Temporary Mistress: Mistress for a Weekend / Mistress on Demand / Public Wife, Private Mistress

She eyed the flashing knife, wielded with lethal precision against a defenceless red pepper. ‘Rich single male—the type who eats out a lot and delegates all the grunt work to someone else.’

The knife turned expertly on an unwary onion. ‘You think I’m lazy?’

‘Quite the opposite. I think you’re probably far too busy to bother with the mundane details of life.’

‘Wrong. The devil is in the detail, Nora. It can make men’s fortunes—or break them. The fact that I’m rich and single makes it more, not less imperative that I maintain my basic survival skills. Actually, I like to cook; I find it relaxing.’

To Nora, who found it a chore, he sounded insufferably superior.

‘I suppose you’re going to claim you do all your own cleaning, too?’ she said sceptically.

‘I’m self-reliant, not stupid,’ he said, pausing to sample his wine. ‘My eldest sister runs a co-operative of domestic cleaners—she gives me a good deal on a contract for my home in town and this place gets done for free, since the whole family uses it…’

A chip of ice caught in Nora’s throat. ‘Your sister’s a cleaning lady?’

Her choking disbelief induced a grin that exploded the harsh angles of his face. ‘Don’t let Kate hear you call her a lady, she’ll be insulted—she’s a working woman. She started up a business which now supports her and her kids, not to mention giving other solo mums a chance to earn a decent wage without having to pay for childcare. I consider that a pretty admirable achievement, don’t you?’

‘Well, yes, of course it is…I just thought—’

‘What? That because I’m wealthy my family must live in the lap of luxury?’

‘It’s a reasonable assumption,’ she defended herself. ‘Most people like to share their good fortune with their loved ones—’

‘Not if the loved ones are pig-headed idealists who would throw the offer back in his condescending teeth,’ he said wryly. ‘You forget, the MacLeod roots are staunchly working class—I’m the renegade in a bunch of social reformers. Mum would take every cent I had for one of her causes, but for herself she doesn’t believe in soft living or idle hands. She’s a union activist who sees it as her duty to remind me that the average working Joe’s health and welfare depend on men like me sacrificing a few points from the bottom line.’

A belated recognition clicked in Nora’s brain. ‘Your mother’s the Pamela MacLeod who chained herself to an official limo during the Commonwealth trade talks in Wellington!’

‘Actually, it was my official limo, and, yes, she managed to get herself arrested on primetime news. Again. Much as she’s against the globalisation of industry she seems to have no problem using the information highway to globalise her fight against oppression. That artistic photo of her plastered against my grille was all over the Internet within minutes of it being taken.’

There was amused exasperation in his tone, a rueful respect that told her more about his feelings for his mother than any amount of words.

‘She doesn’t sound very oppressed.’ Nora chuckled.

He rolled his eyes. ‘I wish!’

She didn’t believe it for a moment. ‘Would you prefer to have the kind of mother who cooed and clucked over you and believed her darling boy could do no wrong?’

He shuddered—a very distracting ripple of that long, lean masculine back. Was he that same melted honey colour all over? she speculated helplessly. Her gaze slipped lower down his profile and she couldn’t help noticing that the finespun fabric of his drawstring pants clung patchily to his damp flanks in a way that suggested he wore little or nothing underneath.

He turned towards her and her eyes shot hastily up to his face.

‘Chicken.’

What was he? A mind-reader? ‘Of course not!’ She was embarrassed to have been caught sneaking an ogle.

He looked taken aback by her vehemence. ‘If you don’t want chicken, I could defrost some prawns…’

‘Oh!’ She fought down another blush, determined not to encourage the speculation stirring in his hawkish gaze. ‘I—uh—chicken is fine, but really, I’m not very hungry—’

‘You will be,’ he said, cutting through her defensive babble. ‘By my estimation, you haven’t eaten in over twenty-four hours. You’ll run out of steam very quickly if you don’t put something solid in your stomach.’

At the moment the inner heat she was generating was enough to power a small city! Nora fumbled to pour herself another drink, her damp hand slipping against the handle of the jug, almost shattering the lip of the glass. ‘Sorry,’ she muttered, leaping to her feet as iced tea spilled on the counter. ‘Let me get that.’ She snatched up a handy cloth and mopped up the pooling liquid.

‘Thanks,’ he murmured. ‘May I have my shirt back now?’

She looked down at the crumpled white cloth in her hand and noticed a button poking out between her thumb and forefinger. A tiny embroidered polo player, now stained with brown, stared accusingly up at her. ‘Oh, God! I’m sorry—it was just lying there—I thought it was a dishcloth!’

‘So much for my taste in clothes,’ he said wryly. ‘You really are hell on a man’s wardrobe, aren’t you, Nora?’

‘I don’t suppose it’s a cheap knock-off rather than the genuine article?’ she said with a sigh.

His trademark scowl wiped the amusement from his expression. ‘Now you’re adding insult to injury. Do I seem like the kind of cheapskate who would buy fakes when I can afford the real thing? Or do you think I’m just too undiscriminating to be able to tell the difference?’

‘I think your inferiority complex is showing again,’ she told him. ‘I’m the one who can’t tell the difference. What do I know about designer labels? I used to sew all my own clothes before I came to Auckland, and I still get most of my stuff from chainstores.’

He cocked his head. ‘Is money a problem for you?’

She wasn’t fooled by the casual way he tossed out the question. Her soft mouth tensed. ‘Why bother to ask? I’m sure your snoop ran a full credit check on me.’

‘And you came up clean as a whistle. But, as Doug pointed out, some debts don’t show up on official files—’

‘I’m not being blackmailed, I don’t have a drug or gambling habit or any other form of secret addiction,’ she declared, her voice rising above the smoky jazz. ‘With me, what you see is exactly what you get!’

His mouth kinked, his gaze flicking over her slight figure. ‘That’s very generous of you, Nora, but I think we should eat first…’

She spluttered, as he’d known she would. ‘That’s not what I meant!’ She glared in frustration as he carried the board of chopped vegetables across to the hob, watching him line up bottles of cooking oil, soy and sweet chilli sauce within easy reach of the wok.

‘You’re not going to cook like that, are you?’ she felt compelled to say. ‘What if the oil spits when you add the food? Here, maybe you should put this back on.’

He turned just in time to catch the balled shirt—thrown with a little more force than was necessary—as it hit his bare chest. ‘Thanks, but I think I’ll go and get myself something less clammy,’ he said with a grimace.

She averted her eyes from temptation as he strolled past her, and while he was gone she decided to make the most of her opportunity to poke and prowl. She was rifling the telephone table at the top of the stairs when a voice sounded in her ear.

‘Are you looking for something in particular?’

Nora jumped, her knee knocking against the open drawer, trapping her groping fingers inside.

‘Ouch! I—uh—’ She pulled her hand free and sucked on her stinging fingertips, flustered by Blake’s sudden reappearance in a tight black T-shirt that was but a small improvement on the distraction of his bare chest.

‘I was just wondering where the telephone was,’ she mumbled.

‘Why?’

‘I thought I’d ring home…’ she confessed, further unnerved by his looming intensity.

His eyes narrowed. ‘You want to call your flat? I thought you said your flatmate had gone to work. Who was it you expected to pick up?’

She nibbled at her lower lip, presenting an unwitting picture of guilt. ‘Nobody.’