

She had enough self-esteem to make sure that didn’t happen! But the fact that she’d never fallen in love was because she’d never met anyone who reached her brothers’ standards.

Now she wondered if she had.

‘Come and eat,’ Hawke said smoothly.

He put her into her chair, and served a superb soup made from green peas and lettuce.

Melissa picked up her spoon and said, ‘The chef will be pleased you ordered this—it’s one of his specialities, and he says most New Zealanders refuse to eat cooked lettuce.’

‘I’m afraid I followed my own inclination when I ordered; I knew I’d be hungry after a day on the mountain, so I made sure of a solid, sustaining meal.’

When Melissa smiled a small dimple winked into existence beside her mouth, calling attention to her lips. Sheened by a sheer film of colour into pure sensuousness, each small smile sent reckless impulses through Hawke.