you mean?’ he asked, unruffled by the threat. ‘Perhaps I believe that the potential rewards far outweigh the risk.’
She wondered what kind of rewards he was talking about. They hit a pothole and the car momentarily swerved, jolting her out of her abstraction. ‘Why doesn’t the council do something to fix this road?’ she gasped.
‘Because it dead-ends at a beach with no public facilities and there are only a few private homes along the way. The road doesn’t generate enough traffic to justify the expense of regular upgrades.’
‘Are you sure it’s safe?’ she gulped as an overhanging fern slapped the windscreen.
‘As long as you’re with me, Nora, you’re as safe as you want to be…’
That was what she was afraid of! ‘And if I said I wanted to go back?’ She knew it was what she should say.
‘To what? You didn’t really want to go anywhere near work today. You were just saying that out of misplaced bravado.’
She gritted her teeth at the accuracy of the thrust. ‘I was actually trying to get rid of you.’
‘Didn’t work, though, did it? Face it, I’m doing you a favour. Remember, revenge is a dish best served cold.’
‘I don’t want revenge.’ She had wasted more than enough time and energy on Ryan already.
‘Then you must be unique amongst human beings,’ he replied drily. ‘If someone I loved betrayed me, I’d take great pleasure in stripping them of everything they valued in life, piece by painful piece.’
Nora shivered at the icy implacability of his words and the implicit passion behind them. The kind of passionate intensity that had clearly been lacking in her relationship with Ryan.
‘Maybe I wasn’t really in love with him,’ she muttered. ‘He seemed like an unattainable god at university—he had a rugby blue and was hugely popular with everyone, whereas I was a geeky teenager who’d never even had a real boyfriend. Most of the other girls threw themselves at him, but I was too shy, so I—I—’
‘Contented yourself with worshipping from afar until he deigned to notice you?’ He sliced cleanly through her self-pitying gloom. ‘Sounds like a normal teenage crush to me. I had one on my biology teacher when I was thirteen. It’s one of those things you outgrow and laugh about afterwards.’
She tried, and failed, to imagine an adolescent Blake MacLeod in the throes of unrequited love. ‘Yes, well…I was obviously a late bloomer. When he moved up to Auckland to work for Maitlands and suggested there was a job for me there I thought it was because he missed having me around. I guess I didn’t really have a chance to grow out of my infatuation—’
‘Perhaps because Superjock didn’t want you to. I bet he fed off your innocent admiration. How many people who challenged his superior self-image remained his friends?’
‘At least I can blame my idiocy on youth and inexperience—what’s your excuse?’ she jabbed back. ‘Why are you really doing this? I doubt if you normally encourage people to run away from their problems!’
He turned his head to study her, his gaze taunting. ‘Do you really want to get into it with me right now?’
‘Keep your eyes on the road, for God’s sake!’ she yelled, clutching the seatbelt across her chest.
He obeyed her ear-splitting command, scouring around the next corner. ‘Sorry, but I like to look people in the eye when I’m having a serious discussion,’ he said with pious calm.
‘Then you can save the discussion until we get wherever it is we’re going!’ she gritted, knowing full well she was being manipulated. And to think she had been on the verge of forgiving him for preying on her vulnerability!
She simmered and suffered in burning silence until Blake pulled off the steep road on to a long, even steeper, concrete driveway which drilled down through the thick screen of bush covering the coastal side of the hill.
‘I thought you said your house was at the beach,’ she said nervously as the green canopy meshed overhead, further hemming them into the leafy shadows.
‘It is. The beach is directly below us.’
As soon as the words were out of his mouth Nora’s heart began to sink and her palms dampen. ‘But, but—beach houses are usually at sea level…’
His mouth twitched at her choked protest. ‘I prefer not to run with the usual crowd.’
‘I knew there had to be a catch,’ Nora muttered as the driveway burst out into blazing sunlight and she found herself looking down at the red-tiled roof of a semi-circular house which jutted out from the side of the hill. Way out…over a very high, very sheer drop.
‘Oh, God…!’
‘The structural engineering was done by a highly reputable firm,’ murmured Blake reassuringly as they swooped down to the broad paved turning circle in front of three double-width garage doors. A short bridge fed across the falling ground to one side to a wide door protected by a wroughtiron grille. ‘If anything, it’s been over-engineered—the cantilevered beams are strong enough to support several times the actual weight of the house.’
He touched a slim remote and one of the wood-panelled garage doors silently lifted to allow the car to slot in beside a boat-trailer loaded with an inflatable rubber surf dinghy. Further along in the huge internal garage Nora could see a shadowy black four-wheel drive, a motorcycle, a beachbuggy, a stack of surfboards and a surf-ski next to rack of assorted wetsuits.
She debated refusing to budge, but Blake had already sprung open both doors and slid out of the car, and she suspected that sulking in her seat like a defiant child would get her nowhere.
Only when she had scrambled out and walked haughtily around the car did she remember that Blake hadn’t needed a key to start the car—he had just pushed a black button on the swooping dashboard. Her heart stuttered and she tucked her handbag under her arm as she sneaked a look at Blake’s bent head, half concealed by the raised boot. How careless of him! He really was taking it for granted that she would fall meekly in with his plans. She wondered if he would feel quite so smug watching her drive off in his precious car! The thought of handling all that power on that skimpy road made her feel even queasier, but a foolish rush of adrenaline sent her diving to pull open the driver’s door. Her seeking fingers collided with a smooth unbroken surface as she suddenly realised what was missing.
‘Mind you don’t damage the paintwork.’
Nora jerked around to stare up into Blake’s sardonic face. ‘This car has no door handles!’ she spluttered.
Blake smiled. ‘A very useful deterrent to thieves.’
‘Then how do you open it?’ she asked, endeavouring to project an air of innocent interest.
‘You could try saying Open Sesame,’ he said smoothly, and she blushed at the reminder of their last ride together, in a lift.
‘I think it’s more to do with modern engineering than magic incantations,’ she said.
His deep-set eyes gleamed. In the
