Daphne Clair - Reckless Engagement

“I had the time,” Katrien said, not knowing how to deal with this. She looked away, clasped and unclasped her hands, and finally said, “I wanted to help.”

“I’m…grateful.” Zachary paused, took a couple of labored breaths. “Only a bit…confused.”

“Yes, I—” Where did she start explaining?

“Must be the…hypothermia.” He drew a struggling breath. “Along with…everything else…seem to be suffering…a bit of amnesia. I love you, Katrien…but…when did we get engaged?”

DAPHNE CLAIR lives in subtropical New Zealand, with her Dutch-born husband. They have five children. At eight years old she embarked on her first novel, about taming a tiger. This epic never reached a publisher, but metamorphosed male tigers still prowl the pages of her romances. She has won literary prizes for short stories and nonfiction, and has also published poetry. As Laurey Bright she writes for Silhouette.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE man of her dreams.

She knew him. Knew him in the abrupt tightness of her breath, and in the hot quicksilver that had suddenly replaced her bones, so that her body seemed held together by nothing but the startling tension that suffused it.

Across the big high-ceilinged room, filled with people holding glasses of wine and restlessly chattering, the man’s head lifted as though he’d felt the concentration of her stare, and his eyes met hers.

A dark brow lifted in amused enquiry, and a hint of masculine speculation entered fathomless sea-green eyes. The hard lines of his mouth took on a subtle curve.

‘Katie?’ Callum touched Katrien’s arm, and she flinched. ‘Katie?’

Her eyes ached. She blinked, moistening them. ‘Sorry. I was thinking.’ Her fiancé’s familiar features and perfectly groomed sandy hair, and the kind blue eyes peering worriedly into her clear silver-grey ones, seemed faraway, in another dimension.

The stranger’s hair, almost as black as his decisive brows, was carelessly cut, showing a tendency to curl onto the collar of his dinner suit. He stood with a hand thrust into a trouser pocket, his stance one of casual ease, and yet he didn’t seem to belong in this elegant gathering. Perhaps it was because he was so big—broad in the shoulders and tall.

‘I’ll get you a drink,’ Callum offered, steering Katrien further into the crowd. He beckoned a passing waiter and took two glasses from the silver tray the man proffered. ‘Here, you look as though you need it.’ As her hand closed about the glass, Callum worried, ‘You haven’t really got over that flu, have you? You’ve lost weight.’ He touched a strand of the thick, russet-lit hair that lay on her bared shoulders, and smoothed it back from her cheek.

Katrien made her lips move into a smile. ‘I’m fine, really.’ She took a sip of the wine, cool and dry to her tongue. And smiled again. ‘Models are supposed to be thin.’

Callum smiled back, making an intimacy of it. ‘I don’t want you too thin.’ He raised his glass at her before drinking from it. ‘To us…our future.’

An inexplicable panic fluttered about her heart. Then a couple they knew swooped on them, and while the man clapped Callum on the shoulder the woman demanded to see her ring.

Katrien obligingly held out her left hand, regarding the large diamond flanked by two smaller ones with disturbing detachment, almost as though she hadn’t been there when Callum had plucked it from the jeweller’s tray and smoothed it onto her finger, declaring with satisfaction that it fitted so perfectly it might have been made for her.

She tried to recapture the glow of warmth that she’d felt then, scarcely two weeks ago. Tried to fix her mind on the conversation of her companions. But all the time she was fighting an urge to look for the man who had evoked that powerful sense of recognition when she’d first entered.

Some inward antenna seemed to tell her when he moved, coming closer. A shiver passed over her skin, and she couldn’t stop herself from turning her head, hunting him down. He wasn’t looking in her direction, but at the touch of her gaze she saw his shoulders tauten, his head begin to swivel, and she forced herself to look away, fixing Callum with such an attentive look that he faltered in what he was saying and looked at her enquiringly.

Katrien gave him an encouraging smile, and drank some more of her wine. She hadn’t the faintest idea what the topic of conversation was.

The man moved away, and now the crowd was drifting towards the tables in an adjoining room.

Callum took her emptied glass and deposited it with another waiter. She felt as though she was walking on a layer of fog between the high heels of her shoes and the floor. Maybe she had downed the wine too quickly on an empty stomach. Just as well they were to have dinner.

It was a charity affair in aid of the widow and children of a mountaineer who had died on a New Zealand expedition to the Himalayas some months ago, the after-dinner speech to be given by a friend who had survived the journey—Zachary Ballantine. There had been photographs of him in all the national papers at the time of the tragedy—grainy snapshots of a gaunt and bearded man with haunted dark eyes shadowed by snow-frosted brows under the fur-edged hood of his parka.

Every TV station and newspaper in New Zealand must have wanted his story, but he had shunned the news media, refusing to give interviews. Yet someone had persuaded him to speak tonight.

The man she found so unsettling was seated at a table near the shallow dais on which a microphone stood ready. Katrien looked at him once and then dragged her gaze away. She hardly tasted the food that was put before her, mechanically emptying the plates until she found herself staring at a mound of chocolate cake and cream, and her stomach revolted. She pushed away the dish and grabbed her wine glass. It was empty—again. She’d already drunk far more than usual, but when Callum refilled the glass she gave him a distracted smile and raised the glass to her lips.

His arm came around her, a hand squeezing her shoulder. ‘Are you okay?’ he whispered, glancing at her untouched dessert.

‘Of course. You know I don’t usually eat sweets, and anyway I’m full.’

He smiled and nuzzled her temple with his cheek. ‘It’ll do you good.’ He drew back slightly and his gaze lingered on her bare shoulders and the low neckline of her dress. ‘You can do with a bit more weight. Not that you aren’t gorgeous.’ His fingers tightened. ‘I can’t wait to get you alone.’ Turning aside briefly, he took a spoon and scooped up some of the untouched dessert, presenting it to her with a teasing grin. ‘Open up.’

Katrien laughed and shook her head, but he insisted, and she parted her lips and let him slide the spoonful between them. It tasted sickly, and when he repeated the gesture she put a staying hand on his wrist, smiling so that he wouldn’t think she was angry. ‘No, really. I can’t eat any more.’