Tempting Taine (5 page)

“None of them,” she replied shortly.

“You didn’t drive your car to work?”
 
He sounded incredulous – and angry - at her stupidity.
 
“In this weather?”

“I don’t have a car.”

“So how are you planning to get home?”

“The same way I always do.
 
On foot.”
 
Not that it was any of his business any more.

“It’s raining.”

“I have an umbrella in my office.”

He gave an impatient gesture.
 
“I’ll drop you off at home.”

She hesitated.
 
On the one hand, she
didn’t
want to share his space for any longer than was absolutely necessary, but on the other, she was already later than usual, and a ride would save her from a soaking.
 
“I have to pick up some papers from my office.”
 
If he chose to wait, fine, he could drive her home.
 

He stopped outside the hospital entrance.
 
“I’ll wait.”

In two
minutes
she was back again, her coat wrapped around her shoulders.
 

“You should get a car.”
 
His voice was accusing, as if she had deliberately inconvenienced him by not owning one.

She strapped the seatbelt across her chest, refusing to look at him.
 
“I can’t.
 
I don’t have a license.”

“You still don’t drive?”

“No.”

“You never learned?”

Ten years ago, he had promised to teach her how to drive.
 
She wondered if he remembered that day as clearly as she did.
 
“No,” she said flatly, refusing to elaborate any further.

He shrugged, as if the matter was supremely unimportant to him.
 
“So, where to?”

She gave him directions, until he pulled up outside the pretty villa she lived in –
a far cry
from the ramshackle old cottage, built over a hundred years ago for
laborers
on the railways, in which she had grown up.
 
He raised his eyebrows sardonically as she got out.
 
“Come up in the world, have we?”

She slammed the car door behind her as her only answer.
 
Taine had never used to be a snob.
 
That too, it seemed, had changed.

Taine sat in the car, his knuckles whitening on the steering wheel as he watched Verity disappear through her front door without a backwards glance.
 
God, but it physically hurt to see her walk away from him.
 
Even after all these years, the pain of having her leave him, even so temporarily as this, was enough to put a catch in his throat.

He forced his fingers to relax enough to start the engine again and drive slowly away.

Whatever she may think now, Verity had not seen the last of him.
 
Not by a long shot.

He had always thought her beautiful, but now she was even more so.
 
Now she was all
woman
.
 
For all
that
she kept her hair tied back and wore prim little suits, he could sense the passion that lay hidden just below the surface.
 
Pretend as she may to be all ice, there was nothing cold about her.
 
She was made of fire.

Just sitting innocently next to her in the car had roused his blood to a fever pitch.
 
He wanted her still.
 
He wanted her even more badly now than he had wanted her ten years ago, when he had been in love with the image of her that he had created in his mind.
 
Even
now
that he knew what she really was – selfish, manipulative and utterly heartless - he could not stop from wanting her still.
 
This time, however, he had no illusions of her sweetness or innocence to hold him back from taking what he wanted from her.
 

Besides, she owed him.
 
She had broken his heart and shattered his dreams of happiness.
 
No woman did that to a Hunter man and escaped without paying the price.

His father needed her as his therapist, but he needed her, too, even more than his father did.
 
She would make him
whole
again, and help him lay the rest the ghosts that had kept him bitterly single for the last ten years.

Yes – Verity owed him, and he was going to make sure she paid up.
 
He was not going to leave town again until he had collected on his debt in full.

Chapter 3

As Verity walked through her front door, she forced the troubling image of Taine from her mind.
 
He belonged to her past, and that was where he had to stay.
 
Her life was just fine without him, and his continuing presence in it could only disturb secrets and memories that were better left alone.

She
didn’t
need him hanging round like a bad smell, particularly not when he was looking better than any man had a right to look.
 
If only he’d gone bald,
or run
to fat, or developed a weak chin, she’d find him less difficult to deal with.
 
But
he had done none of those things.
 
Quite the opposite, in fact – he still had a completely gorgeous body that made her go weak at the knees just thinking about it.

He’d
always been a popular boy, one of the in crowd, and his style had not changed, it had just matured over the last ten years.
 
Now he carried with him an aura of command and of control that
he’d
not had before.
 
He’d
always been confident and had known his own mind, but now he was positively forceful, even intimidating.

His looks, his presence, and his charisma together made a powerful package.
 
Most women, she was sure, would find him irresistible.
 

She kicked the door shut behind her with a bang.
 
To find him as physically gorgeous, and more so, as he had been ten years ago just
wasn’t
fair.
 

It was just as well, she thought to herself with a heavy
scowl, that
his temper had certainly taken a turn for the worse.
 
If
he’d
remained as kind and as caring as he’d once been, her heart might have been in serious danger of breaking apart all over again.
 

As it was, her heart was most emphatically in no danger.
 
None at all.
 
He meant nothing to her anymore.
 
She had to remember that.

Her mother was standing at the kitchen sink chopping vegetables for dinner.
 
She briefly suspended her knife in the air to brush Verity’s cheek with a kiss.
 
“
Aroha’s
in her room,” she said, as she resumed her work.
 
“She’s been waiting for you.”

Verity threw her a worried look.
 
Aroha was normally so gregarious it was out of character for her to be sitting by herself.
 
“Is she okay?”

Her mother shrugged.
 
“She looked fine to me.
 
She just said she wanted to talk to you.

Verity tossed her briefcase in an out-of-the-way corner.
 
“Can I give you a hand with dinner first?” she offered as cheerfully as she could manage, suddenly feeling bone-weary after her emotionally exhausting day.

Her mother waved her away.
 
“There’s a chicken roasting in the oven, and once I’ve done these beets, we’ll be ready to eat.
 
You go talk to Aroha while I finish off here.”

Aroha was sitting cross-legged on her purple bedspread, her chin in her hands and a wistful look on her face.

Verity sat down beside her and put an arm lightly around her shoulders, resisting the urge to give her a fierce hug.
 
She loved her so dearly, this child of her heart, that sometimes she could hardly breathe for loving her.
 

The two of them hugged each other in silence as they sat on the bed in
Aroha’s
pretty pink and purple bedroom.
 
It was just the sort of room,
frilly and girly
and ultra feminine, that Verity had longed for herself as a child.
 
Money had been short even for necessities when she was growing up, though, and luxuries like purple bedspreads had been right out of the question.
 
It made her
all the more
determined that Aroha would not lack for anything she could provide.
 
Especially not when it came to love.

Aroha’s
sturdy little body was tense in her arms.
 
Verity rubbed her back tenderly.
 
“What’s troubling you, kitten?”

After a moment’s resistance, Aroha relaxed into the warmth of her embrace.
 
“You’re late tonight.”

Verity knew that
wasn’t
what was bothering her daughter.
 
The nature of her work meant that the odd late night was inevitable, and
Aroha had never been upset by the small change in her routine before
.
 
“I’m sorry, sweetheart, but I had to see a patient who lived out of town.”

Aroha
shrugged,
her mind clearly elsewhere.
 
“It doesn’t matter.”

“So, what’s troubling you then?”

There was silence for a moment.
 
Then Aroha spoke in a small voice.
 
“Who was my father?”

Verity felt her insides turn over.
 
Aroha had asked her that question before, but never in such a serious tone.
 
Usually the question was a hidden plea for her to make up a fantastical story for the two of them to laugh over.
 
Today, she sensed, was somehow different.
 

“Ah, you know the story,” she said, desperately falling back on one of the tales she had made up for the occasion.
 
“Your father---” She broke off with a sigh.
 
“Your father was a handsome Spanish bullfighter who stole my heart away one day.
 
But alas, he was promised already to a lovely, dark-haired maiden back in his home country, so he left me here to mourn and went back to live with his wife in a beautiful castle in Spain.”

“That’s just silly, Mum.”
 
All the
same
an impish smile was creeping over
Aroha’s
face.
 
“He would’ve married you – not his other girlfriend.
 
You’ve got lovely dark hair, too, and you’re nicer than any dumb maiden who lives in a castle.”

“You’re right.
 
It
is
a silly tale.”
 
Verity gave her a look of mock contrition, and then bent low over her to tell her another story.
 
“The truth is that your father was a taniwha, a Maori spirit, a guardian of the river,” she said in a conspiratorial whisper.
 
“He saw me walking past on the river bank one day, fell in love with me, and spirited me away to his home in the sky where the sun is always warm upon your face and the storm clouds stay far away.
 
But alas, mortal women cannot live for long in the spirit realm.”
 

She heaved a theatrical sigh and wiped away a pretend tear with the back of her hand.
 
“I was allergic to the spirit nectar that taniwhas eat.
 
Your father had to bring me back again to the land before I starved to death.
 
I have lived here ever since, mourning his loss.”

Aroha gave a little giggle.
 
“I’m serious, Mum,” she said, giving Verity a playful smack on her leg.
 
“I don’t want any more of your stories.
 
I just want you to tell me the truth.”

“The truth?”
 
Verity was quiet for a moment.
 
Her daughter was still only a child, too young to hear the full ugliness of what had really happened.
 
She owed her an explanation, but she
didn’t
want to hurt her any more than she truly had to.
 
“The truth is pretty unexciting really.
 
A lot less exciting than Spanish bullfighters and taniwhas.”