LITMIR.BIZ

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on her mount’s chestnut withers, and the mare had plenty more action in her.

      ‘Tell me about yourself,’ Luke said. ‘Where did you grow up?’

      ‘Waiora, a little town on a tiny harbour on Northland’s west coast.’

      He nodded. ‘What career did you take up?’

      ‘I spent a year at university in Auckland.’

      He was wearing an old pair of riding trousers that clung to his heavily muscled thighs like a second skin, and a blue shirt, rolled up to reveal strong forearms tanned the colour of teak. Fleur’s heart had performed a couple of erratic orbits when she’d seen him swing up onto a big black gelding after he’d tossed her into the saddle, his hands strong about her waist.

      Neither heart nor body had recovered from those seconds of close contact. She still felt oddly giddy, and it was no use telling herself that it was due to dehydration. It had been years since she’d felt so good, so vital and filled with inner exultation.

      He looked down at her, checking on her confidence and her riding ability, she suspected. Fortunately the mare was a darling.

      ‘What degree?’ he asked.

      ‘Arts. I wanted to do a history degree.’ She amended that to, ‘I’ll finish it one day.’

      His brows lifted. ‘I see. Did your mother’s illness interrupt your studies?’

      She swallowed. ‘Yes. When she couldn’t look after herself I went back home to care for her.’

      ‘Tough. Was there anyone to help you?’

      ‘No. My parents were divorced when I was ten.’

      ‘Are you in contact with your father?’

      ‘No,’ she said briefly, then wondered if she should have perhaps prevaricated a bit on this point. After all, she didn’t really know anything about Luke, except what she’d read in newspapers and magazines. For all she knew he could be a white slaver.

      She flicked a glance sideways, noting the uncompromising line of his profile, angular and severe. He didn’t look like a white slaver. He looked like a man with the world at his feet, a man totally confident in himself—a man born to authority.

      A man who knew a lot about women and who took his impact on them for granted. She’d seen his name linked with more than half a dozen, all glamorous, all moving in the sort of circles that got even the paparazzi excited. And then there was Gabrielle, a model and already in love with him.

      So in spite of telling her that he was attracted to her, he certainly wouldn’t find Fleur Lyttelton from Waiora, New Zealand, in the least fascinating.

      Even if he did, she’d want him to be interested in more than just her body. Though that would be terrifying enough, because her knowledge of men was practically nonexistent. Her year at university had been spent studying and worrying about her mother’s increasing ill-health, not living it up socially.

      She was still a virgin, for heaven’s sake—for all she knew the only twenty-three-year-old virgin in the Pacific Basin!

      Anyway, it was too late now for second thoughts, she thought uncomfortably. She’d agreed to this charade and she had to go through with it.

      Hurriedly she said, ‘My father forced me to choose between him and my mother. He lives in Australia now.’

      ‘Some men don’t deserve families.’

      ‘Some women, too.’ The male half of the world weren’t the only offenders when it came to marital and parental matters. After all, although she was inexperienced she read newspapers and watched television.

      She said, ‘Tell me what I need to know about you.’

      Shrugging, Luke guided his mount up a small slope to stop under a huge old tree, dark-foliaged and heavy of boughs. Behind them the vivid green mountains clawed at the sky, and when she turned her horse to face the view, she caught her breath.

      Spread out before them lay a panorama of pure, sun-drenched colour—the bold, bright green of plantations, the softer, more silvery shades of the palm forests by the shore, and the brilliant turquoise of the lagoon bordered by the slashing white line of the reef. And beyond that the blazing, intense emerald of the Pacific as far as she could see, curved around the island like a protective embrace.

      Yet there was danger in its limitless expanse.

      ‘I was born here twenty-nine years ago,’ Luke told her, not looking at her. ‘I expect to die here.’

      That simple sentence, said evenly and without emotion, summed up Luke Chapman, revealing perhaps more of him than perhaps he’d be comfortable with. Although he was a man of the world, his roots lay in this exquisitely beautiful place with its lush fertility and its dangers, the untamed sea and sky where cyclones could beat in from a sky of blazing sapphire, leaving behind destruction and death.

      His love for Fala’isi was there in his tone, in his crystalline gaze as he looked down on it from their vantage halfway between the mountains and the sea.

      He said, ‘I ran wild here until my parents sent me to school in New Zealand and to university in England and America. My degree was a business one, but I was more interested in the scope of the Internet than going into conventional business, so I’ve made my career in that.’

      Fleur nodded. The company he’d started in his early twenties to provide an Internet service had grown exponentially. Unlike most entrepreneurs he’d kept control of it, and was now one of the most powerful players in information technology.

      He went on, ‘However, this is my real life’s work—Fala’isi and its people. My father isn’t ready to give up his position as head of the family corporation, and I’m not eager to take it on yet, but that’s what I’ll end up doing.’

      Rather daringly she asked, ‘Do you want to do that?’

      ‘Wanting doesn’t come into it.’ Keeping his gaze fixed on the panorama in front of them, he explained in a level, judicious voice, ‘I could probably flag it away if my father wasn’t also paramount chief. That’s a hereditary position—not in that the oldest son or daughter inherits, but the chieftainship is the prerogative of one family. In Fala’isi that’s my family. We’re the last link with the ancient chiefs of the island, and although our position is more ceremonial than anything else, it’s still important. If either of my sisters were interested I might be able to evade the responsibility, but they’re not.’

      ‘I’m surprised women would be considered for the position,’ Fleur said without thinking.

      ‘Why? Women held—still hold—very high prestige in Polynesian societies. In New Zealand the late Maori Queen was chosen for the position by her people.’

      Feeling foolish, she responded, ‘I know, and you’re right of course. It’s just that we—well, I suppose I thought society here would be more rigid than at home.’

      ‘We’ve always been fairly cosmopolitan,’ he said, then changed the subject by pointing out his house, sprawling in its several acres of gardens on a low hill above the lagoon. He added casually, ‘Fala’isi is the link between the great prehistoric sailing routes from east to west and north to south. For centuries my ancestors traded and fought and explored along those routes. We islanders pride ourselves on being open to new ideas.’

      Although his voice was perfectly level, for some reason the words sounded like a veiled warning. Fleur looked up sharply, met eyes as translucent as polar seas, and felt that odd clutch of response in her stomach, so close to fear it could have been mistaken for it if it hadn’t been accompanied by an erotic charge of physical awareness.

      All her senses sharpened by Luke’s presence, her skin tightening under the impact of his scrutiny, she felt the breath of the breeze as acutely as though she’d been standing in a gale.

      ‘We’d better be getting back,’ he said

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