so, he couldn’t be more wrong.
Far from virginal, far from Victorian, she thought with an aching regret. ‘I’d prefer Hannah, thank you.’
His smile was tinged by irony. ‘Hannah it shall be. If you feel up to it, I’d like you to come to dinner tomorrow night.’
Caution warned her to prevaricate, fudge the truth a little and say she wasn’t well enough to socialise, but she’d already cut off that avenue of escape when she’d made it clear she didn’t need to be looked after by—well, by anyone, she thought sturdily.
Especially not this man, whose unyielding maleness affected her so strongly she could feel his impact on every cell. Even politely setting limits as she’d just done had energised her, set her senses tingling, and every time she looked into that hard, handsome face she felt a hot, swift tug of—of lust, she reminded herself bitterly.
And she knew—only too well—what that could lead to.
However, he was her landlord. She owed him for several things; his impersonal care on Tukuulu, the refrigerator full of groceries.
Changing her wet clothes…
Ignoring the deep-seated pulse of awareness, she said, ‘That’s very kind of you. What time would you like me to be there?’
‘I’ll pick you up at seven,’ he told her with another keen glance. ‘Until then, take things slowly.’
His long-legged strides across the lawn presented her with a disturbing view of broad shoulders and narrow hips above lean, heavily muscled thighs. He dressed well too—his trousers had been tailored for him, and she’d almost bet his shirt had too.
Very sexy, she thought frivolously, quelling the liquid heat that consumed her. Some lucky men were born with that it factor, a compelling masculinity that attracted every female eye.
And she’d bet the subject of her letting someone know if she had another attack of fever would come up again.
A few paces away he swivelled, catching her intent, fascinated look. A challenge flared in his narrowed eyes; he understood exactly what effect he was having on her.
Hot with shame, she wanted to turn away, but Kelt held her gaze for a second, his own enigmatic and opaque.
However, when he spoke his voice was crisp and aloof. ‘If you need anything, let me know.’
It sounded like a classical double entendre; if he’d been Felipe it would have been.
It was time she stopped judging men by Felipe’s standards. The years in Tukuulu had shown her that most men were not like him, and there was no reason to believe that Kelt Gillan wasn’t a perfectly decent farmer with a face like one of the more arrogant gods, an overdeveloped protective instinct and more than his share of formidable male presence.
‘Thank you—I will,’ she said remotely.
And produced a smile she held until he’d swung up onto his horse and guided it away.
Her face felt frozen when she took refuge in the cottage and stood listening as the sound of hooves dwindled into the warm, sea-scented air. She shivered, crossing her arms and rubbing her hands over her prickling skin.
Again? she thought in mindless panic. The unbidden, unwanted surge of sensual appetite humiliated her. Why on earth was she attracted to dangerous men?
Not that she’d realised Felipe was dangerous when she first met him. And for some unfounded and quite illogical reason she couldn’t believe Kelt would turn out to be like Felipe.
As well, the heady clamour Kelt Gillan summoned in her was different—more earthy and primal, nothing like the fascinated excitement she’d felt when Felipe had pursued her. He’d seemed such a glamorous, fascinating man, with his French title and his famous friends. At eighteen she’d been so green she’d run headlong into peril without a second thought.
Six years older, and much better able to look after herself, she sensed a different danger in Kelt Gillan—a more elemental attraction without the calculation that had marked Felipe’s seduction.
Desperate to take her mind off her enigmatic landlord and his unnerving effect on her, she went across to the kitchen and put on the electric kettle.
‘Displacement activity,’ she said aloud, a mirthless smile curling her mouth as she spooned coffee into the plunger.
Wrapping her attraction to Felipe in a romantic haze had got her into deep trouble; this time she’d face her inconvenient response to Kelt Gillan squarely. Coffee mug in hand, she walked out onto the deck and stood looking out over the sea.
No emotions, no fooling herself that this was love, no silly claptrap about soulmates. She’d already been down that track and it had led to humiliation and heartbreak and terror. Felipe had played on her naivety, setting himself out to charm her into submission.
And succeeding utterly, so that she’d gradually been manipulated into an affair without fully realising where she was heading. When she’d realised what sort of man he was she’d tried to break away, only to have him bind her to him with the cruellest, most degrading chains. To free herself she’d had to sacrifice everything—self-respect, love for her brother, her very future.
Closing her eyes against the dazzling shimmer of the sun on the bay, she thought wearily that she hadn’t planned for her sacrifice to last the rest of her life.
In fact, she hadn’t planned on any further life.
Well, a Mediterranean fisherman with smuggling as a sideline had seen to it that she’d survived. She shivered, and for a foolish few seconds wondered if Kelt Gillan had brought on another attack of fever.
No, her chill was due to memories she wished she could banish.
Only right now she needed them to remind her that no person could ever see into the heart of another, especially when they were blinded by lust.
Ruthlessly she dragged her mind back to the present, and concentrated on the problem at hand—her feelings for Kelt Gillan.
‘Just think rationally,’ she told herself.
What she felt when she looked at Kelt was a powerful physical attraction for a man both formidable and enormously attractive—a primal arousal with a scientific basis. Humans instinctively recognised the people they’d make superb babies with.
Logic played no part in it, nor did common sense. But both could be used as weapons against it, and if she’d learned anything these past six years it was that any relationship between lovers needed much more than desire to be a success.
And there would be no babies for her, ever.
So she’d have dinner with Kelt and then she’d stay well away from him.
Hani missed the children the next day, and not for the first time wondered what on earth she was going to do for three months. Too many empty weeks stretched before her, leaving her far too much time to think, to remember. Without the steady routine of school she faced more than simple boredom; she’d have to deal with emptiness.
At least the cottage had a set of bookshelves stuffed with books of all ages and quite a few magazines. After a brief walk along the beach that reminded her again how unfit she was, she sank into a chair on the deck with a cup of tea and a volume on New Zealand that looked interesting.
She flicked it open and saw a bookplate. Kelt Crysander-Gillan, it stated.
‘Unusual,’ she said aloud. There was an inscription too, but she turned the page on that, feeling as though she was prying.
With a name like that, and if Kelt’s air of forceful authority had led to a nickname like The Duke, imaginative children could well come up with a crown-wearing grandmother somewhere in Europe.
At precisely seven o’clock he arrived to collect her as the sun was dipping behind the forest-covered mountains