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His hair swept against her skin, and the sensation was like a lightning bolt arrowing through her body.
What was that? Did Marco Salzano’s surprisingly soft hair hold an electrical charge like the one that made her own hair crackle sometimes when she brushed it?
He lifted his head and the glitter in his eyes made her pulse roar into overdrive.
Slowly he lowered her arm, slipping his hand like a caress down to her wrist. “Such delicate skin,” he murmured. “Forgive me.”
Unable to speak for the rioting of her senses, Amber dazedly wondered how a mere fleeting touch could arouse such an extravagance of feeling. No one had the right to effortlessly exude that much sex appeal.
He seemed a tad bemused himself. His jaw went tight, and the taut skin over his cheekbones darkened further.
Gathering her wits from wherever they’d dispersed themselves, Amber pulled at her imprisoned wrist, and with apparent reluctance he released it, thrusting his hand into the pocket of his trousers.
“I did not remember what a desirable woman you are,” he said. “It is not so surprising I lost my head that night, and stepped outside the bounds of my normal behaviour.”
Had he? “You weren’t the only one,” she told him dryly. And then warned herself, Shut up!
He looked at her consideringly. “The woman I took to my bed in Caracas was no spotless virgin, I think.”
Amber snapped, “That doesn’t make her a slut!” Momentarily she closed her eyes. Had she blown it with that automatic defence?
Apparently unperturbed, he said, “I did not mean to imply such a thing. Merely that I assumed you were a woman of the world. Capable of protecting yourself from any…inconvenience. You yourself assured me of that afterwards, if you remember.”
That jolted her. “I…don’t remember,” she claimed truthfully, hoping to close the subject. “Now would you—”
“Had you had so much to drink?” he queried, frowning again. “I don’t knowingly take advantage of drunken women. You appeared well aware of what you were doing. And I believe from your reactions at the time that you very much enjoyed our…brief encounter. You remember that?” The gleam that had entered his eyes intensified, and his mouth curved a little at the corners.
Heat rose again to Amber’s cheeks. Desperately she said, “No. Now—”
“No?” Faint annoyance showed for an instant, and she supposed she’d offended his machismo.
The way he let his gaze roam over her body didn’t help her flush subside. “Perhaps,” he said in a reflective tone like a tiger’s purr, “I can refresh your memory.”
The sound she made when he swiftly closed the space between them again was something between a gasp and a squeal, but before she could say anything coherent he had his arms around her and had pulled her close, her body arching against the solid masculine warmth of his. Even as she opened her mouth to protest he covered it with his own, tipping her head back, his breath mingling with hers.
His lips were gentle but questing, moving across her startled ones even after she raised her hands to push at him.
The tip of his tongue was tracing an erotic path along her upper lip, igniting a shocking flare of answering desire before she rallied enough to clench her hands into fists and shove them against his chest.
His hands fell, and Amber shakily stepped back.
A glittering gaze met hers, and she swallowed before saying in a voice unlike her own, “I want you out of here right now.”
As if he hadn’t heard, he said, “I also seem to have forgotten much.” She didn’t know whether to be pleased or alarmed that he looked nearly as stunned as she felt. “You taste of honey…and passion,” he said. “Something else I failed to remember.”
He probably remembered nothing but wine, but she didn’t want to go into that. Nor did she want to fall under the spell he’d woven with that oh-so-sexy, devastating kiss. “I said I want you to go,” she stated precisely. “Please.”
His expression became baffled, but he gave a jerky little bow of his head and said, “If you truly wish it.”
“Yes.” Not trusting herself to say more, she marched past him to the hallway and flung the front door open. “Our business is finished,” she said as he passed her.
He turned then, a half-amused, half-rueful smile on his lips, his eyes making another leisurely, perhaps slightly perplexed examination of her entire body before he gave a brief shake of his head, then descended the shallow steps and strode away.
Tempted to yell a rude word or two after him, she resisted and instead closed the door with a snap and leaned back against it until her legs regained some strength.
Never in her life had she imagined being caught in a trap like this.
One day she’d stop feeling so damned guilty, because wasn’t it all for the best?
Of course, she assured herself. For him as well as for…well, everyone.
She hadn’t said anything that wasn’t true.
A flimsy excuse. But she ought to be happy at emerging unscathed and just forget the whole thing ever happened.
Forget?
She lifted the back of her hand to scrub at her lips, which still tingled with the memory of Marco Salzano’s kiss.
CHAPTER THREE
THE following day, instead of driving home after work, Amber took the route to her sister’s home.
The seventies house that Azure and her husband, Rickie, were gradually restoring with Amber’s occasional help was in an outer suburb where real estate was less horrendously expensive than in more fashionable areas.
Sitting at the scarred auction-bargain table in the big kitchen, Amber sipped at the cheap wine her sister had poured. Azure was on her second glass, and was now smiling at the plump, rosy-cheeked baby on her knee—a smile so special it caught at Amber’s heart—but the baby, unimpressed, wrinkled his face up and whimpered crossly.
Azure handed him over to his aunt while she poured milk into a plastic sippy cup.
Amber bent to kiss the amazingly smooth, warm skin of the baby’s temple and studied him while he looked at her interestedly with round eyes so dark she couldn’t determine their colour, and he babbled in his own private language interspersed with the odd Mama and Dada and even Namba which Amber hoped was his effort at Auntie Amber.
Rickie’s eyes were dark too, inherited from his Maori grandfather along with the black curls that Benny’s soft fuzz promised to duplicate.
In the baby’s blob of a nose, chubby face and tiny pouting little mouth there was certainly no hint of the man who had filled Amber’s flat with his utterly adult male presence and striking features.
Seeing his mother approach with the cup, the little boy wriggled to the floor with a demanding “Ma!”
“At the table,” she said firmly, perching him again on her own knee as she sat down.
“Azure,” Amber felt driven to say, “you’re sure there’s no chance he’s Mr. Salzano’s baby?”
She recognised with a sinking feeling a flicker of fear in her sister’s guileless eyes, belying Azure’s defiant, “I told you, he misunderstood my letter. I never said that!”
“But you did have sex with him.” Unbelievable though it seemed, Azure had confessed to that when Amber pressed her about the mysterious Venezuelan.
“Once. Oh, don’t remind me!” Azure wailed. Benny stopped drinking his milk and began to wail too.
She soothed him, and when he settled again she said, “I didn’t stop taking the pill until after that night. Once Rickie and I had decided we’d get married when we came home it didn’t seem important. And I’ve never slept with anyone but Rickie before or since. So it can’t be—”
“You did use a condom that night?” Something she’d assumed when she’d cornered her sister the day previously.
Azure shrugged. “What does it matter?” she muttered, her eyes fixed on the baby.
Amber was horrified. “You took an awful risk with a stranger!”
“We weren’t thinking. Too much wine, I guess. He was mortified when he realised… It’s okay, I had all kinds of tests when I found out I was pregnant. I don’t want to talk about it any more, now Benny’s safe. You didn’t tell Marco about him, did you? You promised!”
Amber had promised in the end despite huge reluctance, faced with an hysterical but persuasive sister whose reasoning seemed fireproof, and who fervently swore there was no way her baby’s father could be anyone other than the man who was now her husband. “No. But if there’s any chance Benny’s his—”
“Everyone says Benny looks like his dad. You did!”
Amber had, before a dark-haired, dark-eyed man appeared on her doorstep with a fantastic accusation that Azure had later convinced her wasn’t possible.
Amber closed her eyes—a mistake. The shadowy figure lurking in the back of her mind became a full-blown living-colour picture of a tall, gorgeous man with a blaze of anger in his almost-black eyes and a mouth that, despite its seductive contours, expressed an unbending will when it wasn’t twisted in contemptuous disbelief.
A mouth that could also be gentle, persuasive, despite his suspicion of her and his angry frustration—a mouth that had wrought some kind of erotic magic on her senses.
And though his eyes had blazed in fury, they had shown unwilling but genuine concern when he’d seen she felt ill.
Opening her own eyes, she demanded, “Why ask Marco Salzano for money, then?”
“Like I said before,” Azure retorted, “money’s nothing to people like him. His family made a fortune mining gold and diamonds way back—and later, oil.”
“He told you that?” Boastful on top of everything.
“Sort of. He was so casual about it I knew he wasn’t having me on. And I picked up some information later about the family. They’re big landowners, well-known and still seriously rich. You should have seen the place he took me to.” Awe momentarily lit Azure’s eyes, then she blushed. “And that was just his city pad.”
No sleazy by-the-hour hotel, then. Of course not, for a man with his innate male elegance and what her and Azure’s grandmother would call breeding, undiminished by the rough beard shadow and his cavalier attitude towards Amber. He had, after all, mistaken her for her sister.
Despite the three years’ difference in their ages, people often mistook one of the Odell girls for the other.
Azure said, “It was lucky you hadn’t told him who you really were. I’m sorry you had to get involved. I know you hated the idea.”
Maybe, Amber thought, she should have stood firm in her initial shocked refusal, but Azure’s denials had been very convincing, and since childhood Amber had taken seriously her role of elder sister, warning her younger sibling to look both ways when crossing the road, defending her in schoolyard scraps, and forever getting her out of trouble. A hard-to-break habit.
Benny pushed away the sippy cup, tipping it over. Righting it, Azure continued, “I’m really, really grateful you made him go away, Ammie.”
From what Amber had seen of the man, it would take a team of wild horses to make Marco Salzano do anything. Whereas she herself had allowed her sister’s reasoning to override her aghast objections, her deeply held principles and her better judgement.
The baby, who had been playing with his mother’s hair, turned to Amber with a heart-melting dimpled grin.
A clutch of fear for him gave her a taste of Azure’s terror when she’d learned of Marco Salzano’s visit. “You could get a DNA test,” she suggested.
Azure flatly vetoed that. “Rickie and I have only just got back together again. I daren’t rock the boat. He’d go ballistic if he knew Marco was here. I can’t ask him to take a test now!”
Amber had to concede the potential complications were horrendous. Surely Benny’s welfare was the most important thing. “You didn’t miss any of your pills before…?”
Azure didn’t answer, apparently absorbed in adoring her son, making kissing noises that he tried to copy.
Amber’s voice sharpened. “Azzie?”
Azure looked up impatiently. “Not really. Only it’s difficult to keep track when you’re travelling, changing time zones and everything. Do leave it alone, Amber!”
Amber bit her tongue. Too late now to berate her sister. It would only end in tears. Refusing another glass of wine, she was about to leave when Azure’s husband came in, his good-looking face lighting up as Benny broke into a delighted chuckle, wriggled down to the floor and took a couple of shaky steps, then held up his arms to be lifted, and planted a sloppy kiss on Rickie’s cheek.
They were so alike, surely Azure’s certainty was justified. And with any luck Marco Salzano was already on his way back to Venezuela.
In fact M-arco was in the bar of his hotel, having a couple of measured drinks and tantalised by the memory of the previous night.
After leaving the cramped flat with its cheap but rather charming dеcor and its infuriatingly inconsistent occupant, he’d almost booked a flight home. Something held him back, a niggling doubt that he couldn’t quite pin down.
He’d tried to dismiss the persistent image of wide, startled eyes closing as his mouth found sweet feminine lips, and the memory of how surprisingly soft they’d been beneath his—an image not conducive to clear thinking.
The woman had lied the first night and been evasive on the second. She was a good actress—her bewilderment and fear when he’d brushed aside her futile pretence of not knowing him had seemed almost convincing, now that he thought about it. At the time he’d been preoccupied with finding his son.
He was inclined to believe the baby was fictitious—ridiculous to feel a pang of grief. Unless she’d had it adopted. Or worse, ended the pregnancy before the child was even born. Her figure was perfect, the skin between the skimpy top and shorts taut and unmarred by stretch marks. Anger heated his blood, along with another emotion aroused by the memory of her body, half-naked as it was, briefly coming in contact with his.
Deliberately he quelled both reactions. Emotion interfered with logical thought.
Why, after that begging letter, had she refused his money with something like horror? Nothing added up. In his experience two and two always made four. If not, he wanted to know why, and invariably something in the equation was wrong—a mistake or a deliberate obfuscation.
He had told the desk clerk he was extending his stay—a decision readily accepted. Marco Salzano didn’t flaunt his wealth but he had never been ungenerous with it.
After spending the morning making expensive telephone calls and checking his e-mail, he had studied the phone book in his room and later interviewed a private investigator.
Marco had given him as much information as would be needed to do a background check on Azure Odell, vaguely suggesting she was suspected of fraud.
“Can’t do much today, but I’ll get onto it tomorrow,” the detective promised, “since you say it’s urgent.”
And since Marco had laid down a handsome initial fee. Now all he could do was wait.
Moodily he swilled the wine in his glass, ignoring the chatter in the crowded hotel bar and avoiding the eyes of two women perched on high stools that showed off their legs, who had been covertly inspecting him for some time.
For almost two years he’d put out of his mind the memory of that single night shared with a stranger, scarcely remembering the details. Yet now, after meeting her again, his body seemed to have a memory of its own—and an inconvenient desire to repeat the experience.
She was an attractive woman, even beautiful. But the women of his own country were renowned for their beauty. There was something else about her, some indefinable quality that eluded his mind yet appealed to his senses. Something he’d missed during that first casual encounter. Because now he couldn’t seem to get her out of his mind, couldn’t stop his body growing hot and restless.
He scowled at an open portfolio of papers lying on the table in front of him, a clear sign that he was working and didn’t want company, but for fifteen minutes he’d stared at the printed sheets without comprehension. Idly scanning the room again, his gaze chanced upon the two women at the counter. Neither evoked a flicker of interest.
Next morning he breakfasted early before returning to his room. It was too soon to expect a call from the investigator, but that didn’t stop him staring balefully at the light on the phone that refused to obligingly blink.
He killed time checking e-mail and researching the New Zealand beef industry on his computer, noting possible contacts if he should be here for a few more days. It was afternoon when the man contacted him. “The lessee of the address you gave me is an Amber Odell,” he said. “Single, twenty-seven, works for a film and TV company in the city. She does apparently have a sister named Azure, but—”
“A sister?” Marco queried sharply.
“Yeah. She—the sister—doesn’t live at that address.”
“A twin?”
