Robyn Donald - Tiger Eyes

His words, delivered with crisp confidence, were inherently insulting, but only the studied watchfulness in his eyes revealed that he had used them deliberately.

Stupidly, because crossing swords with this man was dangerous, Tansy set her jaw and said with cold precision, ‘You can’t buy me.’

‘Then I’d like to rent you for a little while.’

That was just as offensive. Obscurely convinced that revealing how angry she was would hand him an advantage she’d later regret, she subdued her resentment. ‘How long will it take?’

‘That,’ he replied with an intonation that imbued the words with a threatening undertone, ‘depends entirely on you.’

Tansy made up her mind. Although she didn’t want anything to do with this man, experience had taught her that there were people you didn’t mess with. Rick’s half-brother was definitely one of these. It went against the grain, but she said brusquely, ‘I need fifty dollars.’

If he’d shown any triumph or even satisfaction she’d have changed her mind immediately. However, his face was impassive as he drew out a wallet and handed her some folded notes. Deliberately, Tansy counted the money before bending over to scoop up the coins in the guitar case. When she’d packed away the guitar she said with what she hoped was distant self-possession, ‘There’s a pub just down the street.’

‘How old are you?’ He held out an imperative hand for the guitar.

Astonished, Tansy handed it over before she had time to think. ‘Nineteen.’

Her twentieth birthday, which would have made her presence in the bar legal, was in a couple of days’ time, but she wasn’t going to tell him that, although she did say, ‘I don’t drink alcohol, and if anyone asks you can say you’re my guardian.’

He swung into place beside her, cutting her off from the people who swirled past. ‘I feel a little too young to be a guardian,’ he said. ‘How about a husband?’

Tansy’s mouth, firmly disciplined to hide the vulnerability that was a dead giveaway, quirked into an unwilling, mocking smile. ‘Not my type,’ she said.

If she hadn’t already realised that instinctively, the glances they got as they walked down the street would have told her. Most women did a double take when they saw the man beside her, eyeing him with interest and an unmistakable, primal response. Then their eyes switched to her, and that feminine alertness was replaced by surprise and amusement, even a slight smugness. A woman dressed in charity-shop clothes just didn’t go with a man who looked as though he had spent more on his tailor than she saw in a year!

He looked over her head into a shop window, checking out her reflection. ‘True.’

The speculative note beneath the word chafed her nerves. Pride lifted her chin, straightened her shoulders. She wasn’t going to let this man make her feel inferior.

‘No one will ask,’ she said laconically.

No one did. Sipping the milk she ordered while he paid for it and the beer he chose for himself, Tansy waited for him to ask questions, wondering at a fatalism that sat oddly with her perception of herself. Surrender was not her style, but something beyond logic warned her there was no escaping this man.

‘How long were you and Ricky living together?’ Leo Dacre asked in his beautiful, cool voice.

Tansy bristled. ‘We shared a room for a couple of months,’ she retorted, clipping the words.

‘And where is he now?’

Without hesitation she lied, ‘I don’t know.’

He let the silence drag out into tension before saying pleasantly, ‘It would be well worth your while to tell me.’

Tansy hoped no sign of her inner turmoil showed. Although Rick hadn’t boasted, from his conversation and reactions it had been obvious that the Dacres had had money for generations. With no income beyond what she earned busking, Tansy considered other things besides money to be important; loyalty, for one.

‘I don’t know,’ she repeated stonily.

‘That’s a pity.’

Matching him stare for stare, she noticed an irregular, gold star around the pupil of each eye. It gave her a faint, uncanny chill, as though she were confronted by an alien.

In many ways, she thought, a glimmer of black humour lightening her mood, she might just as well be. Beyond common humanity, she had absolutely nothing in common with the Leo Dacres of this world. An unwilling smile quirked her mouth.

‘Don’t you laugh at me,’ he said evenly.

Captured by his eyes, crystalline and imperious, their piercing clarity darkened by anger and will-power, Tansy fought against an almost hypnotic compulsion to tell him what he wanted.

‘I can’t help you,’ she said brusquely, dragging her gaze free.

Two very attractive women came laughing into the room, their voices and posture completely self-assured. Leo Dacre watched them go across to a table, his arrogant profile harshly forceful against the over-opulent walls of the bar.

When he transferred his scrutiny back to Tansy it was iced with offhand disdain, as though she wasn’t important enough to get really angry with. The hair on the back of Tansy’s neck lifted in involuntary response; the temper she kept so tightly curbed stirred and flexed. She drew in a deep breath, applying the restraints and checks she had learned, sending it back to its den.

‘Did he tell you much about his home?’ he asked, apparently idly.

Tansy shrugged. ‘A little.’

‘Then perhaps he mentioned his mother.’

She drank some of the milk. ‘Yes,’ she said ungraciously, ‘once or twice.’

‘They are—very close.’

Veiling her eyes with her thick lashes so he couldn’t see the indecision in their tawny depths, she hardened her heart. Rick had worried about his mother, although to Tansy Grace Dacre had sounded rather neurotically possessive. ‘So I gathered,’ she said remotely.

‘He can’t know that she’s desperately afraid and worried, unable to sleep in case something awful is happening to him.’

Oh, he was clever. No hint of contempt in the dark, bland voice now, merely concern. If Rick hadn’t talked incessantly about his half-brother, she’d have surrendered then. But Tansy knew more about this man than Rick, still starry-eyed with hero-worship, realised he’d told her. Leo Dacre was high-handed and unmerciful; he saw people as pawns to be manipulated.

‘He was fine when I saw him last,’ she said casually.

The magnificent eyes were hooded, like those of a bird of prey as it strikes. ‘She has also just come out of hospital after a severe operation,’ he said. ‘Cancer.’

That was a bodyblow. But Tansy had made a promise to Rick.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said awkwardly.

‘Unfortunately she has to have further treatment, and she wants him with her.’

‘Naturally.’ It took a real effort to keep her face set in an expression of mild sympathy. This changed everything. Although Rick might chafe under his mother’s possessiveness, he loved her and he would certainly want to be with her when she needed him.

Tansy looked down at the hands clenched around her glass. Surreptitiously she relaxed the long, strong fingers while her brain raced, trying to find an answer to an insoluble question. What on earth should she do?

There was a balked silence, tingling with Leo Dacre’s frustration. ‘So you’re not going to help,’ he said.

He spoke quietly, but an inflexion in the smooth voice dragged Tansy’s gaze to his face. A muscle flicked several times just above the tough line of his jaw. It fascinated her; her eyes lingered compulsively on the tiny betrayal, made all the more obvious because his face revealed no other emotion. Yet anger emanated from him in dark waves and she knew with a sudden terrible intuition that he was holding on to his control with a fierce effort of will.