if anything happened to me, you might not get what you want.”
The second the words were out Elena felt ashamed. As ruffled and annoyed as she was by Nick, she didn’t for a moment think he was that cold and calculating. If the assertion that her aunt and Stefano Messena had been having an affair when they were killed in a car accident, the same night she and Nick had made love, had hurt the Lyon family, it went without saying it had hurt the Messenas.
Her jaw tightened at Nick’s lightning perusal of her olive-green dress and black cotton jacket, and the way his attention lingered on her one and only vice, her shoes. The clothes were designer labels and expensive, but she was suddenly intensely aware that the dark colors in the middle of summer looked dull and boring. Unlike the shoes, which were strappy and outrageously feminine, the crisp tailoring and straight lines were more about hiding curves than displaying them.
Nick’s gaze rested briefly on her mouth. “And what is it, exactly, that you think I want?”
A question that shouldn’t be loaded, but suddenly was, made her breath hitch in her throat. Although the thought that Nick could possibly have any personal interest in her now was ridiculous.
And she was absolutely not interested in him. Despite the hot looks, GQ style and killer charm, he had a blunt, masculine toughness that had always set her subtly on edge.
Although she could never allow herself to forget that, through some weird alchemy, that same quality had once cut through her defenses like a hot knife through butter. “I already told you I have no idea where your lost jewelry is.”
“But you are on your way back to Dolphin Bay.”
“I have better reasons for going there than looking for your mythical lost ring.” She lifted her chin, abruptly certain that Nick’s search for the ring, something that the female members of his family could have done, was a ploy and that he had another, shadowy, agenda. Although what that agenda could be, she had no clue. “More to the point, how did you find out I would be here?”
“You haven’t been returning my calls, so I rang Zane.”
Her annoyance level increased another notch that Nick had intruded even further into her life by calling his cousin, and her boss, Zane Atraeus. “Zane is in Florida.”
Nick’s expression didn’t alter. “Like I said, you haven’t returned my calls, and you didn’t turn up for our...appointment in Sydney. You left me no choice.”
Elena’s cheeks warmed at his blunt reference to the fact that she had failed to meet him for what had sounded more like a date than a business meeting at one of Sydney’s most expensive restaurants.
She had never in her life missed an appointment, or even been late for one, but the idea that Nick’s father had paid her aunt off with jewelry, the standard currency for a mistress, had been deeply insulting. “I told you over the phone, I don’t believe your father gave Aunt Katherine anything. Why would he?”
His expression was oddly neutral. “They were having an affair.”
She made an effort to control the automatic fury that gripped her at Nick’s stubborn belief that her aunt had conducted a sneaky, underhanded affair with her employer.
Quite apart from the fact that her aunt had considered Nick’s mother, Luisa Messena, to be her friend, she had been a woman of strong morals. And there was one powerful, abiding reason her aunt would never have gotten involved with Stefano, or any man.
Thirty years ago Katherine Lyon had fallen in love, completely, irrevocably, and he had died.
In the Lyon family the legend of Katherine’s unrequited love was well respected. Lyons were not known for being either passionate or tempestuous. They were more the steady-as-you-go type of people who tended to choose solid careers and marry sensibly. In days gone by they had been admirable servants and thrifty farmers. Unrequited love, or love lost in any form was a novelty.
Elena didn’t know who Aunt Katherine’s lover had been because her aunt had point-blank refused to talk about him. All she knew was that her aunt, an exceptionally beautiful woman, had remained determinedly single and had stated she would never love again.
Elena’s fingers tightened on the strap of her handbag. “No. They were not having an affair. Lyon women are not, and never have been, the playthings of wealthy men.”
Cutler cleared his throat. “I see you two have met.”
Elena turned her gaze on the real estate agent, who was a small, balding man with a precise manner. There were no confusing shades with Cutler, which was why she had chosen him. He was factual and efficient, attributes she could relate to in her own career as a personal assistant.
Although, it seemed the instant she had any contact with Nick Messena, her usual calm, methodical process evaporated and she found herself plunged into the kind of passionate emotional excess that was distinctly un-Lyon-like. “We’re acquainted.”
Nick’s brows jerked together. “I seem to remember it was a little more than that.”
Elena gave up the attempt to avoid the confrontation Nick was angling for and glared back. “If you were a gentleman, you wouldn’t mention the past.”
“As I recall from a previous conversation, I’m no gentleman.”
Elena blushed at his reference to the accusation she had flung at him during a chance meeting in Dolphin Bay, a couple of months after their one night together. That he was arrogant and ruthless and emotionally incapable of sustaining a relationship. “I don’t see why I should help drag the Lyon name through the mud one more time just because you want to get your hands on some clunky old piece of jewelry you’ve managed to lose.”
His brows jerked together. “I didn’t lose anything, and you already know that the missing piece of jewelry is a diamond ring.”
And knowing the Messena family and their extreme wealth, the diamond would be large, breathtakingly expensive and probably old. “Aunt Katherine would have zero interest in a diamond ring. In case you didn’t notice, she was something of a feminist and she almost never wore jewelry. Besides, if she was having a secret affair with your father, what possible interest would she have in wearing an expensive ring that proclaimed that fact?”
Nick’s gaze cooled perceptibly. “Granted. Nevertheless, the ring is gone.”
Cutler cleared his throat and gestured that she take a seat. “Mr. Messena has expressed interest in the villa you’ve inherited in Dolphin Bay. He proposed a swap with one of his new waterfront apartments here in Auckland, which is why I invited him to this meeting.”
Elena suppressed her knee-jerk desire to say that, as keen as she was to sell, there was no way she would part with the villa to a Messena. “That’s very interesting,” she said smoothly. “But at the moment I’m keeping my options open.”
Still terminally on edge at Nick’s brooding presence, Elena debated stalking out of the office in protest at the way her meeting with Cutler had been hijacked.
In the end, feeling a little sorry for Cutler, she sat in one of the comfortable leather seats he had indicated. She soothed herself with the thought that if Nick Messena, the quintessential entrepreneur and businessman, wanted to make her an offer, then she should hear it, even if only for the pleasure of saying no.
Instead
