Bought for His Bed. Kate Hardy
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are gorgeous—and they dance brilliantly.’ She moved into his arms with more confidence now. The lights had dimmed, and around them people were drifting into slow easy steps. ‘The challenge was great, and the hula was superb.’
‘You understand Maori, I gather?’ At her surprised glance he expanded, ‘I think you and Guy were probably the only other off-islanders who realised the show was a parody, a campedup version of what tourists expect to see. I saw you laugh at one place.’
‘I have a working knowledge of Maori, and although there are substantial differences between that and Fala’isian I can sort of pick up the gist of a conversation as I go along. So, yes, I got some of the allusions. Can you speak it?’
‘Of course.’ He sounded surprised. ‘My sisters and I grew up speaking three languages—French with our great-grandmother, the local tongue with everyone else, and English with our parents.’
‘You were fortunate.’
His wide shoulder lifted in a shrug beneath her hand. ‘Children learn languages quickly. According to my mother, the trick is to make sure they stick to one at a time. When my sisters and I were small we used to speak a mixture of all three until my parents made quite strict rules. If you started a conversation in one, you had to keep to it and finish it in that language. It made life simpler.’
‘You have two sisters, don’t you?’
He didn’t exactly pause, but she had the feeling he didn’t want to talk about his sisters. ‘Yes, one older and one younger than me.’
‘Do they live here?’
‘One’s in Paris and the other in New York at the moment.’
Rebuffed, she said lightly, ‘I’d have loved siblings.’
‘We get on well,’ he said.
Fleur envied him that simple, confident assertion.
He steered the subject away from his sisters. ‘I understood you to say that your father has another family in Australia.’
‘I don’t even know where they are,’ she told him. ‘When my parents broke up my father told me that if I didn’t go with him I’d never see him again. I stayed with my mother, so that was it. The only reason I know about his other child is that when the divorce came through he wrote to tell my mother that he and his new partner had already had a son.’
Luke’s mouth hardened. ‘Do you have any other relatives—cousins?’
‘In England,’ she said evenly. ‘We exchange Christmas cards.’
He hugged her, a swift contraction of his arms with no sexual implication at all. Oddly touched by his swift response, she smiled mistily up at him. Luke had everything—money, power, a family he loved, outstanding physical attributes, yet he had enough empathy to understand how very lonely it could be sometimes when you had no one.
Fleur felt a quiver in the air—as though something deep and basic had changed between them. His gaze dropped to her mouth and darkened, then flicked up to hold hers. For several seconds they danced slowly and more slowly, until a raucous male voice broke the spell.
‘Hey, Luke, mate, get off the floor if you don’t want to dance.’ A tall, balding man grinned openly as both Luke’s and Fleur’s heads swung around.
Heat burned Fleur’s cheeks. The man’s partner waved at them, her smile sympathetic and slightly envious, and Luke laughed quietly and pulled Fleur close to him, guiding her away.
After a few seconds he said, ‘Time to go home, I think.’
Fleur nodded. ‘The Princess will be pleased.’ Yes, that was fine—her voice was cool and colourless. ‘She’s looking a bit tired, and she hasn’t got up for the last two dances.’
He gave her another sharp look, but didn’t hold it. ‘She’s probably a bit jet-lagged.’
Sure enough, no one objected to the idea of leaving, though Gabrielle gave the film star a regretful glance or two when she and her grandfather got into the second car, driven by a chauffeur.
Luke drove through the silent night. No one said much as the road wound beneath palm groves by the sea, and then over a spur of the central mountain range and down into the bay where Luke’s house sprawled in its exotic garden.
Fleur gazed blindly into the moonlight, every sense alert and tense with a useless anticipation that wouldn’t be squelched, however hard she tried.
Because Luke wasn’t going to make love to her—not with a house full of guests.
‘Tired?’ His voice broke into the silence.
‘A bit,’ she admitted. ‘It’s been fabulous in the true sense of the word—like something out of a fairytale.’ Only the princes in those fables were a bloodless lot, not like Luke.
‘I’ve enjoyed it, too.’
Casual words, the sort of thing he probably said after any social occasion, yet she hugged them to her heart.
Back at the house the Prince and Princess went to their room. Fleur waited with Luke only until the second car disgorged its passengers, then said her goodnights.
Once in her bedroom, she went across to the dressing table and glanced sideways at her reflection. She looked reckless, she thought warily—all green mysterious eyes and a sultry, beckoning mouth. The cosmetics experts certainly knew their stuff!
And then her eyes fell onto the fabulous pearl pendant Luke had lent her.
Biting her lip, she slipped it over her head, hesitating for a second with it in her hand. The gold and diamonds glinted coldly, but the pearl lay warm in her palm, its lustre as beckoning as the moon.
Another memory, she thought sadly.
She didn’t want the lovely, precious thing in her room overnight; the responsibility was too much. Holding the pendant carefully, she opened her door and saw Luke and the Prince talking down the other end of the corridor.
Although she’d been quiet, the men turned the instant she appeared. She swallowed, because on both dark faces there was the same look—intent, almost predatory, as though two warriors were conferring on tactics.
After a final low-voiced comment to the Prince, Luke strode towards her while Guy Bagaton went into the bedroom he shared with his wife.
Luke kept his eyes on her while they walked towards each other. He wasn’t frowning, but something in that keen, burnished gaze intensified the aura of determination surrounding him, and she shivered in spite of the warmth.
As he came up she held out the pendant. ‘You’d better lock it up.’
He took it from her, his eyes scanning her face. ‘All right?’
‘Yes,’ she said abruptly.
She stepped back and closed the door, wondering bleakly if any other woman had ever shut the door in his face. Probably not, she thought starkly, pulling the lovely silk dress over her head. Like all the other clothes, she’d leave it behind when she left Fala’isi.
She was just coming out of the bathroom when her door opened again, and Luke came in, moving with the noiseless, predatory gait of some big animal. When he saw her, he stopped, and the door swung closed behind him.
‘I did knock,’ he said abruptly. ‘I didn’t realise you were in the shower.’
Shocked into silence, Fleur watched him with enormous eyes. Against Luke’s black and white splendour she felt very undressed in the camisole and matching shorts she wore to bed, and very vulnerable, too, she thought with painful honesty, a pulse beating rapidly in her throat. She looked around for her wrap, but it was in the wardrobe and she wasn’t going to walk across there in her flimsy garments.
Luke said curtly, ‘We need to talk.’
She swallowed.