A Ruthless Passion

Still with her hand against his mouth, Nick said harshly, ‘Cat.’

He stood up, pulling her with him, and kissed her, and again it was like being spun into some alternative reality where the only thing that counted was Nick’s mouth and his hard body against her, and the mingled scents of coffee and the musk of arousal.

And then she was free, clutching her shaking arms around her, and he was watching her with a guarded face, no expression on it at all.

‘Damn you,’ he said sardonically, ‘you still kiss like a virgin.’

‘And you,’ she hurled back, ‘still kiss as though you know exactly what you’re doing, as though it’s part of some plan.’

‘It was never my plan to want you. At first I told myself that it was that patrician little face, those impeccable manners, that background. Not much money, but birth and breeding by the century.’ His smile was cynical. ‘An untouchable princess, irresistible to a boy from the streets.’

She said shakily, ‘That’s incredibly offensive.’

‘But true.’ He turned away, reached for the coffee cup and pushed it towards her. A muscle flicked in his jaw, and leashed tension prowled through him like a baulked tiger. ‘Drink up.’

Her heart cramped. Ignoring the coffee, she started to leave. ‘This is getting us nowhere; I’d better go.’

He shrugged. ‘If you want that money, you’d better stay.’

Cat hesitated, hating this, hating him, but eventually she sat down again. She’d made herself responsible for Juana and she’d stick it out whatever it cost in pride.

Nick said with scathing honesty, ‘Can you look me in the face and tell me you don’t want me?’ He waited, and when she remained stubbornly silent he finished, ‘And that you don’t hate being imprisoned by such a degrading desire? You resent it as much as I do.’

Cat’s fingers tightened around the mug of coffee; any denial would be a lie. She lifted the cup to her mouth and drank the liquid, longing for the caffeine to kick in. She could do with some artificial support.

Nick let the silence stretch on until she said stiffly, ‘Wanting is not enough.’

He laughed without humour. ‘It’s all we’ve got, Cat.’

Nothing had changed.

All they had in common was this driving sexual urge and money, she thought distastefully, trying to banish the image of Juana’s face from her mind, because the sex would be wonderful, and the money would give the child a future.

She watched the coffee swirl as she turned the cup back and forth. Scraps of thoughts jostled and pushed in her brain, coloured by emotion’s false hues, patternless and inchoate until one gained form, tantalising her into wondering if this was a chance to make Nick see her as she really was…

Seductive, alluring, the possibility filled her mind, banishing prosaic common sense.

Nick paced over to the window and stood staring out at the park, completely at home in the room he’d earned with determination and discipline and a huge expenditure of energy. From somewhere outside a horn tooted, followed almost immediately by the clear, liquid call of a thrush.

He said remotely, ‘I’d give you fidelity, but I’d expect it too.’

Did he know Glen had been unfaithful, the first time within a year of their marriage when she’d insisted on going to university? Glen hadn’t been a good loser.

Nick turned and looked at her, amber eyes missing nothing.

‘No,’ she said aloud, making up her mind in a flash of anger. She might have developed a taste for danger, but she was worth more than this! ‘I won’t have an affair with you, Nick, so that you can get me out of your system. I’m not some kind of disease you can inoculate yourself against. Yes, I want you, but I’m not going to sleep with you to scratch an itch that won’t go away. I can do without you. I’m making a good life for myself; I’m settled and contented—’

‘Contented!’ He came across and took the mug from her, setting it down on the table. ‘Contentment is for cows!’ Eyes narrowed and hard and bright, he touched her face, long fingers stroking her cheek, easing down the line of her throat. ‘You’re so lovely,’ he said, his voice dropping several notes, ‘and when you smile you light up the world. Smile for me, Cat.’

His words melted her defences like flames on ice. Although she fought it, the beginnings of a fugitive smile curled her lips.

‘And when you say my name,’ he murmured, drawing her closer, ‘it sounds like “I want you”. I like to hear you say it, like the way you look at me when you think I can’t see you…’

He bent his head until his mouth was a fraction away from hers and she could feel the words as he said them. ‘The tiny flutter in your throat drives me crazy, and so does the colour that stains your skin, the way those exotic eyes go heavy and smoky and seductive when you look at me….’

By then she was desperate for him, her body so keenly attuned to his voice, to the faint fragrance that was his alone, to the shimmering sexual aura surrounding them, that she couldn’t have refused the kiss.

Stark self-preservation clamped her eyes shut, and once she’d blocked out his face she could summon the energy to say hoarsely, ‘I will not prostitute myself, not even to help Juana.’

‘Why not? You prostituted yourself for your mother.’

Eyes flying open in shock, she whispered, ‘I did not!’ As his brows lifted she said lamely, ‘It wasn’t like that.’

‘If she hadn’t suffered from a heart complaint that meant she needed twenty-four-hour care, would you have married Glen?’ Nick’s voice was remote, his cloak of control pulled around him so that she could no longer guess at the emotions that lay beneath. He dropped his hand and stepped back, watching her with the merciless calculation of an enemy.

‘If your father hadn’t just died, leaving you penniless, would you have married Glen?’ he probed unsparingly. ‘You were alone and adrift, with a sick mother, no house, no job, and, thanks to some pretty antiquated ideas of child-rearing, no idea of how to find anything that would pay more than the most basic wage. When Glen came along like a slightly tarnished knight waving a chequebook, you saw deliverance and you couldn’t marry him fast enough.’

She said indistinctly, ‘My reasons for marrying him are none of your business.’

‘Would you have left him at the altar if I’d offered marriage, Cat?’ he asked cruelly. ‘Or perhaps you’d have found the offer of money more attractive.’

She had no answer. When he’d asked her to cancel the wedding he’d offered her nothing. The prospect of failing her mother, of betraying Glen, had filled her with appalled apprehension.

And she had really believed that she loved Glen.

‘No,’ he said with a smile that chilled her soul, ‘of course you wouldn’t have. I didn’t have half the money he had.’

In a quick, acid voice she returned, ‘None of this matters now. My mother’s dead, and Glen is too. Forget I asked for the money, all right? Forget I came to see you. Make things easier for both of us and pretend I’m still on Romit.’

Desperately she headed for the door.

But before she got there Nick caught her by the arm, swinging her around to face him, the gypsyish face taut with arrogant anger. ‘What have you spent your income from the trust on? Why are you living in a hovel with five other students? Why are you working in a backstreet restaurant to put yourself through university?’

‘You have been busy spying since I saw you last!’ She’d expected him to check out her time in Romit, but the discovery that he’d run a survey on her since she’d got back to Auckland fuelled a feverish rage.

So angry that she could have slapped his face, she grabbed his shoulders and shook him. It was like trying to move a kauri, the largest tree in the southern hemisphere. ‘Keep out of my life, Nick.’

‘You invited me back into it.’ But his voice had changed—become deeper, less furious.

The fingers around her arm eased their grip and slid up to her shoulder just as Cat realised that she’d got herself into an extremely perilous situation. Run! prudence yelled, but she couldn’t let him go. Instead her hands moulded the sleek, firm muscles across his shoulders.

Eyes glinting, he said, ‘You made the first move, Cat,’ and kissed her, and this time she went under like a stone dropped into still, deep waters.

Always previously there had been anger and a driving desperation in his kiss; this time the anger was muted, soon replaced by a hunger that roused both urgency and an avid need—a potent, ferocious combination against which she had no defences.

Sensation tore through her; in a surrender as symbolic as it was unconscious, she opened her mouth to his, shuddering with pleasure when he accepted her yielding response and plundered the innermost reaches of her mouth, his arms tightening around her as he picked her up.

His mouth branded the length of her throat, summoning a raging tempest from every part of her singing, exultant body. Suddenly the progression from desire to passion, and thence to fulfilment seemed so simple, so natural and inevitable, tempting Cat unbearably with its honeyed promise of rapture.

His face against her throat was hot, his mouth demanding, yet she had never felt so safe, she thought dazedly, registering with a violent shock the touch of his hand on her breast, confident, overpoweringly erotic.

She shivered as passion needled exquisitely through her; expectant, breathless, she waited while he cupped the gentle curves.

And she knew she had to stop it now, while there was still time.

‘Cat,’ he muttered, the word slurred and heavy.

Summoning every ounce of will-power, she put her hands on either side of his face, lifting it until she could meet his eyes. ‘No,’ she said as distinctly as she could.

And watched helplessly as icy self-control drowned the golden turbulence of his eyes. He set her on her feet and stepped back, looking down at his hands as though they had betrayed him.

Grief proved greater temptation even than desire; shivering, she stopped herself swaying towards him.

‘It won’t work,’ she said raggedly, stepping out of the danger zone. ‘I’m going home.’

‘I’ll take you.’ He ignored her headshake, picking up her bag.

Silently Cat went with him down to the car. She didn’t give him her address, and he didn’t ask; he drove straight to one of the few old houses in the inner city still divided into students’ apartments. Cheap, dilapidated, it was close to the university and the restaurant she worked in at night.

‘Did you know this place is due for demolition?’ he asked as he braked outside it.

‘Something else your spy discovered? Yes, I knew.’ His dark frustration beat at her as she slid out of the car and pulled her bag out of the back. ‘Goodbye, Nick,’ she said in a calm voice that hid the painful thudding of her heart.

He didn’t start the car until she looked out from her bedroom window.

Whenever she’d seen him she’d watched Nick secretly, imprinting on her too-susceptible heart the exact shade of his eyes, the way his lean cheek creased when he smiled, the sheer male grace with which he walked, the inborn aura of power that shimmered around him.

Yet somehow she’d managed to convince herself that her absorption meant nothing. She’d tried so hard to be a good wife that she’d lost herself, concealing the real Cat beneath the glossy surface of Glen’s wife.

How foolishly naïve she’d been. Impressed, secretly proud that someone like Glen could fall in love with her, she’d let herself be persuaded into a marriage that had been fake from the moment she’d seen Nick. Would she have abandoned Glen if Nick had made some move towards her, had followed up on the potent attraction that spun itself between them? If he’d claimed her instead of standing back that day at the hotel?

One hand clenched at her side, she turned away from the window. She’d never know.

CHAPTER THREE

‘IF THAT man at table six calls me girlie one more time,’ Cat said viciously, ‘I’ll pick up what’s left of his Thai lamb and pour it and the crisp noodle salad down the back of his neck.’

Sinead gave her a sympathetic smile. ‘I think he’s trying to impress his girlfriend.’

‘From the way she’s giggling and simpering,’ Cat snorted, ‘she already thinks he’s the greatest wit of the millennium, so he can stop it right now.’ Swiftly, competently, she began to assemble another salad.

‘I’m glad he’s yours,’ Sinead said, tearing off her sheet and spiking it in front of Andreo, owner and chef in the small family restaurant, who was stir-frying.

After a quick glance he grunted acknowledgment, and said, ‘Mind your temper, Cathy. If he touches you, yell all you like, but otherwise keep him happy. We want all the customers in those flash new restaurants down at the yacht basin to come back once the regatta’s over and the billionaires have taken their super-yachts off to the West Indies, or wherever they migrate to at this time of year. If you make a habit of tipping good food over customers, it’ll get around.’

‘It’s a severe temptation,’ Cat said dourly. Working here had certainly opened her eyes to the many and varied types of humanity that existed in the only large city in New Zealand.

The soft tinkle of the doorbell sent her into the restaurant. She stopped suddenly, meeting the lion-coloured eyes of the tall man at the desk. A fierce, angry pleasure stained her cheeks, sent her heart soaring.

With an effort that probably showed in her face, she pinned a smile to her face. ‘Table for one, sir?’ she asked sweetly.

Unsmiling, Nick looked down at her. In black trousers and a black shirt—casual yet sophisticated—he was a creature of the night, dangerous, disturbing, his sexuality open and elemental. ‘Yes.’

Cat picked up both menus and escorted him to a table set for two, whipping away the extra silver as he sat down. Concentrating on a point a little higher than his shoulder, she put the menus in front of him and recited the specials. It was difficult to ignore the excitement humming through her but she thought she managed, although she couldn’t do anything about the colour burning along her cheekbones.

He didn’t look at either menu. ‘What’s the best dish?’

‘The fillet of beef with ratatouille and herb salad is particularly good, sir.’ Dicing with danger, she thought as he looked up, his eyes gleaming gold fire. Excitement stroked along her skin, surged through every cell.

‘Then I’ll have that, and scallops for an entrée,’ he drawled.

‘Would you like a drink, sir?’

He shook his head. ‘A beer will do.’ And named one of the boutique beers they stocked.

‘Yes, sir,’ she said.

When she brought the beer he thanked her and lifted his gaze to her face. ‘Don’t call me sir,’ he commanded, steel running through the words.

An odd sensation slid down her spine. ‘It’s traditional,’ she countered.

‘That’s not why you’re doing it.’

From behind her came a cry of, ‘Girlie! Girlie! Where’s that waitress?’

‘Excuse me,’ she said, almost giddy with relief, and scrambled back to the man at table six and his giggling girlfriend.

‘You’ve made a mistake with this bill,’ he said loudly. ‘I’ve checked it on my calculator and you’ve charged me an extra seven dollars.’

It took some minutes for her to go through the orders with him, show him that they were down on the bill, and get him to run it past his calculator again, this time with the result that appeared on the bill.

Of course he didn’t say he was sorry.

‘And I’ll bet he didn’t tip, either,’ Sinead muttered, keeping an alert, fascinated eye on Nick.

‘I didn’t expect him to. Why should he? Tipping’s not a New Zealand custom,’ Cat said, keeping her eyes on the till as she ran another bill through it. ‘Not unless we do something outstandingly wonderful for the customer.’

‘You didn’t kill this one, which I think was outstandingly wonderful of you! Anyway, your tall, dark and handsome didn’t like it when that guy made a fuss,’ the other woman said with relish. ‘Talk about filthy looks!’

‘You’re imagining things. He’s not mine.’

‘That may be so,’ Sinead said cheerfully, ‘but from the way he watches you I’d say he thinks of you as very much his.’

‘Don’t be silly,’ Cat said ineptly.

‘Oh, Cat, sometimes I think you’re the sweetest little old maid in disguise!’ Laughing, Sinead patted her on the head. ‘Live a bit, why don’t you? Look at him! He’s very cool and thoroughly all right in a plutocratic sort of way—just the sort of guy to give you a really good time. Who is he? I feel I should know him.’

‘Nick Harding,’ Cat said without emphasis.

‘So is he your boyfriend?’ Clearly the name meant nothing to her.

‘No.’

‘Hmm.’ Sinead was studying art. She lowered her voice and said with relish, ‘Splendid bones. Good clothes sense too—black suits him superbly. And I do admire that louche, untamed air—all smouldering and intense and yet somehow ferociously disciplined. I’ll bet he’s so utterly dynamic in bed.’

‘Have you ever thought of changing your major?’ Cat enquired, alarmed by a knife-slash of jealousy. ‘To creative writing, perhaps? And what about Jonathan, who is probably even now revving up his motorbike so he can take you to a nightclub?’

Sinead chuckled. ‘All right, you saw him first—but, hey, a girl can dream, can’t she?’

Ten minutes later she hissed, ‘I’ve just realised who Nick Harding is.’ She paused and when Cat raised her brows, she probed, ‘I presume he is the Internet zillionaire?’

‘Yes.’

Sinead picked up a pepper grinder. ‘Makes you rethink all the definitions of computer nerd, doesn’t it? He looks like some swashbuckler from the days when buckles were swashed as a regular thing. Hunk doesn’t apply—too everyday. Unfortunately I don’t think there’s a word that means good-looking as sin, with an edge of ruthlessness and danger.’ She winked at Cat. ‘I sense hidden depths and dark secrets and a certain wild recklessness that sets my hormones buzzing. Why, I wonder, isn’t he down at the yacht basin with all the other billionaires and high society people? Could it have anything to do with your mysterious, slanted eyes?’

Grinning triumphantly, she carried the grinder off.

Cat was on edge for the rest of the evening, even after Nick had drunk his beer, eaten his dinner, and left with no more than a nod. He didn’t try to tip her, which was a relief; she would, she thought vengefully, have flung it back in his face, and then Andreo would have had a fit.

It was late when she finally stepped out onto the footpath outside the restaurant, waving Sinead and her Jonathan off on his motorbike.

‘No, you don’t have to see me home,’ she told them when they hesitated. ‘Go and dance all night!’

‘You’re sure?’ Sinead peered at her.

‘Dead sure. When has there ever been a mugging here? Off you go.’

Sinead seemed as though she was going to insist, but then she looked past Cat and gave a quick nod. ‘OK, see you tomorrow!’

They took off and she turned and walked briskly away. The sky hung low, threatening rain on a warm wind from the tropics. Because Auckland was spread across on an isthmus between two harbours, one on the west coast, one on the east, every wind and breeze came salted with the sea.

Other scents floated across from the Domain park—newly mown grass, some exotic perfume that hinted of the tropical plants sheltered in the elegant glass Wintergardens, and the sweet, potent fragrance of datura flowers behind a nearby hedge.

Although it was after midnight, traffic hummed along the motorway; Cat wished she could drive north as far as she could, and settle in some small town so far away from Nick that he’d never find her.

The sound of her name jerked her head up. A swift flare of excitement set her blood afire as she saw Nick walking around his long, sleek monster of a car. Had she summoned him just by thinking about him?

No wonder Sinead had gone off so happily!

‘I’ll drive you home,’ he said. ‘I hope you’re not in the habit of walking by yourself at this hour of the night.’

‘Sinead and I usually go home together.’ Made uneasy by his closeness, Cat shrugged further into her jacket. ‘We live in the same house.’

‘Get in.’ When she hesitated, he said curtly, ‘Unless you want me to follow you all the way home?’

Fuming, she obeyed, sitting in eloquent silence while he set the car in motion. If he touched her, she thought nastily, she’d hit him where it hurt most. She wasn’t going to endure again the consuming lash of his sexuality and her own feral response. It was humiliating.

He made no attempt to touch her. They were almost at their destination when he said, ‘Why, when you get a very adequate allowance from your trust fund, do you work every night at a second-rate restaurant?’

She bristled. ‘Andreo is a superb cook—’

‘That’s not the issue,’ he cut in incisively. ‘Why are you so cagey? I assume the answer’s got everything to do with the ecstatic answer I got from the clinic in Ilid. According to Sister Bernadette you are a major benefactor—in fact, the only benefactor the clinic has. Thanks to your generosity, she told me, they now own some piece of equipment I can’t even spell, let alone pronounce.’

‘It’s a—’ She bit back the words.

He drew the car to a halt outside the house. ‘Yes, I thought you’d know all about it. How much did it cost?’

Cat stared at the dark window that indicated her shabby room. If she’d known Juana was going to need this second operation she’d have kept twenty thousand dollars back, but she couldn’t regret that the clinic now had a functioning surgery ward and theatre.

Eventually she said, ‘It’s none of your business. All you have to do is see that the income from the trust goes to the right place once a year.’

‘If you think that’s all a trustee does,’ he said cuttingly, ‘you should, perhaps, re-read the relevant pages in your textbooks. Glen certainly didn’t intend you to send it all to a hospital in Romit. I don’t need to tell you he’d be horrified to see his wife waiting in a restaurant, however good the chef. He wanted you to be taken care of.’

She said distantly, ‘I can look after myself.’

Nick switched off the engine and turned to look at her, both hands still on the wheel. ‘Not very well. You’ve got dark circles under your eyes.’

She remained stubbornly silent.

‘All right,’ he said, dismissing the subject, ‘forget it. If it makes you happy, spend every cent you get on the clinic. I have a favour to ask of you.’

‘A favour?’

Glen had used to grumble about Nick’s damned, stiff-necked pride. Nick followed his own road with a self-contained authority and confident determination that got him where he wanted without asking for help. A sideways glance revealed his profile—granite-hard and uncompromising.

A flash of white indicated his narrow smile. ‘You heard,’ he said crisply. ‘It won’t be easy, and it will involve moving in with me. You’ve heard of the Dempster Cup, I assume?’

‘I do read the newspapers,’ she retorted, her heart lurching in her chest. Steadying her voice, she added, ‘Next to the America’s Cup it’s the most prestigious yacht race in the world, and this year it’s in Auckland. And so, of course, are all the rich people who follow rich yacht races in their super-yachts. What on earth does a sailing competition have to do with a favour from me?’ In a tone edged with sarcasm, she added, ‘Especially one that involves moving in with you.’

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