asymmetrical mouth was starkly plain—her dark brown hair, tumbling in careless waves to her shoulders, contrasting with a complexion as pale and waxy as the daphne blooms that she held in her hand. The bright red jumper that her mother had knitted the previous winter further accentuated her pallor, and snugly defined full breasts which trembled as if she had just run a marathon. With her left eyebrow twitching above the thin amber curve of her round spectacle frame, she looked like a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
Which was exactly how she felt.
The cloying sweetness of daphne clogged her nostrils as she paced. Why on earth was Susie taking so long to get rid of him?
A vivid picture of golden male confidence sketched itself in her head and she halted on a silent moan. What if Susie couldn’t handle it?
What if he chose to flex his insufferable arrogance and argue?
What if he exercised his brutal charm and insinuated himself over the threshold?
And what if his being here wasn’t simply a rotten piece of malignant bad luck?
She stared out at the smouldering mountain, so busy agonising over the possibilities that she didn’t notice the door to the hall swinging open until a squeak of the hinges made her stiffen.
‘Playing hard to get, Mrs Jordan?’
Jennifer’s quickened breathing hitched to an uneven stop as she slowly turned around, to be impaled by green-gold eyes which were every bit as cruelly condemning as she remembered. But now their contemptuous coldness was super-heated to a vaporous fury that made her wish he hadn’t taken off his sunglasses.
Her face was on fire while her hands and feet felt like lumps of ice. Black dots prickled across her vision and her tongue suddenly felt too big for her dry mouth.
‘R-Raphael. What a surprise. Wh-what are you doing here?’ she managed threadily.
Raphael Jordan advanced into the spacious room, shrinking it to the size of a jail cell, his cynical smile oozing pure menace.
‘What do you think, Mrs Jordan?’
She swallowed, trying to work moisture into the dryness of her throat, wishing that he would stop sneering her name in that ominously insulting fashion.
‘I don’t know,’ she said, meaning she didn’t dare speculate. ‘Are—are you just passing through on holiday?’
He bludgeoned aside the frail hope. ‘Not a holiday—a hunting expedition.’ He kept on moving, forcing her to back up until her calves hit the dressing table drawers. ‘For certain very valuable—and very elusive—kiwis...’
Jennifer’s stomach lurched sickeningly at his use of the plural. ‘K-kiwis are a fully protected bird,’ she stuttered stupidly. Although she knew he was only just over six feet, he seemed to loom for ever. ‘It’s against the law for people to hunt them.’
His feral gaze gloated over her white face. ‘In their native habitat, yes, but what happens to greedy kiwis who venture where they don’t belong and violate the laws of nature...? I’d say that makes them fair game, wouldn’t you?’
He made no attempt to touch her, yet she sensed his straining muscles yearning to do physical violence. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears, her eyes sliding away from his grim expression to search the empty doorway behind him.
‘Where’s Susie? What did you say to get her to let you in?’ Her cold hands were suddenly as clammy as her brow and her voice sank to a horrified whisper. ‘What have you told her?’
His shrug was a ripple of expensive leather. ‘About our relationship? How about the truth?’
She fought against the bile rising in her throat. ‘What truth?’
His full-lipped smile was cruelly taunting.
‘Why, that you’re my father’s wife, pregnant with my child!’
The heavy vase slipped through Jennifer’s nerveless fingers, smashing to pieces on the polished hardwood floor as she tumbled headlong into the smothering darkness.
CHAPTER TWO
‘JEN? Hello! Are you in there?’
Jennifer’s eyes fluttered open to find Susie’s round face filling her vision.
‘Thank goodness! How do you feel?’
Jennifer moistened her dry lips, momentarily disorientated by the discovery that she was lying flat on the living room couch, with Susie kneeling on the floor beside her.
‘OK...I think,’ she wavered, remembering her awful anxiety dream. Had she been taking a nap? Was her guilt now going to pursue her even into sleep? ‘What happened?’
‘You fainted. Switched out like a light, apparently. Luckily your husband caught you before you fell face first into all that glass.’
‘Husband?’ she echoed feebly.
‘I guess you were too busy feeling rotten to really look at our visitor, huh?’ Susie suggested with a wry grin. ‘I felt horribly embarrassed when I found out who I was giving the bum’s rush to, but fortunately Rafe seems a forgiving kind of guy.’
‘My husband?’ Jennifer struggled up onto her elbows, her whirling head causing her to sink back against the padded arm of the couch. ‘Rafe?’
‘Yeah—he said not to worry about it, that he knew you weren’t expecting him. He wanted to surprise you, but I suppose it wasn’t such a hot idea when you were feeling so wonky...’
So it hadn’t been a dream!
‘He’s really here?’ Jennifer cast a hunted look around the room, her eyes skipping over the comfortable, well-used furniture. Everything was still fuzzy around the edges. She groped at her face.
‘My glasses—where are my glasses?’ She needed a barrier, however flimsy and transparent, to hide behind.
Susie picked them up off the coffee table and handed them to her to fumble on.
‘Now, don’t fret,’ she said, misunderstanding Jennifer’s panic. ‘He’ll be back in a moment. I got him to carry you out here because your clothes got splashed and I knew you wouldn’t want the Carters’ bedclothes all damp when you’d just made all the beds. He’s just in the kitchen getting you a drink. See, here he is back!’
Susie scrambled to her feet to allow the tall, whipcord-lean man to weave around the coffee table and perch sideways on the broad couch. He wedged his right hip against Jennifer’s side as he braced one arm on the cushioned back and leaned over to offer her a sip from the glass of water in his other hand, effectively caging in her body with his chest.
Satisfied that her employer was in good hands, Susie backed away. ‘I’m going to leave for home before this volcanic fog gets any worse, but don’t worry about that mess in the Carters’ room, Jen, I’ ll clean it up for you before I go. That way you two can just concentrate on each other...’
‘Thanks, Susie.’
