One Night in the Orient (16 page)

Contradicting every sensible resolution, she wished he’d ignored her words, taken for himself what they both wanted so much.

She firmed lips that ached for more of his kisses. “I just want to get rid of everything that’s hanging over me.”

“I can understand that.”

Siena turned, her heart bumping unevenly when she saw him fastening the buttons of his shirt. She didn’t remember undoing it, but her fingertips thrilled at the
memory of his hot skin, fascinatingly textured by the fine pattern of hair across his chest.

She swallowed, but he said, “A clean cut is always the least painful. And it heals better.”

Her stomach dropped, and for a far-too-vivid moment she imagined the moment when he would calmly and finally cut free of her.

“Having second thoughts?” he asked, his tone neutral.

Siena shook her head. Whatever happened with Nick, there could be no going back. Adrian no longer had a place in her heart.

“Far from it,” she said crisply. “Let’s go.”

Gemma was definitely home; the windows had been opened in their parents’ house.

Nick stopped the car outside, got out and opened the door for Siena to get out. He looked down at her, his gaze searching. “All right?”

“I’m fine,” she said crisply, ignoring the butterflies beneath her ribs.

He bent his head and before she could object he kissed her again—the sort of kiss, she thought dazedly when she emerged from it, that should be kept for very private moments.

“Just in case anyone’s watching,” he said coolly when she glowered at him.

“There’s a good café just around the corner,” she said, indicating the top of the street with a jerk of her chin. “I’ll meet you there, shall I?”

“I’ll wait.” He leaned back against the car, big and lithe and magnificent, and clearly determined to stay.

Ruffled by that kiss, she protested, “It’s not necessary. You might as well be drinking coffee—”

“Get it over and done with,” he said, nodding to two elderly ladies who looked as though they could be making their way home from church.

Both beamed at him, then transferred their smiles—knowledgeably conspiratorial this time—to her.

Warmed, she thought,
If only …

Because she had to accept the truth. Their supposed affair would end like his previous ones, with no regrets on Nick’s part.

She couldn’t let that matter now.

Setting her shoulders, she walked up the concrete path, clattered across the wooden verandah and rang the bell, feeling as though Nick had branded her with his kisses.

Gemma opened the door and burst into tears.

“Oh, Gem, don’t,” Siena said in an anguished voice, and hugged her.

But Gemma couldn’t stop; it took Siena almost half an hour before she could make her sister understand that she wasn’t shattered, that her heart was otherwise engaged.

She’d packed most of her clothes before Gemma stopped weeping and gasped, “Nick?
Our
Nick?”

Siena said on a sigh, “How on earth you can indulge in a solid half-hour of sobbing and still look gorgeous, I don’t know. It’s so unfair.”

Mopping up, Gemma dismissed this with a wave of her hand. “I’m—actually, I’m not s-surprised. I always knew you had a thing for him. What happened? When did you know it was Nick?”

“When I saw him across the restaurant in London with a gorgeous chilly blonde,” Siena told her.

Why on earth hadn’t she understood then that the jolt of recognition had spun her world right off its axis? Watching him stride through the hotel restaurant as though he owned the universe had rearranged her life, transforming her into a woman ready to dare dangerously, desperately, even while she accepted there was almost certainly no future for her in a relationship with him.

“Are you sure?” Gemma asked worriedly.
“Absolutely
sure Nick is the man for you?”

“Certain,” Siena said, with such conviction that Gemma relaxed—although she still looked puzzled, as though she couldn’t believe that anyone like Nick could love Siena.

But all she said was, “Where is he now?”

“Out in the car, I assume.” Siena got them both a glass of water and said wryly, “No, I see him coming up the path as I speak.” Dismay racked her. “With Adrian.”

What followed, she thought mordantly in the car afterwards, was like a scene from a French farce. The two men didn’t shake hands, and although Nick was polite there was no mistaking the chill in his attitude. Adrian looked somehow smaller, his handsome face almost sullen.

And all it would take was one word for Gemma to start crying again.

Fortunately it didn’t last long. Without saying anything Siena handed over to Adrian the small parcel that was her engagement ring. He looked at it as though she’d delivered a snake, and Gemma gave another gulp of dismay, but thank heavens neither said anything.

Within minutes Nick manoeuvred them out of the house and into the car, where Siena sat silently, odd scraps of disconnected thoughts tumbling endlessly though her mind.

After a few minutes Nick said, “What’s your problem now?”

Siena tried hard to sound her usual self. “How can you tell when I’m worrying?”

“It’s not only women who can read body language,” he said dryly. “And stop evading—you do it badly.”

She shrugged. “It’s not exactly a problem,” she said thoughtfully. “It’s just that Gemma doesn’t seem to know exactly how Adrian feels about her.”

Nick sent her an imperious glance. “She probably feels a certain delicacy in confiding to you about him. Keep out of it,” he advised with tough pragmatism. “She’s a big girl now—she’s stolen the man you planned to marry, so she has to live with the consequences. Even as kids you used to rescue her. It’s time she learned to run her own life.”

Siena had to admit the truth of his astringent view of the situation. She glanced out of the window, and realised they weren’t heading for the harbour bridge. “Where are we going?”

“I want to check out my yacht—it’s just finished a refit.”

Relieved he didn’t want to discuss the final painful scene she said, “I didn’t know you had a yacht.”

“Not your sort,” he said dryly.

“You mean a motor yacht? No sails?”

“No sails,” he agreed. “While you were in talking to Gemma I got a call from a friend who’s been holidaying in Australia. He’s decided to see a bit of Northland’s
coastline, so he’s chartering the yacht for a week. I want to speak to the skipper and have a look at the way it’s been refitted.”

Siena looked sideways, allowing her gaze to linger on the lines and angles of his profile. “I suppose your friend is travelling in a private jet?”

His mouth curved. “Yes. Why?”

“I feel as though I’ve fallen down a rabbit hole like Alice.” She asked suddenly, “How long did it take you to get used to all this stuff—the yacht, the houses, everything?”

“The yacht I bought for my mother,” he said. “As for the others—well, I told you the plane’s to deliver me in good shape when I need to be on top of a situation. Both yacht and plane get chartered when I’m not using them. I’m not fond of staying in hotels. I’d be a lying fool if I said I don’t enjoy the good things I can buy, but I’ve always known that people are what matter.”

Although he hadn’t directly answered her question, she felt she’d learned something more about him. He was so difficult to understand, only revealing tiny glimpses of the complex man beneath the sophisticated exterior.

Nick’s yacht was moored where the city met the harbour, at a huge marina almost beneath the harbour bridge. Siena got out of the car and went up the gangway, scrupulously keeping her eyes ahead.

Nick had such presence, even in a T-shirt echoing the dense colour of his eyes and a pair of casual trousers that clung to narrow hips and long legs. Siena’s stomach tightened, and an intoxicating pleasure shocked her with its swift intensity.

Nick glanced down, caught the absorbed interest
in her expression. He did his best to ignore the rapid charged lust that blazed into life whenever he saw her—or even thought of her.

He had no idea what she was thinking, or how she really felt. Not that it mattered. He had her where he wanted her.

The captain came down to meet him. Nick introduced them, curbing a sudden ignoble tension when he noticed the hastily concealed appreciation in the other man’s eyes.

“Phil and I need to discuss a few things, but I shouldn’t be long,” he told Siena. He could have got one of the crew to show her over the vessel, but he was reserving that for himself. “Have a drink here on the sundeck, and when we’ve finished I’ll take you around the yacht.”

When he came back she was chatting to the stewardess, drink forgotten, her curls blowing free in the salt-smelling breeze.

They looked up, and an animated Siena informed him, “Libby and I went to school together and we’ve been catching up.”

With resigned eyes she watched the ex-head girl of her grammar school go a little pink when Nick’s lazy green eyes raked her face. Startled by the unwarranted jealousy that stabbed through her, Siena had to stop herself from moving uncomfortably, because she had no right to feel any sort of possessiveness.

Libby excused herself, and Nick asked, “Finished your drink?”

Siena caught sight of the neglected glass. “I didn’t even start it.”

“Sit down and drink up. There’s no need to hurry,” he said.

The smile that accompanied his words was a masterpiece; as well as lazy amusement it revealed a potent awareness that sent yet more excitement sizzling from the crown of her head to the ends of her toes.

Stop that right now,
she commanded her wayward body, and concentrated on draining the glass.

To get through this charade without ending in deep trouble she had to keep her head, and sighing over Nick’s smile was not going to help her do that.

So she firmed her mouth and said the first thing that came into her mind. “I’m impressed.”

“I wonder why I got the idea that you weren’t?”

“Come on, who wouldn’t be impressed by all this marine glamour?”

“You don’t have to pretend—you used to be very contemptuous of motor yachts. I recall you telling me once that true sailing meant you had to have actual sails. Anything else was just boating.”

Strangely warmed that he remembered, she produced an elaborate sigh. “I do wish you wouldn’t keep reminding me of my brattish, snippy phase. And I’m impressed because you chose a motor yacht that’s clean-lined and sturdy. She looks as though she’ll be kind in any sea.”

“She is.” Hot, bright sunlight highlighted his angular features. “I know sailing yachts are far more sexy, but my mother was alive when I bought this for her, and she needed a comfortable vessel.”

“And the yacht is named after her?” From the wharf she’d noted the words
Laura Blaine
on the stern.

“Yes. She grew up on a Pacific trading vessel in the Islands. She loved sailing, but by the time I
commissioned this she’d developed rheumatoid arthritis. She was barely able to hold the bottle of champagne to christen her, but she relished the chance to explore the Gulf.”

Siena looked up to meet his direct, almost speculative gaze, and her stomach contracted in a spasm of tight pleasure.
I want you—now,
she thought urgently, hoping to heaven it didn’t show in her face.

Amused, he said, “I did actually have a mother. In fact, you met her fairly regularly.”

“It never occurred to me you’d hatched from a pod,” she said smartly, “and of course I remember her. I liked her a lot. She must have had a romantic childhood, yet I bet launching the
Laura Blaine
was one of the high points of her life.”

“And?” he said.

“And what?”

“What else was going through your mind?”

She blushed hotly, cursing her betraying skin when his scrutiny sharpened. Hastily assembling her thoughts, she said, “Nothing important. Just that although the
Laura Blaine
is lovely there’s something about actually being under canvas that no motor yacht can match.”

“My mother would have agreed,” he told her. “Her father was owner and skipper of one of the last of the sailing traders, and she loved the life.”

“It must have been a wrench to give it up and come ashore.”

Something darkened his gaze, sending a chill through her. Then it vanished and he said noncommittally, “Yes.”

Her pleasure was strengthened by a deeper and more
elemental emotion. When her eyes met his she recalled the feel of his mouth on hers, on the soft skin of her breasts, girdling her waist with a chain of kisses …

A shiver, torridly sensuous, as though every nerve had been stroked with a feather, swept across her skin. She turned away so he couldn’t see her face.

What did he expect of her now? He hadn’t touched her since that openly possessive kiss in front of her parents’ house, and she wanted—craved—his arms around her with a fierceness that worried her.

But he stayed aloof while he showed her around the yacht. Like his house in London, it had been decorated by a professional, yet somehow it echoed the personality of its owner.

“I like it,” she said as he showed her the master stateroom. She glanced up at him, then away again. “It looks superbly comfortable, and practical too—perfect for a yacht.”

The cabin was dominated by a very large bed. Hastily Siena’s gaze skidded past it to thoroughly approve of the fully stocked bookshelves and the sofa. A lush green plant in a pot brought freshness, and on one wall an abstract oil somehow conveyed the mood of a serene sea under starlight.

Nick indicated a door. “You might want to check out the bathroom.” He grinned at her. “Yes, I know it’s called the head, but because I often have guests who are not sailors I’ve slipped into the habit of calling it the bathroom. I’ll meet you up on deck.”

Once inside the bathroom she turned, wrinkling her nose at the multitude of reflections of herself from the mirrored walls.

I do wish my hair would behave.
She washed her
hands and pushed an errant curl back from her cheek. The reflections joined her in an elaborate sigh.

Ah, well, she had long ago accepted that not only did she barely make five feet four, but she also possessed hips and breasts, unlike her mother and her sister. One of her early boyfriends had called her a pocket Venus, which had been flattering—until he’d set eyes on Gemma and immediately tried to transfer his allegiance.