LITMIR.BIZ

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an unearthly light show. Fireworks soared and burst dramatically into the warm, clear night sky, and from the low rim of the crater more fireworks surrounded the huge crowd with a smoky red glow.

      Entranced by the eerie light, Lecia jumped when a battery from the army fired guns beside the stage, but the unleashed thunder satisfied something childlike and primitive in her. Tipping back her head, she admired more sunbursts of flame high in the sky, all to the sound of Wagner at his most dramatic.

      And when it was all over she laughed as Andrea said irrepressibly, ‘Totally over the top! That’s what I call a climax!’

      Still charmed by the spectacle, they collected together the rugs and sunshades, lifted the insulated boxes that had held their food, and waited a moment for a gap in the crowd making for the various roads around the Domain.

      A sharp dig in her ribs made Lecia jump and look round indignantly.

      ‘I knew it,’ Andrea muttered. ‘Look, over there...’

      Coming towards them was the stranger.

      Lecia’s heart kicked into overdrive. For a second she tried to convince herself that he hadn’t seen her—that he was just going home as they were—but the purposefulness in his expression as he cut through the crowd convinced her she was wrong.

      She only had time to gulp in a meagre breath before he stopped in front of her, and helplessly she looked up into eyes of a dark, brilliant steel-blue. Her mouth dried. Behind her she heard Peter speak, but the roaring in her ears prevented his words from registering.

      She had no difficulty hearing the stranger, however.

      ‘I think,’ he said, in a deep, deliberate voice with an exciting rasp in it like gravel beneath water, ‘we must share a gene pool. I’m Keane Paget.’

      Subliminally she felt a rearrangement of the atmosphere that meant either Peter or Andrea had recognised the name. It took all of the poise she’d acquired in her twenty-nine years to reply steadily, ‘I’m Lecia Spring.’

      ‘So—cousin?’ He held out his hand.

      Although she put hers into it, she shook her head. ‘We can’t be. I look like my father, and he looked like his father, and there are no other Spring relatives.’

      His handshake was firm, his eyes searching. ‘The resemblance is too marked to be coincidental,’ he said with aloof assurance. ‘Here’s my card.’

      After a quick, fumbling grope in her bag Lecia found one of her own. Without looking at his she put it into her pocket and said, trying hard to sound brisk and casual, ‘It must be an amazing, accidental fluke. Isn’t everyone supposed to have a double?’

      Unfortunately the words tumbled out with all the precision and confidence of water babbling from a hose. So much, she thought bitterly, for casual briskness.

      ‘So the old wives say,’ Keane Paget said with a brief smile. ‘I prefer science to folklore every time.’ His gaze sweeping the other two, he nodded and said, ‘Good evening.’

      And headed back towards the corporate tents.

      ‘Oh, boy!’ Andrea sighed, fanning herself with her open hand as her eyes rolled upwards. ‘I might faint. That voice sent shivers up and down my spine. To say nothing of what his eyes did to me! Who is he? You recognised the name, Peter, didn’t you?’

      ‘I did.’ Peter was an investment adviser, and from the tone of his voice Keane Paget came within his area of expertise. ‘He owns a company that makes ozone generators.’

      ‘And exactly what,’ asked Andrea, who lectured in Art History at the university, ‘is an ozone generator?’

      ‘It’s a device that uses electricity and air to purify water. They’ve been around for ever, but the ones Paget’s marketing are much more refined than the basic device, as well as cheaper and safer. He’s an up-and-coming industrialist, astute and hard-hitting, with his head screwed on the right way.’

      ‘I take that to mean that as well as being tough and clever he’s already rich and getting richer,’ Andrea said thoughtfully.

      Amused, Peter replied, ‘Yes. He owns that firm, and he’s not going public in the immediate future.’ When Andrea opened her mouth he forestalled her with, ‘He’s not married, although he’s been seen out and about with some very beautiful women. And no, I don’t know who the woman with him was. I don’t move in his circle—haven’t the background or the connections.’

      Andrea turned to Lecia. ‘So you’re almost certainly related to a man who’s making lots and lots of very nice money,’ she said, her eyes gleaming with mock avarice. ‘Nice going.’

      Shocked by the relief she’d felt when Peter pronounced Keane Paget single, Lecia shrugged. ‘If we’re related. It gives me the creeps to know that someone else is wandering around with my face.’

      ‘Paget’s not a wanderer,’ Peter said wryly. ‘He’s a man who knows where he’s heading, and he’s getting there in a hurry. He’s begun exporting to Asia—doing very nicely too—and for all the profits to be made there it’s not an easy market. It needs enormous patience, guts and integrity, as well as a good brain and a damned good product.’

      A gap in the crowd opened out; they slid into it and made their way the mile or so to Lecia’s flat in an old building down by the waterfront. As Peter escorted them all the way, common courtesy forced her to invite him into her sanctuary for a cup of coffee.

      Once inside, Andrea asked, ‘Why haven’t we heard about Keane Paget? I mean, apart from being utterly gorgeous, he sounds the sort of man who turns up as the subject of respectful articles in high-powered magazines and newspapers.’

      Peter grinned. ‘He is and he does. However, he doesn’t seem to indulge in the social round that ends up as photographs in the glossies. I suppose he likes his privacy.’

      ‘What a waste,’ Andrea mourned. ‘He could be making the lives of all young women—and a good few older ones, I bet—so much brighter if he just smiled at the camera occasionally. We could all practise swooning.’

      ‘Coffee’s ready,’ Lecia said, cutting into her friend’s flight of fancy as she carried the tray across to the low table in front of the sofa.

      She steered the conversation away from Keane Paget, away from anything personal, her nerves tightening when Peter admired her flat, congratulating her on her clever design for the conversion of the old factory into apartments. He was amusing and intelligent and often perceptive, but his open desire to know her better sawed across emotions already fretted by the stranger with her face.

      With great relief she heard Andrea redeem her earlier tactlessness by jumping to her feet and saying, ‘Time to go! Come on, Peter, we’ll share a taxi, shall we?’

      Reluctantly, after an appealing glance at Lecia, he nodded, trailing behind Andrea as she strode off towards the lift.

      Peter, Lecia decided when she’d waved them goodbye and locked the door behind them, looked like becoming a bit of problem. Unfortunately he was really a nice man, and she just didn’t have it in her to be rude to nice men.

      ‘Although you should have learned that lesson well and truly...’ she muttered, remembering another nice man she hadn’t been able to turn down. Poor Barry.

      Well, that had been seven years ago. She’d grown up a lot since then, and as soon as possible she’d make sure Peter understood that they had no future together.

      After she’d showered off the sunscreen and sweat she pulled on a loose cotton wrap striped in her favourite peach and cream, colours that went so well with her hair and clear ivory skin.

      Keane Paget would look good in them too.

      Wry amusement softened the wide curves of her mouth as she imagined that very masculine face and form decked out in such gentle, pretty shades.

      The

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