For His Eyes Only (8 page)

He swirled his tongue around the dimple of her navel, mouthed soft kisses in the hollow of her pelvis, blew against the blonde fluff of her sex and she whimpered, wanting more. She was right—this wasn’t enough. He wanted her naked. He wanted her out of here, lying on a bank of soft grass down by the stream with sunlight, filtered through the leaves, playing on her skin. He wanted to touch every inch of her, memorise her body. Be inside her...

‘Let’s get out of here,’ he said, pushing open the door and half falling with her into the verge, where they lay laughing, catching their breath amongst long grass, red campion, a few late bluebells that were a perfect match for her eyes. ‘Come on,’ he said, hauling her up, holding her close, not wanting to let her go even for the short scramble down the bank.

She clutched at jeans that were heading for her knees. ‘Where are we going?’

‘You’re not going anywhere.’

‘What the...?’ He swung round and Natasha gave a little shriek as they were confronted by a helmeted, visored security guard. ‘Where the hell did you come from?’ he demanded.

Ignoring his question, the guard said, ‘This is private property. You’re going to have to leave.’

‘What? No...’ Then cursed himself for every kind of fool—Ramsey had told him that he’d employed a security firm to keep an eye on the place. Cursed again as he realised that Natasha was standing there without a stitch above her waist and not much below it and putting himself between them. ‘Show a little respect,’ he said, boiling with anger that the man hadn’t had the decency to look away. More likely couldn’t take his eyes off her.

Despite his helmet and a uniform designed to make him look as much like a policeman as possible without breaking the law, the man took a nervous step back, looked away.

‘There’s no need for that,’ he said defensively. ‘I’m just doing my job.’

‘Hanging about like some Peeping Tom. You’re the trespasser,’ he said, wrenching off his polo shirt and handing it to Natasha, bundling her back into the seat they’d just fallen out of before turning furiously on the man. ‘This is my land.’ The words were out of his mouth before he realised what he was saying. ‘I am Darius Hadley and I own this estate.’

‘Good try, but Mr Hadley is dead,’ he replied, ‘and the house is being sold, so if you’d just get back in the vehicle. You can turn around about fifty yards ahead—’

‘I know where I can turn. I know every inch of this estate,’ he said, cutting him off, but clearly words weren’t going to do it. Taking his wallet from his back pocket, he opened it and held it out so that the man could see his driver’s licence. ‘Darius Hadley,’ he repeated, while the man checked the name and photograph. ‘The previous owner was my grandfather.’

‘Even so, sir, I’ll have to check with the office.’

‘Check with who you like. How did you know we were here?’ It seemed unlikely that a patrol just happened to be passing at the exact moment he’d stalled his engine.

‘There’s CCTV on all the entrances, Mr Hadley. Apparently this one is something of a lovers’...’

‘Get rid of it.’

‘I’m sorry...’

‘I want the cameras down now. Every one of them, is that clear?’

‘I can’t—’

Darius didn’t wait for the excuses, but reached into the Land Rover for his mobile phone and called Brian Ramsey.

‘Ramsey,’ he said, before the man could do more than say his name, ‘I understand that you’ve had security cameras installed at the Chase. Get rid of them. And the security company.’

‘Darius...’ he said, in what he no doubt thought was a soothing voice. ‘The house is empty and this is the most economic...’

‘It’s intrusive. The tenants have a right to privacy.’

‘I’m sure if you asked them they would tell you that there have been problems with trespassers, poachers. The trout stream is a selling point and the insurance company...’

‘There’s a public footpath across the estate and those poachers are not just keeping down the rabbit population, they’re local people and they do a better job of keeping an eye on the place than any security firm. No arguments. I own this estate and I want the cameras gone. Today.’

He ended the call without waiting to hear more and turned to the man. ‘You heard me. You’re fired.’

SIX

‘Are you
okay?’

‘There’s nothing wrong with me,’ Natasha said as Darius climbed in beside her. ‘You could do with a few lessons in reality, though.’

‘What?’ About to reach for the ignition, he sat back, dragged his fingers through his hair. Far from okay, she was furious. ‘I’m sorry. That was—’

‘Don’t apologise to me,’ she snapped. ‘What on earth were you thinking?’

He glanced at her, aware that he was missing something but not sure what. ‘I was thinking that perhaps you might just be a little bit upset at being seen half-naked by a total stranger,’ he said.

‘Really? And how would that be different from you making a bronze of my entirely naked body for the entire world to stare at?’ He wasn’t deceived by the mildness of her tone. She was mad and actually he didn’t blame her. On a stupid scale of one to ten that had to be a nine. She might have been up there with him, reaching for ten, but he’d started it. Clearly some serious grovelling was in order, but she wasn’t done. ‘I am not made of porcelain, Darius; I won’t break if some bloke gets an eyeful of my tits, but that man probably has a wife and family to support.’

What? He was apologising to her, but apparently her only concern was some lout who’d leered at her breasts.

‘How do you suppose his employers will react when they’re told they’ve lost their contract because someone—a man who was just doing his job keeping Hadley Chase safe from intruders—hacked off the high and mighty Darius Hadley?’

High and mighty?

‘I’m not—’

‘No? You should have
heard
yourself.
“This is my land!”
Really? Because I got the strong impression that you don’t give a tuppenny damn about the place.’

‘I give a damn,’ he said.

‘About selling it as quickly as possible with the least possible inconvenience to yourself.’

‘No...’

‘When was the last time you actually set foot on the place?’

‘You have no idea—’

‘So tell me.’

Tell her? What? That his father had sold him? Share the shrivelling knowledge that his value had been counted in sterling. That his grandfather had forced his own son to choose between the woman he loved beyond reason and his infant son.

He was still holding his cell phone and, instead of answering her, he hit redial.

‘Ramsey...I’m sorry,’ he began before the man had a chance to say more than his name. ‘You’re right, the house must have a security presence and the company are doing an excellent job. Please ask them to pass on my apologies to the guard I met this morning. He took me by surprise but he was simply doing his job and it has been pointed out to me that I behaved like a jerk.’

He didn’t wait for an answer, but disconnected, tossed the phone back on the shelf and reached for the ignition.

Natasha cleared her throat. ‘Do you want your shirt back?’

‘Keep it,’ he said. ‘I’ll wear your top. Now you’ve cut me down to size, it’ll be a perfect fit.’

‘Oh, I think you fill this one pretty well,’ she said, pulling it over her head and handing it to him, before turning behind to recover her top and bra from the back seat. By the time she was straight he had pulled up in front of the house.

To the right the parkland fell away to the river; then, beyond it, the Downs offered a breathtaking view for miles around.

Tash sighed. Beside her, Darius had that same locked-away look that he’d had when she’d first set eyes on him, except now she knew that it was not simply about the advertisement. For a moment, before he’d called Brian Ramsey, told him to apologise to the security guard, she’d seen the darkness, a pain like a knife in his heart.

There was something about this house, what had happened here, that hurt bone-deep, and yet he’d brought her here. She’d like to think it was because he wanted to spend the day with her, maybe fool around a little—fool around a lot if the last few minutes were anything to go by. Now she realised that she had simply provided him with a hook, that her need had given him an excuse, a way back.

The minute he came to a halt, she climbed down, grabbed her bags from the back seat but, instead of going straight to the door, she walked to the edge of the lawn where there was a strategically placed bench, giving him breathing space to come to terms with being here before he had to go inside.

Meanwhile, she had a job to do and she’d better jolly well stop lusting after Darius; she took out her mini camcorder and began to create a panorama to post on Facebook.

The crunch of his boots on the gravel warned her that he had followed her. ‘The house might have a few shortcomings, but the setting is perfect,’ she said, not looking up until the view was blocked by his broad chest. She didn’t stop filming but, instead of panning from left to right, she lifted the lens until his face filled the screen.

‘Here are the keys. The alarm code is 2605.’

‘You’re leaving me to it?’ she asked, letting the camera fall to her side, a little hollow spot of disappointment somewhere below her waist that he was ducking out. ‘I thought you’d been appointed responsible adult?’

‘Apparently I failed at the first hurdle. Don’t worry. I’ll ask that security guard to frisk you for the family silver before you leave,’ he said.

‘You were wrong, Darius.’

‘Totally.’ He met her gaze head-on. ‘I lashed out because I felt guilty.’

‘I realise that, but I’m an adult; I knew where I was, what I was doing. The responsibility was equally mine.’

‘But you didn’t know what I knew.’

‘Oh? And what was that?’

‘Ramsey told me he’d employed a security company; it just never occurred to me that they would be monitoring the place so closely.’ He shrugged, summoned up the ghost of a smile. ‘Forget that; I wasn’t thinking about anything except getting you naked.’

She resisted the urge to fling herself at him again and, keeping her own smile low-key, said, ‘Ditto.’

His own smile deepened a fraction, but he shook his head.

‘Shall I tell you why I liked being with Toby?’ she asked.

‘No—’

‘He never patronised me,’ she said. ‘He never doubted that I knew what I was doing.’ Okay, he wasn’t that bright. If she knew what she was doing, she wouldn’t be this close to a man who made her self-preservation hard drive crash whenever she thought about touching him. About him touching her. ‘He never felt the need to protect me.’

‘He stole your job!’

‘He was paying me the ultimate compliment, Darius. He knew that I was strong enough, smart enough, to survive.’

‘Maybe, but I wasn’t patronising you. I was just doing that macho shit...’

‘I know.’ About to reach out, touch him, reassure him, she tucked the house keys in her pocket, sat down on the bench, took a flask out of her bag, keeping her hands busy.

She’d wanted him to share his pain. Maybe, while she had him on her hook, she could show him how.

‘I spent the first twenty-one years of my life being protected, Darius. It gets old.’ She unscrewed the cups from the top of the flask, looked up. ‘Have you got time for coffee?’

Darius recognised his moment to make his excuses and walk away. It was what he always did when things became complicated, involved—walking away from emotional entanglement. Something he’d been signally failing to do ever since he’d set eyes on Natasha Gordon in Morgan’s office.

He’d walked, but he’d hardly made it across the road before he was looking back, hooked on that luscious body, those eyes. Now, layered on that first explosive impact, was her sweet, spicy, delicious scent, the taste of her skin, her mouth entwining itself around him, binding him to her.

He should be running, not walking away, but he’d been running since he was seventeen years old. Running from the house behind him and yet here he was, because Natasha had needed him. Or maybe he’d needed the excuse she gave him to return, face it. Whichever it was, he barely hesitated before joining her on the bench, taking the coffee she’d poured for him.

‘Thanks.’

‘You’re welcome,’ she said, but didn’t follow it up with an offer of something sweet to go with it. Just as well—‘cake’ would, in his mind, forever be a euphemism for sex and even he balked at a garden bench with half an acre of lawn in front of them.

‘Okay,’ he said, ‘I’m hooked. Tell me about the first twenty-one years of your life.’

‘All of them?’ she asked. ‘I thought you had to be somewhere.’

He leaned an elbow on the back of the bench, making it clear he was going nowhere. ‘Hospital visiting.’ Another hurdle to face. ‘Gary isn’t going anywhere.’

She took a sip of her coffee.

‘Come on,’ he said, waggling his eyebrows at her. ‘You know you want to tell me.’

‘But do you really want to hear?’

He was beginning to get a bad feeling about this, wishing he’d gone with his first thought and walked away. ‘How about a quick rundown of the highlights?’ he suggested.

‘Lowlights would be more accurate,’ she said.

‘Were they that bad?’

‘No...’ She reached out as if to reassure him and for a moment her fingers brushed his arm. ‘But highlights are all sparkle and excitement. Champagne and strawberries.’

‘And lowlights are egg custard?’

She laughed. ‘Give the man a coconut. My first twenty-one years were all wholesome, nourishing, good-for-you egg custard when I longed for spicy, lemony, chocolatey, covered-in-frosting, bad-for-you, sugar-on-the-lips cake,’ she said.

‘Thanks for the coconut, but I don’t deserve it,’ he said. ‘I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘Of course not. No one ever does.’

‘Try me.’

She looked at him over the rim of her cup, then put it down. ‘Okay. It’s taking quiet beach holidays in the same cottage with my family in Cornwall every year, when I dreamed of being in a hot-air balloon floating across the Serengeti, bungee jumping in New Zealand, white water rafting in Colorado like my brothers.’

‘Why?’

‘Given the choice, wouldn’t you have preferred hot-air ballooning?’

He thought about it for a moment then said, ‘Actually they both have a lot to commend them and Cornwall does have surfing.’

Tash, who was finding this a lot harder than she imagined, grabbed the distraction. ‘You surf? In one of those clinging wetsuits?’ She flapped a hand to wave cooling air over her face. ‘Be still my beating heart.’

‘You don’t?’ he asked, refusing to be distracted.

‘Surf? I can’t even swim. The most dangerous thing I do at the seaside is paddle up to my ankles with my nephews and nieces. Build sandcastles. Play shove ha’penny down the pub.’

‘And again, why? You mentioned that you were sick as a kid, but you look pretty robust now.’

‘Robust?’ She rolled the word round her mouth, testing it. ‘Thanks for that. It makes me feel so much better.’

‘No need to get on your high horse; you have a great body—one that I guarantee would cause a riot in a wetsuit—but that wasn’t the “why” I was asking. Why were your parents so protective?’

And suddenly there it was. She’d lived a lifetime with everyone knowing what had happened to her, looking at her with a touch of uncertainty, of pity.

She’d left all that behind when she’d left home. She hadn’t told anyone in London, not even Toby, but when Miles had introduced a private health scheme for the staff late last year, the insurance company had put so many restrictions on her that he’d called her into his office, convinced she was a walking time bomb. She’d told him everything and now the bastard had used it against her.

Had it played on his mind when he was thinking of promoting her? Because it stayed with you, stuck like dog muck on a shoe. Telling Darius was harder than she’d imagined when she’d blithely set out to show him how to trust someone so totally that you exposed yourself in ways that had nothing to do with getting naked.

Their relationship was purely physical and she never saw it being anything else. He had ‘loner’ stamped all over him, but she didn’t want to alter the image he had of her. To have the ‘attractive packaging’ undermined by that darkness he would find in her inner depths and exposed in bronze. But he’d given her his trust when not many men in his situation would have given her the time of day and if she could get him to open up she would have repaid him whether she sold Hadley Chase or not.

‘I had cancer—’ There it was, the great big nasty C-word. ‘Leukaemia—’

‘Leukaemia?’ Well, that put a dent in his smile. ‘Oh, God, I’m sorry. I thought...’

‘What?’

‘From what you said about being force-fed egg custard...’

‘What?’

‘The newspaper hinted at some psychological problem...’ He looked distinctly uncomfortable. ‘Patsy wondered if you might have had some kind of eating disorder.’

‘You’ve got to be kidding!’ The tension erupted in a burst of laughter. ‘Look at me!’

Darius looked and he wanted to laugh, too. ‘I told her she was way off beam,’ he said. ‘I’m beginning to have a very warm regard for egg custard.’ His fingers lightly traced the outline of her face from temple to chin. ‘That is a very healthy glow.’

‘I think the word you’re looking for is pink and overweight,’ she said, ‘which actually is pretty ironic.’

‘Pretty’ was too bland a word for Natasha. She was no pretty milkmaid... ‘It is?’

‘I’m told that people suffering from anorexia look at themselves in the mirror and see fat even when they’re skin and bones. Well, my parents look at me and see skin and bones despite the fact that I’m—’

‘Luscious.’

‘Nicely fielded,’ she said, turning away, but he hooked his finger around her chin, forcing her to look him in the eyes.

‘I know what I mean, Natasha.’

‘Do you?’

‘Believe me. I can usually wait to get a room.’

‘Are you saying that you don’t usually toss women into the nearest verge?’ she teased, laughing now as the tension of telling her story left her and he added a whole raft of other words to describe Natasha Gordon. Ripe, earthy, soft, warm and unbelievably sexy... ‘That you’d rather have a safe double bed?’

‘Safe?’ There was nothing safe or comfortable about this relationship. He had no idea what Natasha would say or do next. What he would do. His fingers seemed to burn when he touched her. He had no control over his responses... ‘You will live to regret that.’