The Far Side of Paradise

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Authors: Robyn Donald
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boutique here will be along about three to discuss what you’ll need.’
    ‘I can’t let you pay for my clothes,’ she blurted.
    One straight black brow lifted. ‘You can’t stop me,’ he observed with cool amusement. ‘Whether or not you wear them is entirely up to you.’
    The prospect of appearing in public with him—in clothes he had paid for—sent prickles of apprehension across her skin. There would be sideways glances and assumptions, some of them almost certainly salacious, and the sort of gossip she despised.
    Apparently he could read her mind, because he startled her anew by saying in a hard voice, ‘If anyone—anyone at all—says anything untoward, I’ll deal with it.’
    Of course he wasn’t being protective, she thought, alarmed by the swift rush of warmth his words caused. She quelled it by telling herself that he wouldn’t want them to be connected in any way.
    Office girl and tycoon? Not with the lovely Lady Someone in his life.
    Stoutly, she responded, ‘I’m quite capable of looking after myself, thank you.’
    Anyway, she doubted if anyone would mistake her for Cade’s latest lover; no matter what she wore, she couldn’t achieve that elegant, exclusive, expensive look.
    ‘I’ve noticed,’ he said dryly, ‘but in this case you won’t need to.’
    When she looked up he was smiling. Her heart flipped, honing her awareness into something so keen and compelling she felt it in her bones. Tension pulled through her, strong as a steel hawser, and it took all her will not to take a step towards him.
    She managed to resist, but couldn’t conquer the reckless impulse to smile back at him, although her voice was uneven when she said, ‘How often does someone tell you you’re a very dictatorial man?’
    Involuntarily, Cade responded to her smile; it was pure challenge backed by a hint of invitation, and heguessed she was trying to force a reaction from him, judge for herself why he’d brought her here.
    It took an exercise of will to clear the urgent hunger that fogged his brain.
    OK, he wanted her—but, much more than that, he wanted what she knew. Instead of confronting her directly about Peter’s death, he’d decided on a more subtle approach—one that did
not
involve acting on this elemental attraction, as unwanted as it was powerful.
    However, he couldn’t stop himself from saying, ‘Calling me dictatorial makes me sound like some blood-thirsty despot intent on holding on to power by any means, no matter how cruel. How often does someone tell you you’re beautiful and ask you why you’re still unattached?’
    Her eyes widened, then were veiled by thick, dark lashes. ‘Rarely,’ she said curtly. ‘And usually it’s as a sleazy pick-up line from a man I wouldn’t be seen dead with.’
    ‘Touché.’ OK, so he’d been blunt, but what the hell had caused the frozen shock he’d seen for a millisecond before her expression had closed him out?
    Something shattering. Peter’s suicide? Possibly.
    Damn,
he thought, as sounds from outside heralded the arrival of waiters with lunch.
Damn and double damn.
Their inopportune arrival might have cut off a chance to introduce the subject.
    He was going to have to, sooner or later, yet he found himself intensely disinclined to raise the matter. And that was a worry.
    ‘Ah, here’s lunch,’ he said, his voice as clipped and curt as he could make it.
    It was impossible to tell what she was thinking, but she responded calmly, ‘Good, I’m hungry. And I’mreally looking forward to diving into the lagoon. It’s too long since I swam in really warm water.’
    Into his head flashed a tantalising image of her in her bikini, all slender limbs and silken skin, a gleaming, golden nymph from one of the raunchier legends.
    Angered by the violent involuntary response from his body, Cade headed for his own room, but stopped at the door to say over his shoulder, ‘When you do swim, make sure you use sunscreen.’
    ‘Yes, sir,’ she responded

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