The Australian Heiress (15 page)

“With you as guarantor?”

He nodded fractionally, ignoring the sharp sarcasm. “I don’t see that as a problem. You have everything it takes to be a success. You have a good business brain and training. You’re very knowledgeable about
art. The fact you look like you stepped out of a painting won’t hurt, either.”

She stared down at the gold fringe on a cushion, unnerved by the expression that came and went in his eyes. “Claude’s far from poor. My father alone made him a rich man. He wants to help. Also, I have no doubt whatsoever about his integrity.”

“Is that a shot at me?” The deep voice fairly crackled.

“Do you expect me to do an about-face? I can’t so easily come to grips with your opposing images. Anyway, you rely on
your
instincts. They were confirmed at the auction. The same with me. I was being followed for most of the day. Harry’s enemies are still out there.”

“What about a security guard for a couple of weeks?” he suggested. “I know a very good firm of private investigators who could do the job.”

“The same ones you used on Harry?” she couldn’t help asking. “I’d really hate to have someone watching me all the time.”

“Sometimes there’s no other option.”

“You said yourself I could be overreacting.”

“It
is
possible, but we’ll have it checked out all the same.”

She looked up and met his gaze. “Does Hilda Gray have children?”

He answered carefully. “There’s been no mention of any.”

Camille’s eyes turned bleak. “It would be a shocking thing to have your father commit suicide, then your mother detained in a psychiatric institution.”

“Life is grimmer than the movies. We’ll have Detective Lewis check it out.”

He stood up abruptly and half turned away. The air between them fairly crackled, and without understanding why, Camille called to him, “Don’t go.”

He stared down at her as she sat tucked into the corner of the couch. “You’re not afraid of what
I
might do, are you?”

She took a deep breath, held it

“You can’t answer?”

“I can’t answer anything,” she said in a low wry voice. “You’ve even suggested we might be related.”

“Sheer bloody-mindedness,” he admitted. “That would be too grotesque. I found him, you know. My uncle. It wasn’t something I’ll ever forget”

She closed her eyes against the tears that sprang into them. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

“He loved your mother. Loved her to the extent there was no life without her.”

Camille detected the anger buried in him. “And you hated her for it?”

He continued to look down at her—green eyes, luminous skin, glorious hair, the graceful body sheafed in a thin silky material. He’d seen such beauty before. No one knew better than he what havoc it could wreak. “I hated Guilford more,” he said tonelessly.

“So what do you want with me?”

“You’re the innocent victim.”

“Victim? What a terrible word.” She spoke with pride and spirit, yet her voice broke. She got up suddenly and crossed to the wide plate-glass doors that opened onto the balcony, now shut against the driving rain. Outside echoed the turmoil within. The wind was
lashing the fronds of the tall golden canes, scattering the petals of the massed azaleas so that the tiles had turned pink. Her reflection in the glass looked like a wraith from the past

“This is unbearable,” she said, her nerves stretched to breaking. “Why don’t you go home? Melissa needs you.”

“I know.” His lean powerful frame appeared in the glass behind her. “I don’t want to leave
you,
either.” He spoke without tenderness of any kind; it was more an admission dredged from within.

A gust of wind hit the door, rattling the glass and carrying a great flurry of spray onto the pane so that momentarily their reflections were distorted. A soft cry escaped her. The city hadn’t experienced a storm like this in a long time, yet it was nothing compared to the tumultuous business of fighting off desire. For wasn’t that what it was? It came at her in torrid waves, swamping her every thought of caution, of loyalty.

But did she owe Harry any loyalty at all?

Nick Lombard’s hands came up over her shoulders, shaping them, molding the silk to her like a second skin. Setting up a chain reaction of shudders.

“Please go,” she murmured, finding it difficult to speak at all.

“I can’t seem to move from the spot. Isn’t that what witchcraft is all about? Casting a spell?”

“You can’t stay here with me,” she managed.

“No.” He swept her hair from her vulnerable nape, placed his mouth to her skin, his every movement fraught with intensity.

Her heart began to pump wildly. Every emotion, every desire she’d ever felt, came together like a bonfire
of the senses. “This is crazy!” she said, her voice shaking.

“Fighting it is no use.” His hand plunged to her robe. He took the weight of her small high breast, his fingers closing around the smooth naked flesh.

Excitement welled in her at such a rate she was having difficulty breathing. This was unimaginable pleasure. Unimaginable agony. Her breasts were so sensitive! Aware of it, he began to make slow circles with his fingers around the dusky areola, closing on the tightly budded nipple to roll it caressingly back and forth.

All she could do was moan. Her whole body seemed to be growing moist, opening like a flower. Her head fell back helplessly against his shoulder, her expression betraying her intense arousal. “Nicholas,
don’t.”

He seemed to laugh. “Don’t? When the decision was made the moment we met?”

He spun her so she faced him, his face filled with a hard reckless light. Something momentous was happening between them. While her eyelids fell, he brought his mouth to hers, forcing her lips fully open. His tongue thrust and explored, arousing her to heights hitherto unsealed.

She was lost, utterly lost. She’d been lost from the moment she’d first looked into his extraordinary eyes.

He kissed her over and over, as if he’d never have the chance again. The thin silk slithered erotically between them, then pooled at their feet. All she was left with were her briefs, a wisp of satin and lace. His eyes moved down her with an ardor she’d never even dreamed of. This was another level of lovemaking, far from anything she’d ever known.

He gathered her up effortlessly, finding his way down the narrow hall to her bedroom, where he lay her down like an odalisque on the rose moirȳ quilt.

This is what fire is like,
Camille thought.
Hot, beautiful, dangerous to life.
She rolled a little to one side, drawing up her slender legs. This was it. A cul-de-sac, with no exit She had allowed it She had consented to the unthinkable.

When he stood naked, she gazed at him as if at a work of art. He was not at all self-conscious, handsome, virile, supremely confident of his sexuality. His was the body of an athlete—a runner or a swimmer—wide shoulders atop a taut muscled frame. The lamplight made his skin gleam like bronze. There was no tan line on his body. He was an all-over tawny gold, the flesh of his back and his buttocks sleek, hardmuscled, smooth.

When he came to her, she stared up into his brilliant eyes. He was so sure of himself. Of her.

“Could you get pregnant?” he asked in a low urgent voice.

“Would you care?”

“I’d care a great deal.”

“Then the answer is no.” It was true. She had remained on the pill despite her broken engagement to Philip.

She’d barely uttered the words before he lowered himself over her, the dark hair on his chest grazing her soft breasts while he supported himself with his arms.

There was a furnace inside her, hot, red, glowing. He moved tantalizingly down onto her, then drew back, until she cried out in a frenzy of desire.

“I want to
know
you.” He grasped her head between his hands, commanding her attention. “Do you understand what that means? I want to know every inch of your beautiful body, but I also want to know your heart and your mind.”

She began to lift her slender arms to him, but he held them above her head, bringing her breasts up and closer to his ardent mouth.

Camille closed her eyes and let rapture tumble over her. Her core turned molten, ready for penetration. Only, he teased her. Endlessly. With mouth and hands and tongue, not removing her briefs until the satin was damp from his mouth and her own desire. When she thought she couldn’t take a minute more of his exquisite ministrations, he urged her on further.

“Please,” she gasped, unable to endure another moment

“What’s my
name?”
His voice was raspy with emotion.

Her eyes flew open in wonderment. “Nicholas.” Her answer was barely audible.

“Nicholas what?” He hung over her. Waiting.

“Nicholas Lombard. My enemy.” There, she’d said it. She still
believed
it, even though he’d put himself in mortal danger for her. “You give me no peace.”

“Nor you, me.”

He plunged into her then with a triumphant cry, thrusting deeper and deeper. He stifled her cries with his mouth. Her arms were flung out deliriously while their bodies fused, and her soul escaped through her lips to join his.

She felt as if she was speeding through a starspangled night, moving at such a pace she would soon
burst into flames. Her incoherent murmurs sought to convey her delight and an odd terror at her loss of self.

Her orgasm began in a series of deep ripples, eddying ever outward, steadily gaining in power. Her body began to buck and bow as the eddies became a great spinning whirlpool with her riding the curve. She gave a great trembling cry that was a cry for help.

He tried to soothe her, reining her in with his hands and voice, fitting her body to his own powerful rhythms.

“Stay with me,” he said.

“I…I can’t!”

“Yes, you can. I have you now.”

She ceded all control. They were moving in unison. Two sleek perfectly matched creatures, pounding across an extravagant savanna. Camille felt herself liberated from her body. She was lifted…lifted…clear of the earth and into the glorious glittering stars….

H
OURS AFTER HE’D GONE
and she’d fallen into the deep sweet sleep of physical exhaustion, the phone on the bedside table rang. Its strident call so close to her head shocked her awake. She reached out blindly for the receiver, lifted it, held it to her ear.

“You’ve been warned,” a voice said, a voice not recognizably male or female but full of hate.

M
ANY THINGS
happened after that. Detective Lewis called on her confirming that Hilda Gray did indeed have a son, but when Camille was shown a photograph, she saw he bore no resemblance whatever to the young man she’d seen at the shopping center.
Moreover, Sebastian Gray, out of work and on the dole, didn’t even own a car. He did, however, have a license. The police would be watching him, although he’d denied ever following Camille Guilford; and what’s more, he had no interest in “birds.”

“Homosexual and makes no bones about it,” Detective Lewis said. They were still making inquiries about the young man fitting Camille’s sketchy description, but unless she saw him again, the task of tracing him would be difficult. They’d questioned the shopkeepers at the center, but no one fitting Camille’s description was a regular or had impressed himself on their consciousness in any way.

“Can’t blame you for being apprehensive, Miss Guilford,” Lewis said, “what with all that’s been going on. Regarding the flowers, we’ve struck another blank. As for the phone calls—” there had been others, always silent “—I’d suggest you get an unlisted number.”

It was clearly the best she could hope for. Nick had acted immediately. An operative from a firm of private investigators was keeping watch over her and the apartment, but strangely her sixth sense wasn’t activated there. Was it only in the presence of danger? Even Detective Lewis had been skeptical about the car in the laneway. He’d seen too much poor driving, especially in bad weather, to read anything sinister into the incident

H
ONORING HER PROMISE
to Melissa, Camille collected the child after school one afternoon to have her hair cut. The appointment had been arranged with Camille’s
own stylist, who was excellent at cutting curly hair.

“You’re going to sit with me, aren’t you, Camille?” Melissa asked, her mood swinging from excitement to panic as they were shown into the salon. She’d had her pigtail a long time. She hated it, but it was part of her.

Sean had already drawn up another chair, handing Camille a couple of magazines to read.

“What’s your name, sweetheart?” he asked Melissa breezily.

Immediately the little girl dropped her head and muttered, “Melissa,” which Sean, straining to hear, interpreted as “Marissa.”

“Marissa! That’s a great name. It suits you.”

Instantly Melissa straightened up, a new person. She didn’t correct the hairdresser. Neither did Camille. It seemed the girl had suffered because of a name that patently didn’t suit her. Why shouldn’t she have the freedom to be called something else?

The session went extraordinarily well. Sean really cared about hair, and Melissa had lots of it that needed taming. The bulk of the braid was saved, then long skeins began to fall to the floor. Despite Camille’s anxieties, the little girl didn’t even gulp, only watched in fascination. “This is my real self!” she exclaimed, her hands touching the glossy mass of short curls and deep waves that framed her face so flatteringly.

“Your crowning glory!” Sean lifted her out of the chair, experiencing his own intense satisfaction at seeing such a plain little scrap blossom right in front of his eyes.

Once out in the street, Melissa, buoyed by her new
image, declared herself ravenously hungry. Camille, her own stomach tied in knots right up to the point the new style had begun to take shape, also felt the need for sustenance. It was quite by chance they picked a coffee shop in a nearby arcade. It was not one Camille had ever visited, but it looked clean and inviting.

There, Melissa happily selected sandwiches, a small cake and a milk shake, while Camille ordered a cappuccino. Where to sit? Melissa didn’t want to face, the entryway, so they moved toward one of the banquettes in a far corner of the room, a T-shape that was defined by faux marble columns.