For Barbara and Peter Clendon. The best of friends

       and booksellers extraordinaire. Thank you.

      CONTENTS

      PROLOGUE

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      CHAPTER TEN

      CHAPTER ELEVEN

      EPILOGUE

      PROLOGUE

      STANDING in a land agent’s office pretending to check out a couple of likely prospects, Clay Beauchamp looked up sharply when a low, husky laugh teased his ears.

      Outside in the street a woman had stopped to talk, and the smoky sensuality of her voice homed straight through his defences, waking his male response to instant, lustful life.

      The subtropical sun of an early Northland autumn picked out a head of curls black as a sinful midnight; they looked as though she’d taken to them in exasperation with a blunt pair of scissors, but the bad cut only emphasised their springy vitality. As Clay’s eyes narrowed, she turned her head.

      His stimulated hormones surged into clamorous over-drive. Deliberately controlling his physical arousal, he surveyed a face made to star in erotic dreams.

      Not that she was pretty—or even beautiful. No, she possessed something much rarer than either—a cool, guarded sensuality produced by the happy genetic accident of a softly voluptuous mouth and large eyes set on a provocative slant. The tempting, tantalising combination of mouth and eyes overshadowed ivory skin and neat, regular features.

      Moving slightly so that his unbidden and uncomfortable response was partly hidden by the sheaf of papers in his hand, Clay studied her with speculative, intent interest. Five feet eight, he estimated, with wide shoulders and curved hips that hinted at a generous sexuality—and although she spoke with a New Zealand accent he’d bet some intriguing bloodlines mingled in that lithe, long-legged body.

      The man she was talking to interrupted, laughing. Clay frowned. Without the play of speech her face settled into a watchful, disciplined wariness that denied access to her thoughts and emotions.

      But that mouth! Full and red and eager when she relaxed, it summoned all too vivid images. What would it take to see that restraint shattered in passion? Sweat beaded Clay’s temples and his breath strangled in his throat as his body reacted with violent enthusiasm to the thought.

      Helen of Troy, he thought with annoyed irony, had probably had the same effect on the men who had desired her.

      ‘She’s a looker, isn’t she?’

      The land agent’s nasal voice broke Clay’s concentration. Irritated that he’d been caught staring at an unknown woman with the fervour of a stag in rut, he asked curtly, ‘Who is she?’

      ‘Natalia Gerner. Her father bought a chunk of Pukekahu Station—it’s the second in the file. Yeah, that one—’ he said as Clay shuffled the papers.

      The land agent went on, ‘Would have been about thirteen years ago, when old Bart Freeman from Pukekahu had the Inland Revenue Department hot on his trail for unpaid taxes and he had to find money damned fast. The only way he could come up with the cash was to cut off several parcels of land. Natalia’s father—straight from Auckland, never been on a farm in his life before!—bought one, gave it some damned stupid poetic name and did his best to railroad himself into bankruptcy.’

      He snorted as Natalia Gerner laughed outside the small office, the liquid feminine sound sheer enticement. Clay continued looking at the paper in his hand, but the words blurred as every sense sharpened. Resolutely he overrode the unruly demands of his body, forcing his mind back to the business at hand. He’d come here for a specific purpose, and nothing was going to get in his way.

      The land agent continued, ‘Mind you, they had bad luck too—her mother died when Natalia was eighteen, then her father dropped dead of a heart attack—three years ago it’ll be now. If you decide on Pukekahu—and you’ll never get land in the North cheaper—she’ll be your neighbour.’

      Clay frowned, striving to push Natalia Gerner’s exotic face and sexy laugh to the back of his mind. This was business, and no woman—not even one with a face like a courtesan and a body that hinted at all sorts of decadent pleasures—interfered with his business.

      Actually, this was more than business. It was the culmination of years of quiet, persistent, ruthless effort and struggle. He tamped down the flicker of triumph even as he felt it. However leggy and tormenting, the woman with a laugh like Eve wasn’t going to cloud his brain today.

      The land agent grinned, his middle-aged face sly. ‘She’s a very generous girl, they say. She and Dean Jamieson—that’s the vendor—had a good thing going there a while back, but it fizzled out.’

      Life had taught Clay that too much emotion led to grief and defeat; over the years he’d learned how to discipline his responses, even his pleasures. Yet he had to pretend to read the page of figures and stare at the photograph of a huge Victorian villa in the last stages of disintegration while he struggled to restrain a red tide of rage.

      The land agent gave a snort of laughter. ‘She probably thought she had it made then, but he wasn’t going to break up his marriage for her. I heard she got greedy and wanted him to pay her debts off. I don’t blame her—why shouldn’t she get the best out of the situation?’

      Clay’s memory summoned only too vividly a seductive mouth, green eyes and skin like ivory silk, a lithe body. His treacherous mind also summoned other images—ones he banished, but not before heat clamped his body, subduing the processes of his brain with a surge of raw lust.

      When he could trust his voice he asked abruptly, ‘Why is Jamieson selling Pukekahu?’

      He’d already flown