Читать книгу Bargaining with the Billionaire: The Blackmail Bargain / The Billion-Dollar Bride / How To Marry a Billionaire - Элли Блейк, Ally Blake - Страница 10

CHAPTER FOUR

FIGHTING back tears, Peta sat down on a hay bale and blew her nose. She’d believed she was inured to the many different ways animals could die, so why was she crying?

Because it had been a horrible day. Curt had revealed his true colours as a hard-dealing magnate, threatening her with the loss of her livelihood and everything else, and demolishing with brutal contempt her attempts to convince him she wasn’t a money-hungry home-wrecker.

She wiped her eyes. And for some reason she wasn’t ready to face, his refusal to accept the truth hurt.

That was scary enough, but even more frightening was the physical longing, hot and urgent and uncontrollable, that had engulfed her both times he’d kissed her.

Scariest of all, was the fact that he wanted her too.

The difference was that Curt was in full control of his passions. She wasn’t, and if she spent too much time with him desire might deepen into craving.

On the other hand, she thought wearily, surely she had more pride than to choose as her first lover a man who despised her because he thought she was greedy and amoral.

‘What else can go wrong?’ she said aloud, startled by the thin wobble of her voice in the warm, hay-scented air.

The next morning she was halfway through digging a hole behind the shed when she heard a car come up the drive. Barking importantly, Laddie disappeared, only to fall silent almost immediately.

Someone the dog knew, then. Please, not Ian.

She kept on spading dirt away until Curt asked brusquely, ‘What are you doing?’

‘Digging a hole.’ She concentrated on keeping up a steady rhythm.

‘I’ll do it.’

She straightened then and gave him a shadowed glance. As she had once before, she said, ‘You’re not dressed for it. And you might get blisters on your hands.’

He said evenly, ‘If you want an undignified wrestling match I’ll give you one, but it’s only fair to point out that I’m a lot bigger than you are and a lot stronger, and I’ll win.’

Peta didn’t move.

‘So if you make me take the spade off you by force I’ll have to conclude that you want to wrestle,’ he finished.

A note in his voice warned her that he’d take full advantage of any opportunities she gave him. Muttering something beneath her breath, she slammed the tool into the ground.

‘Wise woman,’ he said unforgivingly, and picked up the implement. ‘The calf, I presume?’

‘It was dead when I went to check it last night.’

He nodded and began to dig, his easy movements showing that hard physical labour wasn’t new to him. Sensation ambushed her as she watched the smooth flexion of muscles through the material of his shirt and trousers, the effortless power that meant he could do the work in half the time that she could.

Subliminal excitement dilated her eyes, sending exquisite little thrills through her. She had to swallow to ease a suddenly dry throat, and turned blindly towards the shed.

‘You look exhausted,’ he said abruptly, not even breathing faster. ‘Did you get any sleep last night?’

‘Not a lot,’ she admitted before realising how shaming a confession that was.

Fortunately he took her admission another way. ‘How on earth do you expect to farm successfully if the loss of one calf does this to you? Go inside and make yourself a cup of tea.’

She swung around to face him, planting her hands on her hips. ‘I’ve been farming on my own for five years,’ she said clearly, ‘and I’ve managed quite well without you. This is my farm and my loss. I’m not going to be sent off to the house to do housewifely things while some big, strong man does the work.’

Eyes half-closed and speculative, he scanned her face then began to move dirt again. ‘Fair enough.’

Astonished, she stared at him.

‘We’ll bury it together,’ he said.

So they did, although he made sure the heaviest work was left to him.

When it was done he helped her move a length of electric fence. Surveying the calves as they frolicked onto the new grass, he asked levelly, ‘Why didn’t you sell this place when your parents died?’

Peta set off for the house, tossing over her shoulder, ‘Why should I?’

‘For a better life?’ Two long strides caught her up.

‘I like farming. And I earn enough to live on.’

‘If you did, you wouldn’t be working at the local petrol station four hours a day.’

She said stiffly, ‘My finances are my concern. The only way you’re going to get me out of here is to force me out. But even if I wanted to sell, I have the calf contract to fulfil.’

‘A contract that wouldn’t stand up in court.’

Although her stride faltered, she walked doggedly on. ‘I don’t believe you.’

‘I don’t lie.’ When she said nothing he added in a coolly dispassionate tone, ‘When Ian drew it up he must have had his mind somewhere else.’

Colour flicked her skin, but she met his hard scrutiny with desperate composure. Her lack of sleep was showing; she couldn’t process what he was telling her. ‘If that’s true—and I’m not accepting it until my lawyer tells me so—what do you plan to do about it?’

His lashes drooped. ‘That depends on how co-operative you are,’ he drawled.

Assailed by a violent mixture of need and disdain, she sent him a fiery stare.

‘What a commonplace mind you’ve got,’ he said pleasantly. ‘You’re quite safe. I’ve never had to blackmail a woman into my bed, and I don’t plan to start with you.’

‘Well, that’s a relief.’ She hoped the scorn in her voice hid her sudden humiliating disappointment.

His eyes gleamed. ‘I wonder if you’d allow yourself to be blackmailed.’

Goaded, she snapped, ‘As you’ve just told me you won’t do it, the question is irrelevant.’

He gave her a grin that sizzled through her like honey into pancakes. ‘And you’ve just told me you don’t know which way you’d jump.’ His amusement died and he was all business. ‘I came to tell you that a business call to Japan will probably take most of this afternoon, so the trip to the beach is off. Also, we’ll be going to Auckland at the end of this week.’

‘We?’

‘You and me both.’

How could she dislike him intensely, yet be violently attracted to him at the same time? Automatically she said, ‘I can’t just up and leave the farm.’

‘I’ll send up someone from the station to take care of things.’

Her chin tilted. ‘It takes more than a written list of instructions—’

‘He can start tomorrow. I’m sure that in three days you can teach him enough to keep the place going.’

Suspicion stirred inside her. She frowned at Laddie, who sat back and regarded her with intelligent interest. ‘Why?’

‘Why do I want you to go to Auckland? Because it makes the whole scenario much more likely.’

What about Anna Lee? Peta almost blurted the words out, but another glance at Curt’s hard, handsome face stopped them before they could escape.

Instead, she evaded the issue. ‘I can cope with any social occasion here, but unless you plan to stash me in some motel and ignore me, I haven’t got the right clothes to carry off a masquerade in Auckland. And I won’t accept them from you.’

When he smiled her heart leapt into her throat. That smile had probably charmed the clothes off more women—worldly women, sophisticated and confident—than she’d reared calves. Its blatant charisma was doing an excellent job of scrambling her brain and melting her willpower and softening her heart, and the fact that he knew exactly what effect it was having on her didn’t lessen its impact one bit.

But there was nothing humorous in his tone when he told her, ‘You’ll accept whatever I decide you need.’

Stubbornly she persisted, ‘And even if I did have the right clothes, I don’t have the right attitude.’

‘I don’t plan to hide you away,’ he said easily, ‘and you have exactly the right attitude. As for clothes—that’s easily enough fixed.’

Peta stopped and glared at him. ‘I told you, I’m not going to accept anything from you.’

‘What a sweetly old-fashioned view,’ he drawled.

‘It might be, but it’s non-negotiable.’

‘All right, we’ll hire them,’ he said with insulting negligence. ‘I’ll want you to attend a gala evening with me, and neither jeans and a T-shirt nor the fetching outfit you wore to Gillian’s barbecue will do the trick. And that is non-negotiable, you prickly little wildcat.’

Little? Undecided whether to be furious or charmed, she set off for the house. He hadn’t threatened her openly, but if the contract to rear calves for his dairy operation wouldn’t stand up in court Curt could pull the plug on her any time.

He had her exactly where he wanted her—on toast. Helped, of course, by the wistful part of her that would like to go to Auckland, to be with him, to hear him talk and make him laugh…

Taking her silence for assent, he said, ‘I’ll send a helicopter to pick you up on Friday morning. A farmhand will d be here at three this afternoon when you come back from your stint manning the petrol pumps.’

Peta saw salvation. ‘I forgot—there’s no way I can come. I work at the service station over the weekend.’

‘He’s already found someone to take your place.’

Outraged, she hid a thread of panicky fear with aggression. ‘What did you do—threaten Sandy with the loss of the station account?’

‘I didn’t have to. No one is indispensable. Of course I’ll reimburse you for the loss of your wages.’ He waited while she digested this and then finished in a level voice that warned her she’d reached some uncrossable barrier, ‘If it makes you feel better, think of yourself as someone on my payroll.’

‘Technically, I suppose I already am.’ Nevertheless, she felt sleazy and oddly compromised as she finished shortly, ‘All right.’

‘Good. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

By then they’d reached the gravel turning area outside her house. Peta gazed resentfully at the Range Rover and asked, ‘Tomorrow? Why?’

He opened the vehicle door and surveyed her with cool intimidation. ‘Because I’m supposed to want to.’ The cynical note in his voice deepened. ‘I’m intrigued by you, remember? Fascinated, in fact; so much so that I can’t wait to get you into bed.’

Reaching for her, he pulled her into his arms and bent to kiss her startled gasp from her lips.

It didn’t last long, that kiss, but it did a complete demolition job on the few remaining shreds of her composure. When he stepped back she was awash with dizzying and highly suspect pleasure, her mouth slightly parted, lashes drooping over sultry eyes.

The sound of a vehicle coming up the drive scarcely impinged until it stopped a few feet behind the Rover. She turned a dazed, flushed face towards it, barely able to focus on the sign on the door of the utility.

‘Tanekaha Station’, she read, and the man looking out from it was Ian.

So Curt must have recognised the engine and kissed her to make a point.

Acutely aware that Curt’s hand had come to rest on her shoulder, she tried to produce a smile. Her effort was wasted; Ian wasn’t looking at her. His gaze was fixed on Curt’s face, and instead of his usual expression there was a set weariness in the blunt features.

Curt didn’t move; she sensed a waiting, cold patience, the concentrated intensity of a predator watching its prey. And something else, a primitive possessiveness that said bluntly, My woman. Keep away.

‘Hello, Ian,’ Peta said, nerves quivering at the tension smoking around them.

He glanced at her. ‘Everything OK?’

‘Yes, although the calf we got out of the swamp died last night.’ The words sounded unnaturally stiff, almost formal.

He shrugged. ‘It happens. I suppose you’ve buried it?’

‘Curt did,’ she said. ‘He didn’t seem to think I was capable.’

Ian’s face eased into a wry half-smile that vanished when Curt said urbanely, ‘I’m sure you can do anything you put your mind to. It’s just that when I was too young to realise I was being brainwashed, my mother drummed into me that because men are stronger than women they do the heavy work.’

A subtle challenge underpinned the teasing words, and the pressure of his long fingers on her shoulder warned her to follow suit.

Pinning what she hoped was a carefree smile to her lips, she said, ‘Whereas my father believed women should be able to look after themselves.’

Ian nodded. ‘OK, then, I’ll see you around,’ he said and put the ute into reverse.

The wheels spun at the weight of a foot incautiously heavy on the accelerator, then gripped and spat out a small spray of stones. When Peta stepped back, Curt’s arm settled around her shoulders. She stiffened, but he turned her towards the house and urged her with him.

‘That should give him some idea of what’s going on,’ he said bluntly. ‘If he wasn’t trying to break my sister’s heart I could almost feel sorry for him.’

Peta tried to shrug free of his arm, but he turned her towards him, examining her face with hooded eyes.

‘Get used to my touch,’ he told her, his survey as dispassionately relentless as the tone of his voice. ‘He’s still not sure that this is for real; he knows damned well that I’d do anything to save Gillian pain.’

‘You’re a very noble brother.’ She lifted her chin against a betraying surge of painful need.

He dropped his arm and nodded at the door. ‘Invite me inside. I deserve a cup of coffee for my exertions on your behalf.’

‘Unwanted exertions,’ she flashed back, but she opened the door.

Watching her move gracefully about the bleak kitchen, Curt wondered exactly what was going on behind those green, gold-rayed eyes with their dark lashes.

His body stirring in primitive recognition, he thought grimly that keeping a safe distance from her was going to test his willpower. He was no stud, but he was accustomed to having the women he wanted.

What he wasn’t accustomed to—and resented—was that with this woman he barely had control over his reactions.

Deciding to use her to cut Ian’s little idyll short had been foolhardy, but irresistible. His mouth curved satirically as he acknowledged that if he hadn’t wanted her he’d probably have simply made an offer too good for her to resist and bought the farm, making sure she moved as far away from Ian and Gillian as possible.

But no, he’d fallen for her subtle, sensual challenge, and now he was going to have to see the whole thing through.

Dealing with her was rather like taming a tigress—her sleek, lithe beauty hiding latent savagery and open determination. Although she hadn’t tried to hide her resentment at his threats, she wasn’t afraid of him, and she didn’t fawn over him.

And that, he thought cynically, was unusual enough to be a refreshing change.

When she melted in his arms her wild, sweet passion had practically tipped him over some edge he’d never approached with any other woman. Acting or for real? A man’s body couldn’t lie, but women could and did fool men with mimic desire.

Not that he was going to test her. Although she probably saw Ian as a way out of a life going nowhere, he suspected that she didn’t have much experience.

She could even be a virgin. His body reacted to that thought with an elemental appetite that took him completely by surprise. Virginity had never been a requisite in his lovers; in fact, he’d preferred women who knew what to do and what they wanted, but the thought of initiating Peta into the delights of the flesh worked so powerfully on him that he had to sit down.

If she was a virgin, taking her to bed would be unfair.

Just keep that thought in the forefront of your mind, he advised himself sardonically. ‘Tell me about your parents.’

Warily, she looked up from pouring boiling water into a mug. ‘What do you want to know?’

‘Why did they come here?’

She added the milk jug to the tray and picked it up. ‘My father should have been born a couple of hundred years ago. He was the last of the pioneers.’ She walked across to the coffee table and set the tray down on it. ‘He decided that Europe was dying, so when my mother got pregnant with me he moved her here from England.’

‘Why Kowhai Bay?’

She handed him the mug of coffee. ‘He wanted a warm climate, which made Northland the logical choice, and this is a good long way from the nearest city.’

‘It didn’t occur to him that buying land with no legal access was hardly a sensible thing to do?’ he suggested.

The corners of her mouth turned down in a brief grimace. ‘My father wasn’t accustomed to having his decisions questioned.’ She pushed a small plate of ginger crunch across. ‘Help yourself,’ she invited.

Homemade, Curt realised when he’d taken the first bite. And delicious. He watched her pick up her mug, and wondered what her capable, long-fingered hands would feel like on his body. The scent of the gardenia bush at the front door floated in, erotically charging the humid air.

‘And your mother agreed to this life?’

Peta studied him above the rim of her mug, green eyes enigmatic. ‘She always agreed with him. She thought he was wonderful and perfect in every way. They were ideally suited; he was dominant—in some ways you remind me of him—and she was yielding.’ Her full lips twisted. ‘But she wasn’t strong.’

He suspected that she’d substituted the word dominant for another, more insulting one—domineering? Dominating?

The thought amused him. If he was arrogant, she certainly wasn’t as docile as her mother seemed to have been. ‘Why didn’t you stay on at school?’

‘My father believed that book knowledge, as he called it, was no use to anyone in real life. He was convinced that modern civilisation was leading the world to destruction, and that everyone should be able to live off the land.’

‘And can you?’

Her shoulders moved in a slight shrug. Curt kept his eyes away from the soft movement of her breasts, but a light tinge of colour stole along her high cheekbones when she answered.

‘If I have to.’

He looked at her. ‘Did he give you no choice?’

‘My mother needed me at home,’ she said simply.

Frowning, he recalled the results of the investigation he’d had run on her. ‘And then they were killed in a road accident.’

‘She was already dying.’ Peta turned away so that he couldn’t see her face. ‘I was glad, in a way. She didn’t have to endure much pain, and he didn’t have to live without her unstinting love and her conviction that he was always right.’

This, she decided, was far too intimate a conversation. Noticing that he’d finished his ginger crunch, she made a gesture towards the plate. ‘There’s more.’

He shook his head. ‘That was superb. Did you make it?’

Oddly warmed by the compliment, she nodded. ‘My father believed that every woman should know how to cook.’

‘Very Victorian,’ Curt observed, an edge to his voice. ‘I’m surprised he didn’t settle for a tent, an open fire and a camp oven.’

She laughed a little. ‘He was unreasonable,’ she conceded, ‘but he was passionately committed to his ideas. The kitchen might not be up-to-date but it works. Don’t pity me—I’m perfectly happy here.’

He leaned back in the chair and regarded her with half-closed eyes. ‘You don’t feel any yearning for romance or marriage?’

Peta’s father had been a big man, but he’d never had Curt’s compelling presence. Last night at the barbecue everyone else had seemed dim and insubstantial, their conversation lacking savour and interest because she’d been so painfully aware of the man with her.

Alarmed by her weakness, she said more crisply than she’d intended, ‘At the moment, no, I’m not interested in either.’

His unsparing assessment sent a series of little shivers down her spine. ‘In that case you’ll be only too eager to help me cut Ian’s crush short,’ he said pleasantly. ‘Are you pumping petrol this morning?’

‘Yes.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘And if I don’t get going I’ll be late.’ She drained her mug and stood up. Awkwardly, she said, ‘Thanks for helping me.’

‘Even though you didn’t need it?’ He too got to his feet, his faint smile setting off an unlikely starburst inside her.

‘Even then,’ she said with a glimmering sideways smile that vanished when she met his eyes.

Coolly measuring, they chilled her through and through.

Working the pumps at the petrol station, she wiped a bead of sweat from her temple and decided that the only thing that made Curt seem at all human was his affection for his sister. Apart from that weakness, as he no doubt saw it, Nadine had got it right. That Peta wanted to kill whatever feelings Ian had developed for her didn’t make Curt any less of a cold-blooded user.

Well, not exactly cold-blooded, she decided later as she turned into her drive. He kissed with an expertise that shouted his experience, but was there genuine passion beneath that Ice Man exterior?

Ignoring the consuming she got out of the ute and unlocked the front door. A wave of stuffy air surged out to greet her.

Curt McIntosh was a walking, breathing challenge, and she bet that plenty of women had come to grief picking up the gauntlet of his forbidding self-sufficiency.

Stripping off her petrol-scented clothes, Peta vowed not to be one of them. What she felt for him had nothing to do with love, and she’d keep a watchful guard on her body because once this charade was over she’d see no more of Curt.

Joe, the elderly odd-job man who arrived a few minutes later, was an old friend. He’d been cowman on the station under the previous owner and he knew how to deal with calves. Briskly she showed him how to use the elderly washing machine to mix the formula.

‘You shouldn’t be carrying those heavy buckets,’ he scolded, forestalling her attempt to pick them up. ‘It’s not good for you.’

‘Joe, I do it twice a day almost all year round!’

‘Doesn’t make it right,’ he said firmly.

And he was so concerned she stood back and let him carry them into the calf-shed, watching as he tipped the liquid into the calf-feeders.

Pitching his voice to rise above the bawl of hungry calves, he said, ‘Good-looking girl like you should be looking around for a man to do the heavy work. If I were thirty years younger I’d take you on myself.’

‘If you were any younger I’d have snapped you up years ago,’ she told him, laughing.

His grin faded as he focused on someone coming up behind them. Peta swung around and met a pair of electric blue eyes. Everything about her went taut; she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t hear her heart beat.

And then Curt smiled, and life flowed through her again; she heard the contented sound of calves sucking, smelt their clean animal smell and the sweet, summery scent of hay. She even heard a skylark sing in the brilliant blue sky outside.

‘Hello, Peta.’ His gaze moved to the older man. ‘Joe.’

‘G’day, Curt.’ Respectful but not intimidated, Joe moved on to the next pen and filled the feeder there.

Curt frowned at Peta. ‘Did you lift those buckets?’

‘Of course.’ When his mouth clamped into a hard line she added, ‘They’re not as heavy as they look.’

Over his shoulder Joe butted in, ‘They’re every bit as heavy as they look—far too much for a woman to be carrying around!’

His frown deepening, Curt watched the older man walk down to the next pen. ‘Why don’t you run a hose from the mixer?’

‘Because this works perfectly well,’ Peta informed him with a thin smile. ‘I’m no fragile flower.’

‘Possibly not, but you shouldn’t be carrying that weight.’

She walked outside into the sunlight and turned to face him, her blood singing through her veins in a wild summons. ‘Testosterone clearly muddles male thinking patterns. Relax, Curt. If I couldn’t do it easily, I’d have found another way to deal with it. I don’t force myself to do things that are too difficult; I’m not stupid.’

‘It’ll wait,’ he said, the magnificent structure of his face more prominent. ‘There’s been a change of plan,’ he said brusquely. ‘Can you be ready to leave for Auckland tomorrow morning?’

‘No!’ she said, incredulous that he should ask her this. ‘I can’t just drop everything and go. Anyway, it would look too…precipitate! To put it crudely, I’m not that sort of woman, and everyone in the district knows it.’

‘All right,’ he said after a moment. ‘In three days’ time. That will give Joe all the information he needs to keep the operation running.’

The tone of his voice told her there’d be no more negotiation. She bit her lip. ‘How long do you expect me to stay away?’

‘A week should do it,’ he said blandly. ‘And I come bearing a note from Gillian.’

He took an envelope from the pocket of his shirt and handed it over. Gillian invited her to a casual family dinner that night with a couple of old friends. She glanced up, realising from Curt’s expression that she didn’t have any choice.

‘All right,’ she said reluctantly.

‘It will be extremely informal,’ Curt informed her.

Thoroughly exasperated with Ian for precipitating this situation and Curt for forcing her to bend to his will, she snapped, ‘I do know which fork to use.’

‘I’d noticed,’ he said, deadpan.

For some obscure reason this struck her as funny and she gave a gurgle of laughter.

A flash of blue kindled in his eyes but his voice was level and emotionless. ‘That’s better. Look on this as your good deed for the month. I’ll pick you up around seven.’

He swung on his heel and strode away; unwillingly she admitted that he looked like some—well, some demigod from a young girl’s romantic fantasy. And he walked like one too, with a lithe male grace that promised leashed power and uncompromising strength. He was, she thought as she went back into the shed, a man who revealed bone-deep competence in every movement.

It might be another fantasy, but she suspected that he’d be able to deal with any situation that came his way.

She envied that confidence. Her father’s views had somehow cut her off from the other children in the district; once she left school she’d seen little of those she’d been friends with. Naturally she’d chafed against his dogmatism and his iron control, but because her mother wasn’t well she’d had to go along with it.

Living on the outside had marked her in ways she hadn’t realised until she’d grown up.

She and Joe worked together until everything was done. When he left she went inside; instead of working in the vegetable garden for an hour or so she showered, and while her hair dried, hauled clothes out of her wardrobe, trying to decide what clothes would be suitable for dinner at the homestead.

Very informal was so vague as to be meaningless—in Curt’s circle it probably indicated that tiaras wouldn’t be worn, she thought snidely. The only thing that might suit the occasion were a pair of silk-look capri pants the colour of chocolate. With them she paired a figure-skimming top she’d made in a dark, richly dramatic green.

Once dressed, she looped a tie around her hair, now thankfully dry, then stopped. Would Curt yank it out again? She frowned at her reflection before an idea struck her. Smiling smugly, she picked a hibiscus flower from the bush by the garden shed and tucked it into the knot. Back inside, she surveyed it, her grin widening. The silken petals gleamed in an exotic, almost barbaric blending of crimson and cinnabar.

‘I don’t think he’ll pull the tie off this time,’ she said dulcetly to her reflection.

The V-neck of her top needed some sort of necklace, but her mother’s silver chain was too delicate for the colours that suited her, so in spite of the rather large expanse of bare golden skin she left it unadorned.

She let out a huff of breath when the Range Rover started up the drive. Her stomach clenched and she stopped, trying to calm her racing pulse with a hand pressed protectively over her heart.

‘Oh, don’t over-dramatise things,’ she muttered furiously and strode to the door, flinging it open with a small crash.