skittered in her chest. Maybe she’d even missed Declan altogether—he could’ve taken a ride with someone else. No, not with the front door still unlocked, she rationalised.
Focus, she admonished herself, you can’t afford the luxury of falling apart now. Gwen gripped the handle of her bag and strode through the front reception and down the hallway that led to the private offices. She hesitated as she reached the office Steve had used. At the lightest touch the door swung open.
It looked so normal inside. No clue to show that the man who’d worked here until lunchtime today had been on the verge of fleeing the country, his job and his fiancée. She pulled the door shut behind her, wishing she could as effectively close the door on her troubles. She wouldn’t find the help she needed here.
Somewhere at the back of the house she heard a faucet snap closed.
“Hello? Is anyone here?” she called out.
As she reached the end of the hallway an erratic squeaking penetrated the air, as if someone was wiping a cloudy mirror with his hand. She laid her ear against the nearest door. The noise peppered the silence again with its staccato screech, setting her teeth on edge. She hesitated, her hand resting against the painted surface of the door. Should she knock?
Suddenly the door swung inwards, pulling her off balance. Wham! She crashed face first against a bare wall of male torso. She dropped her handbag in shock and her hands flung upwards to rest against a bare chest. Her senses filled with the aroma of lightly spiced, warm, damp skin, dizzying her with its subtle assault. Of their own accord, her eyes fastened to the slow rise and fall of the broad, tanned expanse of skin in front of her. To the flat brown nipples that suddenly contracted beneath her gaze.
Declan Knight. She remembered the taste of him as if it were yesterday.
Her gaze dropped swiftly over muscled contours and her breath caught in her throat. Please don’t let him be naked. A rapid sigh of relief gusted past her lips at the view of a fluffy white towel wrapped low around his hips. A tiny droplet of water followed the shadowed line of his hip and arrowed slowly downwards.
Her mouth dried.
With Herculean effort she willed her eyes to work their way up—past the well-developed pectoral muscles, up the column of a strong masculine neck, where strands of glistening black hair caressed powerful shoulders, and all the way to where they finally clashed with cold, obsidian-coloured eyes.
He still held her. The gentle clasp of his long fingers belied the burning imprint that scorched through the filmy sleeves of her blouse and contrasted against the chilled disdain in his gaze. Fingers that tightened almost painfully as he recognised just who he held.
He let go rapidly, leaving her to find her own balance. “What the hell are you doing here?”
He looked as though he wanted to get straight back into the shower stall after touching her. Heat burned a wild bloom of colour across her cheeks and anger rose swift and sharp from the pit of her belly. Her fingers curled into impotent fists at her side.
“I’m fine, thank you for asking.” Gwen reached up one hand and rubbed absently at her arm, although the movement only served to highlight the absence of his touch rather than negate it. “I need to talk to you—it’s important.”
“Go and wait out the front. I’ll be with you in a minute.”
“Right. Of course. I’ll do that then.” Gwen retrieved her handbag from by her feet and stormed back to the reception area, her heart hammering in her chest. What was wrong with her? Where was her brain? She really had to pull it together.
Slowly she counted to ten, focusing on each inward and outward breath. It was a simple strategy, and effective. One she’d perfected when she’d first arrived in New Zealand, from Italy, at nine years old—abandoned to the care of a disapproving maiden aunt by her capricious mother, who preferred her jet-set lifestyle without a child to hinder her liaisons.
“Steve’s not here.”
Gwen flinched at the sound of his voice and turned to face her nemesis. He’d obviously roughly towel-dried his hair, and although he’d dressed quickly he hadn’t taken the time to dry himself properly. The fine cotton of his dress shirt clung in patches like a second skin to his damp skin. She snapped her eyes away, drew her back up as straight as she could manage and lifted her chin to meet his penetrating regard head-on.
Despite working within the same industry, they’d managed to avoid making contact on more than a cursory social level. Even on those occasions, at company functions, they’d managed to avoid having to be polite to one another. A cursory nod of acknowledgement, a not-quite-there smile when in a group of colleagues. They’d kept their distance. Distance he was obviously equally determined to maintain.
“I know.” Her voice sounded as though it came from a stranger. Stilted, forced. Now that the time had come, the words dried up uselessly in her throat.
“So why are you here? If this is supposed to be one of those face-your-past things before you get married—”
“No! Oh, God, no. Definitely not.” How could he even think she wanted to bring that up again? The humiliating rejection after they’d futilely sought comfort in one another. She never wanted to cross that road again. Ever.
She watched as he pulled a vibrantly coloured, rolled up silk tie from his trouser pocket and threaded it underneath his collar. Gwen cleared her throat of the obstruction that threatened to choke her as she remembered just how dexterous those long fingers could be. How she’d been at their absolute mercy.
“Steve’s gone,” she blurted in an attempt to clear her mind of the sensual fog that clouded her thoughts.
“Gone? What are you talking about? We’re all supposed to be at your party in about—” he broke off to look at his watch.
“About thirty minutes.”
“So, we’ll see him there. What’s the problem?” Halfway through settling the knot of his tie at the base of his throat, his hands stilled. Her eyes still locked on his hands, Gwen stared at the slightly roughened edges of his fingers, evidence that given the opportunity he was as hands-on as any of his workers, at the graze across the knuckle on his index finger. At anything but the question in his eyes.
“Steve’s left the country.” The words tasted like charcoal in her mouth.
“Left the country?”
“With all our money. Yours and mine.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
Gwen held her ground. She only wished she was kidding. Sudden seriousness chased the derisive look from Declan’s face as his eyes raked her face for any sign of a lie.
“You’re not kidding, are you?”
She shook her head slowly. The sting of moisture pricked at the back of her eyes and she pressed her lips into a firm line, blinking back the urge to let loose her fears.
“When? How?”
“He left a message on my cell. I was working in the Clevedon Valley—there’s no reception—he knew I wouldn’t get the call until I came out of the black spot. By then it was too late to stop him.”
“You’re
