She took his outstretched hand. ‘Goodbye,’ she said, surprised at how steady her voice sounded.
The press of his palm was cool and firm, and as his fingers closed around hers she felt something uncurl alarmingly inside her, but she made herself look directly into his eyes, her own very blue and sparkling with defiance.
‘It was nice to meet you,’ she went on deliberately, and without releasing her grip she brought her other hand up to rest against his chest.
She could feel the power of his body through his jacket. It seemed to reverberate through her palm, tingling along her arm and deep into the core of her being, and she had a sudden, vivid sense that time had slowed while her senses simultaneously speeded up. She was acutely aware of the texture of the material beneath her hand, of Tye’s fingers imprisoning hers, of the sound of her own heart thudding in her ears.
Lizzy was a tall girl, but Tye was taller still, and when he made no effort to bend his head she had to lift herself onto her toes to bring her face close to his, balancing herself by spreading her hand against his chest. She pressed her cheek against Tye’s cool skin, feeling its roughness, breathing in his clean, masculine smell, grazing it with her lips, shivering at the sensation.
Everything seemed to be happening hazily, as if in slow motion. Lizzy had forgotten their audience, but she hadn’t forgotten what she was doing, and when she felt Tye’s fingers begin to loosen their grip she tightened her hold. If she was making a point, she might as well make it properly. She would show Tye just how willing she was to stand out from the crowd!
Tye tensed questioningly as her hand slid up from his chest to his shoulder, and she turned her head. For a fleeting moment blue eyes looked into grey, and then Lizzy smiled, lowering her lashes, and all at once it seemed perfectly natural to touch her mouth to his.
She was prepared for his lips to feel as cold and unyielding as the rest of him, but they weren’t like that at all. They were firm, yes, but they were warm, warm and inviting and exciting, and Lizzy was jarred by a deep, instinctive sense of rightness that was as undeniable as it was disturbing.
Perturbed by the feeling, she would have pulled away if Tye hadn’t chosen that exact moment to put his free arm around her and lift her hard against him. Lizzy found herself pinioned between the massive solidity of his body and the steel strength of his arm, and she felt at once helpless and disconcertingly secure.
His mouth returned the pressure of hers for a long, giddying moment, his lips searingly persuasive, and his hand burning through the silky dress onto her skin—the briefest of touches, but enough to galvanise Lizzy’s senses in a single, incandescent instant so electric that she gasped.
It was enough to break the kiss. Tye’s arm fell, his hand released hers, and Lizzy was left, dizzy and disorientated, somehow managing to stand upright on legs that twitched and trembled with a life of their own. The blue eyes were dazed, and she blinked furiously to clear her head.
What had happened? One second she had been coolly determined to impress him, and the next…oh, the next there had been that scorching whoosh of sensation, thrilling and terrifying at the same time. Lizzy couldn’t have even said how long it lasted. She knew only that it had been long enough to jolt the world out of its usual orbit and that nothing was quite the same as it had been before.
Shaken, she focused at last on her hand. It was clutching Tye’s shoulder, crumpling his jacket between her fingers, and the belated recognition that she was still clinging to him was enough to make Lizzy snatch it away, although she could have done with the support.
She had kissed him because she needed a job, not a shoulder to lean on. Remember?
‘Will—?’ She stopped, horrified by the huskiness of her voice. ‘Will you consider me now?’ she managed croakily after having to clear her throat humiliatingly a couple of times.
‘I certainly will,’ said Tye, and then he demolished all Lizzy’s desperate attempts to pull herself together by smiling.
He had smiled at her before, but his smiles had been mocking at best. This smile was different. It softened the grim lines of his face and warmed the cool eyes with a blithe charm that was as devastating as it was unexpected, and Lizzy’s heart did a peculiar somersault that left her even more breathless than she had been before. It was as if she had blinked to find someone completely different standing before her.
‘Wh—wh—when…?’ she stammered, trying to ask him about the interview, but her tongue kept sticking to the roof of her mouth, so thick and unwieldy that she couldn’t get the words out.
Tye seemed to understand. Reaching into his inside pocket, he pulled out a business card and offered it to Lizzy, who took it with nerveless fingers.
‘Give me a call,’ he said, and turned to walk out of the woolshed and away into the starry outback night, leaving Lizzy to stare after him, his card clutched unread in her hand.
Five to eight. Lizzy looked at her watch for the umpteenth time, and wondered if it was too late to change her shoes.
She had been pleased with her reflection when she left her room. Having dithered for ages about what she should wear, Lizzy had settled at length on a plain shift dress which was flattering without being too revealing. It was very simply cut, relying on the vibrant turquoise colour and the softness of the material for its effect. Lizzy thought it made her look stylish and professional, without making it seem as if she had tried too hard to impress Tye.
Maybe it was a bit shorter than she would normally wear to an interview, but then most interviews didn’t involve being flown to Sydney and collected from the airport by limousine, or being put up in a hotel so luxurious her eyes had popped when she saw the room.
It had taken Lizzy ages to pluck up the courage to ring Tye on the Monday after Ellie’s wedding. She’d sat by the phone, tapping his card against her teeth, wishing she could put that kiss from her mind and feeling ridiculously, pathetically nervous at the idea of seeing him again. Even the thought of his voice at the other end of the phone had been enough to set the nerves jittering and jangling underneath her skin.
What had been the point of going through all that to get his number if she wasn’t even going to call him? Lizzy had asked herself sternly. Chances were that Tye would simply put her in touch with the personnel department and she would never have anything else to do with him.
She had to pay for those shoes somehow, didn’t she?
And after all that, when she’d finally dialled the number, she’d got not Tye but his icily efficient assistant, who had told her that she would make arrangements for Lizzy to fly to Sydney. Mr Gibson, she’d said, would see her for dinner the following Friday at eight o’clock. It seemed a funny time for an interview, but Lizzy had been too intimidated by the PA’s manner to question her further.
Her spirits had risen on the flight over to Sydney. A first-class ticket, limousine service from the airport, a luxurious suite in a top-class hotel…Tye must have been serious about it being an important job. Lizzy congratulated herself on having had the courage to kiss him. It had been awkward afterwards, to say the least, but clearly it had been worth it.
To celebrate, Lizzy had taken herself shopping as soon as she’d arrived in Sydney, and had found a pair of shoes so perfect for her dress that she hadn’t been able to resist buying them to wear instead of the elegant black ones that she had brought with her. Now, sitting beside an elaborate fountain in the lobby as she waited for Tye to arrive, Lizzy wondered if they had been such a good idea.
They were beautiful, just the right colour and decorated with mock peacock feathers fixed into place by a glass jewel, but perhaps they were, after all, a bit much?
Everybody else in the hotel was dressed so discreetly you just knew their clothes had cost a fortune, and Lizzy had seen one or two glances at her shoes, usually followed by disparagingly raised eyebrows. The gesture reminded her sharply of Tye.
He would be here any minute. Lizzy looked at her