Robyn Donald - A Forbidden Desire

Which was just as well, because she had enough to deal with at the moment. One glance had told him that her wheelchair-bound mother was dying. He had no idea why mother and daughter had chosen to stay at this expensive resort hotel in Fiji at the hottest time of the year, but Mrs Lyttelton was enjoying it and the affection between mother and daughter was obvious.

His eyes narrowed as one of the hotel guests, a tall, brawny Australian with shoulders as wide as a barn door, approached the woman in the shadows.

A primal jealousy fogged his brain; he was on his feet and halfway across the room before he realised he’d moved. Even as he told himself that he was behaving like a fool he felt an unusual aggression tighten his muscles and fill him with unrepentant hostility.

The Australian didn’t even see him, grinning, he said something that brought a smile to that soft red mouth, and turned to go out onto the beach.

Jacinta waved a hand and turned back to her survey of the dancers.

Relaxing his headlong pace, he watched the man go out into the dark night, but his skin was tight and the heavy, hungry need that prowled though him snarled softly, thwarted of legitimate prey. Noiselessly he walked up to her, some savage part of him enjoying the little jump she gave when she became conscious of his presence.

‘Would you like to dance?’ he asked, masking his emotions with the smile he knew was one of his greatest assets.

She looked startled, but after a moment said, ‘Yes. Thank you.’

He wanted her to stumble, be heavy on her feet, not know the steps. But she was like the wind in his arms, a fragrant, spice-scented wind, swaying seductively through the languid flowers of the tropics, warm, flowing silkily against him

Every cell in his body shouted in triumphal recognition. Anger at his helpless response cooled his voice. ‘Is your mother not well enough to come tonight?’

‘She’s just tired’

The faint huskiness beneath her voice smoothed across his skin like silk velvet. ‘Is she enjoying the holiday?’

She looked swiftly at him, and then away again. The thick curls moved slightly as she nodded. ‘She’s having a wonderful time,’ she said quietly. ‘Everyone’s been so kind.’

Because he couldn’t trust himself to say anything that wouldn’t increase her distress, he remained silent. Unfortunately that meant his mind could concentrate on the multitude of signals his rioting senses relayed—like the fact that her eyes were actually green, and that the hazel effect came from little gold flecks embedded in the cool depths...

Like the curve of her brows, slightly darker than her hair, and the deeper colour of her lashes as they lay on her skin, casting mysterious little shadows...

Like the tiny creases at the corners of her mouth that gave it an upward tilt...

Like the faint scent of her skin—pure essence of enchantment, he thought grimly.

Like the brush of her breasts across his chest, and the sleek strength of her long legs as they negotiated an elderly couple enjoying themselves enormously doing what looked like a forties jitterbug.

Anger—sheer and hot and potent—only fuelled his runaway response. Of all things, he despised being at the mercy of his emotions; it had been five years since he’d felt such an elemental hunger, and even then he hadn’t been tormented by this intense immediacy, this compulsion.

Thank God he was leaving tomorrow. Once back in New Zealand and deprived of nourishment, this obsession would starve and he’d be his own man again.

CHAPTER ONE

‘MY COUSIN Paul,’ Gerard said in his pedantic way, ‘is the only man I’ve ever known to decide that if he couldn’t have the woman he loved he’d have no other.’

To hide her astonishment Jacinta Lyttelton gazed around Auckland’s busy airport lounge. ‘Really?’

Gerard sighed. ‘Yes. Aura was exquisite, and utterly charming. They were the perfect match but she ran away with his best friend only days before the wedding.’

‘Then they couldn’t have been a perfect match,’ Jacinta pointed out, smiling a little to show she was joking. During the nine months she’d known Gerard she’d learned that he needed such clues. He was a dear, kind man, but he didn’t have much of a sense of humour.

‘I don’t know what she saw in Flint Jansen,’ Gerard pursued, surprising her because he didn’t normally gossip. Perhaps he thought some background information might smooth her way with his cousin. ‘He was—I suppose he still is—a big, tough, dangerous man, bulldozing his way through life, hard-bitten enough to deal with anything that came his way. He was some sort of troubleshooter for one of the big corporations. Yet he was Paul’s best friend right from school, and Paul is a very urbane man, worldly and cosmopolitan—a lawyer.’

Jacinta nodded politely. Perhaps Aura Whoever-she’d-been liked rough trade. ‘Friendship can be just as mysterious as love. Your cousin and Flint must have had something in common for it to last so long.’

The same taste in women, to start with!

Her eyes followed a small Japanese child, fragile and solemn but clearly at home in such surroundings, her hand lost in that of her mother.

My biological clock, Jacinta thought wryly, must be ticking away. Twenty-nine wasn’t over the hill, but occasionally she was oppressed by a feeling of being shunted quietly out of the mainstream, banished to float peacefully and dully in a backwater.

‘I could never understand it,’ Gerard said, for the fourth time turning the label on his cabin bag to check that he’d addressed it. ‘She and Paul looked wonderful together and he worshipped her, whereas Flint—oh, well, it doesn’t matter, but the whole sordid episode was incredibly hard on Paul.’

Being jilted would be incredibly hard on anyone. Jacinta nodded sympathetically

Gerard frowned. ‘He had to pick up the pieces of his life with everyone knowing and pitying him—and Paul is a proud man. He sold the house he and Aura were going to live in and bought Waitapu as a refuge—I suppose he thought he’d get some peace half an hour’s drive north of Auckland—but then Flint and Aura settled only about twenty minutes away! In a vineyard!’

Jacinta composed her face into a sympathetic expression. Gerard’s loyalty did him credit, and this wasn’t the time to tell him that things had changed. Nowadays guilty couples didn’t retreat to some far-flung part of the world and live in abject, if happy, retirement

‘When did this all happen?’ she asked.

‘Almost six years ago,’ Gerard said in a mournful tone, fiddling with his boarding pass and passport.

Almost six years! Jacinta said mischievously, ‘What about that exquisitely beautiful woman you pointed out to me in Ponsonby a couple of months ago? You didn’t exactly say so, but you implied that she and Paul are very good friends.’

Gerard blinked and stood up. ‘He’s a normal man,’ he said austerely, ‘but I doubt very much whether Paul intends to marry her. She’s an actress.’

As well as being kind, loyal and pedantic, it appeared that Gerard was a snob.

A voice on the communications system announced that passengers for Air New Zealand’s flight from Auckland to Los Angeles should make their way through the departure gate.

Gerard bent down and picked up his bag. ‘So don’t go falling in love with him,’ he directed half seriously. ‘Women do, and although he doesn’t like hurting people he’s broken hearts these last five years. Aura’s defection killed some essential compassion in him, I think.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Jacinta said dryly. ‘I’m not planning to fall in love.’

‘Not until you’ve finished your Masters,’ he said, and to her astonishment bestowed a swift peck on her cheek. ‘I’d better go.’