very much. Do you take milk?’
‘Thank you. No sugar.’
As he took the cup and saucer from her she noted his beautiful hands, strong with long, callused fingers, tanned like his face almost to copper. The sight of those hands dealing efficiently with the elegant china cup made something contract suddenly in Minerva’s stomach.
‘It seems an unusual career for a woman with all your advantages.’
At least he accepted that it was a career! Minerva gave the usual smile and the usual answer. ‘It’s my one talent, and I enjoy doing it.’
‘You don’t stay in any job for very long. Stella said that the longest you lasted was usually a year.’
‘I’m not into the old-retainer bit, so I sign short contracts,’ she said steadily, resenting his comment even though there hadn’t been a hint of censure in the deep voice. ‘That way I get to see the world and experience it a bit more intimately than a tourist does.’
‘You must really have enjoyed it to spend two years on the yacht.’
She had just joined the crew when Stella wrote to tell her she was getting married. Because of a glitch in the postal arrangements the letter hadn’t caught up with her until a month after the wedding. It hadn’t seemed worthwhile to come back then.
And she had been in the middle of the Atlantic, bucketing through a hurricane, when Stella suffered her lonely death. As soon as they reached land she had flown back, arriving too late for the funeral, but able to mourn with Ruth and her father and her half-brother Kane for a couple of weeks before flying back.
Minerva nodded. ‘The billionaire insisted on two-year contracts, and I wanted the job enough to make an exception for him.’
‘The great New Zealand overseas experience.’ He had a beautiful voice, rich and many-layered, but it had remarkably little expression: as little as his face, or the silver-grey eyes. They should have been translucent, but the polished metallic sheen successfully hid any emotion.
This withdrawn, reserved man had retired behind the formidable barricades of his self-sufficiency. Unease slithered the length of her spine, gathered in an unpleasant pool at the pit of her stomach.
‘I suppose it has to do with living on three small islands at the bottom of the map,’ she returned conversationally. ‘To get anywhere at all you have to fly for hours, so why not go the whole hog and see the rest of the world while you’re about it?’
His smile was cynical. ‘And broaden your insular mind.’
She lifted thin eyebrows. ‘Some people merely hone their prejudices.’
‘That’s astute of you.’
‘I suppose you’ve done a fair amount of travelling,’ she said, unable to decide whether he was being sarcastic or not.
‘Yes. But my most vivid memories are of the first time I was on my own. I came overland from India and hitch-hiked around Europe, spent six months in England, then went on one of those truck tours through Africa to Cape Town, before coming back across Canada and America.’
In any other man she would have thought she heard wistfulness in his tone, but it was impossible to think of this man as being wistful. He exuded a self-confidence so imposing and uncompromising that she was more than a little threatened by it.
‘Sounds fun,’ she said neutrally. He had changed from his farm clothes into a pair of well-tailored trousers and a fine cotton shirt. Few men in New Zealand had their shirts made for them, but Minerva was positive that this one had been cut especially to fit his broad shoulders and muscular arms.
It was difficult to imagine the man who lived in this house and wore those clothes backpacking around the world. She flicked a swift glance at his face. The angular features and straight mouth spoke of strength and uncompromising purpose. No matter how hard she tried she couldn’t envisage him as a carefree youth.
Her gaze dropped to her teacup as she was undermined by a sense of dislocation, a shifting of the foundations. Nick Peveril, with his impassive face and deliberate, guarded composure, bore no resemblance at all to the man of whom Stella had written so ecstatically.
When he spoke again Minerva’s cup rattled in its saucer. Watch what you’re doing, she scolded herself, setting it down on the table by her chair.
‘How long are you home for?’ he asked.
‘A month.’ A substantial bonus meant she could afford a lazy summer, but her plans for the future were going to need money, so it would join the rest of her savings.
‘And then what? Stella seemed to think that you intended to settle permanently here sooner or later.’
She shrugged. ‘One of these days I’m going to come back and open my own restaurant, but for the moment I like my life. I’ve been offered a job in the British Virgin Islands with an expatriate family.’
When he smiled one corner of his mouth lifted higher than the other. ‘You’ll be able to work on your tan,’ he said lightly. Something flickered in the frosty brilliance of his eyes.
It made her distinctly uneasy. In a voice that could have starched a dozen tablecloths, she said, ‘The hole in the ozone layer has put an end to roasting in the sun, but I’m looking forward to it. I believe it’s extraordinarily beautiful there.’ Before she had time to wonder whether it was sensible, she added, ‘Stella and I used to promise each other that one day we’d go to the Caribbean and drink rum and play in a steel band.’
‘She wouldn’t have liked it, unless you stayed in a luxury hotel. For some strange reason I expected you to look like her,’ he said, pale eyes opaque. ‘Stupid, I know. You don’t share even a parent in common, do you?’
‘No, we’re a blended family. Stella and I were no relation at all, really, which is why she was beautiful and I’m not.’
The minute she said it she knew it was a mistake. It sounded like a cheap appeal for compliments. She opened her mouth to qualify the statement, then closed it firmly.
‘Yes, she was,’ he said. ‘But you’re very attractive too, as I’m sure you know.’
He wasn’t so crass as to look her over, but an undertone in the enigmatic voice made her aware that he had noticed the long, coltish legs in her jeans, the gentle curves of her breasts, and the indentation of her narrow waist.
A kind of outrage, mingled with a suspicious warmth, sent colour scudding through her white skin. Not for the first time she wished she had Stella’s even tan. For her stepsister a blush had merely been a slight deepening of the apricot skin over her cheekbones; for Minerva it was an embarrassing betrayal.
She strove for objectivity. Men did notice women—it was a simple fact of life. They enjoyed with their eyes. Women did, too.
After all, she had observed that because his mouth was intriguingly lop-sided each rare smile hinted of wryness. She’d registered the thick black lashes and dark brows surrounding those amazingly limpid, guarded eyes, and now that his hair was drying she’d realised it was the colour of manuka honey, a warm, rich amber with golden highlights set there by the northern sun.
She was
