Indiscretions

Mariel cast him a wary, exasperated glance. Although he was smiling there was a determination in his expression that told her it was no use; this man would do what he wanted regardless of how she felt.

“Very well then” she said coldly, walking out before him.

The staff who lived on-site were housed in the old stables, which had been converted into a neat complex behind the main hotel. At the end of a wide pathway that curled away beneath magnolia and live oak, the old brick building was sheltered behind a low wall. Between the hotel and staff quarters was a formal garden, where beds of azaleas bloomed beneath the still flowerless branches of crepe myrties. It was April and, while winter had barely loosened its grip on New York, here the night air was cool, but the days were warm and getting warmer.

“A pretty setting,” Nicholas said, looking around.

Pretty? Compared to some of the quarters Mariel had slept in, the compound was palatial! “The owner’s husband is a keen gardener,” she said quietly.

Perhaps Nicholas Leigh was right; perhaps she did like her creature comforts too much. Surely anyone who’d been brought up in comparative luxury, then faced at the age of eight with a sudden descent into poverty and austerity, could be excused for enjoying such beautiful surroundings.

The gentle hush of waves on the beach backgrounded Nicholas Leigh’s voice as he said, “This reminds me a little of Auckland. The same scent—salt and flowers and green growing things.”

“And humidity?”

“You don’t like the Auckland climate?”

She shrugged. “I’ve never lived there.”

“And you never want to.” He let that sink in before asking, “Is it just Auckland you dislike or New Zealand as a whole?”

The words were delivered mildly, but she felt the taunt as clearly as though he’d snarled at her. “There’s nothing for me there now,” she said dismissively, glad they had reached a door of the middle block. “This is as far as you are allowed, I’m afraid,” she said, and held out her hand.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said, smiling narrowly.

She shivered, wincing at the spark of electricity that flashed between them again, fierce and fathomless. It took willpower to retrieve her hand without jerking it from his.

“It’s a damned nuisance, isn’t it?” he said almost conversationally. “However, I’m sure we’re both strong-minded enough to resist it.”

She stared at him.

“Don’t pretend you don’t know what it is.” An oblique smile barely disturbed the corners of his mouth. “You felt it the moment I did.”

“I did not!” And then, because her indignant response had given her away, she said angrily, “Look, I’m not interested—”

“You challenged me,” he said with a forbidding curtness, “and you knew you were doing it. I could be tempted to take you up on it, but I don’t think it would be sensible.”

There was contempt in his voice, contempt, she realized, directed not only at her. Nicholas Leigh saw this attraction as a weakness and despised himself for it.

Wordlessly she turned, her emotions perilously close to the surface, and slipped through the door, closing it behind her. His frankness had shocked her, and yet a dangerously capricious part of her heart thrilled, because he, too, had no defense against the overwhelming intensity of that physical reaction.

Damn, she thought, Nicholas Leigh was turning out to be a real threat to her peace of mind. Fortunately she was only here for four days.

Nothing could happen in four days.

As she took out her room key, Elise hurried past. “Have you seen Caitlin?” she demanded.

Mariel brought her head up sharply. There had been a real note of fear in the woman’s voice. “No. Why?”

“Oh, God. I’ve looked and looked and looked for her, but she’s not here. One of the housemaids said she saw her hanging around outside. I think she might have run away.”

“Run away?”

Elise drew in a deep breath and calmed down. “To her father. I’ll have to go and look for her.”

“Just wait a moment while I change my shoes and I’ll come and help.”

Mariel came back outside in time to hear Elise say in carefully controlled tones, “Yes, honey, I know you don’t like living here much, but we have to stay here for a while.”

Caitlin’s voice, the whine not entirely hiding her real un-happiness, floated on the humid air. “If you let my daddy come back, we could live in our old house.”

“Oh, darling, we can’t ever go back.”

“We can go and live with him!” Caitlin shouted. “He said so. I heard him. I don’t want to live here, I want to go to California to live with Daddy.”

Mariel hesitated, then, her heart aching for them both, went into her room. Poor Elise was going to have to deal with this herself.

BY THE TIME she arrived at the main building the next morning, the New Zealand interpreter had been shipped out. Mariel was told by Liz Jermain that she was to do whatever was required of her.

After stashing her computer in the business center, she walked briskly along to the room that had been set aside for the delegation to breakfast in, and suffered with as much composure as she could the introductions Nicholas Leigh made. Mr. McCabe, the trade minister, received her with professional affability, and the aides and various other underlings accepted her presence without much comment. Susan Waterhouse gave her a cool nod. Peter Sanderson watched her with an avidity she found both irritating and upsetting.

The morning, she discovered as Nicholas handed her a cup of coffee, was to be spent on the golf course, and as the Japanese interpreter was busy with documents she was on duty.

Nicholas was also a member of the golfing group. He played well, she decided acidly, keeping her eyes away from the controlled line of shoulder and thigh, the smooth skill and grace with which he swung. He certainly had excellent rapport with the Japanese trade minister and his aides, one of whom asked Mariel if she played.

“I’m afraid not,” she said, meeting Nicholas’s eyes without a blink. She most emphatically did not want to displays her mediocre golfing skills in such company.

“A pity,” the man said, smiling.

From then on she took care to stay as far out of the way as she could. She didn’t need the attention.

Nevertheless, the fact that the New Zealand trade minister spoke no Japanese at all meant she had to be close by all the time. Indeed, she found the morning intriguing. The ministers and their aides discussed almost everything but the subject of free trade, which was what had brought both parties here.

Obviously these were just the preliminaries during which each party sized up the other.

Why was she needed at all when Nicholas spoke fluent Japanese, and the Japanese minister equally fluent, if heavily accented, English? Protocol, probably, and the desire not to lose face, and also because a lot could be riding on these preliminaries.

After lunch they spent several hours with the ministers and their cohorts on the rifle range. Nicholas was there, too; he shot well. No doubt he did everything well, she thought, firmly squelching an image of him making love, that lean body poised over hers…

Heat shimmered through her, sweet as honey, draining her of energy and common sense.

“No,” she muttered, earning herself a startled look from a small, exquisitely dressed Japanese gentleman.

“I wonder what other sports they intend to try?” she said, smiling.

He bowed. “I believe we ride horses,” he said politely.

“Oh.” She shrugged. “I don’t ride,” she said.