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“I saw some of your jewelry at the airport when I flew into Auckland for a business meeting, and…when that was over I had some time to spare.” His face, his voice, were studied, and lowered lids almost hid his eyes as he ran a thumb over the rim of his cup.
So it had been a fluke, a casual happenstance followed up on a whim.
Kier hadn’t been searching for her all this time. A small, futile spark of wild hope died, leaving the taste of ashes in her mouth.
“They surely didn’t give you my address?” The airport’s high-priced souvenir shops were a logical target market for her handmade jewelry, ticketed with her name and logo. She hadn’t thought of Kier flying in from Sydney someday and seeing it for sale.
“It wasn’t as easy as that. But it gave me a starting point.”
Whatever had led him to do it—curiosity? a sense of unfinished business?—he wouldn’t have given up once he’d decided to explore the chance discovery. Determination and acuity, plus an instinct for sound investment, had brought Kier Remington success, respect, wealth. And a lot more besides. “Well, now you’ve found me,” Shahna said. “What do you want?”
“To find out how you are,” he said, “and what made you leave.”
“I’m fine. And I left because I wanted to.”
If she hadn’t known him so well she might have missed the flexing of a muscle in his cheek as he clenched his teeth. Kier had a formidable temper that he usually kept rigidly in check. “That’s no answer,” he rasped. “Why don’t you tell me the truth?”
The truth? Where would she start? “The truth is,” she said, “I’d had enough, of everything. Sydney, the rat race.” Of living life on the surface, of a relationship that wasn’t going anywhere, of hiding my feelings because you didn’t want to know about them, of being afraid that you’d find out and end it, cut me from your life as ruthlessly as you had every other woman who shared it for a brief time. “I needed…wanted something different.” She wouldn’t go into detail about how the realization had been forced upon her.
“You’ve certainly got that.”
She had, by removing herself not only from Kier’s byronic spell, but from the world of corporate images and office politics, and a social life that involved too many overcrowded occasions where the wine flowed freely and the object was not so much enjoyment as the all-important exercise of networking, everyone with an eye to the next useful contact.
Creating nature-inspired jewelry in a rural backwater was about as far from that world as one could get.
“How long,” Kier asked, “will it last?”
His cynicism raised the fine hairs on her arms in hostile reaction. “As long as I want it to,” she answered, deliberately calm. “I love this place.”
His eyes lingered a moment on a wall-hanging she’d made just for fun, driftwood and shells knotted into faded green twine hung from a discarded, moss-covered fence-post. “You live here alone?”
Shahna’s heart gave a brief lurch. Timoti and Meri hadn’t told him…?
Silently she blessed their discretion. The locals were protective of one another’s privacy. They wouldn’t have volunteered any information he hadn’t specifically asked for. “You mean, do I share it with a man?” Of course that was what he meant. “I don’t need to.”
“Taking the feminist high ground? The sisters would be proud of you,” he commented. “You never did need a man, did you, Shahna? You only let me share your bed on occasion because it was convenient.”
Her fingers closed hard around her cup as she curbed the temptation to throw it. How dare he accuse her, in that stinging tone? When he’d made it plain from the start just how he viewed their relationship.
To be fair, at that stage she had been relieved that he didn’t want to delve into her inner self, seeming content with the outer shell that was all she exposed to the world, especially to the male half of it. It was only later that she’d become greedy—needy. A dangerous state to be in, inviting heartbreak.
“Calling the kettle black?” she taunted, allowing her anger a brief release. “You didn’t need me, either. Any personable woman would have…fulfilled your needs quite adequately.”
His hand was lying on the table by his cup. She saw it curl into a fist, then relax before he answered her. “You underrate yourself,” he drawled. “You were much better than adequate.”
To her chagrin, Shahna’s cheeks burned. “Thank you,” she said, her voice brittle.
Perhaps he had actually missed her for a time. Missed the passion she’d given him, the delight he’d found in her body. As she had fiercely, dismayingly, missed his lovemaking—sometimes tender, sometimes playful, more often colored by the same driving intensity he gave to his work and to his other recreational pursuits—tennis, squash, rock climbing.
Kier had never been a team player. Even in bed his competitive spirit had surfaced, along with his desire for perfection. He had always seen to her needs before his own, and if he thought he’d failed to satisfy her completely he would make sure of it before he left her bed, or sleep overtook them both. When she took the initiative and gifted him with pleasure he would reciprocate with interest, guiding her to greater heights of physical sensation than she’d ever believed possible and leaving her sated, exhausted into a dreamy, euphoric lethargy.
Memories set her skin on fire. Hastily she lifted her cup and buried her nose in it.
She wondered whose bed Kier shared now, and suppressed a pang of jealousy. It was none of her business. And jealousy wasn’t appropriate. It never had been. They had agreed to be faithful to each other for as long their affair lasted, but she had ended it and Kier was now free to sleep with whomever he wished.
So was she, of course. And had been since she’d left him a brief note along with the key he’d given her to his Sydney apartment, and hours later boarded a flight to New Zealand.
Even if the opportunity arose again she couldn’t imagine wanting another man for a long, long time, no matter what logic told her about the normal physiology of a healthy twenty-eight-year-old woman.
Kier had carved a place in her heart despite never wanting or intending to. She had to face the fact that she’d made no such lasting mark on his. “I’m sure there was no shortage of candidates to take my place,” she said, putting down the mug.
Kier’s eyelids flickered, then shuttered his eyes so that she couldn’t read his emotions. “I’m choosy,” he told her shortly.
And cautious. After they’d met it was weeks before he asked Shahna out, months before their first night together in her apartment.
Kier Remington, self-made millionaire, head of his own private company and key player in Australia’s business and financial world, was known for quick decision-making, his keen brain working lightning-fast to weigh the possible consequences of a potential move. But he was equally capable of a ruthless patience. Less alert companies had been caught napping by a takeover bid from Remington Finance and Industries, the groundwork having been laid months before.
In his private life, Shahna had discovered, he was equally astute and equally focused. They had been sleeping together for almost a year before he told her he had decided at their first meeting that he was going to make her his lover. He’d taken the time to get to know her because he wasn’t interested in a short-term affair and had soon deduced that she wasn’t, either.
But he had also ensured that she knew he wasn’t offering permanence. The only promise he was willing to give, or that he wanted from her, was that as long as they were lovers there would be no one else. When either of them wanted out they would say so without fear of recrimination.
She couldn’t help a bitter surprise now at the subtle signs that he’d been annoyed when three years later she took him at his word and walked away.
Maybe it was because the decision had been hers. He had never taken kindly to having control removed from his own hands.
Shahna had been forced to take that action, but he could have no notion of how she had agonized over it before, after and since. And what unexpected complications had followed, although for those she could blame no one but herself.
And the last thing she wanted was to involve him in them, now or ever. She glanced anxiously at the clock on the kitchen wall.
“Going somewhere?” Kier asked. The clear implication of the slight sneer in his voice was, where was there to go around here?
“I have things to do.” She hoped he’d take the hint. “Timoti should be back this way with Meri’s sister in about fifteen minutes. If you wait on the jetty he’ll pick you up.”
“Keen to get rid of me, are you?” She knew that stubborn look—the determined thrust of his jaw, the swift drawing together of his brows.
“We have nothing more to say to each other, do we?” Shahna tried to sound indifferent, growing increasingly anxious. “It was good of you to drop by, Kier, but as you see you’ve no need to be concerned about me.”
“I have a lot more to say,” he said forcefully. “And I still want to know what went so wrong that you had to hide away in another country.”
“I’m not hiding away. I just wanted to come home.”
“You told me you had no people in New Zealand anymore, no ties. You haven’t lived here since…when? You were twenty or so?”
“Eighteen.” She didn’t recall ever telling him exactly, perhaps a measure of how superficial their knowledge of each other had really been. Not entirely his fault, she acknowledged. Reticence about her family had become a habit long before she met him. “It’s not a matter of family ties. There are other things I missed. Things I didn’t realize I was missing until…”
Kier leaned forward. “Until what?” he pressed. “Was it something I did?”
Shahna smiled thinly, mustering some kind of defense. “Everything doesn’t revolve around you,” she said. “I just decided I didn’t like the life I was living. So I changed it.”
He stared at her, patently unable to comprehend her decision. “What was wrong with it?” he demanded. “You had a successful, interesting career, your own home, friends—and, I thought, a satisfying love life.”
All true. Shahna had been earning a very good salary in a large PR and advertising firm. She had started in their art department and discovered she had a gift for both imaginative innovation and organization that led to a move sideways and then her rapid promotion through the system.
She had bought her own apartment, close to the firm’s city offices and with an expensive glimpse of Sydney Harbour.
Her friends were dedicated high-flyers who worked hard and played equally hard when they got the chance, and it had been fun, stimulating—living in a heady, fast-moving world that left little time for introspection or deep reflection.
Kier Remington had been part of that world.
Her boss at the agency had called her to his office to introduce her as one of their brightest young stars, to whom he proposed handing the Remington publicity portfolio.
When she entered, Kier had stood up to shake her hand, folding his strong fingers around it, and his eyes, the fathomless, intense blue of summer seas, found hers and sent an astonishing spiral of heat down her spine.
All she’d heard about Kier Remington had led her to expect a cold, emotionless man with a ruthless streak. He hadn’t got where he was at the age of twenty-nine by being softhearted.
A recent shake-up in one of his high-profile companies had made headlines. Top managers had abruptly lost their jobs among rumors that they had engaged in murky insider trading. Financial commentators were having a field day and a tight-lipped Kier Remington was shown on the TV news, brushing off reporters’ questions with a curt “No comment.”
It was understandable that he wanted a vibrant new PR campaign to repair the damage to his firm’s reputation. Shahna knew she was up to the job and would enjoy it, but had given very little thought to actually working with Kier Remington.
She hadn’t expected his smile to make her heart flutter like a schoolgirl’s, so that she had to assume a brisk efficiency to hide the effect he had on her.
Nor had she expected the glint of humor mixed with sexual challenge that lit his eyes, as if he knew exactly how she was feeling and was giving her fair warning. He didn’t bother to hide his attraction to her, and at the end of the meeting, with another brief handclasp he’d left her fighting a dangerous excitement that tightened her chest and made her entire body seem to consist of melting marshmallow.
As the door closed behind him she had been torn between relief and a sudden feeling of letdown.
Of course it was flattering that a man as good-looking and spectacularly successful as Kier Remington was interested in her, but she mustn’t get carried away.
Bracing herself for an aggressive pursuit, she had made a decision to resist. The Remington campaign was a giant step upward in her career and she didn’t want to jeopardize her future prospects by mixing sex with business. Too many people had crashed and burned trying to achieve that impossible balance.
But there had been no next-day phone call, no contact at all until she had studied the portfolio as she’d promised, and then phoned him with a list of suggestions.
He listened, then said briskly, “We need to discuss these ideas of yours. Lunch? How are you placed tomorrow?”
So businesslike that she had no excuse to refuse.
On her arrival at the restaurant he’d skimmed her with a look and accepted her handshake and deliberately cool smile with knowing amusement in his eyes, making her straighten her shoulders and tighten her hold on her leather briefcase as she returned him a blank, frosty stare. He’d given her a longer look then, a keenly observant look, as if sizing her up, coming to some conclusion.
But from then on his manner had matched hers, and she’d been impressed by his quick mind, his consideration of another viewpoint before putting forth his own, and not least by his willingness to accept that she knew her job.
He had made no suggestion of seeing Shahna socially, sticking strictly to business and making her feel foolish about the stern reminder she’d given herself to be thoroughly professional.
When she walked away from him after thanking him for the lunch, she wondered if it was her own imagination persuading her that she could feel his gaze as a prickling sensation between her shoulder blades.
Oh, Kier had been clever. Clever and calculating. When she discovered just how carefully he had played her, with a campaign as subtle as it was dead on target, she had been faintly chilled. But by then it was too late.
Sitting across the scrubbed wooden table from him, she felt an echo of that chill. Once Kier made up his mind to do something, nothing would deter him. Any setback to his plans was merely a goad to achieve his object another way, coming at it from some unexpected direction.
Her mug in her hand, she stood up, hoping this time he’d take the hint. But although his own cup was empty he kept it cradled in one hand. “So what do you do all day?” he asked.
Shahna couldn’t stop herself from casting a hunted glance at the clock. “I have a studio outside.” She indicated the visible corner of a small building just a few feet away. “A converted washhouse, actually where I work.”
“Nine-to-five?” Kier queried. He too glanced at the clock.
“Not exactly. Whenever I…well, whatever hours I please.” Shahna placed her mug in the sink. She was not going to offer him a refill. “If you want to catch Timoti…” she started to say in desperation.
“I told him I wasn’t going back to Rawene today.”
“Oh?” She looked at the backpack on the settle. “You’re taking a holiday?” Not his usual kind for sure, although she remembered him telling her he’d backpacked through Asia when he was nineteen. “What are your plans?”
It was a moment before he answered. “I haven’t made any definite plans.” Another pause. “Except to see you, talk with you, catch up on what you’ve been doing. Why are you so anxious for me to leave?”
As if he’d given the cue, from the next room came a tiny whimper, another louder one, and then a series of babbling sounds and a childish call of “Mum-mum!”
Kier went very still, his body immobile and his face a study in stone. Shahna too felt momentarily paralyzed. A sickening sensation made her stomach drop, and her temples throbbed.
Then Kier spoke, hoarsely, his knuckles going white as his hold on the cup in his hand tightened. “That’s a baby!”
Chapter 2
Shahna unglued her tongue from the top of her mouth. “Yes.”
She could claim she was baby-sitting, fob him off somehow. But Kier, she knew, wouldn’t be fobbed. And what was the point of lying? He’d find out sooner or later if he wanted to.
“Mum-mum!” More peremptory this time. She heard the rattle of the cot side as the baby hoisted himself up and clung, waiting for her to come to him.
“You’d better go,” she told Kier. “I have to pick him up.”
Kier rose from his chair, rocking it back so that it teetered. Automatically he steadied it and shoved it under the table, using both hands. His voice grated. “I’m not going anywhere!”
“Mum-mum…” Forlorn now, followed by a short silence and then a loud wail.
“I have to pick him up,” Shahna repeated distractedly and headed for the bedroom.
A baby. Kier’s hand clutched the back of the wooden chair so hard the edges cut into his palm. He felt as though someone had punched him in the gut.
Shahna had a baby. He couldn’t get his head around the idea. In all the time they’d been together she’d never said anything about wanting children. After they’d both obtained medical certificates, she had relieved him of the responsibility for contraception and he’d been glad of that. He’d trusted her not to slip up on taking her pills, just as she’d trusted him to keep to his word on the exclusive nature of their relationship.
Minutes ago she’d told him she wasn’t living with a man.
That didn’t necessarily mean she was celibate—after all, she had never lived with Kier, either, only slept with him on a regular basis, and kept a few clothes and toiletries at his place, as he did at hers.
A convenient arrangement, she’d reminded him.
And it had suited him, as she’d said. At first.
He wasn’t sure when he’d begun to find it less than satisfactory, when he’d started toying with the idea of asking her to move in with him—and put it off because Shahna seemed quite content as they were. And because he needed to be sure of her before he risked rocking the boat. Risked, perhaps, losing her—a prospect that had roused sensations he hadn’t felt in years, uncomfortably close to fear and a sense of powerlessness; a prospect that made him hesitate to endanger the status quo.
Despite three years of great sex and equally enjoyable companionship, he still felt he’d hardly peeked beneath the smooth, unruffled and intriguingly impenetrable surface she’d presented to him at their first meeting. He hadn’t been sure how she would react to his surprising desire for a greater intimacy.
