Walking beside him to the back door, she wondered what on earth was happening to her. Nothing, she thought in profound irritation. She was simply overreacting to a man who attracted her very much on a physical level.
Clearly he felt no such attraction, which was just as well.
It might be more sensible to go back to Auckland and work over the holidays, but why should she run away? She could cope; this inconvenient awareness would die soon, and she’d promised her mother she’d write this book before the year was over, which left her only two months.
One day, Jacinta thought, she was going to earn enough money to give her some control over her life.
‘I should perhaps mention that Dean is engaged,’ Paul said evenly
It took her a moment to realise what he was getting at, and when she did her first instinct was to laugh. For heaven’s sake, what did he think she was—some sort of femme fatale, dangerously attractive to men?
That first response was followed by anger. Far more likely that he thought she was so desperate for a man that she’d flirt with anyone!
‘That’s nice,’ she said agreeably, just managing to keep the note of mockery from her voice.
His swift glance scorched across her profile, bringing her senses to full alert as his mouth curled in a tight parody of a smile that revealed a glimpse of white teeth.
‘Very nice,’ he said, his voice suspiciously bland. ‘Her name is Brenda and she teaches maths at the local high school.’
The colours of the garden sang in violent juxtaposition, and as Jacinta’s eyes met his, half-hidden by his lashes, the blue gleaming like the sun on ice, she took a quick, impeded breath.
Beneath that unhurried, confident surface was a primitive streak a mile wide, and she’d do well to stay away from it. This man was every bit as fiercely predatory as a lion.
‘Is she local?’ she asked, because it was easier, less threatening, to speak than to stay silent.
His smile faded, and she was left shaken, wondering if she had been stupidly romantic when she’d compared him to a lion.
‘She’s the daughter of one of the oldest families in the district,’ he said serenely.
A lion, for heaven’s sake! How hackneyed.
Paul McAlpine was no more or less than a clever man, blessed—or cursed—with the sort of good looks and personality that made him automatically attractive to most women. The premonition, the icy breath of danger that had struck through her, was sheer imagination.
All right, she found him intensely attractive, and, yes, that was a nuisance, but it could be dealt with. It would pass, as such things do when ignored.
He held the back door open and Jacinta went through ahead of him, welcoming the room’s cool refuge from the heat and the blinding light outside.
‘I’ll see you at seven,’ he said.
It was an unequivocal dismissal, and although she’d been about to say exactly the same words, they stung.
With her shoulders very erect, she went down the hall and into her bedroom.
CHAPTER THREE
ONCE there, Jacinta didn’t immediately go back to the computer. Slowly she walked across the room to stop in front of the dressing table and frown into a mirror burnished by that generous, silvery gleam that comes with age.
Perhaps that was why she looked different. Her mouth was fuller, redder, and the green in her eyes was highlighted by golden speckles. Even her skin had some colour in it—a tawny flush that brightened its usual pallor.
‘Oh, grow up!’ she said crossly, loudly, and turned her back on her reflection and went across to the desk.
Making up the story had been comparatively simple; she and her mother shared a love of fantasy literature, and one day, when Cynthia had been racked with pain and unable to read, Jacinta had tried to take her mind off her agony by soliciting her help with a story she’d had wandering through her mind for weeks.
Her mother had enjoyed the experience so much she’d insisted on an instalment each day, eventually asking Jacinta to write a book from the notes she’d made.
But what had seemed satisfying and complete when she told it was now a chain of words with no interest, no resonance, words that sat flatly on the page and produced no vivid images.
Jacinta was frowning at the screen when Paul McAlpine’s voice jerked her head upright. He was outside, speaking to someone in the garden, and although she couldn’t discern his words she could hear that he was amused.
And she realised what was wrong with her manuscript. When she’d told the stones to her mother the tone of her voice had provided colour and shading, drama and humour, despair and desperation. She’d have to use words to do the job.
‘Thank you, Paul,’ she said softly.
So absorbed did she become that when she next looked at her watch it was ten minutes to seven. Hastily she saved, backed up and shut the machine down, then gathered her sponge bag, towel and orange cotton wrap and went down the hall to the bathroom.
After another quick shower she dried herself, pulled her wrap on and hurried back to her room. She was almost at her door when hairs prickled along the back of her neck. Instinctively she flashed a swift glance over her shoulder.
Paul was standing in the door of his bedroom. Jacinta’s pulse suddenly hammered in her throat as she registered the impact of his scrutiny right through to the marrow of her bones. He didn’t say anything, but she could see dark colour along his cheekbones that both excited and astonished her.
‘I won’t be long,’ she croaked, opening the door and sliding through it as fast as she could
All right, she commanded her thudding, skipping heart, stop that right this minute! You’re just going through delayed adolescence, that’s all You’ll get over it.
And probably any man would be interested in a woman—however thin—who was walking about with nothing on underneath her worn cotton dressing gown. That was the way this sex thing worked; it certainly didn’t mean that he wanted Jacinta Lyttelton, just that his hormones had been activated.
The wrap unpeeled from her damp body, she got into her bra and pants, then looked through her clothes.
Of course she didn’t have anything to wear for a pre-dinner drink with a high-powered international lawyer who lived on a dream farm beside the sea. Something floaty and silken would have done, or casually chic resort wear, but she owned nothing like that.
Her hand hovered over a neat, fitting blouse of vivid orange silk and her teeth sank into her bottom lip. It was her only impulse buy of the past ten years, and she’d not even have considered it if her mother hadn’t been with her in that small, spice-scented shop in Fiji, urging her to forget for once their cramped budget.
She’d never worn it, although the hot, bright colour magically transformed her hair and skin and the tight, short-sleeved underblouse and flowing skirt lent her body a grace she didn’t really possess, especially when she draped the floating silk veil over the ensemble. The sari was fancy dress, calling far too much attention to its wearer.
Still, she thought, her eyes feasting hungrily on the intense hues, when she could afford clothes again, she’d choose those colours and to hell with basic black!
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