waters—that’s how nervous I get.’
His lips quirked and his eyes glinted with amusement. ‘You don’t show it.’
‘Perhaps not. I feel it all the same. The funny thing is, as soon as the cameras are rolling, I lose it. But—’ she shrugged her slim shoulders ‘—I am cautious by nature. So, before I make any commitment, how dangerously are you asking me to live at the moment, Nick Hunter?’ Her own eyes were a cool, amused blue.
His changed to reflect a glimmer of surprise but he was not to know that Skye had learnt a thing or two in the preceding hour. She had accurately perceived that he very quickly divested himself of women who could not hide their admiration of him.
‘All I had in mind was you doing something you’ve done for me before—cooking me dinner,’ he said. ‘Which was not dangerous at all, if you remember. And I happen to have a refrigerator stuffed with food—but you know how hopeless I am in the kitchen,’ he added helplessly.
Skye’s lips twitched. ‘Ah. But I was paid for that.’
‘Then could you consider this?’ He glanced around. ‘Little bites of food on toothpicks always leave me the same way. Starving,’ he said simply.
‘You could go to a restaurant,’ she pointed out.
‘When I know the best cook in town? That would be sacrilege,’ he said softly. ‘But, I give you my word, I’ll deliver you home all safe and sound.’
Skye hesitated but she couldn’t help laughing at his expression, which was an entirely false mixture of pleading and mournfulness. ‘OK.’ She shrugged. ‘I don’t know why I don’t always go out armed with an apron!’
‘This…’ he paused, looking somewhat put out ‘…happens to you often?’
‘Being lured to a man’s house under the guise of cooking him dinner? All the time.’
‘So I wasn’t being in the least original?’
‘Not one bit!’ she said blithely.
‘Bloody hell,’ he murmured. ‘I must be slipping. How often do you accept?’
‘Very seldom,’ she said seriously. ‘But you did boost my ratings the last time I cooked for you so I owe you one, Mr Hunter. Besides, I’d like to use you in my next cookbook.’
He looked comically put out this time. ‘As in how, Ms Belmont?’
‘As in what your favourite foods are, particularly with an international flavour, including favourite little restaurants you might have around the world. You can tell me all about it while I cook.’ She watched him serenely.
‘So this is very definitely a quid pro quo?’
‘Definitely.’
He shook his head. ‘You’re a hard woman, Skye. OK, I accept. Let’s go.’ Once more he took her hand and led her out.
For the next three months she often cooked him meals, although they never made any prior arrangements. He would simply ring her at work or at home and if she wasn’t free he’d say, ‘Bad luck. Maybe next time?’ And she’d agree without giving any intimation that it was getting harder and harder for her to be just a good friend of Nick Hunter’s.
Harder, also, to live with the thought that the last thing he would respond to was being pinned down in any way. It struck her, too, that the Skye Belmont she was presenting to Nick Hunter was her public persona, not the true girl who lurked beneath the surface and was a more serious, not-necessarily-admiring-of-the-worldliness-of-his-world girl.
Then things changed dramatically one evening. She was cooking roast beef for him. In the act of beating the ingredients for Yorkshire pudding at the same time as she was telling him about her last show, which had been a behind-the-scenes disaster, she realized he was unusually quiet.
‘Am I talking too much?’ she said lightly. ‘I guess you had to be there to see the humour of it. Nothing came out right.’
He was sitting at the kitchen counter twirling a glass of wine in his fingers. The sun was setting, flooding his beautiful apartment and its views of Sydney Harbour with a golden radiance. And he didn’t answer but only allowed his dark gaze to drift over her in a way it had once before. This time there was something darker about it, though.
She stopped beating. ‘Nick—is something wrong?’ she asked uncertainly.
He smiled but with an effort. ‘You could say so.’
‘What? Tell me?’ she whispered.
‘I don’t know if this is on your agenda, Skye, but—even watching you make Yorkshire pudding is driving me out of my mind.’
She blinked, her mouth fell open and all she could say hoarsely was, ‘Why?’
‘Because I’d very much like to be kissing you.’
Several reactions hit her. Relief, disbelief and a sudden inner trembling. ‘Oh. I thought it was something serious.’ She stopped and blushed as he looked at her ironically. ‘Well, you know what I mean—’
‘No. I’m not at all sure what you mean, Skye.’
Her hands were all floury and she rubbed her forehead agitatedly, transferring some of the flour to it. ‘I was thinking of an illness or… I didn’t think you saw me like that. That’s what I meant.’
‘Then we shared the same dilemma.’
Skye sat down on a stool rather abruptly. ‘Surely— I wasn’t that good at covering it up?’
A fleeting frown came to his dark eyes. ‘You tried to?’ he hazarded.
‘Oh, yes,’ she said simply. ‘I learnt my lesson the first time you took me to lunch.’
He got up and came round the counter so he was standing in front of her and he put his fingers beneath her chin to tilt it so he could look into her eyes. ‘Didn’t that put you off?’ he asked sombrely, not attempting to deny the charge.
‘Unfortunately, the other thing about you is that you’re such fun to be with and I really enjoy your company.’
‘We’ve never been anywhere or done anything other—than this.’ He glanced around the kitchen.
She shrugged slightly.
‘So—may I kiss you, Skye Belmont?’
A faint smile trembled on her lips. ‘You know, Nick, I didn’t think you were the kind who waited to be asked.’
‘There could be a lot of things you don’t know about me, Skye,’ he said, and took her in his arms.
How true, Skye thought, lying on her bed. Things that he had never intended her to get to know, either. But the sheer magic of being kissed by and intimate with Nick Hunter had claimed all her senses, including her common sense.
It had been a revelation. He’d made
