One Night in the Orient (12 page)

And
lovers
was the wrong word, she thought, gripped by a stabbing regret. This was a one-night stand, not a love affair. Not even an affair.

One day she might be able to truly be grateful to him for showing her how incandescent lovemaking could be.

Tears clogged her eyes, and she turned over and tried desperately to summon some innocuous thoughts that would let her woo sleep.

Nick stared at his newly shaven face, cursing silently and at length. He had a long day—an important
day—ahead of him, and he needed every brain cell he possessed.

Unfortunately far too many of them were occupied with processing voluptuous memories of the previous night. He’d barely slept, and now wherever he looked he seemed to register only Siena’s delicious shock at her first complete orgasm.

Not her last, he thought with unwelcome satisfaction, before swearing out loud and turning away from the mirror. Of course he couldn’t indulge in an affair with her. She was on the rebound from what had clearly been an unsatisfactory relationship—sexually, anyway, and probably in other ways.

And the fact that her fiancé had chosen Gemma over her wouldn’t be helping.

He should never have made love to her. God, only on the plane he’d vowed not to touch her again—a resolution he’d abandoned the minute he’d succumbed to temptation and asked her to dance.

Grimacing, he turned away from the mirror. Somehow she had power over him—an innocent power, because she didn’t recognise it. Even if she had, it wouldn’t be important to her.

He recalled his swift, shattering fury when she’d made it clear she regarded him as nothing more than a means to an end.

“I should be thanking you for showing me there’s a lot more to this sex business than simple pleasure …”

Possibly, he thought with black humour, he was the one who needed to discard illusions.

Had she really loved the idiot who hadn’t even noticed that he didn’t turn her on?

And what was she going to do when she arrived back in Auckland?

Any sensible man would send her off in the jet this morning by herself. He swore again, but even as he went out to eat breakfast with Siena he knew he’d be going to New Zealand with her.

Of course she was already up, looking fresh and unaffected by their torrid night together, although the smile and greeting she bestowed on him were a little forced.

He should have been relieved. He was not. “I’m looking forward to the museum,” she told him chattily. “Is this an all-day meeting you’re embarking on?”

His broad shoulders lifted slightly. “No. We’ve been talking for months, and yesterday negotiations started in earnest. It won’t get to any signatures yet, but there will be a statement for the press, and a resolution to continue talks. In this part of the world everything takes time and you need to establish trust.”

She gave him a speculative look. “Do you enjoy it still? I can see that at the beginning there’d have been enormous excitement and stimulation in setting everything up and watching it begin to grow, but how about now? Do you still feel the same elation?”

Nobody had ever asked Nick that before. He knew she noted his surprise, and said with more frankness than he had intended, “Mostly. And people’s livelihoods rely on me getting the job done.”

“I suppose it’s a bit like having a child,” she said thoughtfully. “Once you’ve made the decision to have one, you have to look after it until it’s old enough to
care for itself. You can’t just abandon it. Anyone who sets up an organisation must feel the same way.”

“Some parents have no difficulty in abandoning their children, emotionally if not physically,” he said cynically. And some were forced to—his own mother for one.

A thought struck him. “I hope you’re not trying to suggest there’s a possibility—?”

Colour flaring through her exquisite skin, she broke in hotly, “Of course not! Really, Nick, I’m not an idiot! Just as I’m prepared to bet you’re not going to inform me now you’ve got some vile disease!”

For the first time that morning Nick laughed. “I don’t, so you can relax.”

“I don’t need to relax because I knew perfectly well you wouldn’t have—I mean, we wouldn’t have made love if you had …” Her voice tailed away and colour pinked her silky skin.

He was surprised and oddly elated by her declaration, but his voice was hard when he said, “You should never take anything so important on trust.”

“Nick, I
know
you. Or are you trying to tell me that no woman can trust any man?”

“Probably.” He glanced at his watch. “I have to go. Enjoy your day.”

“You too.”

But he was conscious of her gaze on him as he left the suite, and spent a few minutes wondering just what she was thinking before forcibly changing the direction of his thoughts to the negotiations ahead.

W
HEN
she heard Nick arrive back at the suite Siena tensed, but pride and a strong sense of self-preservation stopped her from turning to greet him in case her radiant face gave her away.

It was just as well. In a cool, uninvolved tone he said, “Everything packed?”

“Yes.” Of course she hadn’t expected anything like joy at the sight of her, but even a mild pleasure would be better than this dampening neutrality.

No, she corrected herself, it would not. Mild pleasure would be
insulting.
And nothing had changed; when had she ever seen Nick unable to master his emotions?

But as they went through the final formalities of leaving she found herself wondering just what was going on behind the handsome, arrogant mask of his features. What
was
he feeling?

Regret, possibly. He might even be wondering how on earth he’d managed to get himself into this situation.

No, not Nick. He always knew exactly what he was doing.

In the car on the way to the airport he asked, “Have you let your sister know you’re coming home early?”

“No.” Shamed, she realised she’d barely thought of Gemma these past few days.

When he didn’t answer she enlarged, “She’ll still be in Australia. Why do you ask? I’ll catch a shuttle from the airport—”

“Don’t be silly. I’ll take you,” he said curtly. “Where are you living now?”

“When I gave up my job I also gave up my flat. While Mum and Dad are away I’m staying at their place. If Gemma’s back in New Zealand she’ll be there too.”

He nodded. “No problem, then.”

After a second’s hesitation Siena said, “Well—thank you,” and turned to fix her gaze on the view outside the big car.

With an odd pang of foreboding she realised Hong Kong would always hold a special place in her heart, because here she’d discovered the power and intensity of her own sexuality.

She looked down at her hands, knotted together in her lap. Hastily forcing them apart, she fixed her unseeing gaze on the teeming streets outside.

Hong Kong was also where she’d finally accepted her real feelings for Nick. Her stomach tightened as though warding off a blow, but she forced herself to articulate the words she’d hidden from for so long.

She loved him.

She loved Nicholas Grenville.

She’d always loved him—certainly before they’d first made love.

A heavy weight settled on her chest, shortening her breath as the full impact of her discovery hit her.

How on earth could you love someone and not know it?

Thoughts churned through her head, bewildering and jumbled. Actually, she always known, but in a fainthearted effort to protect herself she’d refused to acknowledge her deepest feelings.

Because she’d always known they were doomed. Nick wouldn’t allow himself to love.

That was why she’d settled for a safe, unthreatening relationship with Adrian. Now she understood why his defection hadn’t hurt as much as it should. Almost certainly, she thought with remorse, he’d sensed her ambivalence, a distance she hadn’t known she’d felt.

No wonder he’d fallen in love with Gemma.

Keeping her gaze fixed through the window, she fought back her cold panic by working out what to do next.

First face reality, she told herself sternly. Although she loved Nick, she’d always sensed he didn’t—possibly
couldn’t
—return her love, and what she’d read of his affairs had reinforced that instinctive knowledge.

If he suggested an affair, what on earth would she do?

Her chin came up as she fought the slow creep of despair. Wanting more from him than he could give was not only futile, it was stupid and unfair. Nick had made no promises and demanded nothing from her.

An affair would only reinforce this desperate unreturned love. Although the prospect cut her to the heart, she knew a quick clean break would be the least painful way to end this—this passionate interlude.

Of course he might not want anything more from her.

But if he did …? Did she have the courage to turn him down?

Or should she surrender to her wildest urgings, take what she could from him and then live on memories for the rest of her life?

“That’s a very determined look,” Nick said, his idle tone at variance with his keen scrutiny. “Plotting something?”

Siena’s mind raced. “Getting back in touch with real life.” Hoping she didn’t sound too glib, she added with a shrug, “I should be working out tactics for landing a good job.”

“Any ideas?”

“Not a lot right now, because I’m still in holiday mode,” she said briskly. “Once I get back home I’ll apply myself to finding something that involves plants. One of the reasons I enjoyed working at the nursery was because I could help now and then with ideas for people who were planning their gardens.”

“Perhaps you should have taken that landscaping course,” he said without emphasis. “Although a commerce degree would help if you do decide to go that way. You’ll do well whatever you choose. I can’t recall an instance when you didn’t reach a goal you’d set your mind on.”

Her brows shot up. “What about the extra six inches in height I yearned for when I was fifteen?”

A lazily amused smile curled his mouth. “I’m sure you knew it was never going to happen by then and were far too sensible to repine. Anyway, I can’t imagine you tall.”

Siena’s wayward mind inconveniently flew to the complete security she’d felt when he carried her into the bedroom. Colour heated the sweep of her cheekbones.

His eyes narrowed, and for a heart-shattering second
she wondered if he too was remembering. It was a relief when the car stopped.

“Oh, we’re here,” she said inanely. She felt as though she’d refused to take a chance, one that would never to be repeated—that something precious was lost to her forever.

That wistful sense of loss stayed with her all through the flight.

They landed in the middle of a glorious night in Auckland. The city’s notoriously fickle climate had turned on ideal weather to welcome her home, Siena thought bleakly as she watched the lights shimmer golden around the shores of the harbour, the decorated symmetry of the Sky Tower an emphatic exclamation point in the downtown area.

The bustle of landing provided a charge of adrenalin, but it soon dissipated, and once she was safely ensconced in the car that had met them she leaned back and closed her eyes, far too conscious of the man who sat silently beside her.

It seemed to take for ever to reach her parents’ home, and she was rather tense when the car that had met them drew to a stop.

Opening her eyes, she stared through the window at the forecourt, then turned an astonished face to Nick.

“This isn’t—”

“We’re at my house,” he said calmly.

She opened her mouth to ask why, then remembered the driver. Fortunately he got out and opened the boot, giving her the chance to demand, “What’s going on?”

“It’s all right,” Nick said.

Dumbly she watched him get out and walk around
the car to open her door. When she didn’t move, he reached in, took her hand and helped her out rather more forcefully than necessary.

She blinked as he let her go and turned to pick up her bag.

“Come on.” His tone was clipped, almost curt.

Later she’d think she had to be suffering some insidious form of jet-lag, because she obediently followed him into the house, dimly conscious of soft scents from his garden and the gentle hush of waves against the beach below.

But once inside she listened to the car drawing away and took a deep breath. Losing her temper wasn’t going to help. “Why did you bring me here?” she asked, almost temperately.

“Gemma’s back,” he said in an edged voice. “Did you really want to go to your parents’ place right now?”

“How do you know?”

“I rang from the airport.”

She shook her head, trying to clear it. “It was my decision to make, not yours.”

“In other words,” he said smoothly, his tone ironic, “you’re glad I made it for you.”

The knowledge that he was right, that he must have seen straight through her bravado made her lash out. “Has anyone ever told you you’re a high-handed, bossy, domineering—”

“Stop right there.”

Startled at the curt note in his words, she stared at him.

He gave her a hard half-smile, with an edge of self-mockery. “Dominating I’ll accept, but I’m not domineering and you know it.”

Her already strained nerves twanged like guitar strings. “I can’t stay with you.”

“Have you got a better idea?” he asked, more seriously. “You’re probably jet-lagged and in no fit state to talk to your sister now. If I know Gemma she’ll weep all over you and you’ll spend the night trying to comfort her. Stop being so staunch and give yourself a decent night’s sleep and a chance to draw breath before you tackle her.”

He was right; exhaustion had sapped her strength, rendering both body and mind sluggish. Too much had happened in the past few days, and she was assailed by a bone-deep lethargy that demanded at least ten hours of oblivion.

Stubbornly she reiterated, “You shouldn’t have made the decision for me.”

He said impatiently, “All right, then, I shouldn’t. Now will you stop protesting?”

Reluctantly yielding, she said, “Dominating is definitely correct. Just don’t think you can keep on doing it.”