She was walking past the door to Luke’s bedroom when it opened and he emerged, darkly saturnine in evening clothes.
Her wayward heart picked up speed.
‘I hear you dealt with an emergency,’ he said, examining her in a way that sent prickles of pleasure through her.
She managed a laugh, horrified when it emerged low and breathy. ‘I think your cook just needed to be comforted because the tuna hadn’t turned up.’
‘Susi told me you handled him like a pro. Put him on his mettle, then chose the one dish he’s famous for.’
‘Did I?’ She laughed more naturally and confessed, ‘That was a lucky break. I chose it because it was the only one I recognised.’
‘All he wanted was to have his dilemma recognised and to be challenged to work a miracle—you clearly read him perfectly.’ Beneath his amused words ran an intoxicating thread of awareness.
‘Just as well he didn’t need any real help, because I don’t know anything about haute cuisine. I can do good plain farmhouse fare, and that’s it.’
Together they went along to the big reception room that overlooked the lagoon and the western horizon. But once inside he frowned down at her. ‘You look exquisite, but you need something else to go with that gown. Come with me.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Every other woman here,’ he told her, ‘will have jewellery. Serious stuff.’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t own any and I couldn’t wear anything of your mother’s,’ she said carefully, rebelling at the thought of being tricked out in jewellery to appease his pride. For once he wasn’t going to get his own way; besides, it didn’t ring true. Luke had far too much confidence in himself to worry about what others would think.
‘I’m not going to give you anything of my mother’s,’ he said curtly. ‘I don’t have the right. But I inherited some from my great-grandmother, and some I’ve acquired—we grow pearls here, in case you didn’t know. And tonight we need to convince everyone that this relationship is serious enough for me to part with some of my pearls.’
When she bit her lip, he said a little impatiently, ‘Don’t be silly, Fleur. Think of them as a prop in a play.’
‘Do you always get your own way?’
‘Usually,’ he replied with a straight face. ‘It comes of being the only boy in the family, I think. My sisters spoiled me.’
Not just his sisters either, she thought wryly as she went with him into a small strongroom off his office. Probably every woman he met had a strong inclination to spoil him in their various ways.
Including her.
And she was being silly; as he’d said, the pearls were simply a prop, so why was she so reluctant to borrow them?
Because, she realised with a panicky intake of breath, she wanted anything he gave her to mean something.
This was getting out of hand. She’d always been aware of him as a man, but his searing kiss had woken her sleeping body, fundamentally transforming every cell. Now when she looked at him or thought of him it was with a secret inner yearning, a fierce hunger that ate away at her self-sufficiency.
She had to stop it right now.
Chapter Seven
TENSELY Fleur watched Luke open a safe and pull out a handful of cases. He flicked up the lids of a couple, and brought them across to her. ‘Which do you like best?’
Afraid that he might read the apprehension in her eyes, she kept them fixed on the jewels. Exquisite, lustrous with a faint golden sheen, one was a string of perfectly graduated and matched beads. The other featured a single magnificent tearshaped pearl, the gold chain fastened by a diamond clasp.
‘They’re the same colour as your skin,’ Luke said. ‘The pendant, I think, will sit better in the neckline of your dress.’ He closed one box and put it back in the safe.
‘Turn around,’ he commanded.
When she obeyed, Luke brushed her firefall of hair aside and thought that there was something oddly vulnerable about the nape of a woman’s neck. Not that he’d call Fleur defenceless, he thought with a twist to his lips as he dropped the pendant around her throat and fastened the clasp, his hands lingering a fraction of a second too long on her exquisite skin.
Far from defenceless, in fact; she stood up for herself, and had been extremely competent in two different emergencies, yet something about her made him intensely protective.
As well as aggressive and reckless and aroused.
Possibly it was her natural perfume, the faint, barely noticeable aroma that sent a surge of involuntary heat through him whenever he got close to her. Pheromones, he thought cynically, and recalled the time he’d reminded her of the primal signalling system that ensured two people would make healthy babies.
Not that he was thinking of making babies with Fleur Lyttelton! Making love—now, that had been occurring to him with more and more frequency since he’d first met her. However, he knew how to master his urges.
Usually…
Frowning, he set the clasp on her skin, charmed to see a faint blush of colour stealing through it. Luke swept the bright flood of her hair to cover the clasp and in full control of his voice said, ‘There.’
And allowed himself to turn her around so that he could see the effect.
Her blush was full-blown by now, and her lack of experience charmed him, too. An image burst full-blown into his mind—Fleur in his bed, wearing nothing but the pearl, lax and sated in a tangle of sheets, her green eyes heavy-lidded, her spectacular mouth slightly swollen from his kisses, her breasts still rosy from his caresses.
And her hair across his chest, a silken river of fire.
He released her and stepped back, his voice harsh as he said, ‘Perfect. There are earrings, too.’
She shook her head, her eyes far cooler than her skin, her mouth compressing. ‘That would be overkill,’ she said succinctly, and turned and walked out of the strongroom.
For some primitive reason it irritated him that she didn’t bother to check herself out in a mirror. Shoulders held straight, she walked beside him into the main reception room, stopping inside the door at the sound of Gabrielle’s voice from somewhere behind them.
When Luke noticed the subtle stiffening of his companion’s body, that odd protectiveness surged through him again. He rested his hand lightly in the small of her back and said crisply, ‘You look exquisite, and you have excellent manners and a talent for coping. As my indomitable French great-grandmother used to say in similar situations, en avant!’
Forward! Supported by his understanding, she turned her head and smiled at him. He was heartbreakingly attractive, his intimate, complicit smile implying that they were in this together, the arrogant framework of his face set off by faultless tailoring and the white shirt beneath his dinner jacket.
For a taut second his unsparing gaze rested on her mouth before he commanded, ‘Just smile, Fleur. That’s all you need to do.’
‘Be a good little decoration, you mean?’ she flashed back.
He grinned. ‘You’re very decorative, but, no, there’s something about your smile that makes people instinctively trust you.’ Eyes glinting, he finished, ‘In fact, that smile would make you the perfect con artist.’
Startled, she stared at him before spluttering into laughter. ‘You certainly know how to give with one hand and take away with the other!’