It would be like returning to prison.
And where had that thought come from?
‘Sit down and I’ll get you some tea,’ Paul McAlpine said with remote courtesy, and went through another door.
Reluctantly Jacinta lowered herself into a very comfortable armchair and contemplated her legs, almost as ungraceful as her too-thin arms. Why on earth had she chosen to wear trousers of such a depressing shade of brown?
Because they were the best she had and she couldn’t afford new ones. What did it matter? She didn’t care what he or anybody else thought, she told herself sturdily, and knew that she lied.
‘Tea’ll be ready soon,’ Paul McAlpine said, startling her with his swift reappearance.
Averting her eyes from his broad shoulders, and the way his well-cut trousers hugged muscular thighs, Jacinta swallowed. She even thought she could smell the elusive male fragrance that still infiltrated the occasional dream.
With a shock strong enough to be physical, she braved the icy brilliance of his eyes.
‘Don’t look so tragic, Jacinta. I have a suggestion to make.’ There was a faint, barely discernible undertone to the words, a hint of cynical amusement that startled her.
Especially as she hadn’t realised she was looking tragic. Taken aback, certainly, but ‘tragic’ was altogether overstating the case. Her hackles rose as he sat in the chair opposite her, so completely, uncompromisingly self-sufficient that her spine stiffened and she angled her chin in mute resistance.
Jacinta had no illusions about her looks; she knew that her height and thinness and the clearly defined, high-bridged nose that dominated her face were not redeemed by thick, violently ginger hair, or green eyes hazed with gold and set beneath straight, dark copper brows. Accustomed to feeling out of place amongst the chic women she saw everywhere, she was nevertheless outraged that Paul McAlpine should make her feel the same.
‘Yes?’ she said, aware that she sounded curt but unable to alter the tone to her usual confidence.
‘I have several spare bedrooms,’ Paul McAlpine told her. ‘You’re more than welcome to use one. My housekeeper lives in a flat at the back, so you won’t be alone in the house with me.’
No sarcasm sharpened that beautiful voice, nothing even obliquely hostile glimmered in those blue eyes, but the skin pulled tight on the nape of Jacinta’s neck as a shiver of cold foreboding slithered the length of her spine.
‘That’s very kind of you,’ she said warily, ‘but I don’t think—’
He smiled. It was a smile that had probably stunned more women than she’d had showers. Silenced by its impact, she had to swallow when her words dried on her tongue.
Calmly, almost blandly, he said, ‘If you feel awkward about living here with me I’ll stay in a flat I own in Auckland.’
‘I can’t drive you out of your house,’ she said, feeling both irritated and awkward.
His dark brows inched inwards. ‘I believe that you had to move out of your flat, and as Gerard’s sold his apartment you can’t go there. I spend quite a lot of time either travelling or in my flat in Auckland; a few extra nights there won’t be much of a hardship.’
What would it be like to own several houses?
After one swift, circumspect glance Jacinta realised she didn’t have a chance of changing his mind. Thoughts churned around her mind, to be promptly discarded. She didn’t have enough money to stay in a motel or rent another flat; the main advantage of Paul McAlpine’s bach had been that it was free of charge.
He watched her with eyes half hidden by his lashes, waiting with a sort of vigilant patience—the remorseless tenacity of a hunter—that intimidated her in a way she didn’t understand.
For heaven’s sake! She was letting the aftermath of one dance ten months ago scramble her brain entirely.
With enormous reluctance she finally said, ‘Then—thank you. I’ll try not to get in your way.’
‘Gerard said you’re starting on your thesis.’
‘Did he?’ she said non-committally. ‘What about Christmas?’ she asked. ‘Will the penguins be out from under the bach by then?’
‘It’s unlikely.’ An enquiring eyebrow lifted. ‘Were you planning to stay in the bach over Christmas?’
This would be her first Christmas alone. Through the lump in her throat she said raggedly, ‘Yes. My mother died only a week after we came back from Fiji.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said quietly. ‘That was hard for you.’
Looking away, she nodded, swallowed and went on, ‘I never had the chance to thank you for your kindness to her in Fiji. You left the day before us, and I—’
‘I wasn’t kind,’ he interrupted. ‘I liked her very much, and admired her gallantry.’
‘She liked you, too.’ Jacinta paused to steady her wobbly voice. ‘She really enjoyed talking to you. It made her holiday. She was so determined I shouldn’t miss anything...’
Cynthia Lyttelton had insisted Jacinta use the facilities at the resort, pleading with her to swim, to sail, to go snorkelling. ‘Then you can tell me all about it,’ she’d said.
Because the resort staff had been kind and attentive to her mother, Jacinta had given in. When she’d returned, salt-slicked and excited, after her first snorkelling expedition, Cynthia had told her about this man who had joined her beneath her sun-umbrella—handsome as Adonis, she’d said, and funny, with a good, sharp brain.
Gently, he said now, ‘She told me she didn’t have long to live. I gather she’d been ill for a long time, yet she was completely without self-pity.’
‘She had arthritis, but she died of cancer.’ I will not cry, she averred silently, clenching her jaw against the onset of gnef.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he repeated, and she knew he was.
So many people—considerate, well-meaning people—had told her that her mother’s death must have been a blessed relief to them both She’d understood that they were giving her what sympathy they could, but although often in great pain Cynthia had enjoyed life, and she hadn’t wanted to die.
And Jacinta still mourned her loss.
She nodded, and they sat without speaking for some moments while she regained control of her emotions.
Eventually she looked up, to meet a gaze that rested on her face with unsettling penetration. Instantly his lashes covered his eyes, and when they swept up again there was nothing but that vivid, unrevealing intensity of colour, hiding all emotion, all speculation. His sculptured mouth had thinned to a straight, forceful line.
A firebrand plummeted to the pit of her stomach. Instinct, so deeply buried in her unconscious she’d never known of its existence, stirred, flexed, and muttered a warning.
What am I getting into? she thought.
Common sense, brisk and practical, told her she wasn’t getting into anything, because she wouldn’t allow herself to. Paul McAlpine might look like every woman’s idea of a dream hero, with his golden hair and athlete’s body and disturbing mouth, but she didn’t have to worship at his shrine if she didn’t want to.
‘I usually have a quiet Christmas,’ he told her. ‘Anyway, it’s almost two months before we have to think of that. Our tea’s probably ready, but if you’d like to come with me now I’ll show you where the bedrooms are and you can choose one.’
Stiffly she got to her feet and went with him in and out of five superbly furnished bedrooms, all with both double-hung and French windows leading onto the encircling verandah. Just like something from a glossy magazine.