Читать книгу The Platinum Collection: An Australian Conquest: The Incorrigible Playboy / His Most Exquisite Conquest / His Bought Mistress - Emma Darcy, Emma Darcy - Страница 13

CHAPTER SIX

WHEN Harry returned he was accompanied by a middle-aged woman with whom he appeared to be on very friendly terms. They were smiling at each other as they entered the office. She had short, curly dark hair, liberally streaked with grey, a very attractive face set in cheerful lines and merry hazel eyes that invited people to enjoy life with her. Of average height, her trim figure declared her fit to tackle anything, and she exuded positive vibes at Elizabeth as Harry introduced her.

‘Sarah Pickard, Elizabeth.’

‘Hi! Welcome to Finn Island,’ the woman chimed in.

‘Thank you.’ Elizabeth smiled back as she rose from the desk to offer her hand at this first meeting. ‘I’ll have to learn a lot very fast and I’ll appreciate any help and advice you can give me, Sarah.’

She laughed and gave Elizabeth’s hand a quick squeeze. ‘No problem. I’m only ever a call away. Harry tells me you’ve been Mickey’s PA. I’m sure you’ll fit in here very quickly.’

Mickey? The familiar use of Harry’s name for his brother struck her as odd.

‘Go into the apartment with Sarah, look around, see what you need,’ Harry instructed. ‘I’ll man the desk.’

‘Okay. Thank you,’ Elizabeth replied, gesturing to Sarah to lead the way.

It was a basic one-bedroom apartment, spotlessly clean and pleasantly furnished with cane furniture, cushions brightly patterned in tropical designs. The floor was tiled and an airconditioner kept the rooms cool. The kitchenette was small, and its only equipment appeared to be an electric kettle, a toaster and a microwave oven.

‘You won’t need that for much,’ Sarah explained. ‘Meals will be brought to you from the restaurant. Just tick what you want on each menu. You’ll find tea, coffee and sugar in the cupboard above the sink, milk and cold drinks in the bar fridge.’

Elizabeth nodded, thinking the gourmet meals provided here were a wonderful perk—no shopping for food, no cooking and no cleaning up afterwards.

‘The bed linen was changed this morning so everything’s fresh for you apart from these towels.’ Which she’d collected from the bathroom as she’d showed Elizabeth the facilities. ‘I’ll send clean ones over for you. Plus a hair-dryer and toothbrush. Harry said he’d whipped you off Mickey with no time to pack anything.’

Again the familiar name usage. Elizabeth frowned quizzically. ‘He’s always been Michael to me. I’ve only heard Harry calling him Mickey. And now you.’

She laughed. ‘I’ve known those two since they were teenagers. Jack and I looked after their parents’ place in those days. I guess I was like a second mother to them. Never had kids of my own. Good boys, both of them. You couldn’t be connected to better men, Elizabeth, as employers or people.’

It was a high recommendation, though probably a biased one, given Sarah’s obvious fondness for them. ‘They’re very different,’ she commented, wanting to hear more.

‘Mickey’s more like his dad, a seriously driven achiever. It’s in his genes, I reckon. Harry’s nature is more like his mum’s. She had a very sunny disposition, radiating a joy in life that infected everyone around her. It was a wicked shame when...’ She heaved a deep sigh. ‘Well, I guess we never know the day or the hour, but I tell you, those boys are a credit to their parents. Losing them both when they did, they could have run off the rails, plenty of money to spend, but they took on the business and pushed forward. And they looked after everyone who could have been hurt by the loss. Like me and Jack.’

She paused, grimaced. ‘Here I am running off at the mouth but you know Mickey. Harry said you’ve been working closely with him for two years.’

‘Yes, I have.’

‘You’ll find Harry good to work for, too. Just a different nature, that’s all.’

Sunny...like his mother...like Lucy. Was that why Michael was so attracted to Lucy? But why wasn’t Harry? Why did he have to plague her with his endlessly provocative attention?

‘I’ll only be here for a month, Sarah. I’m the fill-in until Harry finds a replacement for Sean.’

‘Whatever...’ She waved airily. Obviously it was not something that weighed on her mind. ‘I’ll send over sets of the island uniform with the towels etc. Do you want short shorts, Bermuda length or three-quarters?’

‘Bermuda length,’ Elizabeth decided, thinking that would look more dignified for her position as manager.

‘Harry thought a bikini...?’

‘No. I’ll wash my undies out tonight. I’ll be fine, thanks, Sarah.’

She grinned. ‘I love your butterfly blouse. It’s just the kind of thing Harry’s mum used to wear.’

Lucy’s choice, Elizabeth thought. ‘I’ll gladly change it for tropical fish,’ she said. The butterfly blouse represented failure with Michael and trouble with Harry, since he saw it as sexy. ‘I’ll be more comfortable here in the island uniform.’

‘Well, it is easy. You don’t have to think about what clothes to put on. I’ll be off now. You might want to freshen up before rejoining Harry in the office.’

‘Yes, I do. Thanks, Sarah.’

She was relieved to have such a good ally in the head housekeeper. It would surely make this job easier. Sarah’s long association with the Finn family meant that she could be absolutely trusted, too.

What she’d said about the two boys lingered in Elizabeth’s mind as she made use of the bathroom facilities. The plane crash that had taken the lives of Franklyn and Yvette Finn had been frontline news about ten years ago, soon after her own mother had died. She hadn’t known the people so it had meant nothing personal to her at the time, yet it must have been a traumatic period for Michael and Harry, both young men, possibly still at university, having fun, believing there was plenty of time to work out what they wanted to do with their lives. It was admirable that they’d taken on their father’s business empire instead of selling up and shedding all responsibility.

But it still didn’t make Harry good relationship material. She could respect him for what he’d done. He might be very solid in that sense. However, that did not mean he had any staying power where women were concerned.

For the next hour she had to sit beside him at the computer workstation in the office while he went through the Finn Island website, showing her how bookings were made over the internet and their dates subsequently slotted into the island calendar. He explained how to work out all the schedules that had to be kept and Elizabeth had no trouble grasping what she had to do.

However, being so close to Harry—virtually shoulder to shoulder—did make concentration more difficult than it should have been. With their brief encounters in the Cairns office, she’d always managed to keep her distance from him, hating how he could exude a male sexiness that made her acutely conscious of being a woman whose needs weren’t being answered. Now, having barely any space between them made her senses hyperalert to almost everything about him.

Her nose kept being invaded by his smell—a sharp tanginess like a sea breeze somehow mixed with an earthy animal scent. His strong, muscular forearms were a very masculine contrast to her more slender, softly rounded ones and she couldn’t help noticing his long dexterous fingers as he worked the computer mouse—fingers that fascinated her into flights of erotic fantasy. He didn’t touch her, not even accidentally, but she was wound up inside, expecting him to, silently schooling herself not to react as though his touch was like a hot iron scorching her skin.

She had to learn how to behave naturally around him. Whenever he glanced at her to check if she understood what he was explaining, the vivid blue eyes seemed to be tunnelling into her mind and she had to force herself to hold his gaze as she assured him everything was clear to her. Then he smiled approval which made her stupid stomach contract. He was an extremely disturbing man even when he wasn’t teasing or flirting and she didn’t want him to be. Hopefully his wretchedly unsettling effect on her would gradually fade away over the next few days.

People started strolling by on the path outside, heading towards the bar for predinner drinks. Harry named them as they passed. Of course he had been here over this past weekend, but it was impressive that he could identify every guest on the island and tell her where they came from, as well as how they’d come by their wealth. Elizabeth tried to commit most of what he said to memory but it was a struggle—too many of them, too quickly.

‘You’ll soon have them down pat,’ Harry said confidently. ‘I told Daniel we’d be eating in the restaurant tonight. I’ll drill you on everyone at the other tables while we dine, then introduce you around before they leave.’

‘That would help a lot,’ she said gratefully.

‘Hope you can find some more appetite than you had for lunch. Daniel will be miffed if you don’t do justice to his gourmet creations.’

He knew she’d been too upset to eat much lunch but tonight she wouldn’t have to watch Michael and Lucy gobbling up each other and she wanted to stop Harry from poking any further at the still-raw place in her heart. ‘Actually I’m rather hungry. Must be the sea air,’ she answered airily, resolving to eat everything put in front of her and show appreciation of it, regardless of how she felt.

His eyes glittered satisfaction. ‘Remarkable what a sea change will do.’

Well, it won’t extend to sharing your bed, she silently promised him as she rolled her chair back from the desk and stood up. ‘Speaking of change, I’ll go and swap these clothes for the island uniform before we go to the restaurant.’

Two young women on Sarah’s staff—Maddie and Kate—had brought everything she needed while Harry had been teaching her the ins and outs of the website. The way they’d looked at Harry—telegraphing they thought he was hot—had made her wonder if he played musical beds on the island.

‘Good idea!’ He eyed her up and down in that lingering way that made her skin prickle. ‘We wouldn’t want our lady guests going pea-green with envy at how gorgeous you look in that outfit,’ he drawled. ‘Nor would we want their guys seeing you as more desirable than their partners.’

‘Oh, really!’ she huffed, crossing her arms defensively.

‘Just telling you how it is, dear Elizabeth.’

‘Don’t dear me!’ she snapped, still very much on edge from having to weather the sexual pitfalls of his proximity and wanting to cut off his flirting routine.

His eyebrows arched provocatively. ‘What? I can’t express how I feel about you?’

One of her hands sliced out in negative dismissal. ‘I don’t want to hear it.’

‘Wrong time, wrong man, but that doesn’t make it any less true.’

She rolled her eyes in disbelief. ‘Let’s keep to business, Harry.’

‘Okay.’ He gestured at the door to the apartment. ‘Go and change. It will be a start to fitting in with me instead of Mickey.’

She felt purpose underlying those words, spine-crawling purpose as she turned her back on him and walked quickly from the office into the apartment, closing the door very firmly behind her.

It caused her to work up some steely purpose of her own. She would do her best to fit in on the island but fitting in with Harry on any personal basis had to stop. It had been a purely defensive move, going along with him today, using him as a shield to hide her distress. From now on she should take control of whatever happened between them. Her mind was very clear on that. She certainly didn’t want to invite any sexual complications with him, which would only mess her around more than she was already messed up by the situation with Michael and Lucy.

It was a relief to shed the clothes that had fed her hopes this morning. She had a quick shower to wash away the misery of the day and give herself the sense of making a fresh start. It felt liberating donning the island uniform. This was the end of maintaining the professional image of an executive PA, at least for the next month. The casual, carefree look of shorts and T-shirt was suddenly very welcome to her.

It seemed she’d been carrying a heavy weight of responsibility for many years, ever since her mother had fallen ill with terminal cancer and her father had deserted them. The need to hold everything together for herself and Lucy had been driving her for a long time. Somehow it didn’t matter so much anymore. She was on an island, away from the life she had known up until now, all by herself...except for Harry, who’d be gone as soon as she was on top of the job.

That was her main priority now—demonstrating to Harry that his guidance was no longer needed. Once she was free of his presence, this place might very well work some magic for her—time out of time to find herself again—no hanging on to what Michael thought or felt about her, no worrying about Lucy, just Elizabeth.