in grief and guilt, I bet,’ Angie said astringently. ‘Iona, nobody knew Gavin had a heart weakness. Yes, saving you exhausted him and he drowned, but it was an unexpected, shocking tragedy, not your fault.’
Iona said quietly, ‘Intellectually I knew that, but I just couldn’t accept it.’
Angie unlocked the car and got in. Once they were settled she said, ‘And then your parents were killed by that damned drunk driver. It’s no wonder you were a mess. Then you met Lukas Michelakis in Tahiti?’
‘Yes. Actually when he strode down the beach—like—like the king of the gods—to inform me I was trespassing I was actually relieved. He gave me something else to think about.’ With a vengeance.
Once they were under way, Angie said, ‘And what happened then?’
‘We went around a bit together,’ Iona told her in a flat voice, ‘until I came home again.’
‘And you haven’t been in contact since?’ Angie asked.
‘There was no reason.’
Her cousin took the hint. ‘I read somewhere that he grew up in a very wealthy family.’
‘It figures,’ Iona said evenly. ‘His kind of confidence is bred in the genes.’
‘The article was cagey, but heavy on innuendo—obviously making sure no lawyer could sue the writer or the newspaper. It implied something pretty disastrous happened when he was young—late teens, perhaps?—and he left home to strike out on his own.’
‘Probably with the family’s support not too far in the background.’ Iona didn’t try to hide the cynical note in her words.
‘I doubt if he needed it. It didn’t take him long to turn into an internet czar.’ Angie paused before asking casually, ‘If he needs to call on us, how would you feel about working with him?’
‘Me?’ Iona swallowed an unnecessary panic. ‘A bit self-conscious, that’s all. I was half-naked, mopping detergent off my breasts, when he strode in like a clap of doom just before you arrived, and I suspect he thought it was a set-up—that I’d deliberately stripped to attract his attention.’
‘I suppose it’s happened before,’ Angie said, and gave her a thoughtful sideways glance. ‘I bet he spends a fair part of his life swatting off importunate women.’
During their brief affair he’d more than met Iona halfway.
Repressing disturbing images of tropical folly, she said hastily, ‘I’ll be fine. He relaxed when you turned up.’
Although relaxed wasn’t the word to describe Luke. Even on holiday she’d sensed a leashed, prowling awareness in him, an uncompromising authority that made him both formidable and intimidating.
It was still there, intensified by an ironic detachment she’d not experienced before.
Get over it, she told herself. She still resented the hard contempt of his gaze in the powder room, but that was good, because resentment was a much safer emotion than sighing lustfully after him.
The barbecue Angie had been asked to organise only the day before went on until after midnight and they were both tired when at last they left the beach house an hour’s drive north of Auckland.
Covering a yawn, Iona said, ‘I wish someone would persuade Mrs Parker not to throw any more impromptu parties. I suppose we should have guessed her few close friends would morph into about fifty.’
‘She’ll be paying heavily for springing it on us at such short notice. Besides, it’s work, and we need it,’ Angie said practically.
After a tentative moment Iona asked, ‘How are things?’
Her cousin paused before admitting, ‘You’ve probably guessed the recession’s making inroads into the client list, but we’re surviving.’ Her tone changed. ‘If there’s an emergency in the next two days, can I call on you? The boys are going to a birthday party tomorrow—well, actually it will be today—and tomorrow we’re going to the zoo.’
‘Of course. Give me the work phone,’ Iona said. ‘If I need you I’ll ring you on your personal phone. You need a break and the boys need time with you.’
It took some persuading, but at last she managed to convince Angie to agree.
Inside her tiny studio flat Iona showered and dropped into bed. Sleep came quickly, bringing with it images of a tall, dark man, images that led to dreams. Eventually she woke in a state of high excitement, blood racing through her veins, her body racked by a feverish desire.
Grim-faced and desperate, she willed her heart to settle down and her body to relax. That was how it had started. Tahiti was everything the brochures had promised—wildly, sensuously exotic, filled with beautiful people of both sexes, scented by flowers and lapped by a brilliant turquoise sea, alive with the sound of music and drums and laughter, the hush of waves on the lagoon shores. The glorious islands throbbed with life.
Iona had looked, but been unable to enjoy. Grief had dulled her senses so completely she’d felt totally disconnected from everything.
And then she’d met Luke—Lukas. She’d had no idea who—or what—he was. The moment her gaze clashed with his lion eyes, sensations she’d believed had died for ever had suddenly flared into life, introducing her to hope. A flare of conscious response had set her nerves tingling and heated her body, sharpening her senses so that the world suddenly blazed into a glory of colour and sound and sensuous delight.
Why had he pursued her? She’d asked him once, and he’d laughed.
‘Perhaps the thrill of the chase,’ he admitted without shame. ‘You looked at me with such cool disdain, as though I was less interesting to you than the shell in your hand. I wondered what it would be like to see desire in those intriguing blue-green mermaid’s eyes, as changeable and mysterious as the sea.’
For some foolish reason his words hurt. She covered the momentary stab of pain with a smile, and slid her arms around him. ‘And has it lived up to your expectations?’
His gaze kindled, golden flames dancing in the depths. ‘More than I ever expected; it’s infinitely fascinating to watch. And even more fascinating to experience,’ he said in a low growl, and kissed her.
Lost in swift passion, she’d kissed him back, welcoming the hot tide of hunger that met and matched his.
Their passionate, hedonistic affair had seemed so right in Tahiti, christened Aphrodite’s Isles by the first dazzled European sailors to visit those idyllic shores.
Then one night, as the moon came up over the horizon in a splendour of silver and gold, he’d said, ‘I’m leaving in three days.’ He had smiled lazily at her startled face and kissed the curve of her breast, murmuring against her skin, ‘Come with me.’
Each word had been a caress—a confident one. He’d had no doubt she’d do what he wanted. The fantasy world Iona had been living in crashed around her.
‘I can’t,’ she said, shocked by a swift, aching temptation to give him what he wanted.
His
