in a brisk shake. ‘As you see, I am early,’ he said, as though it were explanation enough.
Angie nodded, and went on, ‘I assume you’ve met Iona?’
‘Iona and I already knew each other,’ he said without expression.
Angie’s glance swivelled to Iona’s still face, then back to the dark countenance of the man towering over her. ‘What a coincidence,’ she said uncertainly.
‘An amazing one.’
Angry at being talked about as though she weren’t there, Iona said abruptly, ‘The beds should be made up by now—I’ll just go and check.’
As she turned away she heard Luke say, ‘I wish to speak to you, Ms Makepeace.’
Angie’s reply was muffled as they moved towards the drawing room. Questions buzzed around Iona’s mind. Why did he want to talk to her cousin?
And what had happened in that final intense moment when his gaze had dropped to her lips and tension had drummed between them, an insistent beat that drowned out every sensible thought in her mind?
Forget it, she told herself angrily, and checked the first and second bedroom. The maid had just finished making up the big king-size one in the master suite; she looked up as Iona came in and gave a swift smile. ‘All done.’
‘Thank you,’ Iona said as she slipped into the bathroom to make sure it was free of any trace of spilt detergent.
It was clear, and she’d just emerged from the suite when she heard her cousin call her name. Angie was on her own.
‘He’s on the phone, and it’s looking good,’ Angie said softly. ‘We might be put on retainer while he’s staying in New Zealand. Why is your smock wet?’
Hurriedly Iona explained, ending, ‘I hope you’ve got a spare one in the car?’
‘Yep.’ She handed over the keys. ‘Your Lukas hoped so too.’
‘He’s not my Lukas!’ He’d never corrected her when she’d called him Luke.
Angie grinned. ‘Go down and get the smock from the back seat, then get changed here.’ Reading Iona’s instinctive objection she said, ‘It’s OK—he suggested it. I’m waiting while he runs a check on the business.’
‘What?’
‘He’s a very rich man,’ Angie said with a shrug. ‘They’re not into trust. Off you go.’
When Iona got back with the clean smock she heard the sound of voices in the drawing room, and hastily shot into the powder room, gratefully pulled the crisp dry garment on and, after stuffing the wet one into her bag, examined the room to make sure it was pristine.
‘Good, not a rose petal out of place,’ she muttered, and came through the door, stopping abruptly when she met Luke’s eyes.
One eyebrow lifted, and his smile was brief as he said, ‘You look much more comfortable.’
‘Thanks for letting me use the room.’
That eyebrow cocked again, giving him a sardonic air. Hard eyes fixed on her face, as though he could read both her thoughts and the emotions rioting through her, he asked, ‘Are you and your employer sisters?’
Iona’s surprise must have shown because his broad shoulders lifted in a slight shrug. ‘Your colouring is different, but the shape of your face is identical to hers. The curve of your lips also, as well as a certain silken texture to your skin.’
His sculpted mouth curled in a narrow smile, and after a deliberate pause that set her nerves jangling he said lazily, ‘I have never forgotten it.’
Sensation prickled along her nerves, pooled inside her, reminding her of the bold, masculine virility that had swept her into an affair that now seemed like a dangerous fantasy.
It took all of her self-control to be able to say shortly, ‘We’re cousins.’
Chapter Two
GOING down in the lift, Angie said, ‘Where did you meet him, and why haven’t I heard about it?’
Iona had been bracing herself for questions, but even so, she paused as the lift came to a halt in the basement car park. ‘We met in Tahiti,’ she said, keeping her tone casual and matter-of-fact. ‘On the second anniversary of Gavin’s death. I was walking along a deserted beach—’
‘Wallowing in grief and guilt, I bet,’ Angie said astringently. ‘Iona, nobody knew Gavin had a heart weakness. Yes, saving you exhausted him and he drowned, but it was an unexpected, shocking tragedy, not your fault.’
Iona said quietly, ‘Intellectually I knew that, but I just couldn’t accept it.’
Angie unlocked the car and got in. Once they were settled she said, ‘And then your parents were killed by that damned drunk driver. It’s no wonder you were a mess. Then you met Lukas Michelakis in Tahiti?’
‘Yes. Actually when he strode down the beach—like—like the king of the gods—to inform me I was trespassing I was actually relieved. He gave me something else to think about.’ With a vengeance.
Once they were under way, Angie said, ‘And what happened then?’
‘We went around a bit together,’ Iona told her in a flat voice, ‘until I came home again.’
‘And you haven’t been in contact since?’ Angie asked.
‘There was no reason.’
Her cousin took the hint. ‘I read somewhere that he grew up in a very wealthy family.’
‘It figures,’ Iona said evenly. ‘His kind of confidence is bred in the genes.’
‘The article was cagey, but heavy on innuendo—obviously making sure no lawyer could sue the writer or the newspaper. It implied something pretty disastrous happened when he was young—late teens, perhaps?—and he left home to strike out on his own.’
‘Probably with the family’s support not too far in the background.’ Iona didn’t try to hide the cynical note in her words.
‘I doubt if he needed it. It didn’t take him long to turn into an internet czar.’ Angie paused before asking casually, ‘If he needs to call on us, how would you feel about working with him?’
‘Me?’ Iona swallowed an unnecessary panic. ‘A bit self-conscious, that’s all. I was half-naked, mopping detergent off my breasts, when he strode in like a clap of doom just before you arrived, and I suspect he thought it was a set-up—that I’d deliberately stripped to attract his attention.’
‘I suppose it’s happened before,’ Angie said, and gave her a thoughtful sideways glance. ‘I bet he spends a fair part of his life swatting off importunate women.’
During their brief affair he’d more than met Iona halfway.
Repressing disturbing images of tropical folly, she said hastily, ‘I’ll be fine. He relaxed when you turned up.’
Although relaxed wasn’t the word to describe Luke. Even on holiday she’d sensed a leashed, prowling awareness in him, an uncompromising authority that made him both formidable and intimidating.
It was still there, intensified by an ironic detachment she’d not experienced before.
Get over it, she told herself. She still resented the hard contempt of his gaze in the powder room, but that was good, because resentment was a much safer emotion than sighing lustfully after him.
The barbecue Angie had been asked to organise only the day before went on until after midnight and they were both tired when at last they left the beach house an hour’s drive north of Auckland.
Covering a yawn, Iona said, ‘I wish someone would persuade Mrs Parker not to throw