As far as this latest development went, his father had taken them all by surprise. What would a young woman of twenty-four be expected to know about furnishing from scratch what was virtually a palace? For that matter, what was wrong with the old homestead even if Livvy, his great-aunt, claimed it was haunted? He was sick to death of it all. The old story distressed him. He’d grown up with it, had been taunted about it in his schooldays. Poor tragic Moira, the governess, had most probably been taken by a croc or she had fallen, her body wedged into some rocky crevice in a deeply wooded canyon, never to be found. God knows it happened. People going missing wasn’t exactly a rare occurrence in the Outback. So why had journalists over the years continued to rake up the old story, when all the family wanted was to bury it? No one had ever been able to unearth any proof as to what had happened to her that fatal day.
His mind returned to Jessica Tennant. She might work for a top design studio, but surely there were many people more experienced and more qualified in that firm to do the job? He couldn’t figure it out. B.B., who only dealt with the top people, never underlings, a man renowned for always making smart moves, had done something totally un-smart. He had hired a mere beginner to take charge of a huge project.
“She’s coming here, Cyrus. I’m still making the decisions around here. As for you, Robyn—” B.B. had turned to his stepdaughter “—I don’t want to hear one unpleasant word pass your lips when she’s here. Is that understood?”
In that case, Robyn had better take a crash course on manners, Cyrus thought. For a moment he almost felt sorry for Ms. Tennant. She would be living in the same house as a very dysfunctional family. Perhaps not for long, though. Cy could still hope Ms. Tennant might decide the project was beyond her. There was no way, however, to avoid meeting her. He’d agreed to pick her up because he had business in Darwin, anyway. Otherwise, he’d have said he was far too busy, which not even B.B. could dispute. These days he ran Mokhani while regularly overseeing the other stations in the Bannerman chain. Unlike everyone else directly under B.B.’s control, he didn’t toe the line unless there was substantial reason to. He had to accept his father was different. Never relaxed, never friendly, as though in doing so he would diminish his aura. The older he got, the more controlling B.B. became. Cy couldn’t remember a time when he and his father had been in accord. Not even in childhood. The precious days when his mother, Deborah, had been alive. A few years back, after a particularly bad clash, he had stormed off, thinking his absence would solve the problem of their angst-laden relationship. In the process, he’d realized he could be throwing away his chance of inheritance. But what the hell! He had to be his own man, not the yes-man his father wanted. The sad fact was that B.B. liked grinding people into the ground. He had treated Robyn’s mother, Sharon, like the village idiot. His own mother, who had won the love and admiration of everyone around her, had apparently been highly successful at standing up to her autocratic husband—a man given to unpredictable bouts of black moods—but a riding accident had claimed her when Cy was ten and away at boarding school. A riding accident, when she’d been a wonderful horsewoman. Cy was constantly struck by the great ironies of life.
On that last bid for freedom he’d been gone only a couple of months when his father had come after him. It’d been a huge backing down for B.B., who’d come as close to begging as that man ever could. After he’d had a chance to cool down, B.B. had seen the wisdom of not letting him go. For one thing, for B.B. to deny his own son would go down very badly in the Outback. Even he, Outback legend though he was, was afraid of that. And for another, B.B. knew that Cy was not only the rightful heir to the Bannerman empire, but he was needed. Cy’s skills had been tested and proven. Many thought him the man of the future, serious, influential people who for years had muttered about B.B. and his ruthless practices. Things could be done right without throwing honesty and justice aside.
The conniving Robyn, though she was an excellent businesswoman and owned a very successful art gallery and a couple of boutiques in Darwin, couldn’t hope to replace him. Though she’d try. Robyn wasn’t a Bannerman, though she bore the name and fully took advantage of its clout. Robyn had a real father around someplace, but no one had heard of him for years. She was a year younger than Cy. She and Sharon had come to Mokhani two years after his own mother’s death. Sharon had been sweet and kind. Robyn was anything but, though she trod very carefully around B.B. It was no big secret to insiders that Robyn’s greatest ambition was to somehow usurp Cy and inherit Mokhani. He, the heir apparent, was the only obstacle in the way. Once, a good friend of his, Ross Sunderland, looking uneasily at Robyn, had suggested he watch his back. “Robyn likes shooting things, Cy,” he’d said.
Cy had responded with a practiced laugh. The reality was he’d been watching his back for years. Right from the beginning, Robyn had been a strange one. Cy had divined even as a boy that in Robyn he had an unscrupulous rival.
But for once, he and Robyn had joined forces against B.B.’s decision to hire Ms. Tennant. His decision had been based on Jessica Tennant’s age and inexperience, not her gender; his own mother, after all, had been a very creative woman. But Robyn was violently opposed to the idea of having another woman do the job she’d tried to convince B.B. she could do. She had reacted with the bitterest resentment not even bothering to conceal her hostility from B.B. A big mistake.
“Be careful, Robyn. Be careful.” B.B. had turned on her coldly. “I have hired this young woman. I don’t want second best.”
Finality in action.
THEY WERE MAKING their descent into Darwin airport when the slightly tipsy nuclear physicist beside Jessica leaned into her to confide, “We’re landing.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Darwin airport has one of the longest runways in the southern hemisphere.”
“Really? I’m not surprised to hear that.” She kept staring out the porthole. The guy had been hitting on her in an in-offensive way ever since they’d left Brisbane. At one point she’d even toyed with the idea of asking the flight attendant to move her, but the plane was full. In a few minutes she’d be able to make her getaway from Mr. Intelligence.
It was not to be. He followed her every step of the way into the terminal, making like an overzealous tour guide, pointing out areas already clearly marked. He topped it all off by offering to give her a lift to wherever she wanted to go.
“Thanks all the same, but I’m being picked up.”
“You never said that.” He turned to her with such an aggrieved look the image of Sean floated into her mind.
“No reason to,” she smiled. “Bye now.” If her luck held…
It didn’t. “At least I can help you with your luggage.”
Drat the guy! He was as hard to brush off as a bad case of dandruff.
“So what say we meet up for a drink sometime?” he suggested. “I live here. I can show you all the sights.”
“That’s kind of you, but I’ll be pretty busy.”
“Doin’ what?” He looked at her as though she were playing hard to get.
Irritation was escalating into her as much as the heat would allow when she suddenly caught sight of a stunning-looking guy, head and shoulders over the rest, maybe twenty-eight or thirty, striding purposely toward her.
It was to her, wasn’t it? She’d hate him to change his