One Night in the Orient (7 page)

The tinge of acid in his voice deepened the colour in her cheeks.

Before she could think of anything to say he continued blandly, “Besides, your parents would be concerned to think of you alone here with rapidly dwindling resources.”

Siena snorted. “You’re a master manipulator, but that one won’t work. I’m not only twenty-four, I’m also more than capable of looking after myself, and they know it. So should you.”

Nick stiffened. She couldn’t have used a more ill-chosen word; it touched a sore point he’d never been able to overcome. His skill at manipulation was not one he was proud of, and he only ever used it as a last resort. For Siena to home in on it angered him in some obscure way.

After his idiotic behaviour last night he was crazy to even consider this, but there was no way he’d leave
her on her own in London after such painful news. Normally he wasn’t prey to irrational protectiveness, after all he’d do the same for her sister.

Crisply he said, “You might be sure you can take on the world single-handed, but from now on the airways will be choked with planes carrying Australians and New Zealanders back home for Christmas and the holidays.”

Clearly that hadn’t occurred to her. She frowned, and he went on, “You’ve got about as much chance of scoring an early seat as you have of swimming home.”

“It’s only the beginning of December,” she said curtly. “It can’t be that bad. Nick, you don’t need to worry about me—it simply isn’t necessary.”

He could simply bundle her up and carry her off, but he knew Siena. She’d announce her predicament—loudly and decisively—to the first official person she saw. Not for the first time Nick cursed his stupidity the previous night. If he hadn’t kissed her she’d have trusted him and accompanied him without any qualms.

That loss of trust affected him in some strange way he wasn’t prepared to examine.

“I’ll have to let your parents know,” he said quietly.

That stopped her. He went on, “If they were at home you’d let them know what has happened.”

Her slender black brows knotted. “That’s not the point.”

Nick pressed his advantage home. “It is, and you know it. I value your parents’ good opinion. I know what their reaction would be if I didn’t tell them.”

Those amazing eyes—so dark a blue they were almost violet—glittered. She stared at him as though he were an enemy.

Having learned patience the hard way, Nick knew when to wait.

She expelled a short, sharp breath. “All right, you win. I’ll travel with you. Thank you for making the offer.”

The final few words raced out, as though she’d had to force them through a tight throat. Her reluctance was almost palpable.

Nick took care to keep his voice level and uninflected. “Good, that’s settled. Do you want me to organise the transfer of your luggage?”

“No,” she said crisply. “I can do that.” She hesitated a moment, then gave him a reluctant smile. “Thanks, Nick. You might feel you owe something to Dad for his mentorship all those years ago, but now you can consider it paid.”

For some reason that irritated him. “I’m not repaying any supposed debt. It’s simply the most sensible path to take.” He paused, then asked, “What do you plan to do when you get back?”

“Find another job,” she said briefly. “I don’t like the insecurity of wondering how fast my bank balance is going down.”

“I meant about Adrian Worth.”

Her luscious mouth tightened. “Nothing.”

“No recriminations?” Nick wasn’t entirely sure why he was pushing her but he wanted an answer.

“It would be a waste of time,” she said, sounding detached. “It’s over.”

Nick gave a mental shrug. The man was clearly an idiot, and she was doing the right thing in cutting her losses.

“Right,” he said briskly. “The car will take you back to the hotel and wait for you there.”

Siena stared around at what looked like nothing so much as a very modern, very opulent sitting room.

“I thought.” she began, then stopped.

When Nick told her he had an interest in the plane she’d foolishly thought he meant he had shares in the airline. It hadn’t occurred to her they’d be travelling halfway around the world in a sleek, luxurious private jet.

The only two passengers.

The implied intimacy worried her. But lying in wait beneath the concern was a lurking excitement, and that worried her even more.

She felt like an ancient explorer in an unknown country, not knowing what lay ahead, aware only that she might be walking into danger.

For a moment her heart misgave her, but sturdily she pushed the apprehension to the back of her mind. Those ancient explorers had also found untold riches.

After customs and immigration formalities they’d been driven out to the plane parked outside an opulent reception area, and while their luggage was loaded and efficiently packed away the steward had shown them into the main cabin, exquisitely furnished with the kind of effortless luxury known only to plutocrats. It was set up to be what estate agents called “a media room”, with sofas and a large television screen.

Siena was determined to appreciate the whole experience. It would be the only time in her life she travelled like this.

Nick indicated a couple of chairs side by side, their
sole concession to airline safety the seatbelts neatly arranged across them. “We’re almost ready to go, so sit down and fasten the seatbelt. And what exactly
did
you think?”

“I didn’t realise we were travelling privately.” But she sat down, her stomach fluttering.

Nick examined her face with a frown. “Would you rather be in a big plane?”

“No. I’m not afraid of flying.” The treacherous pulse throbbing in her throat was due entirely to his closeness. Hastily she said, “I’m just not used to such luxury. But don’t worry, I plan to enjoy it to the full.”

He sat down beside her and asked, “Did you get all your emails off?”

Siena pulled herself together. “Yes—and an answer from Dad.”

“You’re a close-knit family.”

It was the sort of thing any friend might say, but a note in his voice caught her attention. Perhaps it was also the sort of thing the product of a broken home might say. Did Nick have any relatives at all? He’d never mentioned any. She did know his mother had died shortly after Nick had bought her a home overlooking the harbour on Auckland’s North Shore. Almost immediately afterwards Nick had left New Zealand.

Without looking at him, Siena said, “I needed to tell them about the change of plans.”

She’d also laboured over a very short, extremely difficult email to her ex-fiancé, about whom she’d somehow developed an uneasy guilt.

If only she hadn’t kissed Nick, she thought, then caught herself up. She couldn’t blame him for her suspicion that she’d somehow short-changed Adrian.

While she’d been struggling with the email, the prospect of spending a night in Hong Kong with Nick had kept intruding, bringing with it such a turbulent combination of excitement and foreboding that she’d felt like a hypocrite.

In the end she had forced herself to finish what had turned out to be a banal, stiff note.

Nick asked, “How are your parents enjoying their cruise?”

“They’re having a glorious time. Dad’s checked out every deck game and the library, and Mum’s made several friends already. And they’ve danced until the small hours each night.”

“And how is Gemma?”

Siena felt the jet begin to move. She looked out of the window, saying a silent goodbye to London.

“She sounds much better.” She glanced at him and then away. “She’s very sensitive.”

His raised brows irritated her, but the jet’s engines picked up speed and the plane began to move down the runway. Relieved, Siena leaned forward a little, watching the earth fall away as they finally soared into the hazy air.

A strange sensation gripped her, as though she’d left her everyday life behind and somehow slipped through into another dimension, one both exhilarating and rather ominous, a place where the dictates of ordinary life were suspended. Unbidden and unwanted, a feverish anticipation licked through her, summoning dangerous thoughts.

Perhaps this was what travelling in a private jet did, she thought fancifully.

Be sensible,
she warned herself, and asked, “Do you always travel in your own plane?”

“Usually. It saves time and hassle, gives me space to work while I’m travelling, and generally is simpler all round.”

“I’ll say!” Siena sighed. “This trip is going to spoil me for ordinary travel.”

Nick’s smile held more than a hint of irony. “I doubt it.” He glanced at his watch. “I find it helps to avoid jet-lag if when I board I start operating on the current time at my destination. Once we reach cruising height I’ve ordered tea, but would you prefer something else to drink?”

“Tea will be lovely, thank you,” she said gratefully, pulling out a book from her bag. “If you want to work, go ahead. I don’t need entertaining.”

“I remember,” he said, amused again.

Siena gave him a sideways look, not exactly relishing the way he’d slotted her neatly back into her place of childhood friend.

He was still watching her, and although the smile that curved his chiselled mouth didn’t waver, she sensed a keener intensity in his green survey.

What was he thinking?

Who knew? Nick had always had a poker face; it had been one of the things she’d first noticed about him, an unchildlike refusal to show emotion. Now she found herself speculating about the source of that fierce self-control.

It seemed possible that Nick’s cool, complete self-containment had originally hidden the sort of trauma no child should ever endure.

But perhaps his self-control was inborn, an essential part of the boy he’d been and the man he now was.

Nick said, “I do need to work, but I’ll wait until the seatbelt sign goes off.”

Hastily Siena buried herself in her book, religiously reading until a ping announced they’d reached cruising altitude and Nick got up.

“I’ll work at the desk,” he said. “If you need anything, the steward will deal with it.”

She’d noticed the desk at the other end of the cabin. From beneath her lashes she watched Nick walk across to it and open up a drawer to take out a laptop.

He was a surprising—and unusual—amalgam of magnate and sex symbol. Filmstar good-looks were intensified and overwhelmed by an earthy, potent aura that gave them a raw edge. In casual clothes obviously tailored to his measurements he dominated the trappings of extreme wealth without effort, reducing them to a mere backdrop.

He was, she thought, nerves tightening in sensual appreciation, a dangerous man.

And her attitude to him was veering uncomfortably and recklessly close to absorption.

H
ALF
an hour into the flight Siena gave up on the thriller she’d been enjoying. For the past thirty minutes her eyes had skimmed words that made little impression, and she’d completely lost sympathy with the hero and heroine.

She closed the book, got up and walked across to the sofa facing the television screen, lowering herself onto the seat.

“If you want to turn on the TV,” Nick said, “go ahead.”

She flashed him a smile, her stomach knotting as their eyes met. “No, thanks, but if you want to …”

“I haven’t finished here,” he said, and returned his attention to the computer screen.

Siena picked up a magazine and flicked over the pages. It was exactly what she’d have expected on a private jet, catering to an exclusive readership with money to burn.

But both the photography and the writing were superb. Her attention caught, she read an article about a castle in the Pyrenees before moving onto a rhapsodic description of a spa in Bali. Admiring the rooms and courtyards that combined restraint and tropical
exuberance, she decided that one day she’d visit that exquisite island with its tropical flowers and gentle people. Perhaps.

When she’d found a job and saved the money.

A little later, deep in pictures of impossibly manicured rice paddies climbing mountains, she heard someone cough.

Looking up, she saw the steward coming with a trolley.

“Tea, Ms Blake,” he said. “May I …?”

He showed her the trolley. Just like high tea at a very good hotel, she thought, smiling at the memory of the one time she’d been treated to such an occasion.

She looked across to Nick, who glanced up from his computer and said, “English Breakfast, no milk or sugar, and whatever else looks good.”

Choose for him? She remembered him devouring her mother’s chocolate cake and pavlova, New Zealand’s classic meringue confection decorated with kiwifruit slices, but apart from that she had no idea of his tastes.

So she smiled at the steward and said, “Just leave the trolley, thanks.”

When Nick sat down beside her she poured tea and handed his cup to him, making sure she didn’t touch his fingers.

To fill in the silence she said chattily, “This reminds me that after my capping ceremony Mum and Dad took us all—several friends—to a hotel and shouted us high tea. We drank champagne first, and ate little delicacies like these sandwiches and scones.” She laughed as she added milk to her own cup. “And the waiter was so busy staring at Gemma he almost tipped champagne down my front, all over the robes I’d hired for the day.”

The corners of Nick’s mouth twitched. “Very unprofessional of him,” he said somewhat austerely.

“Ah, well, if you go out with Gemma you get used to that sort of thing. It was a great day.” She smiled, recalling her excitement and joy.

He said, “I tried damned hard to get there, but I had an emergency on my hands and I couldn’t make it.”

She’d been disappointed, but also just a little relieved. “Trust the world’s finances to collapse the month I graduated.”

“You didn’t want to do postgraduate study?”

She shook her head. “You weren’t the only one dealing with a financial meltdown. Dad and Mum had helped me enough. Anyway, I wanted to get out into the real world and do some work.”

“So you started in a plant nursery—after taking a commerce degree.”