Sarah Morgan - Temporary Mistress

The open-plan living area was centred around a square fire-box enclosed in glass, capped by a stainless steel flue and flanked on three sides by long couches in vibrant dark blue, deep-cushioned and luxurious. Bifolding glass doors and windows ran the length of the house, opening out to a wide sun-drenched terrace flanked by roughcast walls smothered in a dark creeper, the outer edge of which fell away with heart-stopping suddenness into a zigzag shaped swimming pool. An aptly named infinity pool, for beyond the shimmering sheet of captive water was… nothing …striations of blue sea and sky dissolving into an indistinguishable horizon.

Nora’s scalp tightened over her throbbing skull, her whole body going rigid with alarm. ‘There’s n-no guard rail out there—’ she stuttered.

‘Yes, there is. You just can’t see it from here. There’s a strip of garden a metre and a half below the far edge of the pool, closed in by a solid balcony wall…’ Which provided safety, but no security against Nora’s soaring imagination.

Her lips parted on a soundless mew of protest but Blake had already turned her smartly in the opposite direction.

‘Don’t worry, I’ve given you one of the guest rooms at the back of the house,’ he said, his hand flat between her shoulderblades as he propelled her through an archway on the other side of the stairs and down a wide windowless hallway into a high-ceilinged room with walls of palest coffee and Persian rugs splashed across the bleached carpet.

‘See—’ he said, crossing to the bay windows and whisking back the filmy curtains to reveal the dense native bush which formed a natural screen on the other side of the glass. ‘No view whatsoever. You’re tucked right up against the slope of the hill here. If you don’t want to use the air conditioning you can switch on the ceiling fans, and there’s a home entertainment centre in that lattice-wood cabinet. Your en suite bathroom—which is minus a bathtub, by the way—is through that archway. I’m sure you’ll find everything very suitable to your needs.’

Suitable wasn’t the word which sprang immediately to mind as Nora’s jittery gaze fell on the queen-sized platform bed draped in white mosquito netting which dominated the room. Flanked by huge glazed pots sprouting luxuriant palms, the bed seemed to float above the floor on its polished wood pedestal, and behind the folds of the gauzy hangings textured silk cushions in jewelled colours and dense patterns were piled on the white bedspread, adding to the aura of exotic luxury.

Talk about Arabian Nights! Nora visualised herself languishing in sensuous abandon amidst the mounding of pillows, the silk cool against her hot skin, a temptress worthy of a sultan’s favour…a tall dark grey-eyed sultan with a hawkish face and a black frown that made everyone tremble before him—everyone, that was, but the woman who could bring him to his knees…

‘Well, what do you think?’

She blushed, tearing her mind from her silken fantasies, seeking refuge in cool flippancy.

‘What—no bars on the window?’

He let the curtains drift back into place. ‘Why should there be? I thought we’d agreed that you’re a guest here, not a prisoner.’

His innocent expression fooled neither of them. ‘You and I obviously have different definitions of the word “guest”,’ she sniffed. ‘Which reminds me—you were going to tell me why you brought me here.’

‘Of course. But why don’t I let you get settled in first?’ His grey-eyed gaze slid over her crumpled figure. ‘You might feel more disposed to relax if you change into something more casual…’

He placed the small bag he had been carrying on top of the squat wooden chest at the end of the bed—and for the first time Nora noticed the distinctive home-made tags.

‘Hey, where did you get that? That looks like mine!’

He gave a wry shrug and suspicion turned to fresh outrage as she elbowed him out of the way to unzip the lid and throw it open. A very familiar pattern of cartoon rabbits stared back up at her.

She flushed to the roots of her hair. ‘You stole my laundry!’

He shrugged, unrepentant. ‘I was being a good host. I doubt you would have wanted to spend the entire weekend in the same set of underwear.’

She was ransacking the contents, recognising several things that hadn’t been in the plundered laundry basket. ‘You went through my chest of drawers, too!’ she accused.

‘I thought you’d want a reasonable selection of your own things to wear. I know how women are about their clothes—’

‘I bet you do,’ she muttered darkly.

‘Growing up with three sisters, I could hardly help but gain an insight into the female perspective,’ he reminded her.

Her flush deepened. She doubted that his insight was solely due to sisterly influence. ‘That’s not the point. I didn’t give you permission to go into my things—’

‘Are we going to have an argument now over who first invaded whose privacy?’ he drawled.

Her anger deflated like a pricked balloon. ‘I already admitted that was a mistake,’ she said.

‘Which you’re now going to rectify by behaving like the perfect guest,’ he said smoothly.

‘My laptop’s not here—’ she realised.

‘Sorry, I must have left it down in the car—I’ll bring it up later. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to get changed myself. Meantime, feel free to explore. My room is at the opposite end of the hall.’

Was that a warning or a tacit invitation? Nora wondered with a shivery frisson that led her to close the door with a slight snap at his departing heels. Either way, her first inclination was to do the exact opposite of whatever it was he wanted.

However, she had no intention of cutting off her nose to spite her face, so she peeled off her hastily donned office battle armour and substituted an amber sleeveless T-shirt and a pair of loose white cotton shorts, both still fragrant with sunshine and washing powder, from her open bag. Then she ventured into the compact luxury of the en suite bathroom to splash water on to her face.

She nosed shamelessly into the drawers of the marble-topped vanity and found a mixture of used and new make-up and feminine toiletries of various brands. Evidence of sisters or his string of Insignificant Others? she wondered moodily.

Back in the bedroom, she couldn’t resist crawling under the voluminous mosquito netting to find out if the bed felt as gorgeous as it looked.

It did. Soft, yet resilient, the mattress sank under her testing weight. Sliding her bare toes over the nubby silk, Nora experimentally stretched out to her full length, draping limp arms over the mound of cushions and letting her tired bones melt into the welcoming depths of the downy softness. Her puffy eyelids felt as if they had little weights attached and it was an effort to keep them open. Motionless, Nora became aware of the heavy silence hanging over the house, absorbing the continuous muted roar of the ocean and transforming it into a lullaby of white noise. Perhaps if she didn’t move for a few minutes the warring factions within her body might make their fragile peace, she thought hopefully, and render her fighting fit for another round of verbal fisticuffs with Danger Man.

Her mouth curved into a bitter smile. Blake MacLeod might think that because she had let herself be temporarily swept away by his aggressive arrogance she would be putty in his hands, but she was no longer a naive soft-hearted idiot who trusted people to act with honour. No, she was a hardened cynic. From now on she would be a taker rather than a giver—smart and ruthless. And beautiful, of course…She snuggled deeper into the gratifying fantasy of herself as a voluptuous sexy femme fatale, a fascinating woman of passion and mystery, an irresistible and unconquerable challenge to men everywhere.