In the Australian Billionaire's Arms

The front door was open. He was about to call a hello when a young woman came into sight carrying a large crystal bowl filled with a profusion of beautiful flowers. He didn’t register the full array of blossoms, gerberas, lush roses, peonies, he was too busy concentrating on the young woman. She wore fitted jeans that showed off her lovely lissom figure and the length of her legs. A simple vest-type top did the same for her breasts. Her shimmering long hair, centre parted, fell down her back in thick sinuous coils.

Rapunzel.

She came to a halt, so clearly startled he might have been wearing a balaclava over his head.

“Don’t drop it,” he warned, swiftly moving towards her. The Ice Princess for some reason had totally lost her cool. “Hold on. I’ll take it. Just don’t drop it,” he repeated the warning.

A visible shiver passed through her.

At least his tone was effective. “Let me have it.”

He seemed to tower over her. “David,” she said, dismayed by the fact her normally composed voice was wavering.

His alternative name had never sounded so good, so intimate to his ears. He took the bowl from her, turning to place it on the rosewood library table that graced the entrance hall. “I startled you. I’m sorry.” They were so close, barely a foot apart. He could see every little ripple along her throat as she swallowed. “Are you okay?’ he asked. She appeared disorientated. This was a completely different Sonya from the one he had previously seen. Impossible as it seemed, she also looked frightened. Perhaps endangered was a better word?

Feeling very exposed, she tried to force herself back to attention. Her reaction had been a big mistake.

David, too, was feeling a degree of perturbation. His hand went to her sloping white shoulder. He meant only to steady her, but his fingers were bent on caressing her white skin, warm to his touch. This was no beautiful statue. This was a living breathing woman. His eyes fell to the long heavy silk lock of her hair as it slid across his hand. He wanted to grasp a handful of it, pull her to him. He wanted to lower his head to capture her beautiful mouth that was surprisingly aquiver. He wanted to pick her up in his arms and carry her off like some caveman. Within seconds temptation after temptation was playing itself out. All common sense was getting away from him. This was mania. Magic, definitely black. She obviously had sirenlike powers. Fascinating men was a form of control. She could deliberately be luring him into her territory.

He stood back from her, the barriers springing back into place. “I’m sorry if I startled you. What are you doing here?” Given how he had felt, his voice sounded unnecessarily harsh. Was it guilt for slipping momentarily from his standards of behaviour?

For a moment she said nothing, giving her own protective shields a chance to get back into place. “Marcus has given me the job of doing the flowers for the house.” She felt enormous relief some of her habitual cool composure had come back into her voice.

“I see. Where is Marcus?” he asked, looking down the spacious hallway with its beautiful parquetry floor towards the library. Marcus’s favourite room.

“He’s not here. But he should be home soon.”

The way she spoke drove home the hurt. Did she think she could take Lucy’s place? “I’ll wait.” The rush of sexual desire was replaced by hard distrust.

“Would you like a drink?” she asked, turning to lead him into the drawing room. “Coffee, something stronger?”

“I’m fine.” He sounded just short of curt. “You’re the one who looks like you could do with a stiff drink.”

“You startled me, that’s all.”

“I might have been an intruder,” he said, with more than a hint of sarcasm.

“Perhaps it was the quality of your own surprise,” she returned. “You don’t like or trust me.” There was straightforward challenge in her voice.

“It’s not a question of liking, Ms Erickson. It’s more to do with your role.”

“Back to Ms Erickson, no Sonya?” She arched her fine brows.

“Sonya is a lovely name.” He shrugged. “Tell me, is it your real name?”

“What an extraordinary question.”

She had come to stand beneath a nineteenth century Russian chandelier, one of a matched pair in the yellow, gold and Wedgwood blue drawing room. In front of the white Carrara marble fireplace he noted she had placed a huge Chinese fish bowl filled with a wealth of sweet-smelling flowers. To add to the impact the beautiful pastel colours mimicked the colours in the magnificent nineteenth century Meissen porcelain clock that took centre place on the mantelpiece beneath a very valuable landscape. Other small arrangements were placed around the large room, rivalling the treasures on display.

“And?”

“Of course it’s my real name,” she said, one hand pushing a thick lock of hair back off her shoulder.

The drawing room was all too feminine for his taste, too opulent, silks and brocades, but Sonya Erickson could have been made for it. Even in tight sexy jeans and designer vest-top she fitted in. It occurred to him with her hair worn long and loose and very little make-up she looked hardly more than a girl of nineteen or twenty.

He released a tense breath. “But what about the Erickson? Would you believe I actually knew a woman who changed her name four times? She’s in jail now for fraud. She managed to extract the life savings from God knows how many fools of men.”

“Please, don’t make me weep!” she exclaimed. “Men are fools. But it’s hardly fraudulent to change one’s name by deed poll.”

“Are you saying you have?’

She ignored his question. “Why don’t you sit down?” she invited, with an elegant gesture of her hand.

“You might be in your own house,” he answered, tightly. Lucy’s house.

“Marcus has made me very welcome here.” Her answer was equally pointed. “So you can’t find out much about me. How disappointing for you. Is this what it’s all about?”

“I came to see Marcus,” he said. “I wasn’t expecting you. Why don’t you take the sofa?” he suggested. “I’ll take the armchair. I know you’re highly intelligent so we can cut to the chase. It’s obvious my uncle has come to care deeply for you. And in a very short space of time. That presents problems, don’t you agree?”

“Problems for you? I don’t see the problem for me. Marcus is a lovely man. Was I supposed to submit my credentials to you? I might tell you Marcus has never asked anything of me. He trusts me.”

His brilliant dark eyes flashed. “That’s what I’m worried about. Who and what are you really, Sonya? What is it you want?”

“Who said I wanted anything?” she responded with an imperious lift of her brows. She took not the gold sofa, but a gilded armchair opposite him.

Sunlight was falling through the tall windows, filtered by the sheer central curtain. It illuminated her figure, making her hair and her beautiful skin radiant. “You were wearing Aunt Lucy’s diamond and emerald jewellery at the gala function,” he said, the words freighted with meaning.

A flush like pink roses on snow warmed her cheeks. “Is there anything shameful about that? You’re far too quick to place blame. Marcus wanted me to wear them. I could say insisted. He’d asked me the colour of my dress. When I said emerald green, he suggested a set of jewellery that needed an airing. I assure you the set is safely back in his safe.”

It was too hard to resist. “Do you happen to know the combination?”

“Do you?” she shot back.

“I could open it blindfolded. I really don’t want to offend you, Sonya.”

“Then you couldn’t be doing a better job,” she said coldly, sitting very straight, long legs crossed neatly at the ankles.

Excellent deportment lessons there. “Your dress was exquisite, by the way. Did Marcus buy it for you?”

“Ah, the direct approach!” she said, looking down her finely cut nose at him. “I wore it because I had nothing better. Nor could I buy better. The dress is many years old.”

He sat studying her. She appeared to be telling the truth.

“Vintage haute couture.” She waved a hand.

“It looked it,” he said, wanting to pierce her defences.

She shrugged a shoulder. “But you are not here to discuss my evening dress, which I might tell you belongs to me.” She remembered her beautiful mother wearing it. But that was another time, another place, another world. A time when she had been happy.

“Actually I’m here to catch up with my uncle,” he said, breaking into her sad thoughts. “My love and loyalty is with him. You must understand that?”

She gave a light sceptical laugh. “Come now, you have no real right to interfere in his life, David. Marcus is a man in his fifties, a highly intelligent man.”

“Who in all his adult years has never looked at another woman outside Lucy. Until now,” he retorted sharply. “My big concern, Sonya, is that he doesn’t get hurt. Extraordinarily enough Marcus is an innocent in his way. His health isn’t all that good either. For years the whole family has been concerned he might simply die of a broken heart. That’s how devoted he was to Lucy, his wife.”

She flicked a platinum tendril off her heated cheek. “I understand the great pain of his loss. Marcus has told me many things about his beloved Lucy.” She could tell him something of her own losses but her rigid sense of caution stopped her.

“Has he?” Another highly significant thing, he thought.

“Haven’t you met anyone in your life you immediately identified with?” she asked, hostility in her beautiful green eyes.

He stared back at her, knowing he could never say he had identified with her. On sight.

“You won’t be able to take Lucy’s place, Sonya,” he assured her. “No one will let you. You simply don’t know what you’re getting into. The Wainwright family is very powerful. You can’t imagine how powerful. You wouldn’t want to get them offside. You wouldn’t want to embarrass them. Family is very important. So too is the Wainwright fortune. None of us would like to see a huge chunk of it going out of the family. We’re all interconnected in business. You’re far too young for Marcus. You know it. I know it. That said, many people would only see you in one way—as a woman on the make—and hate you for it.”

“So what you’re saying is, I couldn’t possibly come up to your exalted standards?” she asked with surprisingly cool contempt. “Or is the fact Marcus is thirty years older the main objection?’

He showed his own anger. “If you were even twenty years older I doubt if I’d be saying any of this. You don’t love Marcus, Sonya. Don’t tell me you do.”

“I wasn’t about to tell you anything,” she said icily. “The Wainwrights, who are they when it’s all said and done? Billionaires? So what? That’s not class, breeding, tradition. This nation is barely over two hundred years old. You’re parvenus. Your English ancestor, Wainwright, only arrived in this country in the early eighteen hundreds, the flicker of an eyelid. Your family does not impress me.”

“Evidently.” He was somewhat taken aback by her remarks, yet amused. “So tell me about your illustrious family?” he challenged. “European aristocracy, were they? Counts and countesses a dime a dozen? Or haven’t I given you sufficient time to get a really good story together? Maybe you’re a fantasist? Where do you come from exactly? Is Erickson even your real name?”

“Maybe I change it,” she said, sounding all of a sudden very foreign.

“Quite possible. My great-aunt Rowena thinks you have a slight Hungarian accent. She was married to a top British diplomat for many years. She knows Europe. She knows accents.”

Her eyes blazed emerald. “Well, well, well! I can’t find any other words.”

“Surely it’s not difficult for you to tell us something of your background? I’m ready to listen.”

She stood up. “So sorry, David, but I’m not ready to talk. Especially to you. You’re very arrogant for so young a man.”

He too rose to his feet, making her look small by comparison. “Beside you I’m an amateur,” he said cuttingly.

Colour stained her high cheekbones. “You do not know the correct way to treat me.”

“Or address you either. Should it be Contessa?” There was hard challenge in his strikingly handsome face.

“Who knows what might have been?” she said, then broke off abruptly, as if she had already volunteered too much. Her head tilted into a listening attitude. “That’s Marcus now,” she said thankfully, beginning to walk away from him. “I would not like him to find us arguing. Marcus is a very lonely man. He may think he’s in love with me because I have green eyes. His Lucy had green eyes. I’ve no need to tell you that. Marcus loves you like his own son.”

“So that gives me rights and obligations, doesn’t it?” he answered tautly, tiring of her play-acting. “Lucy did have beautiful green eyes, but Lucy looked nothing like you. She didn’t act like you either. She was a sweet, gentle woman, which by and large you aren’t. What is it you’re after?”

She turned to look at him with icy reserve. “I’m sorry, David. It seems to me that’s none of your business. Now I must go and greet Marcus. You may not believe it, but I too want him to be happy.”

He waited, resisting the urge to go to the window to witness the quality of the greeting. Moments later Marcus came into the living room, a spring in his step. He was looking better than he had looked for ages. There was colour in his skin, a brightness in his eyes. Marcus is a good man, he thought with a lunge of the heart. He deserves another chance at happiness. Only he wasn’t going to stand by and allow a young woman who rebuffed any attempt to invade her privacy to damage their close loving relationship. What did she have to hide anyway? Ultimately her background would have to come out.

“David, I’m so glad you called in.” Marcus bounded forward to seize his nephew’s hand.

“I’ve missed seeing you,” David responded. “Sonya has been looking after me.”

“Wonderful. Wonderful!” Marcus enthused, drawing Sonya forward, his kind, distinguished face alight with pleasure. “I do so want you two to get to know each other better.”

There was an unintended warning in that. He knew beyond doubt he had to forbid himself all and any erotic thoughts of Sonya Erickson. He couldn’t possibly be the one to break his uncle’s heart. On the other hand Ms Erickson, with all her barriers in place, would have to open up about her past.

Twenty minutes later Holt left. He had accepted one drink, Scotch over ice. He was driving and he was a guest at a dinner party that night. His emotions were in turmoil. He hadn’t planned on any of this, but there was no avoiding the bitter truth now. Despite his very real concerns, he had become powerfully attracted to Sonya Erickson, if that was her real name. For the first time in his ordered life, he was losing his footing. No comfort to be drawn from that. The worst aspect was he knew he wouldn’t give a damn who or what she was if she was the woman he wanted. She was in fact the only woman who had ever made such an impact on him. A different order altogether from his usual girlfriends. And there was Marcus looking better than he had looked in years. Marcus wanting he and Sonya to be friends.

God, what a mess!

If Sonya Erickson were truly in love with Marcus he would have to accept their marrying, whatever his private misgivings. But the beautiful Sonya, though obviously fond of Marcus—who could not be?—was not in love with him. Why was he so sure? Disturbing to know he could take her off Marcus whether she wanted it or not. Mutual attraction was very hard to hide. She was as attracted to him as he was to her. It hadn’t crept up on them. In one of those sad ironies of life the attraction had been immediate. Neither had chosen the time. Now it was starting to take a heavy toll. Better they had never met. For an enigmatic young woman who presented herself as emotionally detached, what had drawn her to Marcus?

Apart from the money? said his cynical inner voice.

What had caused her to let down her guard? Marcus’s essential goodness, his kindness, his courtly manner. More importantly Marcus would never pry. She had told him that herself. Did she want above anything a secure place in the world? Marcus could give her that. Did she fear being swept off her feet by some driving passion that could upset all her plans? She definitely had issues. Not a whole lot of trust in people. He’d already concluded it all had to do with her past life. Did a great need to be safe drive her? He was fast reaching the conclusion she was on the run from something. Someone? How would that impact on Marcus’s plans?

There were too many question marks hanging over Ms Erickson’s head. One thing was very clear. She was an extremely fast worker. She could be the second Mrs Marcus Wainwright if she so wanted. One heard of May/December marriages all the time. But in just about every case, the man was rich. He didn’t like it. He didn’t like it at all. He needed to talk to Rowena.

When he arrived at his apartment he rang Rowena to say he would be coming to Sunday lunch. Rowena always kept a marvellous table. More importantly, he and Rowena could keep an eye on proceedings and later confer.

“All right if I bring Paula?” he asked. “I know you’re not fussed on her.”

“Protection, dearest, is that it?”

He grimaced to himself. “I don’t want to be seen to be using Paula. She’d actually love to be invited.”

“Doesn’t answer the question, dear.”

“Marcus is madly in love with her, Rowena,” he said firmly. “I was at the house this afternoon. Sonya was there, putting flowers all around the place.”

“I bet they looked wonderful,” Rowena’s cultured voice fluted down the phone.

“She does have the genius touch. Did you know about this recent development?”

“Matter of fact I did. Sonia had some marvellous bromeliad stems for me. Wonderful to see with just a large green leaf hanging over the side.”

“Rowena dear, I’m sure the bromeliads looked inspirational,” he said edgily, “but what I most want to talk about is this. What is Sonya up to? She knows Marcus is in love with her. Can you really say with any degree of confidence a marriage between them might work, given the thirty-year leap? She could divorce him and get a hefty settlement. Break Marcus’s heart. That’s a huge worry.”

“It’s possible, my darling, but who is able to predict a marriage?”

“Now there’s a cop out if ever there was one,” he exclaimed. “She’s won you over as well. You and Rolly had a great marriage. So do Mum and Dad.”

“Ah, then, your mother had a great deal of money. So did I. No one could ever have accused us of being fortune hunters. Makes things a lot easier.”

“Mum is four years younger than Dad,” he pointed out.

“My lovely Rolly was twelve years older than me.”

“The perfect gentleman.”

“He was indeed.”

“You all brought a great deal to one another,” he said. “What is Sonya going to bring to Marcus?”

Rowena chuckled. Over-long.

“Okay, okay, but is she in it for short term gain, Rowena? I’d love to look on the positive side, but I couldn’t bear to see Marcus humiliated. She doesn’t love him. That’s the pity. But she does have him wrapped around her little finger. He’s happy at the moment. Really happy. I have to say it’s lovely to see.”

Rowena abruptly sobered. “I’m as concerned as you are, David. For both of them. You know, dear, I’ve come to the conclusion Sonya is carrying a burden she can’t lay down. Despite that poise of hers, the high-born air, she seems to me a little lost.”

“Lost?” For a moment he thought he might lose it entirely. “She’s as switched on as they come.”

“Lighten up, love,” Rowena advised. “I know how much you love Marcus. You’ve always looked up to him. You have heart. You’re also very perceptive. I do realize the developing situation had to be taken very seriously. I’m with you there. Marcus, up until he met Sonya, has acted as though all happiness had passed him by.”

“It’s a dilemma, isn’t it?” he said. “Marcus is the one who stands to be hurt. Even if a marriage did take place, marriages end. A beautiful young woman with a large settlement could move on. Marcus would not. We both know that.”

“Yes indeed,” Rowena quietly agreed.

“We can expect fireworks from Dad and Mum. Dad especially. He loves his brother. Dad will want Sonya thoroughly checked out. Even then he wouldn’t approve. Neither would Mum. You know what they’re like. You know what the family is like. They’ll condemn her right off as a fortune hunter and a fake.”

“Well, she’s not faking the patrician air,” Rowena said in strong defence of the young woman she had come to like and admire.

“She’s a mystery woman indeed,” David answered, very, very dryly.

“There’s a story there, my darling. But not a happy one, I’m sure.”

“It makes a lot of women happy marrying a millionaire,” he pointed out.

“In a lot of cases it doesn’t work out marrying for love,” she countered. “I hear the Grantleys are divorcing. How long ago was it we were at the wedding?”

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