amount of peanut butter he spread on it. She bit back the unguarded protest. Simon wasn’t greedy.
She wanted to take him places, to buy him books and toys to keep his active mind stretched—she yearned to give him some sort of future. Instead, he took their poverty for granted. It wouldn’t have been so bad if she’d been able to claim the child benefits the country provided, but she didn’t dare.
For Simon she would do anything, even sink her pride, because he was all she had.
Olivia pulled a sheet of newspaper across the table. It was about six weeks old, and she’d been lucky to get it. Brett always handed on his newspapers to her, but he very rarely bought them, preferring to get the news from the radio.
Her eyes were drawn to a photograph. Although she had spent too much of the last three days looking at it, her vision wavered, a sudden rush of blood to her head making her close her eyes.
Drake Arundell. A man she had known all her life, yet this man was a stranger.
Blinking swiftly, she forced her eyes open. Her gaze lingered on the hard face, its blunt contours set in an expression of assured authority. The seven years since she had seen him had added an air of maturity to his strong features. Power radiated from him, a power different from the untrammelled sexuality that had cut such a swathe through Springs Flat while he was growing up. Whatever had happened in those seven years had modified and strengthened the young man’s arrogance into a disciplined self-reliance.
The boldly cut mouth was now controlled into a straight, uncompromising line, while level, enigmatic eyes surveyed the world from beneath black brows that winged up at the outer corners to give a saturnine expression to his face.
Those eyes were grey-green; when he was angry the green predominated, so that they became piercing slivers of crystal. Heavy-lidded, with thick, curly black lashes that didn’t mitigate their inherent aloofness, they were astonishing eyes.
A formidable man, Drake Arundell, infinitely tougher and much more dangerous than the reckless, charismatic young man so vividly delineated in her memory. Just over six feet tall, he was in perfect proportion to his height, with a well-made smoothness of movement that satisfied the eye. He’d be—she made some quick calculations—about thirty-two, eight years older than she was.
Of course he’d be married by now. Men with his particular brand of virile masculine magnetism didn’t stay single. And when they flashed across the motor racing scene like a singularly blatant comet, attracting the attention of film stars and models and any number of beautiful women, marriage usually followed. There were probably children too.
At seventeen, Olivia had responded to his heady, aggressive confidence as helplessly as most other women. More fool her, she thought sardonically.
‘Have you got a headache?’ Simon enquired around his peanut butter sandwich. ‘You look funny.’
‘Darling, swallow everything in your mouth before you talk. No, I’m fine.’
He came over to stand beside her. ‘Who’s that?’
‘A man I used to know.’ Had known all her life. ‘He owns hotels and boats and things.’ Her voice sounded quite normal.
Drake Arundell, the news item said, had announced the opening of the Tero ski-field. Three years ago Arundell had returned to New Zealand to buy the almost moribund FunNZ empire, and with a combination of shrewd, resourceful financial ability and an intuitive understanding of the tourism business had not only brought it back to life but expanded, without setting the powerful conservation movement at his throat.
The item went on to mention his spectacular reign as a Formula One driver, when he had been prevented from winning the Drivers’ Championship only by injury. Drake Arundell had dropped out for five years before emerging to carve out an equally fast-moving career in the business world, being one of the first far-sighted enough to see the opportunity for the now world-famous eco-tours.
An unsteady wind blustered against the windows, streaking them with rain. A truck took its time about going by, changing gear with a jarring thump that rattled through Olivia’s head. Shivering, she rubbed her arms to stir the circulation.
Her eyes returned to the photograph. The last time she’d seen him Drake Arundell had been furious, his striking face cold and unyielding, his eyes narrowed and savage beneath their half-closed lids.
It had happened so abruptly; they’d spent the summer playing a game of flirtation and retreat, and she’d loved it—enjoying the power of her burgeoning femininity enormously, discovering that life could be a fascinating, exhilarating feast of the senses.
Not once had he touched her, but she’d known that he watched her, that there was a different gleam in his eyes when he looked at her, an exciting intensity that wasn’t there when he spoke to the other girls who had spent the summer trying to attract his attention.
And then one night after a barbecue at her parents’ place he’d kissed her. Lost in the wonder of his kiss, she’d pressed against him. In three days’ time he was going back to the Formula One circuits of the world, so this would be her only chance to see what it was like in his arms.
The gentle kiss had suddenly turned feral; she had gasped at the quick violence of his mouth, the way he’d held her against his hard, taut body, but she hadn’t struggled. Although it frightened her she’d wanted that fierce, heated tension—had wanted it all summer.
But the kiss had ended abruptly. Strong hands pushed her away by the shoulders, leaving her aching with frustration.
‘Don’t offer more than you want to give,’ he’d said in a thick, harsh voice. ‘You’ve had your fun teasing me, but that’s because I’ve let you. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that another man would be so easily kept at bay.’
And he had looked at her as though he’d despised her.
It had happened a long time ago, but a long-forgotten fear sent a chill slithering the length of her backbone. Drake Arundell was not a man to be threatened or intimidated.
Unconsciously she angled her chin at the photograph. Why should he have his photograph in the newspapers as an example to other New Zealanders when she and Simon struggled for every cent they had?
Swallowing the last remnant of his sandwich, Simon washed his knife and plate and dried them carefully. ‘I’ve got a new book,’ he prompted as he put the dishes away.
Olivia screwed up the sheet of newspaper and fired it into the rubbish bin. ‘We’d better fold these papers first,’ she said. ‘Then you can read to me.’ Reading time was the one part of the evening that was sacrosanct.
He glanced out of the window and pulled a face. ‘We’ll get wet.’
The rain had settled in now, and was beating with miserable determination against the panes.
‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘I don’t have to do any more sewing, remember, so I can deliver them tomorrow morning.’
A fortnight later she’d almost accepted that Drake was going to ignore her letter, but after tidying the flat and exorcising some of her anger and frustration by viciously scrubbing the floor, she groaned when she looked at the battered alarm clock on the windowsill above the sink. Still another hour until the
