Bargaining with the Billionaire

But no, he’d fallen for her subtle, sensual challenge, and now he was going to have to see the whole thing through.

Dealing with her was rather like taming a tigress—her sleek, lithe beauty hiding latent savagery and open determination. Although she hadn’t tried to hide her resentment at his threats, she wasn’t afraid of him, and she didn’t fawn over him.

And that, he thought cynically, was unusual enough to be a refreshing change.

When she melted in his arms her wild, sweet passion had practically tipped him over some edge he’d never approached with any other woman. Acting or for real? A man’s body couldn’t lie, but women could and did fool men with mimic desire.

Not that he was going to test her. Although she probably saw Ian as a way out of a life going nowhere, he suspected that she didn’t have much experience.

She could even be a virgin. His body reacted to that thought with an elemental appetite that took him completely by surprise. Virginity had never been a requisite in his lovers; in fact, he’d preferred women who knew what to do and what they wanted, but the thought of initiating Peta into the delights of the flesh worked so powerfully on him that he had to sit down.

If she was a virgin, taking her to bed would be unfair.

Just keep that thought in the forefront of your mind, he advised himself sardonically. ‘Tell me about your parents.’

Warily, she looked up from pouring boiling water into a mug. ‘What do you want to know?’

‘Why did they come here?’

She added the milk jug to the tray and picked it up. ‘My father should have been born a couple of hundred years ago. He was the last of the pioneers.’ She walked across to the coffee table and set the tray down on it. ‘He decided that Europe was dying, so when my mother got pregnant with me he moved her here from England.’

‘Why Kowhai Bay?’

She handed him the mug of coffee. ‘He wanted a warm climate, which made Northland the logical choice, and this is a good long way from the nearest city.’

‘It didn’t occur to him that buying land with no legal access was hardly a sensible thing to do?’ he suggested.

The corners of her mouth turned down in a brief grimace. ‘My father wasn’t accustomed to having his decisions questioned.’ She pushed a small plate of ginger crunch across. ‘Help yourself,’ she invited.

Homemade, Curt realised when he’d taken the first bite. And delicious. He watched her pick up her mug, and wondered what her capable, long-fingered hands would feel like on his body. The scent of the gardenia bush at the front door floated in, erotically charging the humid air.

‘And your mother agreed to this life?’

Peta studied him above the rim of her mug, green eyes enigmatic. ‘She always agreed with him. She thought he was wonderful and perfect in every way. They were ideally suited; he was dominant—in some ways you remind me of him—and she was yielding.’ Her full lips twisted. ‘But she wasn’t strong.’

He suspected that she’d substituted the word dominant for another, more insulting one—domineering? Dominating?

The thought amused him. If he was arrogant, she certainly wasn’t as docile as her mother seemed to have been. ‘Why didn’t you stay on at school?’

‘My father believed that book knowledge, as he called it, was no use to anyone in real life. He was convinced that modern civilisation was leading the world to destruction, and that everyone should be able to live off the land.’

‘And can you?’

Her shoulders moved in a slight shrug. Curt kept his eyes away from the soft movement of her breasts, but a light tinge of colour stole along her high cheekbones when she answered.

‘If I have to.’

He looked at her. ‘Did he give you no choice?’

‘My mother needed me at home,’ she said simply.

Frowning, he recalled the results of the investigation he’d had run on her. ‘And then they were killed in a road accident.’

‘She was already dying.’ Peta turned away so that he couldn’t see her face. ‘I was glad, in a way. She didn’t have to endure much pain, and he didn’t have to live without her unstinting love and her conviction that he was always right.’

This, she decided, was far too intimate a conversation. Noticing that he’d finished his ginger crunch, she made a gesture towards the plate. ‘There’s more.’

He shook his head. ‘That was superb. Did you make it?’

Oddly warmed by the compliment, she nodded. ‘My father believed that every woman should know how to cook.’

‘Very Victorian,’ Curt observed, an edge to his voice. ‘I’m surprised he didn’t settle for a tent, an open fire and a camp oven.’

She laughed a little. ‘He was unreasonable,’ she conceded, ‘but he was passionately committed to his ideas. The kitchen might not be up-to-date but it works. Don’t pity me—I’m perfectly happy here.’

He leaned back in the chair and regarded her with half-closed eyes. ‘You don’t feel any yearning for romance or marriage?’

Peta’s father had been a big man, but he’d never had Curt’s compelling presence. Last night at the barbecue everyone else had seemed dim and insubstantial, their conversation lacking savour and interest because she’d been so painfully aware of the man with her.

Alarmed by her weakness, she said more crisply than she’d intended, ‘At the moment, no, I’m not interested in either.’

His unsparing assessment sent a series of little shivers down her spine. ‘In that case you’ll be only too eager to help me cut Ian’s crush short,’ he said pleasantly. ‘Are you pumping petrol this morning?’

‘Yes.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘And if I don’t get going I’ll be late.’ She drained her mug and stood up. Awkwardly, she said, ‘Thanks for helping me.’

‘Even though you didn’t need it?’ He too got to his feet, his faint smile setting off an unlikely starburst inside her.

‘Even then,’ she said with a glimmering sideways smile that vanished when she met his eyes.

Coolly measuring, they chilled her through and through.

Working the pumps at the petrol station, she wiped a bead of sweat from her temple and decided that the only thing that made Curt seem at all human was his affection for his sister. Apart from that weakness, as he no doubt saw it, Nadine had got it right. That Peta wanted to kill whatever feelings Ian had developed for her didn’t make Curt any less of a cold-blooded user.

Well, not exactly cold-blooded, she decided later as she turned into her drive. He kissed with an expertise that shouted his experience, but was there genuine passion beneath that Ice Man exterior?

Ignoring the consuming she got out of the ute and unlocked the front door. A wave of stuffy air surged out to greet her.

Curt McIntosh was a walking, breathing challenge, and she bet that plenty of women had come to grief picking up the gauntlet of his forbidding self-sufficiency.

Stripping off her petrol-scented clothes, Peta vowed not to be one of them. What she felt for him had nothing to do with love, and she’d keep a watchful guard on her body because once this charade was over she’d see no more of Curt.

Joe, the elderly odd-job man who arrived a few minutes later, was an old friend. He’d been cowman on the station under the previous owner and he knew how to deal with calves. Briskly she showed him how to use the elderly washing machine to mix the formula.

‘You shouldn’t be carrying those heavy buckets,’ he scolded, forestalling her attempt to pick them up. ‘It’s not good for you.’

‘Joe, I do it twice a day almost all year round!’

‘Doesn’t make it right,’ he said firmly.

And he was so concerned she stood back and let him carry them into the calf-shed, watching as he tipped the liquid into the calf-feeders.

Pitching his voice to rise above the bawl of hungry calves, he said, ‘Good-looking girl like you should be looking around for a man to do the heavy work. If I were thirty years younger I’d take you on myself.’

‘If you were any younger I’d have snapped you up years ago,’ she told him, laughing.

His grin faded as he focused on someone coming up behind them. Peta swung around and met a pair of electric blue eyes. Everything about her went taut; she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t hear her heart beat.

And then Curt smiled, and life flowed through her again; she heard the contented sound of calves sucking, smelt their clean animal smell and the sweet, summery scent of hay. She even heard a skylark sing in the brilliant blue sky outside.

‘Hello, Peta.’ His gaze moved to the older man. ‘Joe.’

‘G’day, Curt.’ Respectful but not intimidated, Joe moved on to the next pen and filled the feeder there.

Curt frowned at Peta. ‘Did you lift those buckets?’

‘Of course.’ When his mouth clamped into a hard line she added, ‘They’re not as heavy as they look.’

Over his shoulder Joe butted in, ‘They’re every bit as heavy as they look—far too much for a woman to be carrying around!’

His frown deepening, Curt watched the older man walk down to the next pen. ‘Why don’t you run a hose from the mixer?’

‘Because this works perfectly well,’ Peta informed him with a thin smile. ‘I’m no fragile flower.’

‘Possibly not, but you shouldn’t be carrying that weight.’

She walked outside into the sunlight and turned to face him, her blood singing through her veins in a wild summons. ‘Testosterone clearly muddles male thinking patterns. Relax, Curt. If I couldn’t do it easily, I’d have found another way to deal with it. I don’t force myself to do things that are too difficult; I’m not stupid.’

‘It’ll wait,’ he said, the magnificent structure of his face more prominent. ‘There’s been a change of plan,’ he said brusquely. ‘Can you be ready to leave for Auckland tomorrow morning?’

‘No!’ she said, incredulous that he should ask her this. ‘I can’t just drop everything and go. Anyway, it would look too…precipitate! To put it crudely, I’m not that sort of woman, and everyone in the district knows it.’

‘All right,’ he said after a moment. ‘In three days’ time. That will give Joe all the information he needs to keep the operation running.’

The tone of his voice told her there’d be no more negotiation. She bit her lip. ‘How long do you expect me to stay away?’

‘A week should do it,’ he said blandly. ‘And I come bearing a note from Gillian.’

He took an envelope from the pocket of his shirt and handed it over. Gillian invited her to a casual family dinner that night with a couple of old friends. She glanced up, realising from Curt’s expression that she didn’t have any choice.

‘All right,’ she said reluctantly.

‘It will be extremely informal,’ Curt informed her.

Thoroughly exasperated with Ian for precipitating this situation and Curt for forcing her to bend to his will, she snapped, ‘I do know which fork to use.’

‘I’d noticed,’ he said, deadpan.

For some obscure reason this struck her as funny and she gave a gurgle of laughter.

A flash of blue kindled in his eyes but his voice was level and emotionless. ‘That’s better. Look on this as your good deed for the month. I’ll pick you up around seven.’

He swung on his heel and strode away; unwillingly she admitted that he looked like some—well, some demigod from a young girl’s romantic fantasy. And he walked like one too, with a lithe male grace that promised leashed power and uncompromising strength. He was, she thought as she went back into the shed, a man who revealed bone-deep competence in every movement.

It might be another fantasy, but she suspected that he’d be able to deal with any situation that came his way.

She envied that confidence. Her father’s views had somehow cut her off from the other children in the district; once she left school she’d seen little of those she’d been friends with. Naturally she’d chafed against his dogmatism and his iron control, but because her mother wasn’t well she’d had to go along with it.

Living on the outside had marked her in ways she hadn’t realised until she’d grown up.

She and Joe worked together until everything was done. When he left she went inside; instead of working in the vegetable garden for an hour or so she showered, and while her hair dried, hauled clothes out of her wardrobe, trying to decide what clothes would be suitable for dinner at the homestead.

Very informal was so vague as to be meaningless—in Curt’s circle it probably indicated that tiaras wouldn’t be worn, she thought snidely. The only thing that might suit the occasion were a pair of silk-look capri pants the colour of chocolate. With them she paired a figure-skimming top she’d made in a dark, richly dramatic green.

Once dressed, she looped a tie around her hair, now thankfully dry, then stopped. Would Curt yank it out again? She frowned at her reflection before an idea struck her. Smiling smugly, she picked a hibiscus flower from the bush by the garden shed and tucked it into the knot. Back inside, she surveyed it, her grin widening. The silken petals gleamed in an exotic, almost barbaric blending of crimson and cinnabar.

‘I don’t think he’ll pull the tie off this time,’ she said dulcetly to her reflection.

The V-neck of her top needed some sort of necklace, but her mother’s silver chain was too delicate for the colours that suited her, so in spite of the rather large expanse of bare golden skin she left it unadorned.

She let out a huff of breath when the Range Rover started up the drive. Her stomach clenched and she stopped, trying to calm her racing pulse with a hand pressed protectively over her heart.

‘Oh, don’t over-dramatise things,’ she muttered furiously and strode to the door, flinging it open with a small crash.

CHAPTER FIVE

‘AND I’m delighted to see you too,’ Curt said sardonically.

Peta gave a crack of unwilling laughter. How did he do that—make her laugh when she was angry and worried and scared?

Without waiting for an answer, he took her arm and drew her out into the soft light of dusk. Her witless body registered his touch with acute pleasure, and every sense blazed into fierce life as they walked silently through the soft evening, the scent of the gardenias floating around them like a lazy invitation.

At the car he held the door open and said, ‘You look superb.’

Stunned, she sent him a swift glance.

Something deep and inscrutable glimmered in the blue depths of his eyes. ‘Surely that’s not the first time a man’s told you that?’

Actually, it was. ‘Your sister dresses superbly,’ she said with blunt honesty. ‘I made this top myself, and the trousers came from a local store.’

‘You rise above them,’ he said blandly. ‘And you know exactly what looks good on you. Forget about where anyone’s clothes were bought. You’ll fit in.’ He closed the door on her.

Flushing, she had to turn her head and pretend to examine the fruit trees down the drive so that he wouldn’t see how much pleasure his casual compliment had given her.

When Gillian met them at the door of the homestead, Peta felt a twinge of humiliation at the instantly concealed surprise in the other woman’s eyes. What on earth had Gillian expected—that she’d turn up in jeans and a T-shirt?

Worse was to come when she introduced Peta to her friends—Hunter Radcliffe and his wife, who lived some distance further north. Lucia Radcliffe just happened to have been born princess of a small Mediterranean island.

At least there was no sign of a tiara on her regal head.

It took Peta only one glance to realise that Curt and Hunter Radcliffe were two of a kind—elite, alpha males with more than their fair share of forceful authority.

Like her father…

The following half-hour revealed that the princess was about as different from Peta’s mother as anyone could be. Lucia Radcliffe knew her own mind and spoke it, a state of affairs her husband clearly enjoyed.

Strangely enough Peta found herself neither tongue-tied nor awkward. Gillian’s manners were perfect and the princess, who insisted on being called plain Lucia, was a charming, warmly interested guest. And while Ian’s avoidance of Peta was obvious to her, nobody else gave any indication of noticing.

In spite of the tension sawing at her nerves, she found herself taking part in the conversation as though she’d known them for some time. When she needed it Curt was always there with unobtrusive support. Slowly she relaxed, until a wail from not too far away startled her.

‘I’m terribly sorry,’ Lucia said, swiftly getting to her feet. She smiled at Peta. ‘That is our darling daughter, six months old and hungry! As I’m the source of sustenance I’ll deal with it.’

‘May I take a peek?’ Peta asked.

The princess laughed. ‘Of course! We think she’s adorable, but then we’re a bit biased.’

The baby stopped crying the moment she saw her mother, opening her eyes wide to stare solemnly at Peta before giving a swift, triangular smile.

‘Oh—she’s gorgeous,’ Peta said on a sigh.

The princess picked up the child and held her out. ‘Do you want a cuddle? It will have to be quick, because Natalia doesn’t like being kept waiting for her dinner.’

‘I don’t know how to hold babies,’ Peta confessed.

Lucia plonked the baby into her embrace, standing back to watch Peta’s arms automatically curve around the sweet- smelling bundle.

‘I think it’s instinctive,’ the princess said wisely as Peta smiled into the quizzical little face.

The baby’s brows met in a frown, but after a moment she gave a half-smile and turned her head to check out her mother’s whereabouts.

‘Oh, sweetheart, you are delectable,’ Peta breathed, her face lighting up when the baby looked back at her and lifted a chubby, starfish hand to pat her cheek.

Lucia looked past them to the door, her lovely face breaking into a smile. ‘Curt, come in. Look, Natalia, here’s Curt to see you!’

The baby certainly knew him. Smile turning into a beam, she leaped in Peta’s arms, little hands working in excitement.

Curt’s gaze rested on Peta’s face with a kind of surprise. ‘Here,’ she said awkwardly, ‘you’d better take her.’

He handled the baby with the competence he showed in everything else, his expression softening as he looked down at her. Peta’s heart gave an odd wistful jolt; it was the first time she’d seen him lower his defences.

‘She is a born coquette,’ Lucia said fondly. ‘She even flirts with her father.’

Peta watched the tall man laughing at the baby, and for a couple of heartbeats she couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. Occasionally she’d fantasised about life with a kind, gentle man who respected her and listened to her, and in that shadowy dream there were children.

Now, with the impact of a bullet out of darkness, she realised that the only child she wanted was Curt’s.

Natalia began to wriggle, and Curt kissed the satiny cheek and handed the baby over to her mother.

Lucia said, ‘That’s probably the limit of her patience.’

‘You and your husband are right—she is adorable,’ Peta said, her voice uneven as she headed for the door.

Outside in the hall, something about Curt’s steady regard, watchful and deliberate, lifted every tiny hair on her skin.

But when he spoke it was to say, ‘You didn’t comment on which parent she most resembles.’

Peta steadied her voice before answering, ‘She looks like herself, and judging by the set of her chin she’s inherited both her father’s and mother’s share of determination.’

Laughing quietly, he tucked her hand into the crook of his arm. The warmth of his body sent hot shivers roiling across her skin. I’m in real trouble, she thought confusedly. What am I going to do?

Stop fantasising about babies, to start with!

‘Lucia can wax eloquent about her strong will,’ he said, and sent an enigmatic glance down at her as they walked towards the door of the sitting room. ‘Enjoying yourself?’

‘Mostly,’ she admitted honestly.

He nodded. ‘Just remember the whole purpose of this exercise.’

Not exactly a threat, yet his words reminded her brutally that to him she was a pawn, someone to be used for a particular purpose and then discarded. OK, so he liked babies; big deal. Tyrants and dictators liked babies too.

The pain that accompanied her thoughts was bitter medicine, but if it cured her of this feverish desire she’d endure it.

Just outside the door he stopped her with a light touch on her arm, and bent his head. Heart hammering, she looked up—and read cold calculation in his eyes.

He didn’t kiss her on the mouth. Instead his lips touched the angle of her jaw, and then his teeth closed for a second on the lobe of her ear, firing a bolt of delicious sensation into the centre of her being.

It was over almost instantly, but the aftermath stayed in her eyes and the delicate colour of her skin. When he opened the door for her and ushered her back into the room, a possessive hand in the small of her back, she saw Ian’s face clamp into rigidity.

A needle of pain worked its way through her. It hurt to see Ian suffer, even though she could never return his feelings. Why did things—people—have to change?

When the evening was over she thanked Gillian and Ian civilly and said goodbye to the Radcliffes.

‘I hope it’s not goodbye,’ Lucia said promptly. ‘We don’t live that far away.’

Not in distance perhaps…

Peta smiled and said something casual and inoffensive.

Halfway home Curt asked, ‘Why did you brush off Lucia’s invitation?’ In spite of his matter-of-fact tone he wanted an answer.

Her face set. ‘Because I was there on false pretences,’ she returned on a hard note. ‘Besides, the princess was only being polite—we won’t meet again.’

‘Her manners are exquisite,’ he agreed, ‘but she’s learned to protect herself from people she doesn’t like. If she hadn’t wanted to get to know you better she wouldn’t have suggested it.’

‘We have nothing in common. Once this charade is over I’ll never see her again.’

‘You’re an inverted snob,’ he said coolly.

‘I am not.’ Furious, she flared, ‘Except for a relationship with you—a relationship based on blackmail!—what common ground could there possibly be between me and a princess who’s married to a millionaire?’

‘You seemed to have enough to talk about,’ he said neutrally. ‘You certainly didn’t hold back when it came to discussing the state of the world. And you share a certain forthrightness. Because she spent years having to watch every word she said, Lucia rather enjoys stating her opinions.’

Peta shrugged, but his words echoed in her mind after she’d given him a cup of coffee and tensely waited out the forty-five minutes he insisted on staying.

‘More camouflage,’ he said laconically.

By the time he finally left her nerves had shredded to rags, but this time he didn’t kiss her, although the glitter in his eyes told her that he too felt the swift uprush of hunger, hot and sweet and fiery.

Whenever she smelt the scent of gardenia, she thought wearily as she closed the door behind him, she’d remember his addictive kisses. And wondered if he was deliberately holding back, making her more hungry with each fugitive caress.

No. He might be trying to manipulate her, but not into his bed; he wanted her flushed and eager so that Ian was convinced.

She went back into the sitting room, looking around it with clouded eyes. The contrast between its elderly furnishings, chosen for economy and hard wear, and Gillian’s house couldn’t have been greater.

About as much contrast as there was between her life and Curt’s.

‘So stop the sneaky little wish-fulfilment fantasies,’ she told herself harshly. ‘Curt’s baby indeed! You must be mad.’

‘First ride in a chopper?’ the helicopter pilot enquired, stowing her pack away.

‘Yes.’

He grinned and said confidently, ‘You’ll love it. It’s a great day and all Northland’s going to be spread out like a map under us.’ He took an envelope from his pocket. ‘A note from the boss,’ he explained, handing it over.