Bargaining with the Billionaire

Moving mechanically, she picked up her lunch dishes and washed them. She just had time to shift the older calves into another paddock, then she’d drive to Kowhai Bay for her stint at the petrol station. Once there she’d ask Sandy if she could work longer hours.

That morning the mail had brought a letter from an Auckland firm of solicitors telling her that it was possible the lease would not be renewed. However the contract to raise calves for Tanekaha Station’s dairy herds would remain in effect, although if she decided to sell her farm some agreement could be made in which she wouldn’t come out the loser.

The cold, impersonal prose removed any lingering hope that Curt Blackwell McIntosh might change his autocratic mind.

Last night she’d sat over the figures until too late, juggling them as she tried—and failed—to find ways of increasing her income.

And when she’d finally gone to bed she couldn’t sleep; instead she lay in bed listening to the familiar night sounds and wondered how much her land would be worth if she put it on the market.

In Kowhai Bay’s only petrol station, Sandy shook his head when she asked about more work. ‘Sorry, Peta, but it’s just not there,’ he said, dark eyes sympathetic. ‘If I give you extra hours, I’ll have to sack someone else.’

‘It’s OK,’ she said quickly. ‘Don’t worry about it.’ But her stomach dropped and the flick of fear beneath her heart strengthened into something perilously like panic.

Her shift over, she called into the only real-estate agency in Kowhai Bay, and asked about the value of her land.

‘Not much, I’m afraid—although I’d need to come out and check the house and buildings over.’ A year or so older than she was, the agent smiled sympathetically at her as she picked up a volume of district maps, flipping the pages until she found the page she wanted.

Pride stung, Peta held her head high.

‘It’s a difficult one,’ the agent said simply. ‘No access, that’s the biggie—really, you depend on Tanekaha Station’s goodwill to get in and out. I wonder what on earth they were thinking of when they let the previous owners cut that block off the station and sell it to your father.’

‘There’s an access agreement,’ Peta told her.

She didn’t look convinced. ‘Yes, well, there are other problems too—livestock isn’t sexy at the moment, and with last month’s trade talks failing, beef prices won’t rise for at least a couple of years. Anyway, you don’t have enough land to make an income from farming. If you planted olives on it, or avocados, you might attract the lifestyle crowd, but it’s too far out of town for most of them. They usually prefer to live close to a beach or on the outskirts. And let’s face it, Kowhai Bay hasn’t yet reached fashionable status.’

‘I hope it never does,’ Peta said staunchly.

The agent grinned. ‘Come on now, Peta, admit that the place could do with a bit of livening up! For a while after Curt McIntosh bought Tanekaha I thought it might happen, but I suppose it’s just too far from Auckland—OK if you’re rich enough to fly in and out, but not for anyone else.’ She looked up. ‘If you’re thinking of moving, the logical thing to do is ask McIntosh to buy your block.’

CHAPTER TWO

LOOKED at objectively, the land agent’s advice was practical— more or less exactly what Peta had been expecting. But how much would Curt pay for her few hectares? As little as possible, she thought, rubbing the back of her neck in frustration; after all, he held all the cards.

‘How much do you think it’s worth?’ she asked, and sucked in her breath as the woman shrugged.

‘You’d need to get it valued properly, but off the top of my head and without prejudice, no more than government valuation.’

‘I see.’ If it sold for government valuation she’d be able to pay off the mortgage she’d inherited from her father. Nothing more; she’d be adrift with no education, and no skills beyond farming.

Peta left the real-estate office so deep in thought that she almost bumped into someone examining the window of Kowhai Bay’s sole boutique.

‘Peta!’

‘Oh—Nadine!’ Laughing, they embraced. Peta stepped back and said admiringly, ‘Aren’t you the fine up-and-coming city lawyer! I guessed you’d be home for Granny Wai’s ninetieth birthday.’

‘Absolutely. She’s so looking forward to it, you can’t imagine!’

That night Peta saw for herself. The big hall at the local marae was crowded with people, many of them the matriarch’s descendants, mingling with neighbours, local dignitaries, and visitors from points around the world.

Surrounded by flowers and streamers and balloons, relishing the laughter and the gossip and the reunions, Granny held court in an elegant black dress, heirloom greenstone hei-tiki pendant gleaming on her breast.

Nadine pushed politely past a couple of elderly men to say with envy, ‘That honey-gold colour suits you superbly. Did you make your top?’

‘Yes.’ Peta enjoyed sewing, and the silky, sleeveless garment had only taken a couple of hours to finish.

‘Thought so.’ She turned and waved to her great- grandmother. ‘Isn’t she amazing? You watch—as soon as the band strikes up she’ll be on the floor. Pino’s threatened to jive with her, and Mum’s terrified she’ll break her hip, but if Granny wants to jive, Granny will! She’s as tough as old boots, bless her.’

A subdued stir by the door caught their attention.

‘Uh-oh,’ Nadine said beneath her breath. ‘Speaking of tough, the Tanekaha Station clan has just arrived.’

Peta opened her mouth then closed it again. Of course the Mathesons and Curt would have been invited.

Her friend sighed elaborately. ‘You know, Curt McIntosh is a magnificent, gorgeous man. Pity he’s got the soul of a shark.’

‘A shark?’ Jolted, Peta glanced across the room, in time to see Curt lift Granny’s hand to his mouth and kiss it.

The gesture should have looked stagy and incongruous, but he carried it off with a panache that sent heat shafting down her spine. Dragging her gaze back to Nadine’s face, she asked, ‘A shark as in being dishonest and sleazy?’

‘Oh, no, never that! He’s got a reputation for absolute fairness; deal well with him, and he’ll deal well with you. Just don’t expect any loving kindness,’ her friend said drily. ‘Of course, sharks can’t help being the most lethal predators in the sea. It’s inborn in them, like being cold-blooded and dangerous.’ She peered across the intervening crowd. ‘I thought he might bring along the latest very good friend, Anna Lee, but clearly no. This wouldn’t be her scene, anyway.’

‘Hmm, I deduce that you know her and don’t like her.’ Peta refused to wonder why discovering that Curt had a lover seared into her composure as painfully as an acid burn.

Her friend rolled her eyes. ‘I saw them together a couple of nights ago at her art exhibition. She is very chic. She is very artistic. She does installations. And she thinks lawyers— especially those who haven’t yet clawed their way off the bottom rung—are Philistine scum.’

Laughing, Peta shot another glance across the hall, something inside her twisting as her eyes were captured by an enigmatic grey-blue gaze. Curt McIntosh’s dark head inclined in a nod that had something regal to it.

Not to be outdone, she responded with an aloof smile before turning back to Nadine. ‘Don’t tell me you told her you didn’t like her installations?’

‘Of course not!’ Nadine primmed her mouth. ‘I have much better manners than that. My expression must have given me away. But when I buy an installation it will be more substantial than a collection of found objects depicting the primordial rhythm of creation.’

Peta grinned. ‘Urk!’

‘Just so,’ Nadine said smugly. ‘But she’s very beautiful, so I don’t blame the fabulous Curt for falling for her, even though I’d have expected more from him. He’s completely brilliant.’ She sighed and added with a smirk, ‘It’s a pity men are such superficial beings. Yet they’ve got the gall to claim that we’re driven by hormones!’

It was almost impossible to imagine Curt at the mercy of his hormones, Peta decided. He might behave like a shark, but he was fully in control.

On the other hand what did she know about the other sex? Nothing much, just enough to be certain that she was never going to marry a dominant man. Her father’s rigid insistence on being head of the family had been enough for her; when—if—she married, she’d choose a kind, decent man who understood that women had needs and brains and the right to have an opinion.

‘Evolution has a lot to answer for,’ she said brightly, and for the next half-hour or so managed to ignore Curt and the Mathesons.

Later, after several dances and an animated conversation with another school friend who’d come back from Australia for the occasion, she turned around, tossing a laughing remark over her shoulder as she headed off to pay her respects to Granny.

Only to discover a large male blocking her path; she pulled up in mid-stride, stopping far too close to a faultless white shirt and a magnificently tailored suit.

Before she had time to draw breath two strong hands gripped her upper arms. Heat radiated through her in a wild, impulsive flood as Curt murmured in a deep, sardonic voice for her ears only, ‘I seem to be making a habit of this.’

He released her, but didn’t move away. Around them people talked and laughed and called out, yet she was trapped with him in sizzling silence.

Peta thought headily that the air between them must be glittering in a frenzy of electrons and atoms, or whatever it was made of. She almost looked down to check whether tiny lightning flashes connected them in fierce, strange intimacy.

Pasting a smile onto trembling lips, she mustered her defences and said, ‘Be grateful—there’s no mud this time.’ Mockery gleamed between his dense black lashes. ‘A complete change of appearance,’ he agreed with a disturbing intonation that sent more hot little shivers down her spine.

He didn’t move; she couldn’t. His will and determination bored into her like some psychic energy.

And although she knew it was dangerous, that she should step back, make some light, stupid remark and get the hell out of there, she lifted her head and looked him in the face. He was smiling, yet something formidable about his expression reminded her sharply of Nadine’s words, although his eyes challenged her description of him as a shark, because sharks were inhumanly cold.

Whereas heat burned in Curt’s eyes and touched his smile with a tantalising promise of passionate satisfaction. It enveloped her—a potent, charged aura of sexual charisma hot enough to set sirens clamouring in every cell of her body. Shocked and bewildered, she felt her breasts expand and an odd, drawing sensation tighten their peaks, both disconcerting and intensely pleasurable.

If she didn’t get out of there he’d see what was happening. Panicking, she dragged air into her lungs, feeding enough oxygen to her starved brain to prod her instincts into life.

She stepped away and thankfully fell back on the inanities of polite small talk. ‘Hello, Curt. Fancy seeing you here.’ She hoped that he hadn’t heard the feverish inflection in each word.

Fat chance.

His eyes glinted and his smile hardened into mockery. ‘Why the surprise?’ he drawled.

‘It doesn’t seem quite your sort of thing.’ Desperate to get away, she glanced at her watch. ‘I’m just on my way to wish the guest of honour a happy birthday, so if you’ll excuse—’

A flourish of chords from the band broke into her words, silencing the chatter; when it died one of Granny’s great- grandsons seized the microphone and announced, ‘A special request from Granny—an invitation waltz!’

The youngsters groaned, but when Granny chose one of them to dance, the teenager partnered her with expert ease.

‘I don’t think she’s interested in talking to you just now,’ Curt said satirically.

‘I realise that.’ The tension and fear that had ridden her since he’d informed her of his cold-blooded decision to not renew the lease had returned, almost replacing that fierce, perilous awareness. How on earth was she to get away from him without making herself look a fool?

And then the music stopped, and Granny appeared in front of them, her autocratic face alight with humour as she chose Curt.

‘Stay there,’ she commanded Peta. ‘I’ll send him back to you when I’ve finished with him.’

Everyone around laughed, including Peta, although she felt as though her hostess’s teasing words had branded her. Once the band started up again, she seized the opportunity to disappear into the crowd, but before she’d taken more than a couple of steps she was claimed by one of Nadine’s cousins for the waltz.

They barely had time to catch up on their lives before the young master of ceremonies called out, ‘Change again, everyone, for the last time!’ and her partner whirled her back to the place he’d found her.

And to Curt.

‘Here she is, man,’ her partner said, grinning as he relinquished her. ‘Apart from Granny she’s the best dancer in the room.’

Curt said something Peta didn’t catch, but it made Nadine’s cousin laugh.

‘My dance,’ Curt said, and there was nothing humorous in his tone.

Peta stiffened, but she couldn’t refuse to dance with him. Heady anticipation battling pride, she let herself be turned into his embrace and swept onto the floor.

Big men were often a little awkward, but not Curt; he moved with a smooth grace that had a strangely weakening effect on her spine and knees. Although the arm around her waist kept her a fraction of an inch away from him, she was sharply, painfully aware of a faint scent, warm and male and sexy, that owed nothing to aftershave.

The melting sensation in the pit of her stomach transmuted into a flood of terrifying response that came too close to hunger. She didn’t do instant attraction—but then she’d never met another man with this combination of authority and sexual confidence.

‘I’ve met your stunning friend before,’ he said. ‘In Auckland at an art exhibition.’

‘Yes, she told me. You were with the artist.’

Before he could answer an elderly couple strayed into their path. Curt swung her around, pulling her closer as they moved smoothly into a pivot that carried them out of the way of the other dancers.

For a couple of seconds she lay against him, one heavily muscled leg between hers as he turned her, his arm hard across her back. A hot pulse of forbidden pleasure throbbed along her veins and her brain shut down, allowing every tiny stimulus to run riot through her.

And then his arm loosened. For a second she was so dazzled by his closeness that she stayed where she was, until she caught the nearest dancers exchanging knowing smiles.

Abruptly she pulled away. Curt looked down at her, eyes gleaming blue fire beneath his thick lashes. He knew his effect on her.

Sick humiliation ate into her. She stared blindly over his shoulder at the whirling, blurring mass of dancers.

‘Anna Lee,’ he said.

‘What?’

His voice hardened. ‘The artist.’

‘Oh. Yes, I see.’ Pride tightened her sinews, gave her the composure to say evenly, ‘Nadine told me that she does installations.’

She was acting like a half-wit, but it was the best reply she could force from a brain that had crumbled into sawdust.

‘She does indeed.’ The note of irony in his words scraped along her nerves. ‘How’s the calf?’

Peta marshalled her thoughts into ragged order. ‘She seems fine,’ she said, trying hard to sound composed and in control.

He swung her around again, and she felt his upper arm flex beneath her fingers. Something hot and feral sizzled through her like fire in dry grass, blazing into swift life.

Surely the music had lasted far longer in this set than any other?

Just then to her intense relief it stopped, and the DJ called out, ‘OK, ten minutes for talking, and then we start again!’

Curt McIntosh looked down at her, blue eyes hooded, handsome face impassive. ‘Thank you,’ he said formally.

Peta produced a smile. ‘It was lovely,’ she lied. ‘Oh, Nadine’s waving to me! I’ll see what she wants.’

She gave him another smile, a little more genuine this time, and escaped, intent on getting away before her precarious self-possession evaporated entirely.

For the rest of the evening Curt didn’t come near her again. On her way home in the small hours she told herself vigorously that she was glad. Dancing with him had been like dancing with temptation…

‘And I don’t do temptation either,’ she told herself as she unlocked her front door.

But before she escaped into the silent house she stooped and picked a gardenia flower from the bush by the steps. Its sweet, sinfully evocative scent floated through her bedroom as she lay awake and fought a treacherous need to retrace every moment she’d spent in Curt’s arms.

She stared into the darkness, seeing again the glinting irony in his gaze when he’d realised that her body responded helplessly to the heat and strength of his.

‘Stop it,’ she commanded herself. ‘He was having fun with you, and it wasn’t kind. Sharks are predators, and this one wants to take you out of circulation.’

How long was he going to stay at Tanekaha? For a while she toyed with the idea of ringing Gillian Matheson and saying she couldn’t come to the barbecue the following night; she could manufacture an emergency easily enough.

But that would be cowardice.

So she’d go. She’d cope because she had to. She wasn’t going to give Curt the chance to laugh at her again.

Shaken by a sudden ache of longing for something she didn’t understand, she turned over, curled her long body in the bed and wooed sleep with such fervour that eventually she achieved it.

Peta heard the sound of the engine just before breakfast. Frowning, she closed the gate behind her and turned to see the station Land Rover come up the drive. Her heart jumped unexpectedly, only to go cold when Ian’s rangy form unfolded from behind the wheel.

‘Hello,’ she said warily.

‘How are you?’

Ever since she’d noticed the worrying change in his attitude she’d braced herself for this meeting. Without moving, she said brightly, ‘I’m fine, thanks. What can I do for you?’

‘You could make me a cup of coffee,’ he suggested with a wry smile.

Ten days ago she wouldn’t have thought a thing about it; she’d have made the coffee and they’d have drunk it sitting on the narrow deck while they talked easily about farming matters.

‘I’d love to,’ she said easily, ‘but I’m on my way to feed a calf your brother-in-law helped me drag out of the swamp.’

‘I’ll come with you.’

After a moment’s hesitation she turned and led the way to the calf-shed.

Hiding her wary discomfort with a brisk veneer, she made up the mixture and stayed to make sure the calf drank it. ‘She must be feeling better; this time yesterday she didn’t want to drink at all.’

Ian observed, ‘Curt told us about it.’

‘I’d have managed without him,’ she said quickly, sad because the friendship and support Ian had offered so unstintingly was shattered. He’d stepped over an invisible boundary and now there was no going back.

He said casually, ‘It looks pretty good now.’

‘She’ll survive.’

Ian’s face crinkled into a wry smile. ‘Good. What did you think of Curt?’

Peta made a production of her shrug. ‘He’s more or less as I’d imagined him.’

Ian said, ‘And that is?’

‘Like any other tycoon,’ she said lightly. ‘Dominating, formidable, high-handed and more than a bit arrogant.’

He nodded and got to his feet. ‘Good-looking too.’

‘Yes.’ But Curt’s handsome face and the impact of his strong bone structure were irrelevant. Like a force of nature, his compelling personality overwhelmed everything else.

Her upwards glance caught an unusual indecision in Ian’s face, as though he was trying to make up his mind about something.

Suspecting that it would be better if he never said the words that were in his mind, she said, ‘Shouldn’t you be on your way home? Gillian will be wondering where you are.’

‘Gillian isn’t—’ The noise of a car engine coming up the drive stopped him in mid-sentence. He turned his head so that he could see through the open end of the shed and in a flat voice said, ‘This is her car.’

Peta froze. She hated scenes, and she suspected she was about to be treated to one. Ian moved jerkily out into the sunlight, but she sat there watching the calf drink, ears straining as the engine cut out.

Voices revealed that it was Gillian who’d driven up. And with her, Curt.

Peta’s skin tightened as she took in the pattern of sounds, of silences. She should get up and go out; instead, she kept her eyes fixed on the white brush at the end of the calf’s tail, watching it swish to and fro as the little animal sucked.

When she heard Gillian’s laugh she relaxed a fraction, only to tense up again as the voices approached. Above the calf’s noisy, enthusiastic slurps she heard Curt’s deep voice, and the foreboding that had been prowling below the surface of her consciousness since the previous night rocketed off the scale.

‘Hello, Peta,’ Gillian called out. ‘Can we come in?’

‘Of course.’ Still she kept her eyes on the calf, only looking up when it became rude not to acknowledge them.

Clad in casual clothes that proclaimed the imprint of a designer, Gillian looked completely out of place in the calf- shed with its dusty smell of hay and the more earthy scent of young animals. His expression a combination of stubbornness and indecision, Ian walked behind his wife.

In fact, Peta realised, the only person whose self- assurance remained intact and invulnerable was Curt.

Wondering if anything ever put a crack in his self- assurance, Peta greeted them with a brief smile. ‘Have you come to examine the patient? As you can see, she’s in good heart today.’

Gillian made a soft clucking noise. ‘What a pretty little thing,’ she cooed, and leaned over to give the curly poll a scratch. ‘I thought she’d be covered in mud!’

‘No, I brushed her down and dried her yesterday.’

‘You didn’t explain how she got into the swamp.’ Curt’s voice, anger running beneath each deliberate word like lava welling through rocks.

The hairs on the back of Peta’s neck stood on end in primitive reaction. ‘I don’t know what spooked her into the swamp, but she was well and truly stuck when I found her.’ She smiled wryly. ‘And when Curt rode up on his big black horse Laddie’s impersonation of a werewolf in hysterics didn’t help—the calf bolted even further into the mud.’

Laddie apparently considered the sound of his name to be an invitation and ran towards the calf-pen just as the little animal turned to survey its audience.

‘Get in behind!’ Peta commanded sternly, leaping up from the hay bale to grab his collar. Her foot slid over a stone and turned her ankle. Although she regained her balance instantly, Ian grabbed her arm.

When Peta said the first thing that came to her mind, it was in a thin voice she hardly recognised. ‘Thank you, Ian, but it was just a stone.’

He dropped his hand. ‘I thought you were going to end up on your nose!’

Peta prayed no one would recognise the artificial timbre of her laugh. ‘That would be twice in twenty-four hours. Curt had to drag me out of the swamp yesterday.’

Curt said, ‘Gillian, why don’t you go home with Ian? I have something to discuss with Peta. I’ll bring your car back, and I won’t be more than ten minutes or so.’

The words fell into a silence echoing with repressed emotions. His sister broke it by saying brightly, ‘Make sure it’s no more than ten minutes; you know Mrs Harkness gets very tense when we’re late for meals, and I know how easily you get sidetracked when business calls.’ Her smile at Peta lacked warmth as she linked her arm in her husband’s. ‘Come on, darling. Take me home.’