Master Of Seduction

Liz opened the door of Emma’s cabin, and smiled as she heard Emma’s rapid intake of breath.

‘My God, it’s beautiful…!’

‘Yes, my brother’s very stylish in everything he does.’

Emma hated Patrick for being very stylish, but couldn’t deny that he was, because this room was ravishing. It was vast, sunlight pouring in through two long windows, illuminating the sprawling silk-covered double bed, the deep-pile sea-green carpet, the expensive sofas and armchairs, the long low polished mahogany coffee-table, the antique writing-desk, and the exquisite paintings hanging on the silk-wallpapered walls.

‘I’ll leave you to get on with it, then,’ said Liz with a cheery smile. ‘See you at seven-thirty on deck for predinner cocktails.’

As soon as the door was closed, Emma started to unpack, hanging all her clothes in the wardrobe, piling lingerie, T-shirts and jeans into the chest of drawers, and arranging her various shoes neatly.

Then she laid out her cosmetics, perfume and hairstyling appliances on the beautiful dressing-table, enjoying the reflection of that stylish bottle of Ralph Lauren’s Safari in the three-tiered mirror.

Going into the bathroom with her toiletries, she gasped anew at the beauty, luxury and understated style of the room.

Patrick Kinsella really did have exceptional taste.

Taste meant a lot to Emma. Her late husband had had appalling taste, and living with it for the two years of their brief marriage had been very unpleasant. Another symptom of artifice and role-playing: Emma had let Simon indoctrinate her in everything he liked, as though she simply ‘became’ him, and pretended to like all his friends, his hobbies, his bad taste, his selfishness…

She had also, along the way, pretended to forgive him his brutality, violence, infidelity, deceit and vicious spite. All those qualities had only surfaced after the wedding— but then that was what you got, thought Emma, for pretending instead of telling the truth.

She wasn’t bitter about the past, or about her bad marriage, or about the fact that she had been forced to role-play for so many years. She had dealt with it all long ago, accepting it and moving forward to a new life and a new way of dealing with the world.

What was there to do but forgive and, in doing so, forgive herself for the part she had played in her own unhappiness? Her parents had not loved her properly— but they had loved her, and she had loved them. It hadn’t been their fault that they were so incapable of seeing her as she really was, it had simply been a product of their own unhappy childhoods, when their parents had not loved them properly.

As for Simon—well, he fell into the same category. Treated badly as a boy, he had grown up thinking that love meant treating other people badly, and his violence had been a product of long-buried rage.

Horrors.

What a minefield relationships were.

Now she was free of it all, content with her life, and looking back on the past was like looking back on another person. It would have been romantic of her to use the word ‘rebirth’ to describe her new life and, although she detested romance, she rather liked the word ‘rebirth’.

Stripping her clothes off, she stepped into the luxurious shower, and proceeded to luxuriate under the warm needles of water, washing the grime of her long journey from her slender body.

To think she had left her London home at six o’clock this morning! God, that delay at London Heathrow had been a nightmare!

When she had dried herself, styled her hair, and pulled on a pair of pale blue jeans, she slipped a white silk top on, then decided it would be a shame to waste St Tropez if they were sailing out tonight, so she went up on deck with her sunglasses and handbag, and pootled down the gangplank into town.

Hot sunlight assailed her from all angles. Artists stood on the quai in front of their easels, palettes in hand as they stroked hot oil paints on to the canvases, and seagulls cried sharply among the bobbing boats, the glittering blue waters, the freedom-filled glamour of the town.

Emma walked lazily up bleached, winding, ancient streets, until she came to the main square, where old French men played boules among the trees and the dust, watched by glamorous tourists in pretty canopied cafés.

Sitting on a canvas chair, Emma watched the men, and ordered a coffee. Then suddenly, across the square, she saw a pair of blazing blue eyes watching her.

Dazzling blue, she thought again as she stared unsmilingly straight at Patrick Kinsella.

He just stood still, watching her, staring directly at her, and even though he was a long way away she felt the power of that stare, felt it very deeply, like a mirror turned in sudden blazing recognition.

She did not smile either. Nor make any attempt to wave or signal that she had seen him. Flicking her gaze expressionlessly from his, she glanced at the tree beside her as the warm breeze ruffled through its green leaves, and thought, Who the hell does he think he is?

When she glanced back with a cool expression, Patrick had gone. Frowning, she looked to see where he had disappeared to, but there was nothing there save the men playing boules, the trees, the dust, the cafés, and the sudden buzz of a motorbike driving along in the hot afternoon.

Oh, well. She shrugged philosophically, but it was irksome to have been stared at like that by her host, her employer’s brother, as though he had no need to smile or wave or even acknowledge her.

What a sauce, she thought irritably. And after the way he spoke to me, asking me such rapid, personal questions. I may not be the best person he’s ever invited aboard his yacht, but there’s no need to completely ignore me in public, as though we’ve never met.

A second later, Liz appeared on the same side of the square as Emma.

‘Hi!’ Emma waved to her, and Liz waved back, looking hilarious in multi-stripe leggings, a long T-shirt and a bright orange baseball cap perched on her pixieish head.

‘Hello there!’ Liz raced over to her table, sank down in a chair and put her shopping down with a thud. ‘Phew! This shopping is thirsty work! I must have a huge glass of Perrier.’

Emma signalled the waiter and ordered it for her.

‘Settled in all right?’ Liz asked.

‘Yes, wonderfully well. I didn’t want to waste St Tropez, though.’ She hesitated, then, ‘Just saw your brother, by the way, on the other side of the square.’

‘And what did he have to say for himself? Anything interesting?’

‘No, he didn’t speak to me.’ She sipped her coffee, still irritated by Patrick Kinsella’s ignoring her.

‘Didn’t he? Maybe he didn’t see you.’

‘Yes, he did,’ laughed Emma, ‘but he was probably too busy eyeing up the other women in the cafés here to waste a smile on me!’

‘He hardly needs to waste a smile on any woman,’ sighed Liz. ‘He’s always had women flinging themselves at his feet—why should he bother to approach them?’

‘Why indeed?’ Emma said tightly. ‘James Bond never has to do more than lift an eyebrow, and your brother seems to think he has a lot in common with James Bond, doesn’t he?’

‘Ouch!’ Liz laughed. ‘Poor Patrick! You really hate him, don’t you?’

‘One hundred per cent.’

‘So there’s no chance of you ever falling in love with him?’

Emma just laughed and shook her head.

Fall in love with him! The very idea…

CHAPTER TWO

EMMA dressed carefully that night, aware of the importance of first impressions, and aware that she didn’t want either Toby or Charles, whom she had not yet met, to think she was a sexy woman up for grabs. Knowing Natasha just a little by now, she was fairly sure that Toby would have been told Emma was young, single and ready to mingle. I don’t want to get grabbed, she thought, ready to spike Natasha’s nasty little matchmaking guns.

The black evening dress she chose was serenely sensual, made of loose, elegant silk, making her look attractive without looking available. Pearls gleamed around her throat, pearl and diamond drops in her ears, glistening against the wealth of her long black curly hair. She wore strappy, black high heels, and was bathed in a discreet aura of Safari.

When she went up on deck, she steeled herself not only to spar with Natasha and meet the other two guests, but also to be very cool with the arrogant, conceited and thoroughly detestable Mr Patrick Kinsella.

To her annoyance, he was the only one there. Emma stopped on the tranquil deck, studying Patrick, who stood leaning against the steel railings looking out at St Tropez with his back to her. The sun glowed evening gold across the town, music came from the cafés opposite the yacht, and sports cars zoomed about, carrying breezy young people from lazy cafés to exclusive nightclubs. Patrick was wearing a black dinner-jacket, impeccably cut, and the way it fitted his powerful muscular body was pure poetry. Emma remembered Liz telling her that women threw themselves at his feet and, looking him up and down with dislike, she had to admit she could see why. He wasn’t her type, but as far as gorgeous playboys were concerned he was a magnificent specimen.

He turned suddenly then and saw her. She found herself momentarily breathless. His eyes were even more blue, more dazzling, more acutely sensitive than she remembered.

‘Hi,’ Emma said warily, and did not smile at him, remembering his unsmiling stare in the leafy square of the town and prickling under this latest, cool assessment.

‘Hi.’ He didn’t smile either, but he did push lightly away from the railings and lift his dark brows, saying, ‘Do you want a drink?’

‘Thanks.’ She walked towards him, her heels clickclacking elegantly on the wooden deck. ‘Something light and cold would be nice.’

Patrick moved like the giant he was to the table, and poured a long cold drink for her. Emma watched his body movements. He seemed at once fascinating and loathsome. She wondered why. Then it occurred to her that fascination and loathing were both intense reactions, which meant that she was far from indifferent to him.

Emma was a great analyser of feelings. She had been blinded too many times by emotions—powerful emotions, the kind that blistered and bludgeoned one’s logic into oblivion—and she had no intention of ever again finding herself kneeling at the feet of some great male god, who later turned out to be all too horribly human.

So recognising an emotional response to Mr Patrick Kinsella was something which instantly sent her logic into overdrive, demanding a rapid analysis of just why she might react so strongly to him.

What had Liz told her about him? she wondered now with narrowed, wary eyes. All she could remember was that he was occasionally in the newspapers and that, in the past, he had been a notorious womaniser.

Work hard, play hard had been his motto, and the string of beauties his name had been linked with formed an impressive collection—film stars, beauty queens, models. He had hardly led a blameless life.

But lately, according to Liz, that aspect of his life had been played down in the Press because it had begun to affect his very serious reputation at work. All sex appeal aside, he was first and foremost a businessman, and he could hardly continue to live the life of James Bond without it rebounding on his business reputation. That didn’t mean, however, that he no longer womanised. Far from it. He was probably just a lot more discreet. And that was further indication of quite how clever, calculating and cynical Patrick Kinsella really was.

‘Here,’ he said, and silver cuff-links flashed in his crisp white cuffs as he turned to hand her her drink. She thanked him with a polite smile, and for a second they drank in silence.

It was faintly uncomfortable. But Emma had no intention of making polite chit-chat with him, particularly after the way he’d behaved towards her so far.

Eventually, it was Patrick who broke the silence.

‘Did you do any shopping in town?’

‘Yes.’ She sipped her drink and did not look at him.

‘There are a number of very interesting shops here.’

‘Yes, there are.’ Emma nodded expressionlessly.

‘My favourite is the tiny little art shop in the old part of town.’

Emma smiled politely and sipped her drink again. Patrick was silent for a moment, then came to loom next to her at the ship’s railings. Emma pretended interest in the town. Patrick loomed. He was watching her. She felt acutely aware of his gaze and also aware of his anger.

Slowly, she looked up.

Their eyes met in a cool moment of mutual recognition.

He smiled slowly. So did she.

‘We’re going to be stuck on this yacht together,’ drawled Patrick Kinsella, ‘for another fortnight. Life will be so much easier if you don’t bear a grudge.’

‘I’m not bearing a grudge,’ she drawled, just as cynical as he. ‘I just respond to treatment, like any other normal human being.’

‘And as my treatment of you thus far——’ his hard mouth moved in a faint, rueful smile ‘—has hardly been exemplary, you intend to pay me back in kind. Is that it?’

‘Precisely.’

‘Because of our discussion this afternoon?’

‘I felt attacked, Mr Kinsella. Didn’t you notice?’

‘I thought you could take it.’

‘I can take it. But every action has a reaction.’

‘And this is yours? Hmm. Well, that’s something I can take, too. Besides, you were patronising all of us with what you were saying.’

‘Oh, was I?’

‘Yes, you were.’ His blue eyes were as direct as his words. ‘You thought we were all arguing for romance. You thought you were talking to a bunch of naïve teenagers still living in bluebird-and-orange-blossom land.’

‘I can assure you,’ she laughed cynically, ‘I would never put you in that particular category!’

‘Better not, Miss Baccarat. I stopped believing in romance a long time ago.’

‘I don’t doubt it,’ she said, eyeing him with cat-like suspicion. ‘I had you pegged for an arrogant, cynical swine as soon as I saw you.’

He laughed. ‘Good for you.’ The blue eyes danced with rakish amusement as he looked down his arrogant nose at her. ‘Honest as well as beautiful.’

‘Flattery won’t work with me.’

‘It’s not flattery. You are honest—and beautiful. I didn’t notice it when you first boarded. You just seemed like another pretty little dolly in a red dress. But dollies don’t have serious integrity, and you do appear to have, even if it is a little misguided.’

‘Forgive a mere dolly having the presumption to ask, but how can integrity be misguided?’

‘Because it misses the mark.’

‘And what particular mark might that be?’

His brows arched. ‘The truth.’

Emma smiled through her perfect white teeth. ‘You’re very patronising.’

‘Am I?’

‘I fear so. But don’t let it worry you. I fully intend to patronise you into the ground before this cruise is out.’

He laughed again, eyes smiling into hers as he leant idly beside her, tall and handsome and well aware of it. ‘Well, that’s what you were doing this afternoon. That’s why I broke in and stopped you pussyfooting around. You’re so used to being with people who still live in fairyland that you automatically feed them palliatives instead of saying what you really think.’

‘There’s no point in trying to destroy their illusions, Mr Kinsella. They wouldn’t listen even if you did try.’

‘Well, I won’t argue with that. You have to leave them wandering blindfold through a maze, bumping into things, never recognising them for what they are, labouring under the delusions of love, romance, happyever-after…’ He laughed harshly and shook his dark head. ‘It’s enough to make one horribly cynical.’

She laughed too, green eyes blazing with a strange mixture of dislike, admiration and understanding. ‘But you are horribly cynical.’

‘So I am!’ He laughed then, but as the breeze gently played with his jet-black hair his smile faded and he drawled, ‘It’s very isolating, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, it is.’

They seemed to have reached a point of mutual agreement without realising it, and Emma didn’t stop to think about what she said next, because it just seemed like a natural progression of the conversation, which she thought was still an argument.

‘I often wonder,’ she said, ‘if I’ll ever be able to be completely honest with another human being, because everyone I meet always tries to persuade me that black is white and white is black.’

‘Like addicts trying to get you hooked on their particular drug.’ He nodded coolly, unsmiling. ‘Religion isn’t the opium of the masses any more—romantic love is. And, as with all drugs, once the haze clears, one cannot tolerate real life. One has a clear-cut choice: take some more of the drug, or face reality.’

Emma shuddered. ‘I prefer reality.’

‘Me too.’ He studied her with a smile. ‘But, as you so rightly said, one despairs of ever finding someone with whom one can be completely honest. It’s as though everybody else is living on another planet. I used to find it depressing, but I’m so used to feeling isolated from the people I love that I——’ He broke off suddenly, staring at her, then gave a slow smile, looking right into her eyes with a frown, and drawled sardonically, ‘What an extraordinary conversation!’

The sea breeze flickered through Emma’s hair as she smiled at him, thinking the same thing.

Patrick gave a cool, wry laugh. ‘What made me tell you all of that?’

‘I don’t know.’ Emma smiled lazily at him. ‘I’m just wondering the same thing myself, about what I told you.’

‘Most embarrassing,’ he drawled with a rakish laugh. ‘Let’s not tell anyone we had this conversation!’

‘Agreed!’

‘Shake on it.’

Their hands moved out, touched, clung.

Suddenly, a peculiar silence descended on them, one of deep intimacy, respect and mutual understanding. Emma’s toes curled. Her hand was in his and she just kept smiling, felt her heart begin to beat faster. He smiled too, eyes glittering down into hers, then, very slowly, he stopped smiling, and as he did she felt her heart thud, her body jump as though energised by some unstoppable force, and her eyes drop like fire to his hard, handsome mouth.

When she looked up she saw that he was staring at her mouth too. His gaze flashed up suddenly to meet hers. Their hands tightened together, and the unexpected violence of sexual attraction reared up between them so powerfully that Emma felt her whole body shake with it.

‘Ahoy there!’ Liz called cheerily from along the deck.

Patrick and Emma leapt away from each other as though burnt—or as though they’d been caught in some illicit, deeply intimate act.

‘Where are all the others?’ Liz tottered towards them in a peacock-blue silk dress, high heels and a cloud of Joy perfume. ‘Don’t tell me Charles and Toby are still in town!’

‘No, they came back to the ship at around six…’

Emma struggled for composure as Patrick talked to his sister, but she was deeply shaken, and so was her body—her heart was pounding much too fast, her pulses racing like wildfire, and the tension suddenly coiling in her stomach was at once frightening and exciting.

Stupid, she said to herself, sipping her drink too quickly, alarmed by the tremor of her hands. We were only talking. No need to get so pathetically romantic about it all of a sudden, as though I genuinely wanted to kiss him.

Of course I don’t want to kiss him, she thought, and stared at his firm, handsome, sexy mouth.

‘So,’ said Liz with a smile, ‘what have you two been talking about up here on your own?’

Emma’s eyes met Patrick’s in a fierce blaze of mutual understanding. She looked away quickly, but not before she had noticed how very handsome his face was, the tough bones beneath the tanned skin strikingly male, revealing a formidable personality in the hard, sensual set of his mouth, the uncompromising line of his jaw, and the sexy droop of those heavy eyelids.

He’s quite superb, she thought with a shock as she heard her voice say with false gaiety, ‘Oh, we were just talking about St Tropez.’

Patrick shot her a quick, unsmiling stare that made her blush. She had lied. Why had she lied? She couldn’t understand it.

‘Good old St Tropez!’ Liz was pouring herself a drink. ‘Patrick, did you tell her how many times you’ve been here?’

‘Yes, I did,’ Patrick lied, and now it was her turn to stare at him. He looked away from her, raking a hand through his jet-black hair. She saw him raise his glass to his mouth, take a drink, then look back at her with a hard, narrowed stare that focused on her eyes, then on her mouth, then moved slowly down her body in a rapid, unsmiling assessment, as though he had only just noticed her body—but how he noticed it now, in every detail, fast, fast, fast, whizzing over the curve of her full breasts, the narrow slenderness of her waist, down past her slim hips and on down over her legs—long, shapely legs—right down to her narrow ankles.

‘I love St Tropez.’ Liz was oblivious to their silent intimacy. ‘It’s such a beautiful place, full of so many…’

Patrick’s eyes met Emma’s suddenly, and the dark, dangerous desire she saw revealed in them made her want to run screaming from this sunlit deck.

‘Oh, look!’ Liz broke off her rhapsody of St Tropez. ‘Here come good old Toby and Charles!’

Emma dragged her hectic gaze from Patrick’s, breathing in shallow, inaudible little gasps as she struggled to come to terms with what she was feeling— and what he was so obviously feeling too. She told herself it couldn’t possibly be real. It must be some kind of mistake or accident. After all, nobody really felt physical attraction so powerfully. That was just something that happened in storybooks, films, romantic novels.

‘Evening all!’ called a jolly, boyish blond man in his mid-thirties. ‘Crack open the champers! I’ve arrived!’

‘Hi, Toby!’ Liz went to greet him with a kiss. ‘You’re looking awfully flushed! You must have caught the sun this afternoon!’

‘I always do. It’s the de Courcey skin. I think one of our ancestors must have been old Dracula himself.’

Emma was acutely aware of Patrick standing close to her, watching her with his heavy-lidded eyes. He was leaning against the rails, one strong hand close to the small of her back, and all she could think about was how close it was, and how very easily it could slide up on to her back, those long fingers moving lightly over her skin…

‘Toby, have you met my friend Emma Baccarat?’

‘No, but I can’t wait to do so! Look at that stunning figure!’

Emma smiled politely, shook his hand, aware of Patrick’s blue eyes on her, and of the long hand so close to her back.

‘What a cracker you are!’ Toby giggled. ‘Why didn’t anyone tell me the new arrival was so gorgeous?’

Everyone laughed.

‘And have you met our cousin Charles?’ Liz was gesturing to the tall, elegant blond man who was with Toby. ‘He’s married to Natasha.’

‘The Wicked Witch of the West,’ Toby said, giggling.

‘Don’t be horrible about my poor darling Natasha,’ said Charles.

Emma barely noticed either Toby or Charles. She was too busy noticing Patrick Kinsella, standing beside her, stunningly gorgeous, unbearably handsome, frighteningly real…

‘How do you do, Miss Baccarat?’ Charles de Courcey said with infinite charm, shaking her hand, his dark eyes gentle and sweet.

‘Very well, thank you.’ Emma shook his hand and wished Patrick would disappear. ‘And you?’

‘Oh, marvellous. Had a lovely day; looks like it’s going to be a super night…’

Patrick finished his drink, moved with cool male grace to the table, put his glass down. Emma didn’t look at him but she saw every move he made, every ripple of muscle beneath that impeccable black dinner-jacket, every turn of his dark head and every flicker of his blue, blue eyes.

‘Uh-oh!’ Toby giggled suddenly. ‘Here comes The Evil One.’