Laurey Bright - Shadowing Shahna

“We have nothing more to say to each other, do we?” Shahna tried to sound indifferent, growing increasingly anxious. “It was good of you to drop by, Kier, but as you see you’ve no need to be concerned about me.”

“I have a lot more to say,” he said forcefully. “And I still want to know what went so wrong that you had to hide away in another country.”

“I’m not hiding away. I just wanted to come home.”

“You told me you had no people in New Zealand anymore, no ties. You haven’t lived here since…when? You were twenty or so?”

“Eighteen.” She didn’t recall ever telling him exactly, perhaps a measure of how superficial their knowledge of each other had really been. Not entirely his fault, she acknowledged. Reticence about her family had become a habit long before she met him. “It’s not a matter of family ties. There are other things I missed. Things I didn’t realize I was missing until…”

Kier leaned forward. “Until what?” he pressed. “Was it something I did?”

Shahna smiled thinly, mustering some kind of defense. “Everything doesn’t revolve around you,” she said. “I just decided I didn’t like the life I was living. So I changed it.”

He stared at her, patently unable to comprehend her decision. “What was wrong with it?” he demanded. “You had a successful, interesting career, your own home, friends—and, I thought, a satisfying love life.”

All true. Shahna had been earning a very good salary in a large PR and advertising firm. She had started in their art department and discovered she had a gift for both imaginative innovation and organization that led to a move sideways and then her rapid promotion through the system.

She had bought her own apartment, close to the firm’s city offices and with an expensive glimpse of Sydney Harbour.

Her friends were dedicated high-flyers who worked hard and played equally hard when they got the chance, and it had been fun, stimulating—living in a heady, fast-moving world that left little time for introspection or deep reflection.

Kier Remington had been part of that world.

Her boss at the agency had called her to his office to introduce her as one of their brightest young stars, to whom he proposed handing the Remington publicity portfolio.

When she entered, Kier had stood up to shake her hand, folding his strong fingers around it, and his eyes, the fathomless, intense blue of summer seas, found hers and sent an astonishing spiral of heat down her spine.

All she’d heard about Kier Remington had led her to expect a cold, emotionless man with a ruthless streak. He hadn’t got where he was at the age of twenty-nine by being softhearted.

A recent shake-up in one of his high-profile companies had made headlines. Top managers had abruptly lost their jobs among rumors that they had engaged in murky insider trading. Financial commentators were having a field day and a tight-lipped Kier Remington was shown on the TV news, brushing off reporters’ questions with a curt “No comment.”

It was understandable that he wanted a vibrant new PR campaign to repair the damage to his firm’s reputation. Shahna knew she was up to the job and would enjoy it, but had given very little thought to actually working with Kier Remington.

She hadn’t expected his smile to make her heart flutter like a schoolgirl’s, so that she had to assume a brisk efficiency to hide the effect he had on her.

Nor had she expected the glint of humor mixed with sexual challenge that lit his eyes, as if he knew exactly how she was feeling and was giving her fair warning. He didn’t bother to hide his attraction to her, and at the end of the meeting, with another brief handclasp he’d left her fighting a dangerous excitement that tightened her chest and made her entire body seem to consist of melting marshmallow.

As the door closed behind him she had been torn between relief and a sudden feeling of letdown.

Of course it was flattering that a man as good-looking and spectacularly successful as Kier Remington was interested in her, but she mustn’t get carried away.

Bracing herself for an aggressive pursuit, she had made a decision to resist. The Remington campaign was a giant step upward in her career and she didn’t want to jeopardize her future prospects by mixing sex with business. Too many people had crashed and burned trying to achieve that impossible balance.

But there had been no next-day phone call, no contact at all until she had studied the portfolio as she’d promised, and then phoned him with a list of suggestions.

He listened, then said briskly, “We need to discuss these ideas of yours. Lunch? How are you placed tomorrow?”

So businesslike that she had no excuse to refuse.

On her arrival at the restaurant he’d skimmed her with a look and accepted her handshake and deliberately cool smile with knowing amusement in his eyes, making her straighten her shoulders and tighten her hold on her leather briefcase as she returned him a blank, frosty stare. He’d given her a longer look then, a keenly observant look, as if sizing her up, coming to some conclusion.

But from then on his manner had matched hers, and she’d been impressed by his quick mind, his consideration of another viewpoint before putting forth his own, and not least by his willingness to accept that she knew her job.

He had made no suggestion of seeing Shahna socially, sticking strictly to business and making her feel foolish about the stern reminder she’d given herself to be thoroughly professional.

When she walked away from him after thanking him for the lunch, she wondered if it was her own imagination persuading her that she could feel his gaze as a prickling sensation between her shoulder blades.

Oh, Kier had been clever. Clever and calculating. When she discovered just how carefully he had played her, with a campaign as subtle as it was dead on target, she had been faintly chilled. But by then it was too late.

Sitting across the scrubbed wooden table from him, she felt an echo of that chill. Once Kier made up his mind to do something, nothing would deter him. Any setback to his plans was merely a goad to achieve his object another way, coming at it from some unexpected direction.

Her mug in her hand, she stood up, hoping this time he’d take the hint. But although his own cup was empty he kept it cradled in one hand. “So what do you do all day?” he asked.

Shahna couldn’t stop herself from casting a hunted glance at the clock. “I have a studio outside.” She indicated the visible corner of a small building just a few feet away. “A converted washhouse, actually where I work.”

“Nine-to-five?” Kier queried. He too glanced at the clock.

“Not exactly. Whenever I…well, whatever hours I please.” Shahna placed her mug in the sink. She was not going to offer him a refill. “If you want to catch Timoti…” she started to say in desperation.

“I told him I wasn’t going back to Rawene today.”

“Oh?” She looked at the backpack on the settle. “You’re taking a holiday?” Not his usual kind for sure, although she remembered him telling her he’d backpacked through Asia when he was nineteen. “What are your plans?”

It was a moment before he answered. “I haven’t made any definite plans.” Another pause. “Except to see you, talk with you, catch up on what you’ve been doing. Why are you so anxious for me to leave?”

As if he’d given the cue, from the next room came a tiny whimper, another louder one, and then a series of babbling sounds and a childish call of “Mum-mum!”

Kier went very still, his body immobile and his face a study in stone. Shahna too felt momentarily paralyzed. A sickening sensation made her stomach drop, and her temples throbbed.