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Startled, Melissa realised she was still standing in front of the window. Although darkness had finally enveloped the mountains, starshine burnished the waters of the lake, and from behind the peaks a soft glow proclaimed an imminent moon.
A perfect night for lovers, she thought, a strange desolation aching inside her.
Hawke Kennedy was as far out of her reach as any man could be. She was a virgin, for heaven’s sake! If he kissed her she’d probably faint. And his type was definitely not innocent; Jacoba Sinclair, a glorious redhead, oozed sensuous confidence, as had the other women he’d been linked to, including the actress, now a minor star. Lucy? Yes, Lucy St James—and she’d better get back to work!
Guiltily Melissa scurried into the noisy, clattering kitchen, letting the scents and sounds and intense activity banish the memories.
When she finally made it to her bed she stared at the ceiling for what seemed hours before giving in and turning on the light to catch up on her required reading. But the words in her book danced in front of her eyes, refusing to make sense, so she swapped it for a novel. Even that failed her; in the end she switched off the light and lay there until sleep overtook her hours later.
And woke to someone hammering on her door. ‘Hey, Mel, you want breakfast?’
‘I’ll be there in ten minutes,’ she called after a horrified glance at her alarm clock.
She was still scrambling to make up time when the manager asked her to drop in to see him. Startled, she presented herself at his office.
‘Come in,’ he said, looking up with a slight frown that intensified when he saw her. ‘Sit down, Mel.’
What sin of commission or omission was she guilty of? She arranged her long legs and tried to look serene.
After shuffling some papers on his desk, the manager said neutrally, ‘I believe you know Hawke Kennedy.’
‘I’ve met him before. I wouldn’t say I knew him.’ Fantasising about a man didn’t count. Hoping fervently that her skin wasn’t as hot as it felt, she asked, ‘Does it matter?’
The manager relaxed into a smile tinged by perplexity. ‘If it doesn’t matter to you, then it’s fine by me. And you can certainly have dinner with him; Lynne’s over her cold so you won’t be needed to fill in for her again.’
Dinner with Hawke Kennedy? Melissa reined in her astonished response. In a colourless voice she said, ‘Oh, right. I’ll get back to work, then.’
He nodded, but when she went to stand up he said, ‘By the way, I’ve just finished reading your submission on the glowworm caves. You’re right—they’re an asset we’ve more or less ignored. I still don’t know what anyone sees in going underground in dank, dark caves—’
‘A sense of adventure,’ she broke in eagerly. ‘And the glowworms are exquisite. It wouldn’t just be the caves—if you turned it into an expedition by taking guests out on the lake and giving them cocktails, then showing them the caves and having dinner afterwards on the boat, it would be great. Especially if there’s a moon.’
He laughed. ‘OK, draw up a plan. Keep costs as low as you can; we want the guests to feel that no expense is spared, but the accountants at Head Office will go over it with a fine-tooth comb.’
She noticed a certain withdrawal in his tone in the last sentence as though he’d thought better of what he said. Of course; he now had her slotted in with the super-rich world of Hawke Kennedy.
Her telephone was ringing when she opened the door of the cupboard she’d been given for an office; she made a dive for it, then had to juggle the receiver until she’d grasped it firmly enough to say abruptly, ‘Melissa.’
‘Hawke.’
Of course she recognised the coolly confident tone. Her stomach clenched and she said inanely, ‘Hello.’
‘Have dinner with me tonight.’
Why? A simple courtesy on his part? That galled her stubborn pride. She didn’t want courtesy from him; she wanted fire and passion and flash and thunder.
Oh, why not aim for the moon? She had a better chance of getting that. And she had to tamp down her first instinct to refuse; he was a guest. Keeping her voice as level as she could, she replied, ‘I’ve already been told that I’m having dinner with you.’
And then flushed, because she’d sounded petulant and—horrors—deprived, as though she wanted this to be a real date! Of course it wasn’t; he was merely being polite to the sister of one of his friends. And she had to accept for the same reason.
‘Sorry if that offended you.’ But he didn’t sound sorry; he sounded amused. ‘I checked with the manager first to make sure it wouldn’t upset his staff roster.’
Very considerate of him! In a wooden voice she said, ‘That would be lovely, thank you.’
‘I’ll see you at eight, then.’ Now he sounded crisp and businesslike.
Yes, definitely a duty meal. After tonight he’d probably ignore her. Not that she saw much of the guests, anyway. ‘I’ll look forward to it,’ she said, repressing the rebellion that threatened to curdle each word.
His deep laughter was shaded by more than a hint of irony. ‘I won’t take up much of your spare time.’ And he hung up.
Slowly she replaced the receiver.
She’d really enjoyed being at Shipwreck Bay. No one had expected her to be anything other than what she was—plain Melissa Considine.
With, she thought gloomily, the emphasis on plain. Love them though she did, in some ways having two outrageously handsome brothers had been a cross for her to bear. People expected another magnificent Considine, only to be taken aback when introduced to a lanky woman with strongly marked features and brown hair. Apart from her height, there was absolutely nothing interesting about her; she hadn’t even inherited the famous blue Considine eyes. Hers were a boring light brown.
And she’d totally missed out on the unconscious aura she envied in her brothers. Hawke Kennedy had it too—that powerful pulse of authority and confidence, as though there wasn’t anything in the world he couldn’t deal with.
So what on earth was she going to wear to dinner with him?
A year ago she’d have asked Gabe’s fiancée for advice; Sara had been easy to talk to, and she had impeccable taste—something else Melissa had missed out on.
However, the engagement had broken up in a blaze of publicity, leaving Gabe bitterly unhappy behind an armour of grim control. And she hadn’t seen Sara since.
Think duty, Melissa advised herself curtly. And wear the little black dress you bought in Paris.
It was difficult to keep her mind on her work; during that interminable day she found herself drifting off into daydreams interspersed with periods of painful anticipation that brought heat to her skin, and made her chide herself for her stupidity.
But eventually she was ready. Dissatisfied, she turned away from the mirror. The black dress might be sophisticated, but it drained the colour from her skin so that the blusher she’d used stood out like two streaks of paint on her cheekbones.
Why had she never noticed that before?
Because it had never mattered. Under the tutelage of a tiny, exquisite mother, a true Frenchwoman with superb grooming and clothes, she’d learned to minimise her height and stay in the background. Until tonight she hadn’t wanted to impress any man enough to worry about whether a colour suited her or not.
Or whether she looked sexy.
Disgusted with herself for caring so much about Hawke’s opinion—a man who’d never given her any reason to indulge this stupidly adolescent reaction—she wrenched off the black dress and wiped away her blusher.
She surveyed her scanty wardrobe before setting her jaw and taking down a top in darkly bronze silk with fake bronze and gold ‘jewels’ around the V-neck. Sara had given it to her, along with velvet jeans in the same rich colour. Melissa had never worn them; she’d only packed them because she’d been told New Zealanders were noted for their informality.
So she’d be informal for Hawke Kennedy.
She scrambled into the top and jeans, then surveyed her long, narrow feet in despair. Not one pair of shoes suited the sleek jeans. Eventually she set her jaw and pulled on a pair of high-heeled boots in black.
Her mother would have called the whole outfit vulgar, and told her that the long, slim lines made her look taller. Well, she thought robustly, she didn’t care. At least she looked a little more alive in it. Although that was probably because the twisting and turning of getting dressed had produced a flush in her cheeks.
Frowning, she stared at her reflection. No foundation, she thought defiantly. Her skin was pretty good, even if she did say so herself. What lipstick? Her favourite peach didn’t go with the rich bronze of her clothes. She examined her lip gloss, a shade of soft coppery-pink. If she used that on its own it might look good with the clothes.
It did.
Eyes? Distastefully she examined the open eyeshadow palette. Normally she used muted greens, but tonight something compelled her to pick out a smoky golden brown and apply it with a slightly unsteady hand.
‘Actually, that’s not bad,’ she said slowly, after scrutinising herself.
The rich colour around her eyes intensified their almond shape and gave them a heavy-lidded smoulder that startled her. It also picked up hitherto unnoticed golden highlights in her irises.
And the soft sheen to her lips looked…well, slightly provocative.
Or had she just made a fool of herself? Would Hawke take one look at her with cynical eyes and realise that she’d gone to an awful lot of trouble to make herself look good for him?
Her mother’s voice echoed in her ears. That colour’s too bright for you, Melissa. It makes you look vulgar and brassy. Stay with classic colours and lines. With your height you need to be subtle, not blatant.
Melissa took a deep breath. Although her mother had rarely commented on her tall daughter’s lack of beauty and grace, Melissa knew she’d always been a disappointment.
Setting her too obvious jaw, she pulled her hair away from her face and pinned it severely at the back of her neck. There, that should show Hawke she hadn’t tried to be seductive.
Stifling a familiar sense of inadequacy, she said flippantly, ‘Sorry, Mama.’
But at the door she turned back, seized by a painful sense of her own inadequacy. She couldn’t go out like this. It would only take her ten minutes to change back into the little black dress…
A glance at her watch told her she was running too late for that. For a second she hesitated, then set her jaw.
She couldn’t face walking through the lodge and down the long, glassed-in corridor that led to the suite. Instead, she took the path along the lake edge, hoping that the serenity of the water and the mountains would calm the erratic pounding of her heart.
CHAPTER TWO
FROM the window Hawke watched Melissa stride into sight, tall and lithe and confident as a young goddess, her wide shoulders and long legs emphasising the graceful curves of breasts and hips. The glowing light of the setting sun played like a nimbus around hair the colour of dark honey, tied back to reveal the striking contours of her face.
A severe goddess, he decided—more Minerva than Venus. But then, he’d always preferred the challenge of intelligence to overt, eager sexuality.
Something stirred into life inside him, a lazily predatory instinct that startled him.
He ignored it. Desire could be inconvenient, and over the years he’d learned to manage it.
He’d known from their first meeting four years ago that Melissa Considine wasn’t a suitable candidate for an affair. Apart from the fact that Gabe was a good friend, she simply wasn’t his type; refreshingly down-to-earth, she exuded a simple, straightforward innocence that suggested a charming lack of experience.
However, because he never took anyone on trust, he had run a search on her during the day. Interestingly, it had turned up precious little; perhaps that innocence was real.
Or perhaps, he thought cynically, noting the subtle, sexy sway of her hips as she turned to look at the mountains, she’d just been remarkably discreet.
He could have contacted his head of Security, who’d probably have been able to dig deeper, but for some reason he hadn’t.
Still, he’d found out a few things. He ticked them off as he watched her come towards him along the lakeshore. Her father had died when she was nine, her aristocratic French mother five years later. She’d gone to a top-grade boarding-school in England, a finishing school in Switzerland. With an excellent degree in marketing under her belt she was now taking her master’s at a prestigious university in America. So she had a good brain—probably a first-rate one.
She stooped to pick up some small thing. Hawke’s eyes narrowed and the tug of hunger sharpened into a goad when she straightened and an errant little breeze moulded the thin material of her jacket around her magnificent breasts.
Heat kindled in his loins. Damn, he wanted her…
Tough, he told himself ruthlessly. She was only twenty-three, ten years younger than he was, and she’d been sheltered all her life. He shouldn’t have asked her to dinner. Hell, his one experience of an ingénue—an actress-debutante who’d developed a crush on him with no encouragement whatsoever and made a damned nuisance of herself when he’d let her down as gently as he could—had taught him not to take anyone at face value.
Young she might have been, but Lucy St James had thought nothing of weeping all over the tabloids about an affair that had never happened. He liked his lovers experienced and too sophisticated to demand any more than a passionate affair; that way, when they parted no one got hurt.
Just lately, however, he’d been thinking it might be time to consider marriage.
But not, he told himself caustically, watching Melissa stare out across the lake as though searching for a lover in the gathering dusk, with someone he’d asked to dinner purely as a courtesy to her brothers.
And that was a lie.
The invitation had been a direct result of the dance they’d shared almost a year ago. Until then she’d been Gabe’s younger sister, notable only for her height, her coltish grace and her reserve.
Don’t forget her eyes, his photographic memory prompted—heavy-lidded and topaz-gold, set under fly-away brows. And the mouth that made him wonder if she ever let her full lips relax into lush sensuousness.
Skin like magnolia petals, and a voice all crisp coolness on the surface but with an intriguing hint of huskiness…
Hawke said something succinct and irritable beneath his breath. All right, so for some reason she’d stuck like a burr in his memory, and that dance in Provence was still as fresh and new as it had been the following day.
Probably because he’d never danced with anyone who’d stayed so silent, practised no tricks, merely followed his lead as though caught in some bewitched time out of time!
He hadn’t wanted to talk either, in case words shattered the tenuous enchantment that surrounded them that night. Content to waltz with her in his arms, he’d watched her grave, absorbed face, the soft mouth tender as though she’d strayed into a dream…
It had been an oddly moving experience, so moving that he hadn’t gone near her for the rest of the night. Although, he remembered, he’d known when she and her brothers left the ballroom.
He walked out onto the stone terrace, disconcerted at his satisfaction when she turned as though his presence had impinged on some sixth sense. After a moment’s hesitation she came towards him.
Hawke drew in a sharp breath. His previous thought that she looked like some goddess of old came back to him; instead of the unsophisticated student he knew her to be, she projected a potent physical radiance.
Her smile, tentative and fleeting, banished it instantly, thank God.
Quelling the slow growl of sexual hunger in his gut, he said more sternly than he’d intended, ‘Good evening, Melissa. I’m glad you could come.’
‘Thank you,’ she said a little breathlessly.
Once they were inside he held out his hand. ‘Can I take your jacket?’
‘I…Yes, thank you.’
After the crisp coolness of the air outside the room was warm, but she felt oddly reluctant to surrender her outer layer. The silk of her top felt suddenly thin and too revealing, the fake jewels obvious and cheap.
Nevertheless, she’d look a total idiot if she wore the jacket all evening. And Hawke clearly wasn’t in the least interested in what lay beneath it; a swift glance revealed no emotion at all in the forceful features.
His closeness, emphasised by the light touch of his hands on her shoulders as he took the garment, produced gentle tremors of tantalising energy through her. The world froze, suspending them in a fragile bubble of silence and stillness so that her senses lingered obsessively on each tiny, heart-jerking stimulus.
A faint, almost subliminal scent, masculine and wholly disturbing, set her pulse rate soaring. Did his hands linger on her shoulders as though staking a claim she didn’t dare recognise?
No, she told herself sternly, while her body swayed slightly and she had to control an urge to hyperventilate. Of course not; he was merely being polite.
And she was behaving as foolishly as a fifteen-year-old in the throes of her first crush!
He dropped her jacket onto the back of a chair. Masking her dilating pupils with her lashes, Melissa took a swift step away and tried to reassemble the shreds of her self-confidence by examining the table with a professional interest.
