The Prince's Convenient Bride Read online

  Marco’s eyes narrowed. ‘Last night you responded to me. You didn’t want to, but you did. That doesn’t seem like a woman in love with another man.’

  Backed into a corner, she attacked. ‘This is harassment and we have laws against that in New Zealand.’

  ‘Or is it getting too close to the truth? He owns this lodge.’

  ‘So?’ she flashed, losing her famous composure for a betraying second.

  ‘So is he paying for you to stay here?’

  ‘No.’ She clawed back her poise and looked at him with disdain, letting her voice chill into Antarctic frigidity. ‘Ultimately your corporation is paying. I find this whole conversation offensive.’

  He should have been abashed, but apparently princes didn’t do shame well because he merely looked cynically amused. ‘I hadn’t realised you were a prude.’

  ‘Insulting me,’ she shot back, ‘isn’t going to get you what I assume you want.’

  ‘And what is that?’ he asked silkily.

  ‘A temporary lease on my body.’ She infused her voice with hauteur.

  One straight black brow lifted; he held her gaze in a challenge so cold and clear and unreadable that she felt its impact in her bones.

  And then, without warning, he leaned forward and took her hand.

  His touch seared through her like an electric shock. Lost in some dangerous enchantment, Jacoba stared at him while her body throbbed with an erotic charge that terrified her.

  Marco lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed the palm, his lips lingering in a sensuous caress. Savage little shivers scudded down her spine and her mind spun off into some alternate universe where the only thing that mattered was the touch of Marco Considine ’s mouth against her skin.

  She tried to force her fingers into a fist. A wry smile tucking in one corner of his mouth, he let his fingers rest over the betraying blue veins at her wrist.

  ‘At least I’d be faithful,’ he drawled.

  Jacoba bit her lip. ‘No,’ she said too loudly, because some desperate part of her wanted to surrender so much she could barely get the word out through her reluctant lips.

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ she muttered, tugging her hand free.

  This time he let it go, but not before she’d seen the glint of satisfaction in his eyes.

  Eyes wide and startled, she watched him get up in one smooth, graceful movement. Her relief was short-lived; he leaned down and kissed her startled mouth. Jacoba froze, but her body, somehow sensitised by the hours spent in his arms the previous night, flamed with a swift, ruthless hunger that came out of nowhere.

  Gasping, she tried to pull away, but Marco took advantage of her helpless response and deepened the kiss, taking possession of her. Gentle, yet powerfully persuasive, his mouth lingered as he tasted her with exquisite care.

  The next moment she was on her feet and in Marco’s arms, relishing their strength as they clamped around her. When he broke off the kiss and stared into her eyes, his own half-closed and intent and dark, she whispered something—his name?—but the word was crushed into nothingness by the renewed pressure of his mouth.

  Dazed into a mindless whirl, Jacoba raised one hand to lie along his cheek; she thrilled to the tactile luxury of fine-grained skin. He lifted his head and kissed the corner of her lips, and then the lobe of her ear, and the spot where a pulse beat violently in her throat.

  His hand cupped her breast. Pleasure thrummed through her in an incandescent tide, electrifying her. She’d always been so careful when it came to men, dropping her guard only with Hawke, who was almost a brother to her; never before had she felt this hot excitement, so exhilarating that she understood why people became addicted to it.

  It’s just sex, some part of her whispered. Nothing serious; just mindless animal attraction.

  Her breasts ached with unfamiliar hunger, tight and receptive beneath his slow, infinitely knowledgeable caress. In the pit of her stomach something unfurled, a craving for more…

  Then Marco kissed her as though she were the other half of him, as though they were going to part and never see each other again and this was to be all they’d ever have.

  He ended it abruptly, setting her free and saying harshly, ‘I must be mad!’

  Bewildered and shocked, Jacoba dragged in a deep breath and pushed a shaking hand through her hair. He must have slipped off the ribbon that held it in a pony-tail, and she hadn’t even noticed!

  ‘Both of us,’ she said raggedly.

  ‘It’s all right—no one can see.’ He looked down at her, his eyes hard and unsparing. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, his voice arctic and formal.

  Horrified, she realised that she’d been so lost in his embrace that she couldn’t have cared less if the world had been watching. Clutching the remains of her tattered dignity around her, she stepped back.

  In a voice she tried to make light and mocking, she said, ‘I hope you enjoy Tahiti, sir.’

  He gave a brief, humourless smile that showed his even white teeth. ‘And I hope you enjoy wherever you’re going and whatever you’re doing. But keep this in mind—now that I know you want me I don’t plan to give up.’

  Heart jumping in her breast, she said unevenly, ‘I might be the first woman to say no to you, but I mean it.’

  He didn’t try to tell her she was wrong. Instead he said abruptly, ‘You’re scared. Why?’

  ‘I’m not!’ She glowered at him, and pushed a tress of hair back from her face. ‘I don’t go in for flings. Sir.’

  Astonished, she heard him laugh, a genuine laugh with real amusement. ‘Neither do I,’ he told her with level effrontery. ‘And if you think that hurling sirs at me like stones is going to keep me at a distance, you’re mistaken.’

  Recklessly she said, ‘I despise men who think they have a right to any woman they fancy.’

  ‘Tell me without any dissembling that you don’t want me.’

  Goaded into indiscretion, she blurted, ‘What has that to do with anything? I don’t go to bed with every man I want. I have some discrimination!’

  ‘So do I,’ he said calmly. ‘You’ve made your point—you want me, but you’re not going to ruin whatever sick relationship you have with Hawke Kennedy for something genuine.’

  ‘You know nothing about my relationship with Hawke,’ she parried.

  ‘I know he’s not faithful to you, so there’s no trust, no honesty in it.’ He paused, and when she remained obstinately silent he went on, ‘And I know there’s never been the suggestion that you’ve been unfaithful to him. You seem content to wait for him to come back to you each time.’

  Even as he said the words he wondered why he bothered. Women were two a penny in his life; he could have any he chose. Yet here he was pleading for the companionship of one who clearly didn’t want anything to do with him.

  All right, so she found him attractive—other women had wanted him and he’d ignored them. Hell, some had confessed to loving him, and he’d broken off with them before he’d hurt them any further. He’d never asked for anything more than companionship and the free exchange of sexual pleasure.

  And he’d never poached.

  Now this woman was looking at him with her amazing eyes, grey and impenetrable as mist, intent on denying the physical magnetism between them.

  She said crisply, ‘Please go now.’

  Centuries of ancestors who’d taken what they wanted—and often paid dearly for their actions—rose within him. Marco knew perfectly well that she had a right to refuse him, that forceful seduction meant nothing, yet he had to stop himself from snatching her up and making love to her until she admitted that she felt the same potent, heady desire that was fuming his brain.

  But reverting to the simple, uncompromising standards of the Considines who’d ruled for centuries at the Wolf’s Lair wasn’t possible in this modern world.

  ‘Of course,’ he said distantly, his brain working overtime. He looked down at her beautiful face, saw a glimmer of—what?�
�in the depths of her eyes, and again fought back the primitive instinct to take.

  He touched her cheek, watching her eyes widen in confusion. There were other ways to get what he wanted—and he was a strategist.

  Yet the moment his fingertips met her skin, tactics went flying; pure hunger drove him to kiss her once more.

  Although Jacoba read his intention in his face, she was powerless to reject him. It would be the last time she kissed him and she wanted it so much.

  So she yielded, her mouth soft and ripe under his, until he lifted his head and looked into her eyes, his own resolute and compelling.

  ‘If you need me,’ he said levelly, ‘call me.’

  ‘Good exit line,’ she said, not trying to hide the mockery in her tone. ‘You’ll be easy to track down, no doubt.’ Impossible, she meant, and he knew it.

  ‘A call to any of my offices will get you through.’

  He turned and walked away, the sun gleaming blue-black on his poised head, his big body lean and lithe and as graceful as a panther.

  Thoroughly rattled, Jacoba sat down again, forbidding herself to watch him out of sight. Her mother had never let them do that; an ancient superstition from her family had said that to do so would mean that the person watched would never come back.

  So cold common sense told her briskly to keep her eyes on him. She didn’t want him back.

  ‘Where were you when I needed you before?’ she accused beneath her breath, but common sense didn’t answer. She said aloud, ‘Dereliction of duty, that’s what it’s called.’

  She turned her head, but it was too late; the prince had already disappeared behind the side of the building. Frustration and an odd sort of desolation gripped her.

  Ignoring her shaking hands, she poured herself a cup of coffee and tried to assemble her thoughts.

  So she’d met one of the Considines. Her mouth trembled and she had to put the coffee-cup down in case she spilt the liquid.

  ‘Arrogant bastard,’ she said thickly.

  Oh, yes. And tough, and ruthless, and high-handed and spoilt.

  And sexy as hell.

  The only man who’d ever had such an effect on her.

  But the caution her mother had ingrained in her meant she’d never see Marco Considine again. Oh, possibly at the launching of the ad campaign, but she was sure he’d have found someone else by then, and she’d be safe.

  Leaving the full cup of coffee on the little table, she got to her feet and went inside.

  Jacoba had agreed to ‘do’ the New Zealand Fashion Week for a fee that made her agent threaten to faint with horror.

  ‘I owe them,’ Jacoba said, grinning a little at the image of her tough mentor swooning. ‘They gave me my first break.’

  ‘Eleven years ago, and each year you go back and work for them for peanuts!’ Bella’s sigh rolled gustily down the phone. ‘You’re too loyal, that’s your problem. Stupidly loyal.’

  ‘So you keep telling me.’

  ‘I’m right. I’m always right. You are going on holiday after Fashion Week, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes. I’m going to spend a glorious week in a bach in the very north of New Zealand.’

  ‘Bach? What’s that?’

  Jacoba grinned. ‘It’s a very small shack on the most beautiful beach in the world.’

  Her agent sighed. ‘So you’re slumming it. And without any mobile-phone access! I just don’t get you.’

  But buying the run-down farm had been the right decision. Miles from anywhere, it was Jacoba’s bolt-hole; when she’d worked through her bookings she’d build a new house and live here…

  She lifted her eyes from the laptop screen and sighed luxuriously as she gazed at the curve of pinky-gold beach. She could have stayed at Hawke’s house further south in the Bay of Islands, but she needed solitude.

  However, right now she needed a swim. She’d been writing since four in the morning, and her brain had had enough.

  She stood up, scanning the bay. A storm the previous week had stirred up kelp beds along the coast, and because she disliked swimming through the strands she’d stayed out of the sea. Now, however, the sun shone down onto serene blue water, with no dark clumps of drifting, clinging weed.

  One of the nice things about her cute little word processor was that she could write wherever she wanted to. She’d spent the last couple of hours in a deckchair beneath one of the huge pohutukawas that lined the beach.

  After saving more pages of what she hoped might turn out to be an adult novel, she took the computer back up the beach to the one-room bach. Whether the pages were any good she didn’t know, but they were only the first draft, so she wasn’t too worried about their quality yet. All she knew was that she’d had the story in the back of her mind for so long she felt that if she didn’t get it down now it might turn stale.

  And, as her two previous books—written for the adolescent market under another name—had garnered good reviews, she knew she could write.

  Yawning, she got into a bikini. She’d swim along the bay, shower, have lunch and then sleep. Under the pohutukawa, she thought complacently, glad that she didn’t have to share the beach with anyone else. Humming happily, she scooped up a huge rug and her towel.

  But once she’d spread the rug out, it looked so inviting she sat down on it. A minute or so to bask in the sun would be delicious, she thought, not trying very hard to hold up eyelids that had suddenly got very heavy.

  Somehow, she drifted straight into a dream of the man who’d tormented her unconscious moments since she’d let him walk away from her at the other end of the country.

  He said her name, in slow, tender accents, and smiled, and held out his hand to her, and this time she had no fear of ancient feuds so she could go to him. But when she tried to walk towards him the air thickened, and she found herself receding further and further away.

  In the end, when she sank to the ground because she could no longer fight against the invisible obstruction, he turned and said harshly, ‘It’s too late, Jacoba,’ and vanished.

  Tears clogging her lashes, she woke with a start.

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ snapped, and sprang up, furious with herself as she ran down to the beach and into the water.

  Diving into its brisk embrace wiped the last drugging vestiges of the dream from her brain. Doggedly she swam the length of the beach but, although it was late spring and the water was warm, she found herself shivering, and, mindful of the risks of swimming alone, she turned and headed for the shore.

  At first she thought the sound of the helicopter was a boat’s engines, and turned to scan the sea. Fishermen were rare on this isolated stretch of coast.

  After a moment’s survey of the empty sea, she realised that the sound was approaching far too quickly to be a boat. And by then the throb, throb, throb of the rotors proclaimed the origins of the noise.

  She watched uneasily as the machine flew low and purposefully over the hills that sheltered the bay. It was too late to make a sprint for the bach. Although she’d overcome the modesty that had embarrassed her when she’d first started modelling, she’d never been able to achieve the casual acceptance of nudity that so many other models cultivated.

  Her bikini was too scanty to be receiving strangers, she thought uneasily.

  CHAPTER THREE

  JACOBA stood upright in the water, watching as the chopper turned and aimed itself at the beach. Hawke, she thought in something close to panic—it had to be Hawke. Had something happened to Lexie? Had their mother’s fears of discovery and retribution finally been realised?

  No. Common sense told her that Ilona Sinclair’s fears were rooted in the past. The new ruler, Prince Alex, had set his country free, guiding his people onto the path of democracy and modernisation. Lexie and she were safe.

  So who was this? She pushed the fiery flood of her hair back from her incredulous face, adrenalin pouring into her bloodstream as the chopper flew low over her to settle awkwardly on the sand. She half-ran, half-sw
am towards it, finally coming to a stop in thigh-deep water, eyes straining as the passenger door slid open and a man got out—tall and dark and lithe as he ducked and strode out of the way of the rotors.

  Her heart constricted painfully. How many times since she’d left Shipwreck Bay Lodge had she seen a proudly poised black head in the distance and felt a rush of excited anticipation, only to be dashed to disappointment?

  This time she recognised the prince instantly. Something in her bloomed, caught fire in incandescent radiance. She felt suddenly naked, but she had no place to go. Pride wouldn’t allow her to sink beneath the water, so she’d have to meet him with most of her body bared to his cold, pale gaze.

  The chopper’s engines changed pitch; incredulously she watched it lift off the beach and head back towards civilisation.

  Numbly, she stayed where she was, waves pulsing gently about her as she glared at Marco Considine , while her heart jolted into life again after long weeks of sulking.

  He smiled at her, and her stomach dropped into free-fall. Until the helicopter had disappeared over the hills behind the beach, his eyes remained locked onto her face, examining her as though she were some rare specimen seen beneath a microscope.

  Flushing and hot, painfully conscious that every nerve in her body quivered in a shattering mix of eager anticipation and apprehension, she waited silently.

  ‘Hello, Jacoba,’ he said smoothly once he could be heard.

  ‘Why are you here?’ To her fury the words came out husky and low, as though she’d been presented with a gift beyond price.

  ‘I came for you, of course.’ He forestalled her swift, unwise reply. ‘We need more work on the campaign.’

  Bewilderment laced her voice. ‘Why?’

  ‘The scenes at the lake are of no use.’

  She frowned. ‘All of them? Surely some can be used?’

  ‘A few stills, possibly, but even with the cleverest editing the video is useless.’

  ‘Is this payback time?’ she asked with cool insolence.

  His face hardened. ‘I don’t work that way, Jacoba.’