your favourite dish?”
“Honey prawns,” came the decisive reply.
“Very tasty,” he agreed with relish. “I’m sure Vikki would do some for you if your mother would like to bring you with her to my place for dinner this evening.”
That was a hit below the belt, involving her daughter directly in the invitation. He’d never done it before and Christabel churned with resentment at the unfair ploy as both of them turned their gaze expectantly to her, Alicia’s expression artlessly pleased at the promise of a treat.
“Can we go, Mummy?”
“I don’t think so,” she answered tersely.
The curt refusal bewildered her daughter, prompting the question, “Why not?”
“Yes...why not?” Jared echoed, maintaining a pleasantly invitational tone.
Christabel glared at him, hating the dilemma he put her in. “Alicia eats early. She’s in bed at eight o’clock.”
“No problem.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s almost five now. If you come at six...”
“Stop it, Jared!” she burst out.
Slowly he raised his gaze to hers again and there was nothing the least bit affable in his eyes. They burned with the need to rip away every barrier she put up between them. They seared her soul with a truth she could not deny, the sure knowledge of the attraction she felt...the same attraction he felt.
“Some things can’t be stopped, Christabel,” he said quietly.
And she had no answer to that starkly honest statement.
Tension gripped her entire body as she fought the deeply personal needs he evoked. She wanted this man. She wanted to experience all of him so badly, it was like being torn in two, the rational part of her mind insisting an intimate involvement with him would spill over to an attachment with Alicia and the money men would never allow it, not in the long run, so it could only end in wretched torment.
Jared made one of his graceful gestures, the long artistic fingers opening in a curve of giving as he softly added, “Of course, the choice is yours.”
What would it be like to have those fingers caressing her, making her feel loved and cherished and precious to him? Her stomach clenched in a savage desire to know how it would be...the pleasure King making love to her...to have this, just for herself, for at least a little time. Her heart drummed a vehement plea to make her own choice—a choice that shut out every other factor that had ruled her life for so many years.
“I’d like to go, Mummy.”
And why shouldn’t she? Christabel thought fiercely, looking at her daughter with an aching well of love. Why shouldn’t Alicia enjoy the company of a man who didn’t see her as a pawn in a monstrous web of greed? To add something more normal to their life here in Broome...why not?
“Then we shall go,” she answered decisively, defying all the gremlins that rode on her shoulders.
Alicia clapped her hands in delight and lifted a gleeful face to Jared. “Honey prawns,” she archly reminded him.
He laughed at her, his whole body visibly relaxing as he assured her, “I never go back on promises. Honey prawns there shall be.”
“And chocolate chip ice-cream?”
“Alicia!” Christabel chided.
“I was just asking, Mummy,” came the hasty justification.
“You know it’s not good manners.”
A doleful sigh. “Sorry.”
Christabel sighed, too, afraid she was committing an act of utter madness on an impulse she would inevitably regret, yet when she lifted her gaze to Jared’s and saw the happy warmth in his eyes, she couldn’t bring herself to care about the consequences of her decision.
“Six-thirty would suit us better,” she said, wanting time to dry her hair, time to feel all a woman’s anticipation in the indulgence of getting ready for an evening with a man who truly wanted only her, not her connection to obscene wealth.
“Fine by me.” He smiled the words, a smile that curled Christabel’s toes.
“Thank you.” Her voice came out husky, furred by emotions rushing free from the strictures of years of discipline.
“My pleasure,” he replied, then transferred his smile to Alicia. “Chocolate chip?”
Her hands flew up into a fervent wish grasp. “Please?”
“I’ll get some on my way home.”
“Oh, thank you!”
He lifted his hand in a farewell salute to both of them, then strolled away with the air of a man who had come and conquered and the world was now his oyster.
Except it wasn’t, Christabel thought ruefully. Only this little bit of the world belonged to Jared King. She remembered her visit to the great outback cattle station owned by his family, a vast land holding on the other side of the Kimberly from Broome. King’s Eden, it was called. She’d been amongst the contingent of the family’s employees in the pearl industry, invited to Nathan King’s wedding, which had been an eerily soul-stirring ceremony, initiated by Aborigines playing didgeridoos.
She was glad she’d gone, glad she’d experienced such a unique insight into the traditions of the outback and the feeling of an ancient, timeless heritage that was tied to the land. Not the wealth made from it. The land itself. King’s Eden.
Would she prove to be a serpent in Jared’s Eden? The carrier of evil that would poison his piece of paradise?
Sooner or later they would come—the powerful men in suits—and they’d destroy the normality of the life she’d established here, destroy whatever natural connections she’d made with people.
Christabel shivered.
Some things can’t be stopped.
Jared’s words...but they applied to much more than their feelings for each other. Still, for a little while...a defiant recklessness surged over the torturous fears...she would have what she wanted. And so would Jared.
It was his choice, too.
FEAR...because he’d been wearing a suit.
Jared mulled over that information as he drove back to the main shopping area to buy the chocolate chip ice-cream. It was another piece of the jigsaw he’d been fitting together ever since he’d met Christabel Valdez. The more he thought about it, the more it felt like a key piece.
His unexpected apparel had represented some kind of threat to her peace of mind. Was the suit simply an image that evoked bad memories, or was there more to it than that, a fear of someone who
