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  Her touch, the warmth of her slender body in his arms, the faint female perfume that rose from her skin and hair, the silken slide of her skin against his—all worked their inevitable magic on him. Tamping down the fumes of desire that began to clog his brain, he laughed under his breath and twisted to reach something on his side table. ‘And here’s another,’ he said, dropping a small gold charm on her breast: a tiny open book.

  ‘Darling, thank you,’ Natalia said in a voice rich with love. She narrowed her eyes at him. ‘Though why I should wear them when you won’t wear the little witch and the mask I bought you, I don’t know.’

  He grinned. ‘I carry the witch in my chest pocket; that’s next to my heart. And I prefer to see you wearing the others.’

  After a short, but very satisfactory interval, Natalia sat up and hooked her arms around her bare knees, smiling at the sun that poured in through the French windows. With a swift sideways glance she said, ‘You know, this book of mine has given me ideas. Now that it’s sold to England and America, I thought I’d like to do a picture book for babies. But I need a model. Shall we try for one?’

  Clay felt the impact of her words right through to his soul. ‘Are you sure?’ he asked, controlling his response.

  She turned to him, the gleam of provocation in her green eyes fading. Very seriously she said, ‘Only if you want them.’

  He had to pause, to choose his words carefully. ‘I want them,’ he said, ‘but children tie chains around your heart, around your life. They’re just as efficient a trap as a horticultural unit with a huge mortgage.’ He’d never suggested them because his lovely, talented, magnificent Natalia needed as much freedom as he could give her.

  ‘I don’t feel trapped in our marriage,’ she said, not looking at him. Her lashes were dark fans against her ivory skin, her full, soft mouth a little compressed.

  Clay repressed a surge of aching love, of desire, to listen as she went on, ‘When we first met the physical attraction was so strong that it swamped everything else; it terrified me, because how could I know whether it would last, whether it had any sort of solid foundation? But as well as setting my body on fire you were kind and thoughtful and intelligent and interesting and honourable, and I fell in love. Only deep inside I still wondered. I thought it might be a kind of obsession, that one day I might wake up and it would be gone.’

  ‘I guessed,’ he said, suddenly cold, fighting a stark, hungry need to take her in his arms and kiss her, turn her mindless with lust, secure her to him in the one way that never failed.

  A smile wavered on her lips; she turned to him, her exotic eyes sparkling with tears. ‘Clay, during these past two years, three months and one week I’ve realised two things—that the desire is part of love, not something separate and untrustworthy, and that the freedom I wanted so much was the freedom to be with you, to make a life together. And I’d like children to be part of that life.’

  It was the surrender he’d waited for, the last barrier shattered.

  Yet surrender was the wrong word. Unable to find words, Clay leaned over and pulled her into his arms. As always, she came willingly, her body pliant, her response immediate and unfettered.

  He said harshly, ‘We’ll give them the best we can, my heart. Everything good your parents did, everything good Olivia did for me—we’ll make mistakes, but our children will always know we love them.’

  They’d come full circle, back to Pukekahu, back to love and trust and the promise of all that they’d missed—a family, a home, a place in each other’s heart that was inviolable. As she kissed the rough silk of his jaw, Natalia knew that they had found their refuge, their reason for loving, the dream both had sought so long without knowing it.

  And before she surrendered to passion’s honeyed lure, she thanked both her father and Olivia for setting into motion the events that had led to this.

  ISBN: 978-1-4592-0464-5

  A RELUCTANT MISTRESS

  First North American Publication 2001.

  Copyright © 1999 by Robyn Donald.

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

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