against losing the closest thing to a mom she had ever known.
Her eyes welled with unshed tears. Damn, Atlanta’s death had made Chelsea’s intentions of saying, “I’m sorry, sis—I didn’t mean it” an impossibility. There was only one thing she could do for her now. One last thing.
Her tear ducts overflowed before she could prevent it.
They had been doing a lot of that lately. Chelsea opened her eyes wide to halt the hot slide of teardrops onto her cheeks, and then changed her mind. Scrunching her eyelids together to form narrow slits, she let her full weight sag against the cushions in an attempt to relax.
The rustle of prayer flags accompanied the sighs that whispered over her lips until a few minutes later she hovered on the edge of sleep and the world around her became a jumble of light and dark shapes.
Bam! She was wide-awake. One of the shapes lost its hazy edges and turned into a living, breathing Kurt Jellic.
“Am I disturbing your beauty sleep?” His voice had the husky edge it had lost when she had imagined him into a nice guy who would jump to do her bidding and give in to her every whim.
But Kurt was more than that. More than she had remembered. He was, first and foremost, disturbingly and attractively, all male.
She pushed against the cushioned seat of her chair to stand up, eager to reach a height where his size wasn’t such a disadvantage. It wasn’t easy.
Her hands sank deep into the pillowy softness that had almost seduced her into sleep. However, the angle of the seat—knees higher than her bottom—made it impossible to stand with any semblance of elegance.
“Here, let me.” Kurt held out his hand and, fool that she was, Chelsea took it in hers. The world blurred at his touch. He pulled her to her feet and released his hold. And with its loss she felt nothing would ever be the same again.
He was dressed in the same casual outdoorsy style as most of the guides she’d met in Namche Bazaar—sun-faded khakis topped by a checked shirt under a black anorak. On him it had a style she hadn’t perceived last night. The long stretch of muscled legs moved with a singularity that made him stand out in a crowd. She took a drawn-out look, knowing something was different.
Sure, he’d shaved, she’d give him that. But it wasn’t simply that the razor had highlighted the dimple on his chin that made her stomach flip over, or the fact that the touch of his hand had sent an icy shiver down her spine.
No, it was in his eyes and the way he held himself. He reminded her of someone, but for the life of her she couldn’t say whom. She returned his gaze and recognized awareness in his eyes, a knowing that hadn’t been there before, as if in a past life they might have been lovers.
Flustered, she bent to flick the creases out of her skirt till it swung lightly from her hips, skimming the tops of her calves. When she had picked out the light cream cashmere top and natural linen skirt, she hadn’t considered its subtle sexiness as part of her plan to get her own way. Now she realized that like everything she had done since their first meeting, it had been part of her strategy, part of her seduction.
Too bad she hadn’t reached a definite conclusion on how to go about this master plan.
Just when it counted most, she was going to have to wing it.
Chelsea was used to controlling her own life, and it showed as soon as they entered the restaurant.
On the other hand, weighing in at 220 and standing at least three inches above most other men, as well as running the kind of enterprise he did, Kurt had become used to commanding attention, not being superseded. He didn’t remember Atlanta being so bossy. She and Bill had always consulted each other, but then they had been a couple, two halves of one whole.
Kurt turned his attention to Chelsea, who had already picked her selection from the menu, told him he would enjoy it and informed their server they’d have two of everything.
The sibilant lisp of the sommelier did nothing to smooth Kurt’s ruffled feathers. “Your meals will be here directly. Meanwhile if I can suggest a good wine to accompany them…” The wine list was fluttered at Kurt’s face like a fan.
He scowled his annoyance at the undeserving sommelier, then asked Chelsea, “You want some wine?”
“Yes, I’d like that.” She smiled at the sommelier and held out her hand for the wine list. “Do you have a—”
“I think a Pinot Gris will go best with what we’ve ordered,” Kurt said before Chelsea had a chance to pipe up. He took the list, glanced over it, then pointed. “This one.”
It paid to have a brother who was a Master of Wine and made his living tasting and writing books about the fermented juice of the grape. Drago was the eldest of the Jellic boys—men. He’d been out on his own a lot longer than the rest of them.
Circumstances of late had wrought a change in their slightly dysfunctional family, starting with the marriage of Jo, his younger sister. Since then, Franc, his genius kid brother, had found a great job, with loads of responsibility, in one of his new brother-in-law’s firms. The family ties were now less fractured than they had been since the day his father, Milo Jellic, committed suicide.
His sister had married a man with money to burn, probably with the same kind of class Chelsea had. Not that he had aspirations in that direction—not even as a solution to his problems. Didn’t matter that one glance at her sexy body had his insides turning every which way.
No, he was sure his twin brother, Kel, would agree with him that one millionaire per family was enough.
Kurt glanced around the almost empty dining room as the sommelier left. They’d been the center of attention as waiters vied to pass them menus and then take their orders.
“So where did you learn so much about wine?” Chelsea leaned across the table, one hand toying with her empty glass.
The movement emphasized the lush curve of her breasts where her cashmere sweater clung to them. He had to admit she had style. It didn’t matter that her hair looked as if she’d cut it by herself without the aid of a mirror. He guessed it was the latest trend, but all it did was make her look younger, more vulnerable. He hardened his heart and refused to fall for it.
“I don’t spend all my life on top of a mountain. New Zealand may be a small country, but it’s big on wine.”
That said, he tried to shrug off the feeling he’d made a mistake coming here. The contrasting digs they’d chosen—the tavern he’d shacked up in and this upmarket hotel where the cheapest room cost five hundred dollars a night—escalated his estimation of the class barrier he’d sensed looming between them.
It wasn’t anything that had required much thought with Atlanta. She had been a friend; he hadn’t been attracted to her. But with Chelsea, the attraction presented itself like a minefield in no-man’s-land.
The quickest and easiest way out was to say no.
Chelsea’s eyes lit up as she smiled at him. “Alone at last.”
Kurt had an unwelcome impression that her eager eyes saw him as a parcel, tied with a big blue bow that she couldn’t wait to hack into with her scissors.
He glanced over his shoulder, totaling the number of stares from hovering waiters focused in their direction. “I’ve felt more alone in Grand Central Station.”
“They do pride themselves on exemplary service here. At least, that’s what it said on the hotel Web site. But it isn’t quite so overpowering at dinnertime when the restaurant is busier.”
“I’ll have to take your word for that. This isn’t the style I look for when I’m thinking of climbing a mountain. Although a certain amount of comfort between climbs is attractive to people with money. At least, that’s what I had in mind when I started converting an old farmhouse near Aoraki National Park into a lodge.”
He could see Chelsea was dying to question