With His Kiss

That drew another reluctant laugh and some assessing looks.

“I’m not going to bore you with long speeches. Anyone wants to talk to me, I’ll be around. I’m going to be around for a long time.”

Triss guessed that last was aimed at her.

Steve had impressed the boys, not so much by what he said as the way he said it, with unmistakable authority, his manner firm but approachable. Even the easy way he stood as he talked to them, neither parade-ground straight nor slouching, proclaimed confidence in his control of any situation. They’d reserve judgment but he’d made a good start.

The students began filing out, each one stopping to mutter an apology to her. “You’d better apologize to Mr. Gill,” she told the one who had punched the tutor. “If he comes back after what happened to him this afternoon.”

“Yeah, awright. Didden know it was him.” The boy slouched off.

When they had all left, Steve looked across the room at Triss. “How did I do?”

Surprised that he’d asked, and trying hard not to sound grudging, she said, “Very well. You don’t think we might have asked what started them off?”

“A disputed goal, the guys at my table told me. Any excuse to let off steam.” He grinned faintly. “Tears are shameful, but a good brawl can have a cathartic effect.”

Triss wondered if the forceful way he’d helped Zed break up the fight had been cathartic for him, too. She recalled the way he’d looked when he approached her afterward, his hair sleeked to his scalp and the wet shirt molding powerful shoulders and a broad chest. His face had been taut and energized, his eyes glinting like new metal, even before they’d taken in the revealing nature of her own wet clothes. When the glint had altered to a very specific and personal appraisal.

She swallowed, shaking off a ripple of disturbing sensation.

“Thanks for the intro at dinner,” Steve was saying.

“We always introduce guests…or new staff.” She paused. “You might have consulted me before threatening to throw them out.”

“Only if the same thing happened again. However,” he added, “point taken.”

And no sense in laboring it. Politely she asked, “I hope the annex is okay? If there’s anything you need let me know.”

“It’s fine. When can we go over the books?”

“The books?”

“Annual reports and balance sheets. I’d like to know what’s been happening over the past few years, and what exactly our financial situation is.”

“I can tell you that.” He knew she had been keeping the accounts ever since arriving at Kurakaha. She was just about to graciously concede that of course he could see the records if he wished, when he added, his voice unmistakably hardening, “I’d like to see them, all the same. And I’ll be bringing in an independent auditor.”

Triss went cold, then hot. The skin over her cheekbones burned, the bruised one throbbing painfully in time with the thudding of her heart that seemed to be hurting, too. “You don’t trust me.”

“I didn’t say that.” But he wasn’t saying he did, either.

“The books are audited every year.”

“I’m sure. Who chose the auditor?”

She wouldn’t dignify that with an answer. “You’re welcome to go through them,” she said stiffly. “You and your auditor.”

She felt like flying at him, starting a small private brawl of her own. Instead she wheeled and left him, not trusting herself to stay any longer in the same room.

After checking that the boys on kitchen duty were clearing up and laying the tables for breakfast, she made sure the cook didn’t need any other help, and marched out into the gardens. Already a couple of pale stars hung in the sky, and a gleaming sickle moon had risen over the trees.

Moving away from the house and avoiding Zed’s cottage, she took a path under the trees. It was darker here but she knew every inch of the grounds, and her stride didn’t slacken as she followed a winding course up a slope, until the path ended at a tiny stone building covered in climbing vines and holding a wooden seat just big enough for two.

Once, she supposed, it had been a spot for lovers, before Magnus bought the house and grounds from the descendants of the man who had built it at the beginning of the twentieth century.

She came here when she needed a break from the constant demands on her time and energy. The boys were interesting, always stimulating, sometimes riotous, sometimes poignant and often exhausting. A few moments to herself were rare and precious. Sometimes lately she’d felt it was all too much—the house too big, its inhabitants too volatile, and everyone expecting too much of her.

In daylight the arched doorway of the grotto allowed a glimpse through trees of the farmlands beyond, and cars streaming to and from Auckland along the motorway in the distance. There were moments when she longed to join them, escape from the tyranny of responsibility that had fallen on her shoulders. Steve was here now to share it, but his hostile presence only imposed more stress.

It was getting dark, the cars intermittent flashes of light, far away, and she closed her eyes, leaning her head against the cool stone and trying to think of nothing.

Which was difficult, because Steve’s strong, handsome features and condemning, metallic scrutiny kept getting in the way.

After a while she opened her eyes, and immediately sat up straight with a gasp that was almost a scream.

A tall, broad-shouldered figure loomed in the narrow arched doorway, blocking what remained of the fading light.

Chapter Three

“Were you asleep?” Steve said.

Recognizing his voice should have reassured her, but instead Triss’s heart was hammering, her body rigid with tension. He added, “I thought you’d have seen me coming up the path.”

“I wasn’t asleep, but I didn’t see you. What are you doing here?”

There was a pause before he answered. “Renewing my acquaintance with the place. What about you?” He raised an arm, his hand resting on the stone arch.

“I come here quite often. To think.”

“Sorry I disturbed you.” But he didn’t move. Nor did he sound particularly sorry.

There was no reason to feel threatened. Only, the grotto was very small, and although he hadn’t actually entered, he was big and in her way if she wanted to leave.

Of course he’d step aside if she made a move to go. But somehow she was reluctant to put that to the test. And while she debated Steve spoke again.

“Why didn’t you tell me Magnus was ill?” he asked harshly.

“He didn’t want anyone to know.”

The dark bulk of his shoulders shifted impatiently. “You knew.”

“I’m…I was his wife.” Of course she’d known. It was she who had persuaded him to see a doctor.

“Was it his heart?”

“Yes, in the end. He’d been…failing, and he was in hospital after having what they called ‘an episode’ but we thought he was recovering. Then…it was quite sudden.”

Steve half turned, but only to lean his shoulders against the frame of the arch, arms folded. “So you must have had time to make plans, if he’d been sick for a while.”

“Plans?”

“You don’t really want to stay here, surely? Even though you get more in cash if you do. He left you the bulk of his money. I’d advise you to take it and run.”

Triss shot to her feet. “I didn’t ask for any advice from you, and I certainly don’t need it!” And the raw feeling in her throat was caused by anger, not hurt at his callous, unjust assumptions. “Excuse me, I’d like to go back to the house.”

For a long second or two she thought he wasn’t going to move. Refusing to wait on his pleasure, and in a dire need to get away, she made to push through the narrow space he’d left her, miscalculated and felt her breasts brush against his shirt as she tried to pass him.

Steve straightened a little too late. Triss stumbled over his foot, and his hands closed about her upper arms.

For a moment they stood together in the stone doorway, bodies touching, Steve’s chin only an inch from her temple. She could hear—even feel—the harsh intake of his breath, smell clean clothing and soap and a faint, frighteningly seductive male skin-scent.

In irrational panic she clenched her fists and raised them, thumping his chest. “Let me go!”

He swung her to the outside of the doorway with easy strength, then released her, saying, “Glad to, but are you’re sure that’s what you want?”

The implied suggestion was outrageous. Fury banished fear and she raised a fist again, aiming at his face.

He grabbed her wrist before it connected, holding her away from him. “I wouldn’t try it. You won’t win.”

Triss tugged against his grip and he retained it just long enough to make her aware that he was right, even if she employed some of the self-defense techniques that had momentarily flown right out of her mind. He was bigger and much stronger, and they both knew he was on his guard and would easily defeat her in a physical tussle.

When he removed his hand she stepped back, resisting the temptation to rub at her numbed wrist. Thank heaven there were no witnesses to this little contretemps.

Chagrined, she said, stiff-lipped, “I shouldn’t have tried to hit you.” Normally a totally nonviolent person, she had been goaded to the point of unthinkingly hitting out.

“Damn right you shouldn’t,” Steve agreed. “Never underestimate your opponent. Fortunately I’m not in the habit of fighting with women.”

Not physically. But he had no compunction about attacking them with words. It hadn’t escaped her that he was not apologizing for that. “Do they often hit you?” she inquired.

The quick flash of his white teeth in the darkness resembled a snarl more than a smile. “You’re the first and only.”

“You surprise me,” Triss said. Then she turned her back and walked away from him.

Steve watched her retreat into the darkness. She’d left him to it, king of the hill, and he should be savoring the victory. Instead he felt bleak and empty and annoyingly in the wrong.

He hadn’t assaulted her, he reminded himself, hadn’t even retaliated when she went for him with her fist.

She could have waited for him to give way when she said she wanted to leave, but no—she’d deliberately brushed against him in the narrow opening, setting his pulses on fire with a familiar, unwilling desire, and when he’d saved her from falling on her face, she’d made a show of fighting him off as if he’d made an unwelcome advance.

Then, flying into a rage when he made it clear he wasn’t interested, she’d tried to sock him on the jaw.

She would find that he wasn’t as easily manipulated as the half-grown males she’d been around in the past few years.

In his own formative years he’d not had much to do with women, but he was more experienced now. Triss herself had taught him a thing or two, and after moving to L.A. and becoming involved in the fringes of the entertainment business, he’d seen the way some women used their looks and their wits to advantage, twisting strong, powerful men around apparently fragile, pretty little fingers.

It had worked with Magnus, but Steve was determined that no woman—and especially this woman—was going to have him dancing to her dangerous tune. He might not have been a match for her years ago, but she’d find it harder to get rid of him this time round.

After breakfast Triss invited Steve, in as cordial a voice as she could muster, to come to her office anytime and she’d have the yearly accounts ready for him.

“Your office? Or Magnus’s?”

“My office,” she replied firmly, knowing he was wondering if already she’d appropriated for herself the room that had always been her husband’s domain. “Down the corridor and just about opposite his.” When Steve had left she’d still been doing the accounts on a table in Magnus’s upstairs flat, but for years now she’d had her own office.

He nodded and she left him finishing his second cup of coffee.

When he arrived she had a pile of folders on the desk. Laying the last one on top as he entered, she told him, “These are printouts from previous years. This year’s accounts are on disk and in my computer.” The machine sat on her desk, a much newer piece of furniture than Magnus’s kauri antique.

Steve looked around at the filing cabinets, the shelves neatly stacked with file boxes, and the typing chair behind the desk, as if noting the contrast between this businesslike room and the chaos Magnus had worked in. He picked up the folders. “Do you mind if I use Magnus’s desk?”

It was a reasonable request. There wasn’t much room in the annex to sort through papers, and the bigger office would be private and convenient. Triss had the feeling he was staking a claim, but without an excuse she’d look churlish and petty if she refused. At least he’d had the decency to ask.

“If you like,” she said, as graciously as she could. “I may need to fetch some documents from time to time but I’ll try not to disturb you.”

He nodded and seemed about to leave. She realized he was looking at the darkened bruise below her eye, that makeup had failed to disguise. Abruptly he asked, “Is that painful?”

“Less so than yesterday. It’ll fade.”

After he’d gone away with the files, she let her head fall into her hands and raked her fingers through her hair, wishing passionately that the world would just go away for at least a day or two. And take Steve with it.

But there were bills to be paid and people to be contacted. The annual budget to be prepared. Tutors to be found for next year’s program, a task that had to be done way ahead of time. It was going to become a major problem without Magnus’s personal connection with an extensive network of people ranging from musicians and special educators to politicians, philanthropists and the heads of various educational and musical institutions and youth aid programs.

Sighing, Triss switched on the computer. But her mind was still with the man in the room across the way.

Steve had come far since Magnus had plucked him up from the street when he was a teenager, playing experimental music on a cheap secondhand keyboard that he’d repaired himself.

Under Magnus’s wing he’d learned a lot about the technique and theory of music while pursuing his interest in electronically produced sound. Before he was out of his teens he had been building his own digital instruments, at first from cheap used parts, and selling them. By the time Triss arrived at Kurakaha he’d been tutoring part-time, maintaining the House’s electronic equipment and using an outbuilding for his own lucrative small business.

Magnus had tolerated that as the price of having Steve within his little kingdom, but had never given up trying to persuade him to make music rather than its instruments.

Then a visiting American businessman had been impressed enough to lure Steve to Los Angeles with the offer of a partnership that Steve accepted against Magnus’s determined opposition, and there had been raised voices before Steve packed and left. Within two years he had bought his partner out. Since then the firm had earned a reputation for cutting-edge technology and made him a rich man.

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