Lee Wilkinson - Her Tycoon Lover - On the Tycoon's Terms / Her Tycoon Protector / One Night with the Tycoon

“Goodbye, Katrin,” Luke said; and heard, to his inner fury, the edge in his voice. The hint of rawness that said, more clearly than words, that this was no ordinary goodbye.

He turned on his heel, nodded at a couple of Italians and left the dining room. It was an anticlimactic ending to an episode as inconclusive as it had been unnerving: his last contact with a woman who had aroused him sexually and emotionally in ways he could only deplore.

Temporary madness. That’s all it was. And the cure? To get as far away from here as he could and never come back.

To forget Katrin Sigurdson. Her beauty and laughter, her adventurous spirit and her independence. Her body. Her unspoken secrets.

To get his life back on track. Where it belonged.

Luke picked up his bag from the front desk and went outdoors to the parking lot. As he drove toward the road, his back to the resort and the glimmering lake, he told himself he was glad to be leaving. Of course he was.

He’d worked very hard to construct his life. He wasn’t going to allow a blue-eyed blonde, no matter how beautiful, to disrupt it.

And that was that.

FIVE days after he’d left the resort, Luke parked his sleek silver sportscar in the garage of his ultramodern house in Pacific Heights, and went inside. As always when he’d been away, he was struck by how impersonal and stark the rooms were, with their angled white walls, designer furniture, and the cold gleam of highly polished parquet. Not for the first time, he thought he should sell the house.

What had possessed him to buy it in the first place?

To show that he’d arrived, he thought dryly. That Luke MacRae from Teal Lake had a prestigious address in San Francisco, a city many considered America’s most beautiful. And, of course, to cut any last ties with Teal Lake. No one from there would have lived in a cement and glass box painted white and trimmed with metal.

He’d outgrown the house; which had nothing to do with its vast floorspace. What he should do is purchase some land outside the city and build a house out of cedar and stone, with a view of the beach and the rolling surf of the Pacific. Yeah, he thought. He might just do that. He’d check out the acreages that were available, and find an architect who dealt in anything other than postmodern.

Luke opened the mail, turned on his computer to scan his emails, and listened to the four messages on his telephone; three were from women he’d dated. Then he wandered over to the huge expanse of plate glass in the living room and gazed out. Another reason he’d bought the house was for the spectacular view of the city. Sailboats dotted the turquoise waters of the bay; the distant hills were a misty, cloud-shadowed blue. It was midafternoon. He should go to his office headquarters, housed in the elegant spire of the Transamerica Pyramid. Show his face and make sure everything was ticking over the way he liked.

There’d been no messages from Katrin.

How could there be? For one thing, she didn’t have his address; for another, she had no reason to get in touch with him and every reason not to.

So far, he hadn’t succeeded in forgetting her.

He’d gone out with two different women in New York, both ambitious and successful women, each of whom had let him know she’d be happy to warm his bed.

He hadn’t asked. Because neither had made him laugh like Katrin? Because each took the expensive dinner, and the waitress who served it, for granted? Because he couldn’t care less if he ever saw either of them again?

He could get a date for this evening, if he wanted one. Go dancing in one of the clubs south of Market, find a jazz bar, or see what was playing at the Geary Theater. If he tried, he could probably even find someone to play Frisbee with him on Ocean Beach.

And it was then that Luke remembered the three photos he’d taken of Katrin playing Frisbee by the lake with Lara and Tomas. He’d get them developed. That’s what he’d do.

As he was unlocking his suitcase, the telephone rang. He grabbed the receiver. “Hello?”

“Luke, Ramon here. I wasn’t sure if you were back today or tomorrow.”

Again Luke was aware of a crushing and utterly illogical disappointment that the person on the other end wasn’t Katrin. Get a life, Luke MacRae. “Hi, Ramon,” he said, “I just got in half an hour ago. It was a good conference, I made some useful contacts. How’ve you been?”

Ramon Torres was a high-ranking police officer whom Luke had met several years ago at the indoor tennis club he belonged to. On the court, they were more or less evenly matched, Ramon with a tendency to an erratic brilliance, Luke somewhat stronger and more consistent. From a series of hard-fought games, they’d moved gradually and naturally to an undemanding friendship. At least every two weeks they had lunch together, sparring over politics, learning from each other’s areas of expertise; occasionally Luke had dinner with Ramon, his wife Rosita and their three children. Somehow, over the years, it had become clear that both men had pulled themselves upward from backgrounds of poverty and deprivation: Luke from Teal Lake, Ramon from the slums of Mexico City. They never spoke directly about this. But it was there, an unspoken bond between two laconic men.

“I’ve got a court booked at noon tomorrow,” Ramon said. “Want a game? We could have lunch afterward, if you’ve got time.”

“Sure. Sounds like a good idea. As always at these shindigs, I ate too much…I’ll meet you there.”

They rang off. Luke changed into casual clothes and drove downtown to the nearest camera shop. The prints would be ready the next morning; he could pick them up on his way to the tennis club.

So at eleven-forty the next morning, Luke walked out of the shop with an unopened envelope in his hand. He got in his car, drove to the club, and parked a little distance away from all the other cars. It was one of those summer days of thick fog, a heavy white blanket spread over the city, cooling the air.

Appropriate, thought Luke, realizing he was reluctant to open the envelope. He’d been in a fog ever since he’d left Manitoba. Oh, at his meetings in New York he’d functioned at top efficiency, and he was doing the same at the office here; there was nothing new about that. But the rest of the time he felt as though his feet weren’t quite on the ground. As though part of him was still back in Askja.

His normal life had taken over; but he hadn’t forgotten Katrin. Far from it.

She was even more real to him here, hundreds of miles away, than she’d been at the resort, Luke thought, tugging at the tape on the flap of the envelope. He had the eerie sense that if he turned around quickly enough, she’d be standing there, her brilliant blue eyes gazing straight at him.

Ridiculous. Get a grip. He didn’t need a woman turning his life upside down, he reminded himself. Not now or ever.

With sudden decision Luke pulled the flap open, took out the prints and leafed through them. His heart jumped in his chest. There she was, on the beach, her hair swirling around her head, her slim legs bare to the sun as she reached for the Frisbee. In the other two photos she was laughing, Tomas grinning back at her, their shadows striping the sand.

She looked young and carefree, and very beautiful.

He shoved the photos in his gym bag and hurried into the club. He was late. He was never late.

Ramon was tossing balls into the air and practising his serves when Luke joined him on the court. “Buenos días, amigo,” Ramon said. His gaze sharpened. “You okay?”

Luke should have remembered Ramon had a law officer’s ability to assess people with just a glance. “Sure,” he said, jogging on the spot to warm up. “Want to rally for a few minutes?”