Tiger, Tiger

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An eager, vital smile, the expression of a woman with a mission, lit up Mrs Warburton’s face. ‘How exciting to discover a fresh branch of the family! And such a talented one! My dear, you must call me Aunt Sophie.’

Lecia flushed, aware that by accepting the compliment she was making it more and more difficult to keep a sufficient distance between her and Keane. ‘Thank you,’ she said without looking his way, ‘I’d like that.’

She had cousins and uncles on her mother’s side, and a big, extended family belonging to her stepfather, but the knowledge that she might have relatives from the Spring line filled a vacuum she’d never acknowledged until then.

Aunt Sophie entertained them for another half-hour before Keane got to his feet and said, ‘We have to go, I’m afraid.’

His great-aunt smiled up at him, her expression making it clear that she loved him dearly.

‘Thank you for bringing Lecia,’ she said. ‘I now see whole new fields of endeavour opening out in front of me. I can’t wait!’

In the car, Keane asked casually, ‘Have you had dinner?’

‘I’m not hungry,’ Lecia lied.

His mouth tightened as he put the vehicle in gear and directed it down the drive. ‘Coward,’ he said. ‘You can come and watch me eat mine.’

‘No, thank you, I have...’ Her voice trailed away. She was not good at lying, and he didn’t believe her anyway. Her hands moved, caught each other, clung.

‘Why are you afraid of me?’ he asked.

‘I’m not!’

‘Afraid of yourself, then?’ His swift sideways glance caught the truth. ‘Yes, that’s it, isn’t it? Why?’

‘It’s got nothing to do with fear,’ she said, grabbing desperately at some semblance of calmness. ‘It just makes me feel strange to look at you and see my own face. I feet—invaded. No, cloned. Oh, I don’t know what I feel, but I don’t like it!’

‘If we’d had brothers or sisters we’d be accustomed to it,’ he said imperturbably.

‘Well, yes, but...’ Again her voice faded. She certainly wasn’t going to explain that she couldn’t control her wildfire, unwanted attraction to him, and that she found it threatening.

Especially as she had no idea what he felt. Curiosity, of course; both he and his great-aunt were intrigued by the discovery of a new member of the family, and Lecia thought that they both liked to get to the bottom of things.

As she did.

Apart from that, his feelings were as suspect as hers. The ugly word ‘narcissism’ covered that sort of attraction—making her recall the sad legend of the Greek youth who fell in love with his own reflection and died because he couldn’t see anyone else more worthy of his love.

Or was this pull between them nothing more than an instinctive recognition of blood ties, a recognition she was mistaking for desire?

Anyway, there was the woman who’d been with him at the opera, who might be his lover. A network of nerves woke to instant heat. Hastily banishing the feverish images that ambushed her from some hidden part of her psyche, Lecia looked around, for a moment not realising where they were.

He was turning the vehicle into the car park of a restaurant perched halfway up one of Auckland’s little volcanic cones. ‘We’ll get used to seeing ourselves in each other’s face,’ he said, with a confidence that irritated her anew.

So he intended to keep in touch. In spite of her good intentions the prospect lifted her spirits, adding more fuel to the unruly bonfire of emotions that fed her responses.

‘I don’t think I ever will,’ she said neutrally.

As they were shown to their table—one overlooking the city and the sea, of course—he asked with an oblique smile, ‘What’s your decision?’

‘What?’ No, her heart wasn’t beating faster, nor were her eyes sparkling beneath her lashes. She wouldn’t allow herself to be overcome by sexual hunger.

‘You appeared to be weighing up two courses of action, neither of which appealed,’ Keane said smoothly.

The last of the daylight was fleeing, sinking into swift, sudden darkness. When it became too risky to hold his gaze, Lecia turned her head and concentrated on the view outside. She could just make out the saturated brilliance of bougainvillaea flowers tossed over a trellis; within moments the lights in the harbour leapt into prominence and all colour was smothered by the inexorable arrival of night.

She retorted, ‘I was mildly annoyed by your calm assumption that I’d go out to dinner with you. I like to be asked.’

A dark eyebrow lifted. ‘But as it’s in the family...?’

When she shook her head he looked at her with narrowed eyes and said deliberately, ‘No, I don’t feel related to you either.’ Before she could respond to this he went on, ‘Tell me, do you have to show every foreman on every building site that you can drive a straight nail?’

‘Only the most recalcitrant.’ Lecia’s gaze drifted down to the crystal vase of lime-green zinnias and gypsophila in the centre of the table, scanned the shining silverware, the white linen napkin in her lap, the way her hands were folded on top of it.

Keane said, ‘Obviously sexism is alive and well in the trade.’

Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion, as though they were under some kind of spell. A little too loudly she said, ‘There are still a lot of men—not only on construction sites—who believe that women just naturally don’t understand technology. Add to that many builders’ distrust of architects, and you get some real diehards.’

‘But you manage.’

Her smile was ironic. ‘I do a good job, and if they’ve got any intelligence at all—and most of them have—they realise that soon enough. The others I get heavy with.’

He laughed softly, and her heart clenched. ‘Horses for courses.’

‘Anything that gets the job done,’ she admitted. ‘What about your organisation? Do you employ women as executives?’

‘I do,’ he said. ‘All I’m interested in is whether a woman can do the work.’

Lecia nodded, holding his eyes. ‘But if one of her children is sick,’ she asked, ‘what happens then?’

He lifted his brows. ‘Some women arrange for work to be sent home, some use the company nurse. We have a set of systems that we use, adapting them to each case.’

‘Very advanced,’ she said.

He shrugged. ‘I run a profitable business, and that means dealing with life as it’s lived today, not as it was forty years ago. Women work, so business has to accommodate them and their needs. It applies to men too; the days are long gone when companies expected men to put their welfare before that of their wives and families. I don’t work long hours myself—I certainly don’t expect my employees to make such sacrifices.’

‘And you don’t notice any loss of efficiency?’

‘As far as I’m concerned, a man who has to work more than eight or nine hours a day is either overworked, in which case we hire someone else to take up the extra, or he’s not efficient. If he’s not efficient, he gets help. Of course, if he doesn’t improve then he doesn’t last long.’

Advanced ideas, certainly, but he was tough with them.

After they’d ordered they discussed business generally, and his business especially. He made her laugh with some of his stories, and he treated her as a professional equal. As they talked she kept catching glimpses of compassion and understanding beneath his sharply dynamic intelligence.

He wasn’t the sort of man anyone would try to exploit, she thought, but he was obviously a good employer, a man who respected his employees while expecting them to do their jobs properly.

She said something about the generators he made, adding when he raised his eyebrows, ‘I have a professional interest in filters, but I read about your company in an article a friend sent me.’

‘Was that the friend who gave you an ice cream as I came level with you at the Domain?’ Keane’s smile hardened swiftly into a challenge. ‘The man who kissed you.’

‘Did he?’ She met his gaze with a cool challenge of her own. ‘I don’t remember. And no, it wasn’t Peter. Andrea, the tall redhead who was also there, faxed me the article.’

‘I remember. Very attractive, with excellent bones. She’ll make a stunning octogenarian,’ he said, adding idly, ‘Is the ice-cream man your lover?’