Sarah Holland - Master Of Seduction

Emma signalled the waiter and ordered it for her.

‘Settled in all right?’ Liz asked.

‘Yes, wonderfully well. I didn’t want to waste St Tropez, though.’ She hesitated, then, ‘Just saw your brother, by the way, on the other side of the square.’

‘And what did he have to say for himself? Anything interesting?’

‘No, he didn’t speak to me.’ She sipped her coffee, still irritated by Patrick Kinsella’s ignoring her.

‘Didn’t he? Maybe he didn’t see you.’

‘Yes, he did,’ laughed Emma, ‘but he was probably too busy eyeing up the other women in the cafés here to waste a smile on me!’

‘He hardly needs to waste a smile on any woman,’ sighed Liz. ‘He’s always had women flinging themselves at his feet—why should he bother to approach them?’

‘Why indeed?’ Emma said tightly. ‘James Bond never has to do more than lift an eyebrow, and your brother seems to think he has a lot in common with James Bond, doesn’t he?’

‘Ouch!’ Liz laughed. ‘Poor Patrick! You really hate him, don’t you?’

‘One hundred per cent.’

‘So there’s no chance of you ever falling in love with him?’

Emma just laughed and shook her head.

Fall in love with him! The very idea…

EMMA dressed carefully that night, aware of the importance of first impressions, and aware that she didn’t want either Toby or Charles, whom she had not yet met, to think she was a sexy woman up for grabs. Knowing Natasha just a little by now, she was fairly sure that Toby would have been told Emma was young, single and ready to mingle. I don’t want to get grabbed, she thought, ready to spike Natasha’s nasty little matchmaking guns.

The black evening dress she chose was serenely sensual, made of loose, elegant silk, making her look attractive without looking available. Pearls gleamed around her throat, pearl and diamond drops in her ears, glistening against the wealth of her long black curly hair. She wore strappy, black high heels, and was bathed in a discreet aura of Safari.

When she went up on deck, she steeled herself not only to spar with Natasha and meet the other two guests, but also to be very cool with the arrogant, conceited and thoroughly detestable Mr Patrick Kinsella.

To her annoyance, he was the only one there. Emma stopped on the tranquil deck, studying Patrick, who stood leaning against the steel railings looking out at St Tropez with his back to her. The sun glowed evening gold across the town, music came from the cafés opposite the yacht, and sports cars zoomed about, carrying breezy young people from lazy cafés to exclusive nightclubs. Patrick was wearing a black dinner-jacket, impeccably cut, and the way it fitted his powerful muscular body was pure poetry. Emma remembered Liz telling her that women threw themselves at his feet and, looking him up and down with dislike, she had to admit she could see why. He wasn’t her type, but as far as gorgeous playboys were concerned he was a magnificent specimen.

He turned suddenly then and saw her. She found herself momentarily breathless. His eyes were even more blue, more dazzling, more acutely sensitive than she remembered.

‘Hi,’ Emma said warily, and did not smile at him, remembering his unsmiling stare in the leafy square of the town and prickling under this latest, cool assessment.

‘Hi.’ He didn’t smile either, but he did push lightly away from the railings and lift his dark brows, saying, ‘Do you want a drink?’

‘Thanks.’ She walked towards him, her heels clickclacking elegantly on the wooden deck. ‘Something light and cold would be nice.’

Patrick moved like the giant he was to the table, and poured a long cold drink for her. Emma watched his body movements. He seemed at once fascinating and loathsome. She wondered why. Then it occurred to her that fascination and loathing were both intense reactions, which meant that she was far from indifferent to him.

Emma was a great analyser of feelings. She had been blinded too many times by emotions—powerful emotions, the kind that blistered and bludgeoned one’s logic into oblivion—and she had no intention of ever again finding herself kneeling at the feet of some great male god, who later turned out to be all too horribly human.

So recognising an emotional response to Mr Patrick Kinsella was something which instantly sent her logic into overdrive, demanding a rapid analysis of just why she might react so strongly to him.

What had Liz told her about him? she wondered now with narrowed, wary eyes. All she could remember was that he was occasionally in the newspapers and that, in the past, he had been a notorious womaniser.

Work hard, play hard had been his motto, and the string of beauties his name had been linked with formed an impressive collection—film stars, beauty queens, models. He had hardly led a blameless life.

But lately, according to Liz, that aspect of his life had been played down in the Press because it had begun to affect his very serious reputation at work. All sex appeal aside, he was first and foremost a businessman, and he could hardly continue to live the life of James Bond without it rebounding on his business reputation. That didn’t mean, however, that he no longer womanised. Far from it. He was probably just a lot more discreet. And that was further indication of quite how clever, calculating and cynical Patrick Kinsella really was.

‘Here,’ he said, and silver cuff-links flashed in his crisp white cuffs as he turned to hand her her drink. She thanked him with a polite smile, and for a second they drank in silence.

It was faintly uncomfortable. But Emma had no intention of making polite chit-chat with him, particularly after the way he’d behaved towards her so far.

Eventually, it was Patrick who broke the silence.

‘Did you do any shopping in town?’

‘Yes.’ She sipped her drink and did not look at him.

‘There are a number of very interesting shops here.’

‘Yes, there are.’ Emma nodded expressionlessly.

‘My favourite is the tiny little art shop in the old part of town.’

Emma smiled politely and sipped her drink again. Patrick was silent for a moment, then came to loom next to her at the ship’s railings. Emma pretended interest in the town. Patrick loomed. He was watching her. She felt acutely aware of his gaze and also aware of his anger.

Slowly, she looked up.

Their eyes met in a cool moment of mutual recognition.

He smiled slowly. So did she.

‘We’re going to be stuck on this yacht together,’ drawled Patrick Kinsella, ‘for another fortnight. Life will be so much easier if you don’t bear a grudge.’

‘I’m not bearing a grudge,’ she drawled, just as cynical as he. ‘I just respond to treatment, like any other normal human being.’

‘And as my treatment of you thus far——’ his hard mouth moved in a faint, rueful smile ‘—has hardly been exemplary, you intend to pay me back in kind. Is that it?’

‘Precisely.’

‘Because of our discussion this afternoon?’

‘I felt attacked, Mr Kinsella. Didn’t you notice?’

‘I thought you could take it.’

‘I can take it. But every action has a reaction.’

‘And this is yours? Hmm. Well, that’s something I can take, too. Besides, you were patronising all of us with what you were saying.’

‘Oh, was I?’

‘Yes, you were.’ His blue eyes were as direct as his words. ‘You thought we were all arguing for romance. You thought you were talking to a bunch of naïve teenagers still living in bluebird-and-orange-blossom land.’

‘I can assure you,’ she laughed cynically, ‘I would never put you in that particular category!’