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Stop being an idiot, she told herself robustly. OK, so the new owner of Mana had the kind of presence that attracted eyes and attention.
Definitely an alpha male—uncompromising and intolerant and intimidating.
Like her father. Just the sort of man she despised.
And feared...
The MC announced the next dance, and the Count turned to Mrs Nixon with a request that summoned a slight flush to her cheeks. ‘Dear man, that’s lovely of you, but I’m not dancing tonight. I managed to twist my ankle yesterday,’ she said.
Horrified, Elana realised that Niko had no polite way out of asking her to dance.
Sure enough, he turned to her, hard eyes veiled by lashes too long for any man. ‘May I have the pleasure?’
Say no.
But that would be ludicrous. After all, it was only one dance...
Her smile hiding, she fervently hoped, her abrupt and unwarranted reaction, she placed her fingers gingerly on his outstretched arm.
‘So you live above Anchor Bay,’ he said as the band struck up a tune. His tone indicated that he wasn’t particularly interested.
Matching it, she answered, ‘Yes.’
‘You must be able to see quite a bit of Mana Station from there.’
‘Yes.’
‘You’ll notice quite a few changes soon.’
Strangely, the purposeful note in his voice chilled her. She looked up, and for a couple of seconds their eyes locked. Blinking, she lowered her lashes against the ironic challenge in his cold blue gaze.
Suavely he asked, ‘You’re surprised?’
He saw too much. Elana struggled for something banal and conventional to say, but only managed, ‘No.’ When his brows drew together she added, ‘I’m pleased. It’s time someone gave Mana back some pride.’
He nodded. ‘Exactly what I intend to do. Don’t worry, I won’t bore you with farming talk. Let’s dance.’
A shiver ghosted the length of her spine as she stepped closer. For a foolish moment she felt she’d taken a forbidden step into an alternative world.
A dangerous world, she realised as they began to move together—a world where the rules no longer applied. Jumping heartbeats took her by surprise and her nostrils flared at the faint, exciting, potently male scent of him and the hard strength in the arms that imprisoned her.
Imprisoned her?
What a ridiculous thought!
Yet the heat of Niko Radcliffe’s hand at her waist was stirring a blatant response. Her dress seemed suddenly far too revealing, the violet silk slithering over acutely sensitised skin in a sensuous massage.
Of course he danced superbly; she was ready to bet that lean, splendidly physical body would do anything well, from dancing to making love.
‘Are you all right?’
His voice startled her. She had to swallow before she could speak and even then, she sounded hesitant. ‘Yes, I’m fine.’ A swift defiance made her glance up to meet hooded, glinting eyes. ‘Why?’
‘You seem a little tense,’ he responded coolly, blue gaze unreadable. ‘I rarely bite, and when I do, it’s not to hurt.’
Heat zinged from her scalp to her toes, lighting fires all the way. That instinctive awareness strengthened into a sensation much more intense, so fiercely tantalising it shocked her.
Was he coming on to her?
No sooner had the thought flashed across her mind than she dismissed it. Of course he wasn’t flirting! It was impossible to imagine Count Niko Radcliffe doing anything so frivolous. So was he testing her?
If so, it was unkind. He was as out of place in Waipuna as she’d be in the rarefied social circles that were his natural habitat. According to Mrs Nixon, gorgeous film stars fell in love with him...
And probably the occasional princess. Gorgeous too, no doubt.
She couldn’t care less, she thought sturdily, trying to corral her rampaging senses.
‘So you’re quite safe,’ he drawled.
The note of mockery in his voice stiffened her spine. ‘I’m always glad to have that assurance,’ she retorted.
‘Even when you don’t necessarily believe it?’
Elana tried to come up with some innocuous answer, but before anything came to mind he continued curtly, ‘Whatever you might have heard about me, I don’t attack women.’
* * *
As soon as the words left his mouth Niko wondered why he’d said them. He spent more time fending off women than reassuring them of his integrity.
He had no illusions about the reason behind that sort of feminine interest. Money and power talked, and for a certain type of woman it was enough to seduce. Yet for some reason the note in Elana Grange’s voice had struck a nerve.
Actually, she struck a nerve.
When they’d been introduced he’d noticed her fingers, long and slender and bare of rings, and for a moment he’d wondered what they’d feel like on his skin. And as she’d stepped into his arms, his whole body had tightened in swift, primitive response.
However, elegant though she appeared, he suspected Elana Grange wasn’t sophisticated enough for the sort of relationships he chose. His affairs—nowhere near as many as suggested in gossip columns—had always been between two people who both liked and wanted each other, whose minds meshed. He valued intelligence as much as he did sex appeal.
And because he drew the line at breaking hearts, his lovers had always understood that he wasn’t offering marriage.
Whatever sort of mind Elana Grange had, she looked like a dream—and danced like one too, her grace fulfilling the promise of her sinuous body.
Elana broke the silence between them. ‘Mr Radcliffe, there have been rumours that you plan to develop Mana Station. Is that true?’
‘What do you mean by develop?’
Wishing she’d stayed silent, she told him. ‘Cut it into blocks, sell them off and make a gated community of it—’
‘No,’ he interrupted curtly. ‘I’m planning to bring it back into the vital, productive station it once must have been.’
She couldn’t stop herself from asking, ‘Why?’
Broad shoulders lifting, he said, ‘I despise waste. In San Mari every acre of land is precious, cherished and nurtured over the centuries, treated with respect. All agricultural and pastoral land should be viewed like that.’ His tone altered as he finished, ‘And call me Niko.’
Hoping no sign of her reluctance showed in her tone, she said, ‘Then you must call me Elana.’
He laughed. Surprised, she glanced up, meeting his gaze with raised brows.
‘Don’t look so startled,’ he said. ‘When I came back to New Zealand it took me a few weeks to understand that although most people here call each other by their first names, it didn’t necessarily denote friendship.’
Elana had never previously pondered the intricacies of New Zealand ways of addressing people. Perhaps he was interested because he’d grown up in a royal household, where such things were important?
Or perhaps not, she thought wryly. Probably he was just filling in a boring experience with smooth small talk.
She considered a moment before replying, ‘You’re probably right. I think it’s a preliminary to a possible friendship—addressing a person by his or her first name is an indication that you feel he or she might be someone you’d like, once you get to know him or her better.’
‘So if you decide you don’t like me, you’ll call me Mr Radcliffe?’
Elana allowed herself a careful smile. ‘I’d probably avoid you. That way I wouldn’t have to address you at all.’
‘So if I notice you fleeing from me, I’ll have to accept that I’ve done something that’s displeased you.’
* * *
Bemused, Elana looked up. Their eyes met, and another tantalising rush of adrenalin boosted her pulse rate into overdrive. A point in his favour was the dry amusement in his voice.
Not that it mattered what sort of person he was—or only so far as he was a neighbour.
‘Actually, I’m not into fleeing,’ she told him briskly. ‘And we like to believe we’re an egalitarian society. But—didn’t I read that you’re a New Zealander too?’
‘I have dual citizenship,’ he said levelly.
A swift change of direction startled Elana until she realised she was being skilfully steered around a jitterbugging pair in the centre of the floor.
‘Wrong period,’ Niko Radcliffe observed dryly. ‘They should be doing the Charleston.’
She said, ‘But they’re good.’ The words had barely been spoken when the young man missed a step and stumbled towards them.
* * *
Instantly her partner’s arm tightened, forcing Elana against his steely strength so that she was held firmly for a few seconds against the powerful muscles of his thighs. Sensation, so intense and sensuous it drove the breath from her lungs, scorched through her in a delicious, dangerous conflagration.
Concentrate on dancing, blast you, she commanded her wayward body fiercely, pushing a wilful erotic image into the furthest reaches of her brain and trying to lock the door on it.
Suddenly dry-mouthed, she breathed, ‘Thanks.’
‘It was nothing.’ His voice was cool and uninflected.
Clearly he wasn’t suffering the same potent response. Indeed, his arm had loosened swiftly as though he found her sudden closeness distasteful.
Chilled, she had to swallow before she could say, ‘Perhaps we should tell them that jitterbugging arrived some years after the Twenties.’
‘They’re enjoying themselves,’ he said dismissively, then surprised her by asking, ‘Are you the local florist?’
Elana hesitated. He sounded quite interested—which seemed unlikely. Perhaps faking interest when bored out of his mind was another talent developed in that princely court...
OK, concentrate on small talk now, she told herself. Ignore those pulsating seconds when you were plastered against him, and something weird happened to you.
Sedately she told him, ‘I work part-time in the florist’s shop in Waipuna.’
‘Was that always your ambition?’ he asked, almost as though he were interested.
‘No.’ After a second’s pause she added, ‘I’m a librarian and I used to work in Auckland, but a couple of years ago a family situation meant I had to come home to Waipuna.’
The family situation being the accident that had killed her stepfather and confined her mother to a wheelchair.
‘So you decided to stay here.’
Elana glanced up and met a narrowed blue gaze. Another of those unnerving shivers chased down her spine. In a tone she didn’t recognise, she said, ‘Yes.’
‘Is there no library in Waipuna?’
‘Yes, run by volunteers. There’s no need for a professional librarian.’
‘Ah, I see. Do you enjoy working in the florist’s shop?’
Surely he couldn’t be interested in a small-town woman in the wilds of northern New Zealand? He didn’t need to hear that, although she loved Waipuna, she missed the stimulation of her career in Auckland.
She evaded, ‘I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t fascinated by flowers. My mother was a fantastic gardener and apparently from the time I could toddle I drove her crazy by picking any blooms—’ She stopped abruptly. Any blooms her mother had been allowed to cultivate. ‘Often before they’d opened out,’ she finished.
He gave the big hall a quick survey. ‘You clearly have a talent for arranging them. Mrs Nixon also mentioned that you wrote the booklet—a short history—of the hall. I haven’t read it yet, but intend to.’
Elana flushed. ‘I hope you find it interesting.’
‘Are you a historian as well as a librarian?’
‘I did a history degree,’ she said.
And wasn’t surprised when he asked, ‘Why?’
‘Because I’m interested in history.’ She added, ‘After that my stepfather insisted I take a business course.’
‘Very sensible of your stepfather,’ Niko Radcliffe said dryly. ‘From your tone, I gather you didn’t want to do it. Was he right to insist?’
Elana didn’t like the way he emphasised the word stepfather. Steve had been as dear to her as any father could be—infinitely dearer than her own father. She said briskly, ‘Yes, he was right. It’s been very useful.’
Especially over the past couple of years, after a friend had asked her to tape her great-grandmother’s reminiscences and transcribe them so they could be bound into a book to mark her hundredth birthday. Elana found the task absorbing, enjoyed the whole experience and had been astounded when her friend’s family insisted on paying her for the time she’d spent.
Even more astonishing, word had got around the district, and soon she was repeating the process. Then the editor of the local weekly newspaper commissioned her to write articles on the history of the district. As she was working for only three days a week at the florist’s shop, the money came in handy, and she loved the research.
