been cruel but helpful? That thought brought with it a fierce, baseless anger that startled him.
He asked, ‘What would you like to drink?’
After a cool glance she said, ‘Wine would be great, thank you.’
To her surprise, he opened a bottle of champagne-style wine. Pouring it for her, he said, ‘This is from the Hawkes Bay, a big wine-growing region. Like Aura and Flint, most Northland vineyards tend to concentrate on growing for red wines. Some vintners buy in grapes to make their white wines. In the far north there are several vineyards, some of them with magnificent grounds. I’ve included them in a list of places you might find interesting. You can look at it after dinner, and tomorrow I’ll contact any you’d like to see.’
She took a sip of the liquid. Alex watched the curve of her artfully coloured mouth as it kissed the glass, and felt his gut tighten. Cynically he thought that for someone who’d never put a foot wrong, never figured in any scandal, she certainly knew all the tricks.
And she kissed like a houri. She’d learned that from someone. Or several someones. So his Princess was nothing if not discreet.
For no reason—because she wasn’t his Princess—the thought burned like acid.
Serina set her champagne flute down and met his eyes, her gaze level. ‘You’re being very helpful,’ she said, ‘but I’d feel better if I contacted them.’
‘People here know who I am,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘Like it or not, it does make a difference.’
A steely note in her voice, she answered, ‘I realise that, and of course I’m grateful for the offer, but I’m not accustomed to being sponsored.’
Alex had researched her work, concentrating on places he’d visited himself, and been surprised to discover she had a rare skill for evoking the soul of a garden. For a reason he wasn’t going to inspect too deeply, her refusal to accept his help sparked his temper.
‘With respect,’ he said sardonically, ‘I suggest you stop cutting off your nose to spite your face. This is New Zealand, and although I’m sure the magazine you write for has some readers here, it’s probably not enough to make you famous.’
‘I didn’t—’
He overrode her protest. ‘It will be much easier for you if I do stand sponsor to you—and at least the owners will know you won’t be casing their properties for a future robbery.’
Her head came up proudly. ‘As if that’s likely to happen,’ she retorted scornfully, her eyes sparkling with outrage.
Alex shrugged. ‘New Zealand has a low level of crime, but we’re not free of it. You can’t blame people if they are a little suspicious of an unknown person who not only asks if she can come and check out their properties, but brings a camera with her.’
She frowned, and before she could speak he went on levelly, ‘In your world, Princess, you’re very well known. Here, you’re not. I am.’
He waited while she absorbed that, watching her frown smooth out and her thoughtful nod.
Slowly, she said, ‘Of course. I didn’t mean to be presumptuous.’ She looked at him. ‘I’ve just realised I have a confession to make—I took photographs of your garden and sent them to my editor as an indication of what gardens are like here. I’m sorry, I’ll get her to delete them.’
Irritated, he said shortly, ‘Just make sure she doesn’t publish them.’
‘She knows they’re not for publication.’
She took another sip of her wine and this time he watched deliberately, noting the way she tasted—as though she was an expert.
Perfectly trained, he thought, and wondered why, when he wanted so urgently to kiss the wine from her lips, to feel the soft meltdown of her body against his, all he could do was search for flaws. Just looking at her was enough to scramble his brain, and he couldn’t afford to allow this unusual desire to overwhelm his common sense.
Only an hour ago he’d spoken to Gerd on the secure line and discovered that, although Doran seemed more than happy to explore the delights of Vanuatu wrecks and reefs, his band of gaming companions had turned up in one of the coastal towns in the border region of Carathia and Montevel.
Ostensibly on holiday.
Had Princess Serina made the somewhat surprising decision to come to New Zealand in order to throw any suspicious person off the scent? He had every reason to believe her brother had gone to Vanuatu for just that reason. That afternoon Gerd had told Alex that the security man he’d sent to infiltrate the group had been overeager and raised suspicion. Alex had ordered the plant’s immediate withdrawal, but from now on they’d have to work on the assumption that the group knew they’d been infiltrated.
How deeply in their confidence was Serina? She’d used her email that afternoon to send photographs. Had she contacted Doran, or the plotters?
He glanced down at her face, as serene as her name, beautiful and remote and desirably tempting.
Her explanation of her brother’s activities had been almost believable, but she hadn’t been persuasive enough to quite convince him. According to his man, there was an excellent chance she was fully aware of what was going on.
With the spy gone, he and Gerd had no other way of finding out anything more but, from what they’d learned, the plotters were getting ready to make a move.
Perhaps it was time to find out whether Serina was ready to sacrifice her body to the cause.
He forced back an instinctive distaste. Lives would be lost if the group were allowed to proceed and, although he had no sympathy for those who believed the end justified the means, he suspected this was one of the times when it really did.
Besides, although Serina was extremely aware of him, she was no fluttering ingénue, hoping that an affair would lead to marriage. Her father, a notorious libertine, would have taught her that such things were transitory.
And he wouldn’t be faking. From the moment he’d met her, he’d found the aloof Princess Serina very alluring and he was enjoying crossing swords with her.
Plenty of very satisfactory relationships, he thought cynically, had been built on much more shaky grounds than that.
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