‘Everybody burns in this sun,’ she returned swiftly.
Although he probably didn’t—he had his mother’s built-in golden tan along with her black, black hair. Sometimes when he spoke Sanchia could hear Mrs Hunter in a certain intonation, an un-English arrangement of words.
Quickly, before he could give her another of those intimidating looks, Sanchia added, ‘I slather myself with sunscreen every time I go out.’
‘Good. Skin like yours should be cherished.’ Again that cynical, caressing note in his voice mocked the compliment.
Irritated by her heated, mindless response, she said shortly, ‘All skin should be cherished.’
‘No doubt, but yours is a work of art.’
‘Thank you,’ Sanchia replied tautly.
Did he hope that a meaningless flirtation would persuade her to sell Waiora Bay? No, that instant physical response was real enough, and she wasn’t the only one feeling it.
But he could well intend to use it as a weapon.
Side by side they walked into the welcome coolness of a creeper-shaded terrace. Sanchia’s sandals clicked on the ceramic tiles as she followed him between loungers and chairs towards a wall of pushed-back glass doors.
‘Come in,’ Caid told her, standing back so she could go before him into the big sitting room beyond.
Sanchia had never forgotten the atmosphere of casual elegance, of European glamour and comfort that permeated Caid’s house. Reluctantly, feeling she was yielding an advantage, she removed the sunglasses and, without giving herself time to harness the clutch of bumblebees in her stomach, said, ‘I’m not open to persuasion on the future of the Bay.’ Fixing her gaze on a blur of flowers in a magnificent vase, she underlined her statement as delicately as she could. ‘It will probably save a lot of time and useless manoeuvring if I tell you that you won’t coax Great-Aunt Kate’s estate from me.’
He said in a voice so cold it froze her every cell, ‘I don’t do business that way, Sanchia.’
‘I wasn’t meaning—’
‘Then what were you meaning?’
Sanchia faced him, her chin angling up as she grabbed for her scattered wits. ‘I’m not going to be won over by an appeal to greed, either. Why offer me a couple of thousand for an option to buy the Bay when I’d made it obvious I didn’t want to sell? You know perfectly well that an option is usually sealed by a coin.’
For a racing moment she thought she saw a hint of respect in the vivid eyes.
‘There’s no set legal fee,’ he said drily. ‘An option to buy is a business decision, and the amount offered to cover it is decided on by the two people concerned.’
‘But it’s usually no more than a token—a dollar. You were testing me.’ She held his gaze a second longer. ‘You can pay me a dollar for the option, but I’m not going to change my mind about selling.’ And because his smile flicked her on the raw, she finished with a foolish bravado, ‘However much you try to intimidate me, or however charmingly you flirt with me.’
His smile vanished, but before she had time to exult he advanced on her, his silent grace a threat. Although Sanchia’s stomach lurched, she refused to back away.
‘This,’ he said, resting his thumb on the jumping pulse in her throat, ‘has nothing to do with the document you made the decision to sign.’
Gently, without pressure, his hand curved around her throat, the fingertips moving slightly against the sensitive nape of her neck, producing a tiny friction as purposeful as it was erotic. ‘Neither has the fact that your eyes are a smokier, more sultry green than I remember, and that your mouth is a miracle…’
Sanchia looked up into metallic eyes and saw the effort he had to put into relaxing his fingers. Inside her a latent hunger uncoiled, began to move through her veins like the tide of life greeting an arctic spring, long-awaited, unrestrainable.
‘Nothing to do with business at all,’ Caid repeated dispassionately, his voice deep and hard. ‘I find you very attractive, very appealing—I have ever since you turned sixteen. But I do not intimidate women, nor force them into my bed, and I don’t use lies to seduce them into making decisions either. Am I forcing you now?’
‘No.’ The word splintered with repressed emotion—terrifying emotion—a passionate, wild desire that warned of sensual meltdown.
Slowly, whispering across the surface, his fingertips tantalised her skin as his thumb noted the increased thudding of her pulse. Sanchia shivered.
Bending his head, he said fiercely, ‘You can walk away if you want to.’
She lifted heavy eyelids. ‘I don’t want to.’
Triumph flashed in the blue eyes. ‘Good,’ he said, and kissed her.
It was like an earthquake: the foundations of her world shifted and she no longer had any reference points for normality as sensation stormed through her. Shattered by the violence of her response to Caid’s seeking, demanding mouth, Sanchia gave up trying to think and surrendered to the astonishing pleasure his kiss summoned.
Some time later she surfaced; locked in his arms, she was pressed against him from shoulder to thigh so that his arousal was more than obvious.
Appalled, she tried to pull away, but he lifted his head and said harshly, ‘It’s too late for that.’
‘Oh, no, it’s not,’ she muttered, beating back the first icy trickle of fear. ‘I must be mad. Caid, let me go!’
‘So nothing has changed,’ he said coldly, releasing her immediately. ‘Kissing is all right but I must go no further. Why, Sanchia?’
Twisting away, Sanchia ran a shaking hand through her hair and whispered, ‘I won’t let this happen again!’
He showed his teeth. ‘Hell, isn’t it?’ he agreed sardonically. ‘Just one of those mad attractions that shatter kingdoms and ruin lives.’ His eyes glinted. ‘Perhaps you have such a powerful effect on me because I spent several summers watching you grow up. And one infinitely frustrating holiday trying to get past the iron-clad barriers that slammed in my face whenever I touched you. What’s your excuse?’
Weighed down by reaction to the adrenalin overdose, Sanchia blinked and gathered the tattered remnants of her wits about her. ‘Look, produce this piece of paper, I’ll sign it and say goodbye, and we can forget that the—that this ever happened.’
‘Coward,’ he taunted.
‘Absolutely,’ she agreed fervently, thrumming with thwarted desire now that he’d let her go. ‘I like a peaceful life and you’re very definitely not peaceful. We’ve got nothing in common.’ She dragged her gaze from his enigmatic face to stare around the room. ‘Where is this option?’
‘In the office.’ But even as he nodded towards a door he said caustically, ‘We have one thing in common, Sanchia—a consuming physical passion that’s going to drive both of us crazy unless we do something about it. Why does it scare you so much? I won’t hurt you.’
Sanchia swallowed to ease her arid throat. For a second panic clutched her, and with it a soul-destroying shame. Had he guessed? No, she decided with a swift spurt of relief, not yet. She strode across the room in front of him, flinging over her shoulder, ‘I don’t want an affair with you!’
‘So you said three years ago. Why, Sanchia? Does passion terrify you so much?’
If only he knew…
She said jerkily, ‘I’m not cut out for being a diversion, a pretty toy to be used and then discarded. You forget that while you were checking the length of my legs and