Good worlds. Plenty of people would have said she was mad to give that up. Sometimes she thought so herself. Although in the end the choice had been out of her hands. “That isn’t what I want anymore,” she said.
“And this is?” Kier’s unsparing glance swept again around the confined space. He shook his head. “I don’t believe it,” he said flatly.
She hadn’t cluttered the small rooms with furniture and decorations but she thought the cottage looked fine. “How did you find me?” she asked, deflecting him.
“I saw some of your jewelry at the airport when I flew into Auckland for a business meeting, and…when that was over I had some time to spare.” His face, his voice, were studied, and lowered lids almost hid his eyes as he ran a thumb over the rim of his cup.
So it had been a fluke, a casual happenstance followed up on a whim.
Kier hadn’t been searching for her all this time. A small, futile spark of wild hope died, leaving the taste of ashes in her mouth.
“They surely didn’t give you my address?” The airport’s high-priced souvenir shops were a logical target market for her handmade jewelry, ticketed with her name and logo. She hadn’t thought of Kier flying in from Sydney someday and seeing it for sale.
“It wasn’t as easy as that. But it gave me a starting point.”
Whatever had led him to do it—curiosity? a sense of unfinished business?—he wouldn’t have given up once he’d decided to explore the chance discovery. Determination and acuity, plus an instinct for sound investment, had brought Kier Remington success, respect, wealth. And a lot more besides. “Well, now you’ve found me,” Shahna said. “What do you want?”
“To find out how you are,” he said, “and what made you leave.”
“I’m fine. And I left because I wanted to.”
If she hadn’t known him so well she might have missed the flexing of a muscle in his cheek as he clenched his teeth. Kier had a formidable temper that he usually kept rigidly in check. “That’s no answer,” he rasped. “Why don’t you tell me the truth?”
The truth? Where would she start? “The truth is,” she said, “I’d had enough, of everything. Sydney, the rat race.” Of living life on the surface, of a relationship that wasn’t going anywhere, of hiding my feelings because you didn’t want to know about them, of being afraid that you’d find out and end it, cut me from your life as ruthlessly as you had every other woman who shared it for a brief time. “I needed…wanted something different.” She wouldn’t go into detail about how the realization had been forced upon her.
“You’ve certainly got that.”
She had, by removing herself not only from Kier’s byronic spell, but from the world of corporate images and office politics, and a social life that involved too many overcrowded occasions where the wine flowed freely and the object was not so much enjoyment as the all-important exercise of networking, everyone with an eye to the next useful contact.
Creating nature-inspired jewelry in a rural backwater was about as far from that world as one could get.
“How long,” Kier asked, “will it last?”
His cynicism raised the fine hairs on her arms in hostile reaction. “As long as I want it to,” she answered, deliberately calm. “I love this place.”
His eyes lingered a moment on a wall-hanging she’d made just for fun, driftwood and shells knotted into faded green twine hung from a discarded, moss-covered fence-post. “You live here alone?”
Shahna’s heart gave a brief lurch. Timoti and Meri hadn’t told him…?
Silently she blessed their discretion. The locals were protective of one another’s privacy. They wouldn’t have volunteered any information he hadn’t specifically asked for. “You mean, do I share it with a man?” Of course that was what he meant. “I don’t need to.”
“Taking the feminist high ground? The sisters would be proud of you,” he commented. “You never did need a man, did you, Shahna? You only let me share your bed on occasion because it was convenient.”
Her fingers closed hard around her cup as she curbed the temptation to throw it. How dare he accuse her, in that stinging tone? When he’d made it plain from the start just how he viewed their relationship.
To be fair, at that stage she had been relieved that he didn’t want to delve into her inner self, seeming content with the outer shell that was all she exposed to the world, especially to the male half of it. It was only later that she’d become greedy—needy. A dangerous state to be in, inviting heartbreak.
“Calling the kettle black?” she taunted, allowing her anger a brief release. “You didn’t need me, either. Any personable woman would have…fulfilled your needs quite adequately.”
His hand was lying on the table by his cup. She saw it curl into a fist, then relax before he answered her. “You underrate yourself,” he drawled. “You were much better than adequate.”
To her chagrin, Shahna’s cheeks burned. “Thank you,” she said, her voice brittle.
Perhaps he had actually missed her for a time. Missed the passion she’d given him, the delight he’d found in her body. As she had fiercely, dismayingly, missed his lovemaking—sometimes tender, sometimes playful, more often colored by the same driving intensity he gave to his work and to his other recreational pursuits—tennis, squash, rock climbing.
Kier had never been a team player. Even in bed his competitive spirit had surfaced, along with his desire for perfection. He had always seen to her needs before his own, and if he thought he’d failed to satisfy her completely he would make sure of it before he left her bed, or sleep overtook them both. When she took the initiative and gifted him with pleasure he would reciprocate with interest, guiding her to greater heights of physical sensation than she’d ever believed possible and leaving her sated, exhausted into a dreamy, euphoric lethargy.
Memories set her skin on fire. Hastily she lifted her cup and buried her nose in it.
She wondered whose bed Kier shared now, and suppressed a pang of jealousy. It was none of her business. And jealousy wasn’t appropriate. It never had been. They had agreed to be faithful to each other for as long their affair lasted, but she had ended it and Kier was now free to sleep with whomever he wished.
So was she, of course. And had been since she’d left him a brief note along with the key he’d given her to his Sydney apartment, and hours later boarded a flight to New Zealand.
Even if the opportunity arose again she couldn’t imagine wanting another man for a long, long time, no matter what logic told her about the normal physiology of a healthy twenty-eight-year-old woman.
Kier had carved a place in her heart despite never wanting or intending to. She had to face the fact that she’d made no such lasting mark on his. “I’m sure there was no shortage of candidates to take my place,” she said, putting down the mug.
Kier’s eyelids flickered, then shuttered his eyes so that she couldn’t read his emotions. “I’m choosy,” he told her shortly.
And cautious. After they’d met it was weeks before he asked Shahna out, months before their
