The Boat Builder's Bed (3 page)

“A bit. Not in your kind of boats though.”

“Faye used to handle some of the marine decor for me. Would you be up to that?”

Too much, too soon
, she told herself, glad his back was towards her.
He can’t be serious? Boats? The amazing Severino Superyachts?
 

His no-doubt spectacular body receded just a little in her imagination.

“The interiors?” She somehow managed this query without croaking or squealing. “Wall finishes, fabrics, flooring?”

“Yup. More or less.”

“I don’t see why not. I’d love to try. I’ll have stuff to learn, but the basics won’t be too far different. A luxury look and improved practicality?”

She watched his tight butt cha-cha-ing back down the ladder, and then averted her eyes before he turned and found her looking.

“Absolute luxury. The best of everything. Sometimes no practicality at all. We’ll see. A thought for the future, maybe. You have possibilities, Ms...?” He scooped one of Sophie’s new business cards off the neat stack on the end of her work-table. “Ms Calhoun.”

“Sophie.”

“Rafe.”

There seemed to be more invitation in his eyes than the insistence on using his first name. Hot waves of wanting rolled through her body like approaching thunder. Shaking her senses. Rattling her resolve.
 

He’d been ‘Mr Severino’ all the time she’d worked for Faye, and she’d seen him mostly in photographs because he didn’t visit the design studio often.
 

Mr Severino—who was so gorgeous, so rich, so entrepreneurial, so sexy and so far out of reach. Not someone to be fantasized about and addressed casually.

“Rafe,” she repeated, determined not to sound overawed. She wondered how much more courage she could dredge up after that unexpected lightning strike of lust.

He reached over to the settee, rummaged in his jacket pocket, and produced a card in return. Black. Printed in silver. Rafe Blackhawk Severino, with a phone and cell number. On the reverse were business details.

“Blackhawk?” It was curiously right for him. Dark and predatory and different, all the things he was himself.

He smiled and she saw wolf, not hawk.
 

“Cherokee. My grandfather was John Blackhawk.”

She blinked. “Faye said you were Italian.”

“My father’s Italian, but he’s a fair-haired northerner, almost Swiss. I’m something of a mongrel. A throwback to my grandparents.”

She just couldn’t help but ask, “Well how on earth did you get a Cherokee grandfather?”
 

Instantly she imagined him in fringed buckskins, his midnight hair long and plaited, his cheekbones decorated with stripes of ochre. He looked sensational.
 

“He was a Marine, stationed here in New Zealand in 1942. Up the coast at Paekakariki.”

“And? There’s got to be more to the story than that?” She struggled to banish the devastating warrior image from her brain.

“And he met a pretty Maori girl called Matakino at a military dance...”

He sighed and shrugged his big shoulders. The fine cotton shirt lifted and fell. “John left her pregnant with my mother. Died on Okinawa, so I never knew my grandfather from anything but a snapshot.”

He pushed Sophie’s card into his trouser pocket and turned for the next bolt of fabric.

Had she asked too many questions? The following two display lengths went up in total silence and she could see conflicting emotions chasing each other across Rafe’s expressive face.

But on his next trip to floor-level he said, “Children should be with their parents. I was never with mine.”

His black eyes meshed with hers. It was definitely not the right moment to admit she had a daughter she’d been unable to continue caring for.

“Never with your parents?”

“Not after my brothers were born.”

She saw the shutters slam down on his lively eyes. So he knew he had brothers? And he knew who his parents were? Why had they not all been together?
 

“Family circumstances can sometimes make things difficult,” she hazarded, thinking of Camille’s constant colicky crying, and her own furious studying, and Adrian’s hang-gliding smash, and the endless hopeless hours she’d sat at his hospital bedside.

“Children should be with their parents,” he repeated, more softly this time.

She nodded, and reached for the fifth length of fabric. Yes, Camille should be living here in Wellington with her, not stuck in a small town down in the South Island with her granny where the house prices were so much lower than the capital city. It was the best compromise she and her mother had been able to arrange.
 

She ached to share cuddles with her tiny daughter every morning instead of only on Sundays. Wanted to admire each colorful painting Camille brought home from kindergarten, to praise her efforts and make her big blue eyes light up.
 

Instead, a couple of Camille’s past daubs greeted her each day—stuck to the refrigerator door with the awful bright pink plastic flower-magnets that were a birthday present from her absent child. They never failed to tear at her heart and remind her of the less-than-adequate mothering she gave her precious daughter.

But maybe now, if she secured some work from Rafe, she could at last retrieve her and make their lives normal? It mattered so much she hardly dared imagine it.

Camille back where she belonged?
 

Her mother finally able to reclaim the freedom she’d so generously given up to care for her grand-daughter?
 

And the weight of guilt lifted from Sophie’s own over-burdened shoulders? It was everything she’d slaved the last three years for. Everything.

She unrolled the last bolt of fabric and handed it across with slightly shaking hands. Then she stepped back so he could climb the ladder for the final time.

Sophie insisted on sweeping up the jagged shards of glass from the Jaguar’s light before leaving. There must be nothing to detract from her new studio’s appearance. She juggled the glass into one of the expensive bags she’d had printed with the Subtle logo, winced at the cost, taped it tightly closed and dropped it into a nearby garbage bin.

Soon they were gliding along Thorndon Quay in the opulent car with Norah Jones keeping them company. She wished the music was something boppy or poppy—the soft piano and Norah’s sultry voice kept pulling her thoughts back to that most inconvenient flash of attraction to Rafe.

“So what’s this lunch about?” she asked, trying to sound brisk.

“Just a collection of like-minded business-people.”

“And?”

“And we get together every month at the Wakefield Club to discuss how things are progressing in our city.”

Surely he was being evasive? Her skin prickled with a strange awareness—a sensation that didn’t often let her down. Of course it could be the prospect of facing up to Faye again, or the daunting task of the Severino home. But deep-down she knew it was Rafe. A force-field surrounded him. It pulsed and crackled as though he exuded pure energy. It set him apart from any other man she’d met.
 

She tried to relax but kept being distracted by his husky voice and his beautifully shaped and sensual lips. It was a mouth to brand a woman and steal her soul, and reduce her to a begging, yearning mess. She could easily conjure up the sensation of his warm insistent kiss. Was that why the strangest quivers were invading her thighs and turning her muscles to water?
 

Oh this is terrible, girl. Behave.
 

But seeing him up close in the flesh thrilled her. She’d sometimes glimpsed him from a distance as he loped in to see Faye, and in the glossy magazines, but most often in the photographs in matt silver frames on Faye’s office wall.

In one, Rafe wore a tuxedo and Faye a shimmering scarlet gown against a window filled with Manhattan’s night-time sky-scrapers. In another, Rafe in a black T-shirt held a huge fish, and Faye had draped herself around his shoulders. In the third, Rafe and Faye wore wedding finery. Faye’s pearl-encrusted strapless ivory dress and triumphant smile screamed ‘got him’.
 

They were photos of Faye rather than Rafe. So why had she always seen the beautiful coffee-skinned man instead of her flamboyant boss?

She clenched her fists so her nails dug into her palms as punishment.
 

He’s strictly business
, she told herself, trying to drag her brain back in that direction.

“How big is your house?” she asked.

“Just over ten thousand square feet.”

Huge! She sucked on her bottom lip as she considered how much work it could provide. And reminded herself there was no guarantee she’d get even a fraction of the job.
 

“Aren’t you up to it?”

“Just watch me,” she flashed back. “I’m ambitious and focused. I’m determined Subtle will succeed.” She tugged her skirt down to her knees. He seemed to be paying a lot of attention to her legs, which wasn’t helping the quivering-thigh problem. “Ten thousand square feet—how did you find enough seafront land to build something that size?”

“Cut a cliff away. Made a shelf. Easy.”

“Easy with untold heavy machinery and unlimited funds.”

“And if you’re determined to create something amazing.”

“I bet planning permission...?”

“...took forever,” he finished, sending her a wry smile. “I’m turning a boring uninhabitable chunk of rock into a spectacular showplace. You can’t see it from the road. From the harbor it’s currently very visible, but once the exterior timber has weathered and the landscaping’s completed, it’ll blend in beautifully.”

“You hope.”

“I’m positive. I don’t start a job unless I can finish it. You’ll learn that as you get to know me.” He reached out to reduce the volume as Bruce Springsteen started belting out ‘Born in the USA’.

Sophie’s eyes swept over his hand. Big. Long-fingered. Deeply tanned. His nails were short and neat, with one so bruised she wondered if maybe he’d hit it with a hammer. It looked incongruous with his impeccable clothes.

And he’d said she’d be getting to know him? He sounded serious about considering her design ideas and letting her pitch for the work on his amazing home. A tremor of hope ran up from her toes to the top of her head.

“So you’re thinking a casual look for the house?”

God, let me be right. This is so important.

“It’s high above the water. Lots of glass. Big views. I don’t want the outlook overwhelmed with anything too fussy or too patterned.”

“No red velvet swags or big splashy flowers, then?” she asked, nipping at the inside of her cheek as he glanced across to make sure she was teasing.

“Neutral. Timeless.” A black eyebrow winged up in amusement at her suggestions.

“Subtle, in other words.” Sophie took a deep breath and a big chance. “So the Subtle Design Studio should be just what you’re looking for. I have commissions I’m working on already, but I’d be a fool not to treat you seriously. At least until we know if we see eye-to-eye.”

Would he bite? Was he serious about the work? Or just using her to taunt Faye? Whatever his motives she knew she needed to be on her guard. If he genuinely wanted a decorator for his big house, that was fine. That was wonderful. It would be the hardest work she’d ever done, but what a chance.

So she’d have to keep Camille an absolute secret. Rafe needed a talented and dedicated decorator, not a struggling single mother with a child to worry about. Certainly not a single mother who’d had to give up that child because she simply couldn’t cope any longer.
 

What would he think of her if he discovered that? He’d said ‘children should be with their parents.’ Said it twice, so he obviously had strong views on the subject. No way could she let him know Camille existed.
 

As the car purred on she became ever more curious about why he’d never lived with his parents and brothers. She sensed it still rankled with him even though he was now a wealthy and very successful man. She itched to ask.

“Left up here,” she said as they reached the turn-off in Tinakori Road.

He nodded, and she watched the sheen of sunlight dance across his ebony hair, wondering if it would be crisp or silky to touch.

“How far?”

“Ummm…?”

How far up the road?”

“Oh—just the other side of the bus stop, but parking’s almost non-existent.”
 

“I’ll pretend I’m a bus for a sec. Will you be long?”

Relief washed over her. She could get away from him and try to regain her equilibrium while she changed clothes.

“Two minutes, tops.”

He sent her a skeptical glance. “I’ve never known a woman change her outfit that fast.”

“Not Faye, maybe.”

The big car slowed.

“Check your watch,” she joked. “Back in no time.”

And then, right on cue, a van pulled out of a space ahead and he swung the Jaguar in.

Sophie’s spirits plummeted when he opened his door in time with hers.

“Don’t bother coming in. I’ll be very quick.”

“If I see where you live I might learn something about your decorating skills.” He ignored her brush-off and stepped out of the car.
 

She gritted her teeth and tried for polite.

“Not much. I rent the place, so all I’ve been able to do is paint some walls and hang a few pictures. And it’s tiny—there’s no scope for more than that.”

She pushed the creaky old gate open, and he followed her up the path. Far too close. She felt herself herded along with no choice but to fall in with his wishes. Her briefcase bumped against her knee as she hurried over the uneven surface of the pavers.

She cast her mind back to earlier that morning. She’d departed in a rush. How tidy had she left things? Her cereal bowl and coffee mug would be in the sink, but that was better than having them cluttering the small kitchen counter. The flowers on the sideboard were on their last legs but he probably wouldn’t notice those. The dining table had some paperwork spread out, but nothing confidential and nothing too messy.