Her wild surrender.
And his searing feeling of betrayal when she’d walked out on him, the conflict that raged between his prized, iron-clad control and a primal awareness that his affair with Iona had been something rare, much more intense than mere holiday madness.
For the first time Luke admitted that one of the reasons he’d come to New Zealand was to see if he could contact her again. Just to make sure she was all right, of course.
He hadn’t expected to find her within a couple of hours of landing. His over-developed sense of responsibility should be satisfied because she was obviously fine.
And certainly not filled with delight to see him again.
But she was still very, very conscious of him.
Setting aside the potent, inconvenient pleasure of that realisation, he said abruptly, ‘It will be best if we talk out of earshot of the maid.’
Iona had resolved to treat him with cool detachment, and in a matching tone she managed, ‘Very well.’
As he escorted her out onto the terrace she realised anew just how lithe he was. Tall, broad-shouldered, he walked with the prowling, noiseless grace of some great beast of prey.
Not the sort of man anyone would ever overlook.
Once out on the terrace, blocked from the sounds of the city by lush plantings, without ceremony he demanded, ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I’m making sure that the apartment is ready for you and your party,’ she said with an attempt at cool detachment.
A black brow climbed. ‘Your employer appears to be a little too trusting. You left the door unlocked—anyone could have come in.’
Iona suspected he was waiting for a defensive response. Well, she wasn’t going to give it to him.
Crisply she replied, ‘The security here is excellent. The bell sounds when the elevator is stopping at this floor, and as you were supposed to arrive much later this afternoon I assumed it was my employer—Ms Makepeace—who’d been let in by the concierge.’
He dismissed her words with another hard-eyed stare. ‘I gather she is not the housekeeper.’
He couldn’t possibly be interested in domestic arrangements. This wasn’t even his apartment; one of Angie’s clients was lending it to Luke while he was in New Zealand. Was he getting some small-minded amusement from emphasising the distance between them?
After all, in Tahiti she’d walked out on him. It had probably never happened to him before.
Or since.
But the man she’d known had not been small-minded. Repressing a rush of too-poignant memories, she replied, ‘You’re right, she’s not the housekeeper. She owns and runs a business organising the lives of people too busy to do it themselves.’
‘In other words, a housekeeper and butler service,’ he observed on a note of irony.
Iona gave him her best, kindest, nursery-schoolteacher smile. ‘More like a manager,’ she corrected. ‘She’s extremely successful—hugely discreet, one hundred per cent dependable, and a perfectionist. Your host asked us to make sure the apartment was ready for you, so I called in this morning to check it out. Unfortunately there were a few minor problems, which are on the way to being fixed now. If you’d arrived at the time you said you would, everything would have been perfect.’
He gave a sudden crack of laughter, and for a moment he was the man she’d known, the man she’d fallen—well, not in love with. No, never that.
In lust with.
Amusement didn’t soften the autocratic lines and angles of Luke’s face, but it did make him more approachable when he said lazily, ‘It was convenient for me to arrive early. The rest of my party will be here at the given time.’
Going by the bedrooms she’d checked there were at least two other people to come. Was he planning to share that big bed with someone? A stupid pang of pain seared through Iona, as though the possibility was a kind of betrayal.
Startled and afraid, she said briskly, ‘All that needs to be done now is for the beds to be made. And if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go and help the maid and then you’ll have the apartment to yourself.’
‘It is not necessary,’ he said negligently, eyes intent. A slow smile curled his beautifully chiselled mouth. ‘I am in no hurry to see you go. Tell me how you’ve been since you left Tahiti so swiftly.’
This was exactly the sort of thing ex-lovers might say to each other when they were being civilised and sensible and sophisticated about a past affair.
Well, she was just as capable as Luke of being all those things—perhaps not quite so sophisticated…
Yet it took a considerable amount of control for Iona to say as casually, ‘I’ve been fine, thank you.’
‘You didn’t go back to teaching your little nursery school pupils?’
‘No. I was offered this position.’
She knew she sounded stiff, but she couldn’t be as relaxed as he was. Apart from Gavin he was the only man she’d ever made love to, but, more than that, his heated, generously sensual expertise had drawn her back into the world of the living, the world of emotions and joy and the ability to respond. He’d got too close to her during those passionate days and nights in Tahiti.
She flicked a glance up at him, noting the glimmer of amusement in the tawny eyes. A strange constriction of her heart took her by surprise, as though she’d spent the intervening months waiting for this moment.
It had to be his powerful physical presence. Luke was the best-looking man she’d ever seen, but that wasn’t why her throat had dried. He was so much more than the strong, thrusting bone structure that framed his features, the beautiful lines of the mouth that had given her so much pleasure, the strong, elegant hands…
He interrupted her thoughts with another question. ‘And you enjoy managing other people’s lives for them?’
‘Very much, thank you,’ she said sedately.
Obviously she was only too eager to get the hell out of there. Luke fought back an unexpected spurt of temper. He wasn’t foolish enough to fall in love with his mistresses; experience had taught him not to let down his guard. So Iona’s calm lack of warmth should not only reassure him that she was in control of her life, but allow him to snap the tenuous bonds of an insignificant affair.
Instead he found himself resisting a wild impulse to touch her.
Alarm bells should be screaming, yet it took every shred of self-control not to reach out to her, run the tip of his forefinger around the luscious curve of her top lip, and then down the pale line of her throat, watch her changeable eyes darken into desire.
To prove she was no more immune to him than he was to her…
The doorbell rang. Iona started, then stepped back, blinking shadowed eyes. Luke felt as though he’d been poised on the edge of some dangerous precipice, and realised savagely that he’d just been about to make an idiot of himself.
She swivelled and said huskily, ‘That’s probably Angie—my employer.’
Luke’s voice was cold and deliberate, chilling her right through. ‘I’ll come with you.’
It was Angie. Iona hoped Luke didn’t notice the flicker of unease in the older woman’s expression.
It was masked by the calm professionalism in her tone when she said, ‘I’m Angela Makepeace; you must be one of the guests expected here?’
‘Yes. I am Lukas Michelakis.’