скачать книгу бесплатно
‘It’s a device that uses electricity and air to purify water. They’ve been around for ever, but the ones Paget’s marketing are much more refined than the basic device, as well as cheaper and safer. He’s an up-and-coming industrialist, astute and hard-hitting, with his head screwed on the right way.’
‘I take that to mean that as well as being tough and clever he’s already rich and getting richer,’ Andrea said thoughtfully.
Amused, Peter replied, ‘Yes. He owns that firm, and he’s not going public in the immediate future.’ When Andrea opened her mouth he forestalled her with, ‘He’s not married, although he’s been seen out and about with some very beautiful women. And no, I don’t know who the woman with him was. I don’t move in his circle—haven’t the background or the connections.’
Andrea turned to Lecia. ‘So you’re almost certainly related to a man who’s making lots and lots of very nice money,’ she said, her eyes gleaming with mock avarice. ‘Nice going.’
Shocked by the relief she’d felt when Peter pronounced Keane Paget single, Lecia shrugged. ‘If we’re related. It gives me the creeps to know that someone else is wandering around with my face.’
‘Paget’s not a wanderer,’ Peter said wryly. ‘He’s a man who knows where he’s heading, and he’s getting there in a hurry. He’s begun exporting to Asia—doing very nicely too—and for all the profits to be made there it’s not an easy market. It needs enormous patience, guts and integrity, as well as a good brain and a damned good product.’
A gap in the crowd opened out; they slid into it and made their way the mile or so to Lecia’s flat in an old building down by the waterfront. As Peter escorted them all the way, common courtesy forced her to invite him into her sanctuary for a cup of coffee.
Once inside, Andrea asked, ‘Why haven’t we heard about Keane Paget? I mean, apart from being utterly gorgeous, he sounds the sort of man who turns up as the subject of respectful articles in high-powered magazines and newspapers.’
Peter grinned. ‘He is and he does. However, he doesn’t seem to indulge in the social round that ends up as photographs in the glossies. I suppose he likes his privacy.’
‘What a waste,’ Andrea mourned. ‘He could be making the lives of all young women—and a good few older ones, I bet—so much brighter if he just smiled at the camera occasionally. We could all practise swooning.’
‘Coffee’s ready,’ Lecia said, cutting into her friend’s flight of fancy as she carried the tray across to the low table in front of the sofa.
She steered the conversation away from Keane Paget, away from anything personal, her nerves tightening when Peter admired her flat, congratulating her on her clever design for the conversion of the old factory into apartments. He was amusing and intelligent and often perceptive, but his open desire to know her better sawed across emotions already fretted by the stranger with her face.
With great relief she heard Andrea redeem her earlier tactlessness by jumping to her feet and saying, ‘Time to go! Come on, Peter, we’ll share a taxi, shall we?’
Reluctantly, after an appealing glance at Lecia, he nodded, trailing behind Andrea as she strode off towards the lift.
Peter, Lecia decided when she’d waved them goodbye and locked the door behind them, looked like becoming a bit of problem. Unfortunately he was really a nice man, and she just didn’t have it in her to be rude to nice men.
‘Although you should have learned that lesson well and truly...’ she muttered, remembering another nice man she hadn’t been able to turn down. Poor Barry.
Well, that had been seven years ago. She’d grown up a lot since then, and as soon as possible she’d make sure Peter understood that they had no future together.
After she’d showered off the sunscreen and sweat she pulled on a loose cotton wrap striped in her favourite peach and cream, colours that went so well with her hair and clear ivory skin.
Keane Paget would look good in them too.
Wry amusement softened the wide curves of her mouth as she imagined that very masculine face and form decked out in such gentle, pretty shades.
The amusement faded as she stared at herself in the mirror. He’d cope; he looked as though he could cope with anything! He knew what colours suited him too; he’d been wearing a cream shirt with trousers the same intense dark blue as his eyes.
At the memory of those eyes something hot and tight knotted in the pit of Lecia’s stomach. ‘You’re an idiot,’ she told her reflection, slathering on moisturiser before using the hairdrier.
Only then did she go into her bedroom and take his card from her bag.
It was severe, restrained and conventional—a personal one, not a business affair. Keane Paget lived across the harbour bridge in the marine suburb of Takapuna, and from the street name his house probably overlooked Rangitoto, the dormant volcanic island that gave Auckland its distinctive skyline.
Money, she thought, and put the card down.
She was horrified at her disappointment when he didn’t ring the next day. Her Christmas and New Year had been so hectically social she’d decided to keep just for herself the January weekend when Auckland celebrated its status as a province of New Zealand.
However, in spite of having looked forward to it for weeks, she found Sunday echoing emptily, with yet another holiday on Monday to live through. The usually busy streets were empty and simmering with heat; everyone who could get there had deserted Auckland for the country or the beach.
Lecia opened every window in the flat, watered her plants and went down into the communal garden in search of inspiration. She’d been asked to supply sketches for a house needed by a vigorous middle-aged woman who’d bought a cross-leased section in the heart of one of the more expensive suburbs.
For such a decisive person, the prospective client had few ideas on what she needed beyond two bedrooms and space close by for a potting shed. Lecia played around with sketches, fitting rough floor plans into the site, knowing that if the woman decided to commission her she’d choose the house that allowed her most scope for a splendid garden and time to spend in it.
Absorbed by the challenge, Lecia spent hours in the lounger beneath the jacaranda, doodling and scribbling.
When she wasn’t thinking with a pencil in her hand she cleaned out two cupboards, went to the gym, ate dinner with her godson—a twenty-month-old charmer called Hugh, who spent the night with her—and delivered him to his parents the next morning, brushing aside their thanks for the opportunity to have had a glorious evening on the town.
Keane Paget still didn’t contact her.
And she did not ring him.
By the end of the week, Lecia had given up hope of hearing from the man. Not that it was hope, she told herself firmly on the too-frequent occasions when she recalled that proud, angular face. No, she certainly wasn’t hopeful, just curious, because she’d never previously experienced anything like that moment of obstinate, elemental identification. For a second she’d been wrenched out of time and space, as though she and Keane Paget had fused together.
During the hot, humid days of late summer Lecia tried to persuade herself that the half-hidden, inchoate feeling was a simple sense of kinship—and that the primal recognition, the compulsion of affinity, had not been darkened by a shadowy foreboding that still imprisoned her in a nebulous enthrallment.
Each lazy, sultry evening she thought of Keane Paget as she drifted off to sleep; she woke, tense and aching after nights of restless, urgent dreams, with his name and arrogant face stamped so strongly on her mind that she couldn’t banish either.
And sometimes during the day the dreams she couldn’t recall resurfaced as fleeting images, clear and bright as miniatures, each erotic glimpse firing her skin and drying her mouth.
The telephone rang early one morning while she was halfway through toast and Earl Grey tea. After swallowing some toast in such a rush it scraped her throat, she said, ‘Hello.’
‘Lecia, it’s Keane Paget. I’d like to take you out to lunch today if that’s possible.’
‘I’ll see,’ she said, not even thinking of refusing as she scrabbled through her diary. ‘Yes, I can do lunch.’
‘Good. Can you manage the South Seas at twelve-thirty?’
She had an appointment at three, so that gave her plenty of time. ‘No problem,’ she said, and because she must have sounded curt, added, ‘I’ll look forward to it.’
‘I’ll see you then,’ he said, and hung up.
Short and to the point, she thought, replacing the receiver.
A bubble of—what? Elation? Excitement? Apprehension? No, an unnerving mixture of all three—expanded in her stomach. Lecia looked down at her fingers. Long and tense and—seeking—they were curled across the plastic handpiece as though she couldn’t bear to break contact.
Only once before in her life had she been so intensely conscious of her physicalness, of the nerves and cells, the atoms and electrons that made up the body she took for granted. Only once before had she been seduced by an inner force that bewitched her with a compulsi ve siren song, propelling her towards disaster.
Lecia had learned in a hard school that life went much more smoothly if she faced the truth about her emotions. So now she forced herself to accept what the reckless dreams, the constant preoccupation, the sensuous intensity of her feelings all meant.
It was quite simple really. She wanted the man who looked so much like her they could be twins. Except that wanting didn’t begin to describe what she felt. She couldn’t label her emotions; they were so tangled that it was impossible to separate out the strands.
Was she indulging in a pathetic, slightly sinister narcissism? Or was she taking the first step down the twisted, ruinous road to obsession? Obsession she understood. Eight years ago, after freeing herself from a messy relationship with a man who’d turned out to be married, she’d vowed that she’d never again allow it to clutch her in its mindless, greedy, degrading embrace.
Not that she’d learned her lesson properly. As though that humiliating episode with Anthony hadn’t been shattering enough, only a year later she’d been too thick to realise that Barry loved her with the same abject adoration she’d given to Anthony.
She’d got over Anthony; once she’d realised he was married, disgust and willpower had transformed her passion into revulsion. But Barry—whose only mistake had been his inability to set limits on his emotions—Barry was still suffering from her stupidity.
So she’d have lunch with Keane Paget just to satisfy her curiosity. If he wanted to take the acquaintanceship further, she’d very politely, very subtly, but very definitely pull away. She wasn’t going to fall into that trap again.
As though released from some spell, she stepped back from the telephone and picked up her teacup.
However, that morning she needed all her determination to concentrate on calculating specifications, and she stopped at least an hour before she needed to. With her office at home it would have been easy for her to wear comfortable, casual clothes like shorts and T-shirts, but she was a professional and she dressed accordingly.
A swift glance in the mirror revealed that however professional it was, the neat cotton dress wasn’t suitable for lunch at the South Seas, which was both fashionable and noted for its food. After she’d showered, Lecia a opened the doors of her wardrobe and stared morosely at the clothes inside.
It annoyed her that she wanted to look her best for Keane Paget. Frightened her too. In fact, she almost put the dress she’d been wearing back on, only to realise that if she did that she’d really be establishing his importance in her mind.
‘What would I wear if I was going out to lunch with a client?’ she asked the unresponsive air.
Old faithful, of course. Resignedly she took down the silk shift, dressy enough to be elegant, casual enough to be comfortable, in exactly the same clear green as her eyes. She hesitated over her hair; during the day she usually wore it free, but this time, for some reason she wasn’t prepared to examine, she wound the straight, glossy hank into a knot high on her head.
With more than normal care she applied lipstick and the lightest touch of eyeshadow in a gold-brown so pale it was a mere emphasis of her natural skin tone, then sprayed herself with her favourite perfume, Joy.
And, avoiding her reflection in the mirror as though they shared a guilty secret, she went out into the brilliant sunlight.
CHAPTER TWO
SEPARATED from the harbour by a busy road and docks, the apartment block was only a kilometre along the waterfront from the Viaduct Basin, where the South Seas was. Invigorated by the salty air, Lecia set off.
In summer the central city and waterfront was mostly given over to tourists, bright and noisy as a flock of transient birds. Exchanging smiles with several, Lecia passed the refurbished ferry building, still serving its original function between the trendy shops and restaurants that had infiltrated its old galleries. She told herself stoutly that she was looking forward to seeing whether the South Seas was as good as its reputation.
And that was all.
Outside the restaurant, under canopies like sails, people sat talking and eyeing the passers-by, but Keane Paget was waiting in the bar, reading something that looked like business papers.
As Lecia walked through the door he looked up, and in his face she caught a glimpse of the complicated shock she felt whenever she saw him. It vanished as he got to his feet.
Made absurdly self-conscious by his hooded scrutiny, she tried to ignore the swift glances and subdued speculation that followed her across the room. At least they won’t assume we’re lovers! she thought with mordant amusement, holding her head high.
‘With your hair up like that,’ Keane said, seating her before resuming his chair, ‘the resemblance is even more marked.’
She met his eyes frankly. ‘It’s uncanny,’ she said. ‘Like meeting a doppelgänger.’
‘I know. All the old fairy tales come ominously to life. What do you normally drink?’
‘Lime and soda, thank you.’
One dark brow—exactly the same shape as hers—lifted. ‘Nothing alcoholic?’
‘No. If I drink in the middle of the day I spend the afternoon fighting off sleep.’
He looked across the room. A waiter hurried up and Keane ordered her soda and a light ale for himself. ‘It slows me down too,’ he said, with a smile that was oddly unsettling.
Lecia’s stomach flipped. Keep cool! she commanded. Stop overreacting. So what if alcohol in the middle of the day turns us both into zombies? That happens to plenty of people—it doesn’t signify some sort of cosmic link!
After the waiter left Keane looked at her and said, ‘Would you have rung me?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
Made aware by his coolly measuring glance that she wasn’t going to get away with an evasion, she said slowly, ‘I thought it might be wiser if I didn’t.’
‘Why?’
She stopped herself from shrugging. Instead, she looked a little blindly around the room. Several people hastily averted their fascinated gazes.
‘No logical reason,’ she said at last. ‘As you said, there’s something vaguely ominous about meeting someone with your face.’
‘I did wonder whether we were actually half-brother and sister,’ he said, tackling the subject head-on, ‘but we both resemble our fathers so that isn’t an issue.’
‘How do you know that?’
He gave her a direct, unsmiling look. ‘I had you investigated, of course,’ he said, as though it were the most normal thing in the world to do.
Lecia stiffened. ‘I see,’ she said grittily. ‘That explains the past week of silence.’ And immediately wished she’d bitten her unruly tongue.
‘Yes,’ he said, watching her with amused, not unsympathetic eyes.
Fortunately the drinks arrived, giving Lecia time to compose herself. The nerve of him! Unable to swallow, she only touched her lips to the cold, moist glass before putting it down.
‘I presume,’ she said rigidly, ‘that your investigations went back as far as my childhood.’
‘I know that you’re Lecia Spring, born twenty-nine years ago in Australia to an Australian father and New Zealand mother. A year after your parents’ marriage in Melbourne your father had a severe fall and never recovered; he died before you were born.’
‘Your investigator is good,’ she said through her teeth.
‘The best. Monica, your mother, moved to New Zealand to be close to her parents, remarried when you were four, and now lives in Gisborne with her second husband, the owner of a very successful food processing business. You’re a clever, well-respected architect, with a lucrative practice that you keep small by working alone from your home. Why, incidentally?’
‘Because I like to be my own boss,’ she snapped, repelled by his dispassionate recital of the facts of her life.
‘So,’ he said, watching her from half-closed eyes, ‘do I. But you could expand, set up your own firm, employ other architects, and still be the boss.’
‘I’m not ready for that yet. I need more experience.’ It was her standard reason, and before it had always seemed perfectly adequate. It didn’t now.
However, he didn’t pursue the subject. Scrutinising her with leisurely, infuriating thoroughness, he continued, ‘When you were twenty-two you became engaged to another architecture student, but broke it off three months later. What happened?’
‘Looking like my brother does not give you any right to pry into my personal life,’ Lecia said with bleak, barely controlled precision, cringing at the thought of Keane Paget reading about that tragedy.
‘Technically speaking, I think you look like me,’ he said calmly. ‘I’m six years older than you, which must give me a priority claim on the genes.’
She choked back a reluctant gasp of laughter. ‘We’re not brother and sister,’ she observed, ‘but we certainly sound like a bickering pair. Have you got any?’
‘Brothers and sisters? No. There’s just me.’
