LITMIR.BIZ

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herself. Normally she’d have stopped at a simple thank-you; natural caution should have overridden an unsuspected desire to learn more about him.

      Although his brows drew together above the blade of his nose, he said mildly enough, “In my teens. I can speak the language fluently, and to a certain extent read it, but I can’t write it and I’ll never lose my accent.”

      Shrewdly Mariel surmised that this would always be a source of irritation to him. He would demand perfection from himself, as well as others—the very worst sort of man, totally impossible to live with.

      She wasn’t going to have to live with him. However, she was going to have to work with him, and that meant that from now on she was going to be resolutely, professionally, implacably aloof.

      With a touch of brusqueness he resumed speaking. “Thank you, you’ve done a good job. I’ll order tea. I assume you are a tea drinker? Most New Zealanders are, especially at this time of the afternoon.”

      No, he didn’t miss anything. As well as keen eyes, he had keen ears. Although her American colleagues invariably picked up the trace of an antipodean accent in her speech, any New Zealanders she’d met during the past few years usually assumed she was American.

      Mariel looked at her watch. “I’m sorry, sir,” she said without expression, “but I need to be free when the other members of the delegation arrive.” She gave him a businesslike smile, carefully not quite meeting his eyes, and as she got to her feet said in the same collected tone, “It was kind of you to think of it. Thank you.”

      He waited until she had packed up her computer and printer and was halfway to the door before saying, “I am not kind, Ms. Browning. I do, however, appreciate efficiency and intelligence.”

      Delivered in a cool, inflexible tone, the words sounded almost like a warning.

      

      MARIEL SAW Nicholas Leigh again that night at the inaugural dinner. According to Liz Jermain, the purpose of the conference was to conduct a high-level but informal discussion of trade patterns.

      Known worldwide for its exclusivity and superb service, the resort, with its health club and golf course and rifle range, its banquet rooms and world-class restaurant, its proud history of discretion and opulence, was the perfect place for such occasions.

      However, in spite of the official lack of ceremony, someone had decided that these proceedings should begin with a dinner. Although both parties had brought their own interpreters, Mariel, clad in a black dress so circumspect it almost rendered her invisible, presented herself at the small lounge off the reserved dining room to mingle and make herself useful, which she did, stepping in when conversations stuttered and died, acting as a sort of subsidiary hostess, smoothing the diplomatic pathways.

      Apart from a middle-aged woman with shrewd, worldly eyes and two extremely elegant women of about Mariel’s age—all New Zealanders—the room was filled with the dark elegance of about twenty men in good-quality evening clothes. Most were comparatively young; only a couple were the same age as her parents would have been had they still been alive.

      Deep inside her, a barely discernible foreboding faded to quiescence.

      As always she eschewed alcohol; this time she chose club soda and lime. While she was thanking the waiter for making a special trip to get it, she looked up to see Nicholas Leigh talking to one of the younger women, a very attractive person with smoothly coiffed hair the color of newly minted copper. The woman’s fine, patrician features were lit by a composed, gracious smile, but there was nothing composed about the swift glance she sent him from beneath her lashes.

      Dumbfounded as a hitherto cloaked emotion flared abruptly and painfully into life, Mariel thought, I’m jealous!

      And the vivid sexual awareness that had sprung so unexpectedly to life in the bar a few hours earlier began to assume a much more sinister aspect.

      Sharply she turned her head away, glad when her glance fell on a middle-aged Japanese man smiling at a younger New Zealander, who looked to be at a loss. She set her jaw and made her way toward them.

      The older man was too sophisticated to reveal any sign of relief when she joined them and introduced herself with a deprecating remark, but the younger man greeted her with a frown. He turned out to be Peter Sanderson, a career diplomat. Short and blocky, his expression pugnaciously intense, he had narrow, suspicious eyes that flicked hastily from person to person as though he was terrified of missing something. However, after the first irritated glare at Mariel, his brows straightened, and he smiled at her with overbold interest.

      She didn’t like him, she thought when he asked her where she was from.

      “New York? You don’t sound like a native of the Big Apple,” he said, watching her as though he suspected her of lying.

      She smiled. “I’m a New Zealander, Mr. Sanderson.”

      “But you’re not one of our party,” he said, his brows meeting.

      “I’m an interpreter and translater,” she told him, smiling to take away the edge in her voice.

      The older man interposed politely, “With an excellent grasp of Japanese.”

      Transferring the smile to him, she bowed. “You honor me too much.”

      After waiting impatiently for the formalities to be over, Peter Sanderson asked, “How long have you been living in America?”

      Trying to hide the wariness in her voice, she told him. He continued asking questions, cloaking them with a veneer of politeness too thin to hide his determination to get answers. His tenacity made Mariel uneasy; she didn’t like the way he watched her, as though assessing her value as a pawn to be played in some game she didn’t understand.

      She suspected that his attitude wasn’t personal—he was probably the sort of person who valued people only for thenuse to him—but she had to struggle to maintain her aplomb.

      Five minutes later she felt someone behind her and turned, her eyes meeting with a small shock those of Nicholas Leigh. The redhead was still with him, and for a moment a purely feminine challenge crystallized in the woman’s pale gray eyes as they met Mariel’s.

      Nicholas made the introductions; the woman was Susan Waterhouse, an aide to the New Zealand minister of trade. Perfectly pleasant and charming, she was nevertheless blanketed by an aura of detachment—neither aloof nor indifferent, yet oddly uninvolved—except when she looked at Nicholas.

      In spite of its resemblance to a social occasion, this event was business; Mariel was merely a necessary adjunct, like a computer or a printer. In fact, her profession meant that she should try to be as inconspicuous as possible. Yet she couldn’t repress a spurt of indignation when Susan Water-house’s eyes rested for sizzling seconds on Nicholas’s arrogant, hard-edged countenance.

      Distastefully ignoring the scuttling, furtive envy that crawled across her heart, Mariel looked away. The unaccustomed strength of her reaction added to her troubled apprehension. Within a few minutes she made her excuses and left them.

      As with most diplomatic affairs the evening was run with slightly soulless efficiency. Exactly enough time had been allocated for two drinks, so just as Mariel finished her second glass, a concerted movement propelled her toward the dining room.

      She sat in an alcove to one side of the main table, waiting in case she was needed and trying unsuccessfully to keep her gaze firmly directed away from where Nicholas Leigh sat, charcoal hair wanned with a sheen of bronze by the lights, the poised head held confidently high, features sculpted in angles and planes that were at once fiercely attractive and invulnerable.

      Handsome didn’t describe him exactly, she thought, catching him as he smiled at the middle-aged woman beside him. Handsome was too effete, too ordinary. He had the disciplined, inborn grace of a predator—judging by the letter she’d translated that afternoon, a very intelligent, clear-minded predator. His classical good looks, based on coloring and bone structure, were overshadowed by an effortless, supremely well-controlled strength

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