LITMIR.BIZ

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him too; he’d been wearing a cream shirt with trousers the same intense dark blue as his eyes.

      At the memory of those eyes something hot and tight knotted in the pit of Lecia’s stomach. ‘You’re an idiot,’ she told her reflection, slathering on moisturiser before using the hairdrier.

      Only then did she go into her bedroom and take his card from her bag.

      It was severe, restrained and conventional—a personal one, not a business affair. Keane Paget lived across the harbour bridge in the marine suburb of Takapuna, and from the street name his house probably overlooked Rangitoto, the dormant volcanic island that gave Auckland its distinctive skyline.

      Money, she thought, and put the card down.

      

      She was horrified at her disappointment when he didn’t ring the next day. Her Christmas and New Year had been so hectically social she’d decided to keep just for herself the January weekend when Auckland celebrated its status as a province of New Zealand.

      However, in spite of having looked forward to it for weeks, she found Sunday echoing emptily, with yet another holiday on Monday to live through. The usually busy streets were empty and simmering with heat; everyone who could get there had deserted Auckland for the country or the beach.

      Lecia opened every window in the flat, watered her plants and went down into the communal garden in search of inspiration. She’d been asked to supply sketches for a house needed by a vigorous middle-aged woman who’d bought a cross-leased section in the heart of one of the more expensive suburbs.

      For such a decisive person, the prospective client had few ideas on what she needed beyond two bedrooms and space close by for a potting shed. Lecia played around with sketches, fitting rough floor plans into the site, knowing that if the woman decided to commission her she’d choose the house that allowed her most scope for a splendid garden and time to spend in it.

      Absorbed by the challenge, Lecia spent hours in the lounger beneath the jacaranda, doodling and scribbling.

      When she wasn’t thinking with a pencil in her hand she cleaned out two cupboards, went to the gym, ate dinner with her godson—a twenty-month-old charmer called Hugh, who spent the night with her—and delivered him to his parents the next morning, brushing aside their thanks for the opportunity to have had a glorious evening on the town.

      Keane Paget still didn’t contact her.

      And she did not ring him.

      

      By the end of the week, Lecia had given up hope of hearing from the man. Not that it was hope, she told herself firmly on the too-frequent occasions when she recalled that proud, angular face. No, she certainly wasn’t hopeful, just curious, because she’d never previously experienced anything like that moment of obstinate, elemental identification. For a second she’d been wrenched out of time and space, as though she and Keane Paget had fused together.

      During the hot, humid days of late summer Lecia tried to persuade herself that the half-hidden, inchoate feeling was a simple sense of kinship—and that the primal recognition, the compulsion of affinity, had not been darkened by a shadowy foreboding that still imprisoned her in a nebulous enthrallment.

      Each lazy, sultry evening she thought of Keane Paget as she drifted off to sleep; she woke, tense and aching after nights of restless, urgent dreams, with his name and arrogant face stamped so strongly on her mind that she couldn’t banish either.

      And sometimes during the day the dreams she couldn’t recall resurfaced as fleeting images, clear and bright as miniatures, each erotic glimpse firing her skin and drying her mouth.

      The telephone rang early one morning while she was halfway through toast and Earl Grey tea. After swallowing some toast in such a rush it scraped her throat, she said, ‘Hello.’

      ‘Lecia, it’s Keane Paget. I’d like to take you out to lunch today if that’s possible.’

      ‘I’ll see,’ she said, not even thinking of refusing as she scrabbled through her diary. ‘Yes, I can do lunch.’

      ‘Good. Can you manage the South Seas at twelve-thirty?’

      She had an appointment at three, so that gave her plenty of time. ‘No problem,’ she said, and because she must have sounded curt, added, ‘I’ll look forward to it.’

      ‘I’ll see you then,’ he said, and hung up.

      Short and to the point, she thought, replacing the receiver.

      A bubble of—what? Elation? Excitement? Apprehension? No, an unnerving mixture of all three—expanded in her stomach. Lecia looked down at her fingers. Long and tense and—seeking—they were curled across the plastic handpiece as though she couldn’t bear to break contact.

      Only once before in her life had she been so intensely conscious of her physicalness, of the nerves and cells, the atoms and electrons that made up the body she took for granted. Only once before had she been seduced by an inner force that bewitched her with a compulsi ve siren song, propelling her towards disaster.

      Lecia had learned in a hard school that life went much more smoothly if she faced the truth about her emotions. So now she forced herself to accept what the reckless dreams, the constant preoccupation, the sensuous intensity of her feelings all meant.

      It was quite simple really. She wanted the man who looked so much like her they could be twins. Except that wanting didn’t begin to describe what she felt. She couldn’t label her emotions; they were so tangled that it was impossible to separate out the strands.

      Was she indulging in a pathetic, slightly sinister narcissism? Or was she taking the first step down the twisted, ruinous road to obsession? Obsession she understood. Eight years ago, after freeing herself from a messy relationship with a man who’d turned out to be married, she’d vowed that she’d never again allow it to clutch her in its mindless, greedy, degrading embrace.

      Not that she’d learned her lesson properly. As though that humiliating episode with Anthony hadn’t been shattering enough, only a year later she’d been too thick to realise that Barry loved her with the same abject adoration she’d given to Anthony.

      She’d got over Anthony; once she’d realised he was married, disgust and willpower had transformed her passion into revulsion. But Barry—whose only mistake had been his inability to set limits on his emotions—Barry was still suffering from her stupidity.

      So she’d have lunch with Keane Paget just to satisfy her curiosity. If he wanted to take the acquaintanceship further, she’d very politely, very subtly, but very definitely pull away. She wasn’t going to fall into that trap again.

      As though released from some spell, she stepped back from the telephone and picked up her teacup.

      However, that morning she needed all her determination to concentrate on calculating specifications, and she stopped at least an hour before she needed to. With her office at home it would have been easy for her to wear comfortable, casual clothes like shorts and T-shirts, but she was a professional and she dressed accordingly.

      A swift glance in the mirror revealed that however professional it was, the neat cotton dress wasn’t suitable for lunch at the South Seas, which was both fashionable and noted for its food. After she’d showered, Lecia a opened the doors of her wardrobe and stared morosely at the clothes inside.

      It annoyed her that she wanted to look her best for Keane Paget. Frightened her too. In fact, she almost put the dress she’d been wearing back on, only to realise that if she did that she’d really be establishing his importance in her mind.

      ‘What would I wear if I was going out to lunch with a client?’ she asked the unresponsive air.

      Old faithful, of course. Resignedly she took down the silk shift, dressy enough to be elegant, casual enough to be comfortable, in exactly the same clear green as her eyes. She hesitated over her hair; during the day she usually wore it free, but this time, for some reason she wasn’t prepared

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