A Virgin For The Taking

She angled her chin higher while her eyes remained glued to his. ‘Your father was a remarkable man. We shared a special friendship.’

‘I’ll bet,’ he said dismissively. His father had a habit of forming ‘special friendships’. The last one had cost Laurence the respect of his son and the complete breakdown of a father-son relationship. He was determined this one wouldn’t cost him a thing.

It was only a short trip from the hospital to the house, but the BMW’s air-conditioning made driving the clear winner over walking. Zane spent the brief journey staring out the windows, reacquainting himself with his old neighbourhood and trying to ignore the scent that reminded him exactly whose car and whose company he was in.

But at least she didn’t talk. He had too much to assimilate right now to continue their battle of words. Already he could feel a tidal surge of bone-tiredness, the legacy of both his long journey and its unexpected conclusion, creeping up on him, numbing his senses and his mind until there were only two things he could be certain of.

His father was gone.

And life for Zane Bastiani was about to radically change.

There was little prospect it would be for the better.

Ruby steered the car into a driveway, pulling up outside the sprawling colonial bungalow that had been Zane’s home for the first twenty years of his life. He uncurled himself slowly from the car, feeling a sudden and brief burst of warmth that had nothing to do with the brilliant sunlight as he took in the sight of the building.

London and his former life had never seemed so far away.

Built in the nineteen-twenties when pearl shell was gold and those who owned the pearl-lugger fleets were kings, the house was surrounded by wide verandahs and lattice fences lushly covered with flowering bougainvillea, a colourful invitation to the airy and cool interior.

The empty interior.

Bitterness seeped from a wound barely crusted over despite the passing of time. His mother had loved this house, the rambling, high-ceilinged rooms and timber floors, the large windows designed to let the slightest cooling breeze flow through. And she had loved the tropical gardens, which were always threatening to turn to jungle and overrun the house if left unchecked.

His sense of loss changed state inside him, becoming tangible, a solid thing deep in his gut. He could feel it swelling until it cramped his organs. He could taste its bitter juices in his mouth.

‘Welcome home,’ he muttered under his breath.

‘Are you okay?’

He absorbed her words rather than heard them, just one more element to the mix of sensations and memories that reached out to snare him and drag him back into the past.

‘My grandfather bought this house from one of the last of the old Master Pearlers,’ he said without shifting his focus, reciting the story he’d heard so often from his mother. ‘Laurence was just a kid back then. The pearl-shell industry was slowly dying and Grandfather put everything else he had in the new cultured pearl technology. He had a dream to become the first of the new breed of Master Pearlers.’

‘And he made it,’ she said. ‘Between your grandfather and Laurence, it’s quite a legacy they’ve left. Bastiani Pearls is now worth a fortune.’

Her words knifed through his thoughts, slicing them to ribbons, and he turned the full force of his glare on to her.

What was it with these mistresses? Anneleise could never stop thinking about money, either. Even at their last unexpected meeting, just two days before his desperate and now pointless rush to Australia, she’d staggered him by expecting some sort of compensation from him for finally getting it through her silvery blonde hair that it was over. And when he’d laughed out loud, she’d let go with the tears and lamented the opportunities she’d missed while Zane had held her undivided attention.

Even if that were anywhere near the truth, she had plenty of trinkets from their brief liaison that she could hock to tide her over if it came to that. Not that she’d take long to find another mark, if indeed she hadn’t already in the time since they’d parted company. She certainly was stunning enough, with her alabaster skin and a fragile femininity that had made him want to protect her at first—until he’d discovered her fragility extended character deep. But at least now he was free of her and her parasitic tendencies. He’d had enough of grasping women, every last one of them.

‘Is something wrong?’ she asked, her attitude making it clear that she resented his intense scrutiny.

He turned his gaze away, pulling his bag from the boot and slamming it shut. ‘Let’s go inside,’ he said.

Her skirt flirted around the backs of her knees as she led the way up the short set of stairs to the verandah and once again he found himself caught in the heady trail of her scent, the damnable price of chivalry.

His eyes took a moment to adjust as they entered the elegant bungalow. He looked around. The house might have been built over eighty years ago, but his mother had always seen to it that whatever renovations were made over the years had provided the most up-to-date conveniences while retaining the character of the colonial era. He let go a breath when he realised that Ruby’s tenure hadn’t impacted upon his mother’s vision.

‘I asked Kyoto to have your old room prepared in case you stayed,’ she said, turning slightly towards him. ‘I hope that’s okay.’

He paused, not believing what he’d heard. ‘Kyoto’s still around?’ It was inconceivable that he was still alive. The former Japanese pearl diver had worked for his family for years, first as cook and then housekeeper. He’d seemed a gnarled old man when Zane was just a boy. ‘Surely he’s not still working?’

She nodded, a watery smile temporarily lighting up her features. ‘Mostly he supervises now—we have a cook and cleaner to do the heavy work.’ He watched the wobbly smile slide away. ‘But I said he should go home today. He’s devastated by the news.’

She pressed her lips together and spun away, turning her back on him, but not before he’d recognised the crack in her voice, the slight tremulous quality to her movements as she’d uttered that last word that told him she was either trying very hard not to cry or, if Anneleise was any guide, trying her best to make him think she was. Anneleise could have written a thesis on the artful use of tears—although he doubted she’d ever shed a sincere one in her life. Why wouldn’t Ruby be armed with the same arsenal? It probably came with the job description.

‘Well,’ she murmured, her back still to him, her voice low and strained as she rubbed her brow with one hand, ‘I’m sure you don’t need me to show you where your room is. I’ll leave you to settle in.’

He could just walk away, keep walking down the passageway to his old room. He could just ignore her and let her know her ploy had left him completely unmoved. He should just walk away.

But the urge to show her that he wouldn’t fall for her tricks was too great. She needed to know that he knew all about the games women liked to play when there was money at stake. She needed to know that he wouldn’t be falling for any of them.

He reached a hand to her shoulder, ignoring her startled flinch at his grip as he steered her around to face him.

He overcame her resistance, tipping up her stiffly held jaw with one hand until there was no way she could avoid his gaze any longer. Slowly, reluctantly, her eyes slid upwards, until their aqua depths collided with his. In the first instant he took in the moisture, the lashes damp and dark, and he had to acknowledge she was good, very good, if she could bring on the tears that readily.

But then he saw what was inside her eyes and it slashed him to the core.

Pain. Loss. Mind-numbing desolation.

All of those things he recognised. All of those things found an echo in a place deep down inside himself, something that shifted and ached afresh as her liquid eyes seemed to bare her soul to him. It was an awkward feeling, uncomfortable, unwelcome.

He watched as she jammed her lips together as a solitary tear squeezed from the corner of one eye. Momentarily disarmed, acting purely on instinct, he shifted his hand from her chin and gently wiped the tear from her cheek with the pad of one finger. Her eyelids dipped shut, her lips parted as she drew in a sudden breath, and he felt her tremble into his touch.

Gears crunched and ground together inside him. This wasn’t going the way he’d expected at all. Because she wasn’t the way he’d expected.

‘You really cared about him?’

The question betrayed his thoughts, clumsy and heavily weighted with disbelief. But there was no time to correct it—the thought that Laurence meant more to her than a mere provider of luxury and cash somehow grated hard on his senses.

She dragged in a breath and pulled away, shrugging off his hand as she backed into a cane lounge. ‘Is that so hard to believe? Laurence made it easy to want to care about him.’

Her rapid admission changed everything, transforming his confused thoughts into sizzling hot anger in an instant as the facts slotted back into their rightful place. Laurence had ‘made it easy’. No pretence, no circumspection. She’d admitted how it had been between them with barely a blink! And it was exactly what he’d expected. No wonder she felt so crushed. She’d lost her sugar daddy along with her cash flow.

‘Yeah. I’ll just bet he made it easy.’

She edged closer, her head tilted, as if she couldn’t have heard him right. ‘I’m not sure I understand you. What exactly do you mean?’

‘It’s hardly that difficult to work out. A rich old man with a taste for pretty women and who could afford to make having one around worth her while.’

If he hadn’t been jet-lagged, if he hadn’t been awake throughout too many flights over too many time zones, maybe he would have had a chance of fending off her next attack. As it was, he didn’t see it coming.

Her flattened palm cracked against his cheek and jaw like a bullet from a gun.

Instantly she recoiled in horror, her eyes wide open, the offending hand fisted over her mouth. She waited while he drew in a long breath and rubbed the place she’d made contact, the skin under his hand already a slash of colour. But he didn’t react, not physically, and she felt the shock ebb away, felt her panicked heart rate calm just enough to match the simmer of anger that still consumed her.

‘Well, you sure pack a punch,’ he drawled, working his jaw from side to side, his eyes narrow and hard like he was assessing her all over again.