Wicked Surrender: Ruthless Awakening / The Multi-Millionaire's Virgin Mistress / The Timber Baron's Virgin Bride

It had been, she remembered, one of those burning, windless days in August, when the sun seemed close enough to touch.

They’d been down at the beach all day, slipping in and out of the unruffled sea like seals, Rhianna by then as competent and confident a swimmer as the other two. It had been Simon who’d called a halt, explaining that he needed to get back as his parents had friends coming to dinner.

In spite of the heat, it had always been a matter of honour to see who could get to the top of the cliff path ahead of the others. The girls rarely won against Simon’s long legs, but this particular afternoon he had dropped one of his new trainers in the loose sand at the foot of the cliff and halted to retrieve it, so that Carrie and Rhianna had found themselves unexpectedly ahead, flying neck and neck up the stony track.

And when Carrie had stumbled Rhianna had got there first, laughing and breathless, head down as she launched herself towards some invisible finishing tape.

Only to cannon into something tall, solid and all too real, finding, as she had staggered back with a gasp of shock, strong hands grasping her shoulders to steady her, while a man’s cool voice had said, ‘So—what have we here? A fleeing trespasser? This is private land, you know.’

She looked up dazedly into the face above her, swarthy and lean, with high cheekbones only to see the faint amusement fade from the firm mouth and the grey eyes become as icy as snow clouds in January. He studied her in return, his glance shifting with a kind of incredulity from her unruly cloud of hair to her long-lashed eyes and her startled, parted lips.

She said, ‘I’m Rhianna Carlow. I—I live here.’

He drew a swift sharp breath, lifting his hands from her and stepping back in a repudiation that was as instant as it was unmistakable.

He said, half to himself, ‘Of course—the child. I’d almost forgotten.’

‘Diaz!’ Carrie was there, hurling herself at him. ‘How truly great! No one said you were coming.’

‘It was intended as a surprise,’ he said, returning her exuberant hug with more restraint before he looked back at Rhianna. He added unsmilingly, ‘It seems to be a day for them.’

And she thought with inexplicable desolation, Someone else who doesn’t want me to be here…

Simon’s panting arrival provided a momentary diversion, but the greetings were barely over before Moira Seymour came sauntering across the lawn towards them, cool in a blue cotton dress, and fanning herself languidly with a broad-brimmed straw hat.

She said, ‘Simon, my pet, your mother’s telephoned, asking where you are. Carrie, darling, get cleaned up for tea, please.’ Her glance flickered dismissively over Rhianna. ‘And I’m sure, young woman, that your aunt can find something for you to do.’

The first direct remark Mrs Seymour had ever made to her, Rhianna realised. And one that made her inferior position in the household quite explicit. Turning her back into the intruder. The trespasser that Diaz Penvarnon had just called her. A name that might have started as a joke, but was now, suddenly, something very different.

My first starring role, Rhianna thought bitterly, and one that will probably haunt me, for so many reasons, as long as I live, wherever I go, and whatever happens to me.

Diaz—Diaz Penvarnon…

He was a chain, she told herself, linking her with the past, which must be broken now that he was out of her life for ever.

I’ve got to start thinking of him as a stranger, she thought, almost feverishly. I must…

But from that first moment of meeting he’d imprinted himself indelibly on her consciousness, and Rhianna had found her life changing once more—and not for the better, either.

Because she had once more been strictly relegated to the flat over the stables and its immediate vicinity, pretty much reduced to the status of non-person again, while a protesting Carrie had simply been whipped away and absorbed into the sudden surge of activities at the house itself, putting her out of reach for the duration of the owner’s visit.

The owner…

Even at a distance, Rhianna had sensed that the whole place seemed to have lost its languid, almost melancholy atmosphere and become—re-energised.

And that had been even without the constant stream of visitors filling the place at weekends, flocking down to the cove to swim and sunbathe, or play tennis on the newly marked court at the side of the house. Not forgetting the dinner parties that went on into the early hours, with music spilling out through the open windows into the warm nights, and dancers moving on the terrace.

With Diaz Penarvon at the forefront of it all.

On the few occasions that Rhianna had dared venture further than the stable yard she had seen that. Had recognised that his tall figure seemed to be everywhere, exercising effortless dominion over his surroundings, as if he’d never been absent, with the cool, incisive voice she’d remembered only too well issuing orders that were immediately obeyed.

‘And I wonder how Madam likes that?’ Rhianna had overheard Mrs Welling, the daily help, comment with a chuckle to Jacky Besant, who worked in the grounds, while they were enjoying a quiet smoke in the yard.

‘Not much, I reckon.’ Jacky had also seemed amused. ‘But she’s no need to fret. He’ll be gone again soon enough, and then she’ll have it easy again.’

Maybe we all will, Rhianna had thought, stifling a sigh.

It had occurred to her that Diaz wasn’t a bit as she’d imagined when Carrie had first told her about him.

For one thing she’d assumed he’d be much older. Physically much heavier, too. Not lean, rangy, and possessed of a dynamism she’d been able to recognise even at her immature age.

‘He’s what they call a babe magnet,’ Simon, himself sidelined under the new regime, had commented resentfully when Rhianna, sent on an errand by her aunt, had met him emerging from the village Post Office. ‘Tall, dark and mega-rich. My parents say that every female in Cornwall under thirty is trying to have a crack at him.’

‘Well, I think he’s vile,’ Rhianna said vehemently, remembering how those extraordinary eyes—almost silver under their dark fringe of lashes—had frozen her.

Recalling too how she’d seen him in a corner of the terrace one evening, when she’d slipped round to listen to the music. How she’d become aware of a movement in the shadows and realised he was there, entwined with some blonde girl in a way that had made her burn with embarrassment, together with other sensations less easy to define.

And how, as he’d pushed the dress from his companion’s shoulders, she’d turned and run back to her own domain, and not ventured out at night again.

Now, she added with renewed emphasis, ‘Sick-making.’

Simon grinned faintly. ‘Keep thinking that way.’ He paused. ‘Fancy going down to the harbour for an ice cream or a Coke at Rollo’s Café?’

She shook her head. ‘I—I have to get back.’ It was only partly true. She didn’t want to admit that she’d been sent out with the exact money to pay for her aunt’s requirements and no more.

‘You can be spared for ten minutes, surely?’ Simon said reasonably. ‘And you need something cool before you bike back to Penvarnon or you’ll be roasted.’ He paused. ‘My treat.’

She flushed with pleasure. Simon the cool and totally gorgeous was actually offering to buy her an ice cream. Normally he didn’t take a great deal of notice of her, when Carrie was there. They’d been friends long before she came on the scene, and she’d always accepted that, told herself it was nasty of her to feel even slightly envious.

But now Carrie was occupied, and she had this one blissful chance to spend a little while with Simon on her own. Without, she thought, having to share him. And instantly felt thoroughly ashamed of herself.

Then she saw Simon smiling at her, and drew a small, happy breath. ‘I mustn’t be too long,’ she temporised.

He bought their ice creams, and they sat on the harbour wall in the sunshine, watching the boats and chatting about everything and nothing, until Rhianna said regretfully she really had to get back, and Simon lifted her down from the rough stones.

‘Hey,’ he said. ‘This has been great. We must do it again.’

As she’d cycled back to Penvarnon her heart had been singing. It might only been half an hour, but for Rhianna it had become thirty minutes framed in gold. A pivotal moment for a lonely girl on the verge of adolescence. Heady stuff.

But certainly not enough to provide the foundation for any dreams about the future.

But I didn’t know that then, she thought unhappily. And it was long, long in the future before I realised that by the time you’re sure of your dream and want it to come true it may be completely beyond your reach.

She was startled out of her reverie by the train manager’s voice announcing the express’s imminent arrival at her station.

Rhianna rose, reaching for her sunglasses, reluctantly collecting her suitcase and dress carrier as she prepared to alight.

You don’t have to do this, an inner voice urged. You could stay right here, extend your ticket to Penzance, and from there catch the next train back to London. Then make the excuse you’ve been hit by some virus. Summer flu. Anything…