spent the day brooding over last night’s debacle even while he made a time-killing exploration of Auckland city and its environs, ending with a stroll on the waterfront path that curved in and out along several bays overlooked by well-kept houses wherever steep cliffs didn’t border the road.
He’d found an underwater aquarium that featured such sea creatures as huge stingrays and even medium-size sharks swimming freely behind glass above and around the visitors. A short trolley ride in a fake Antarctic section allowed them to come eye to eye with king penguins. The animals were in every way a world apart from those he was accustomed to and to which he devoted a large part of his time. Yet they were sufficiently fascinating that for a short while he’d almost forgotten the mission that had brought him to the South Pacific.
Now the sun was inching downward and the eye-watering blue of the sky over the Waitemata Harbour had gradually softened to a paler shade while he paced the thick carpet of his hotel suite. The hands of his watch crawled towards seven-thirty so slowly that he wondered if the several thousand dollars he’d paid for its world-renowned brand reliability, expensive platinum casing and flawless design had been misspent. There was still more than half an hour to his appointment with the woman who last night had inexplicably denied knowing him.
When he’d finally arrived in New Zealand after a seemingly endless flight, perhaps he shouldn’t have left the hotel as soon as he’d had a hurried shower and pulled clean clothes randomly from his bag. Jet-lagged though he was, he hadn’t been able to tolerate another night of angry anticipation mingled with regret and self-castigation—and something he refused to name as confused hope.
After all that, and despite her having appealed for his help in a way that suggested she and his son were suffering imminent if not actual penury, the woman had tried to shut the door on him!
Unable to conceal his simmering rage, he knew he had made her nervous. Although she’d mounted a valiant effort to hide that, standing up to him and threatening to call the police.
He almost smiled, recalling the defiant flash of her eyes—he hadn’t remembered she had such striking eyes, truly jade green ringed with amber—and her determined efforts to oust him from that matchbox of a home. She’d deliberately goaded him with sarcasm and insults despite her slight though very feminine build and the fact that the top of her head barely reached his chin.
When he’d silenced her attempt to scream, and blocked her escape with his body, her hair had been soft and silky against his throat and smelled of apricots with a hint of fresh lemon.
That scent had unexpectedly aroused him, as had the tantalising way her breasts rose and fell with her frightened breathing, under the scanty piece of cloth that barely covered them. He’d quickly stepped back, not wanting to add fear of rape to her perplexing reactions. It was not in his nature to terrorise women.
Admittedly last night’s confrontation had been no ordinary visit. Perhaps he could have been less impetuous, but that letter had been a bombshell, coming long after he had written off the Carnaval incident as a lapse in judgement that, fortunately, had had no serious consequences.
Why be afraid of a man she’d happily allowed to take her to an unknown destination in a foreign city to have sex when they’d only met a couple of hours before? And why deny she’d sent that letter? Any logical reason eluded him.
Unless the story had been a lie. His fists clenched and he stopped pacing to stare moodily at the harbour, now calming into a tranquil satin expanse at odds with his chaotic thoughts. If this whole thing was a fabrication, he’d wasted his time making a long, time-consuming journey at great inconvenience to himself, his business and his family.
And the woman he’d done it for deserved no respect and no consideration.
Her apartment was old and the rooms cramped, her furnishings simple, but he’d seen no sign of true poverty. He wondered if New Zealanders knew the meaning of the word.
No one was dressed in rags, and although occasional buskers performed, and a few street sellers displayed cheap jewellery or carvings, no whining beggars or persistent thin-faced children had accosted him.
Again he consulted his watch, seemingly for the hundredth time in the last hour, then left his room and took the elevator to the main entrance, where the doorman hailed him a taxi.
A couple of minutes before eight Amber’s doorbell rang in the same imperious way it had the previous night.
All day her nerves had been strung to screaming point.
She loved her job as a researcher for a film and TV production company and usually gave it her all, but today her mind had kept straying to an exotic-looking, disturbing and driven male who would be on her doorstep again that night. During a team meeting she’d realised she hadn’t heard a word for the past five or ten minutes, and the end of her ballpoint pen showed teeth marks where she’d been absently chewing on it.
And Azzie had been totally immovable about joining her tonight, leaving Amber to deal with the formidable Venezuelan on her own.
At the sound of the doorbell, she finished tying the white-and-green wraparound skirt that she’d teamed with a sleeveless white lawn top fastened with tiny pearl buttons. She slipped her feet into wedge-heeled casual shoes that gave her a few extra inches, and hastily pinned her hair into a knot while walking to the door.
The man who stood there was as striking as she remembered, but now he wore dark trousers, a cream shirt open at the collar, and a light, flecked cream jacket. The barely contained fury of last night had abated. He looked rigidly contained and rather chilly when she stepped back and said, “Come in, señor.”
His black brows lifted a fraction as he stepped into the hallway. “So formal,” he said, “after having my baby?”
Amber bit her lip. “We…we can’t talk here.” She gestured towards the living room and he nodded, then placed a hand lightly on her waist, guiding her into the room ahead of him. A startling quiver of sexual awareness made her move quickly away from him to one of the armchairs, but she remained standing. Trying to match his self-possession, she offered, “Can I get you a coffee or something?”
“I did not come here for coffee. Please sit down.”
Not expressing her resentment at being told to sit down in her own living room, she perched on the edge of one of the armchairs and waited while he took the opposite one.
Figuring that getting in first was the best plan of attack, Amber broke into speech. “I’m sorry you came all this way for nothing, but that letter was a mistake. I—”
“So you admit writing it?”
“It should never have been sent,” she said, choosing her words as if picking her way through a minefield. “I’m sorry if it misled you.”
His lips tightened, and for a moment she thought she saw disappointment in his eyes. “Misled me?” he said, and now she could see nothing in the dark depths but condemnation.
Her fingers clasped tightly together against a childish urge to cross them behind her back, she said, “The letter didn’t say the baby was yours. Did it?” she added, trying to sound authoritative.
“The implication—” he started to say before she hurried on.
“I’m sorry if it wasn’t clear, but it was written in haste and…and a silly panic.
