Robyn Donald - Island of Secrets

However, she wasn’t going to let his presence spoil the evening for her friends. She turned, wishing she’d chosen to wear something a little less revealing when Sean’s gaze immediately dropped to her cleavage.

‘Fine, thanks,’ she said calmly, trying to convey that she didn’t want him there without making it obvious to her companions.

Sean lifted his eyes to give the other two a practised smile. ‘Hi. Let me guess—you’re the honeymooners Jo’s been looking forward to seeing, right? Enjoying your stay in the tropics?’

Seething, Jo wished she’d had the sense to realise what sort of man he was before she’d told him about Lindy.

Sure enough, her friend beamed at him. ‘Loving everything about it.’

His smile broadened. ‘I’m Sean Harvey.’ Glancing at Jo, he drawled, ‘A friend of Jo’s.’

So of course Lindy invited him to sit down. Jo cast a harried look around the open-air restaurant, her gaze colliding with that of a man being seated at the next table.

Automatically she gave a brief smile. Not a muscle in his hard, handsome face moved and, feeling as though he’d slapped her, Jo looked away.

Fair men usually looked amiable and casual—surfer-style. Well, not always, she admitted, the most recent James Bond incarnation springing to mind. In spite of the sun-bleached streaks in his ash-brown hair, this stranger had the same dangerous aura.

Surfer-style he was not …

Tall and powerfully muscled, good-looking in an uncompromising, chiselled fashion, he had eyes like cold grey lasers and a jaw that gave no quarter. He also looked familiar, although she knew she’d never seen him before.

Perhaps he was a film star? He wasn’t the sort of man anyone would forget.

As though that moment of eye contact somehow forged a tenuous link between them, Jo’s pulses picked up speed and she rapidly switched her gaze to Lindy.

Don’t be an idiot , she told herself, and concentrated on ignoring the stranger and enduring the evening.

Not that she could fault Sean’s behaviour; he was gallant with Lindy, man-to-man with her husband, and managed so well to indicate his interest in Jo that when he eventually left Lindy challenged her.

‘You haven’t mentioned him at all—is he your latest?’

‘No,’ Jo said shortly.

Her friend had spoken in a rare moment of general silence, and the man at the next table looked across at her. Again, no emotion showed in the sculpted features, yet for some reason an uneasy shiver skated across her skin.

All evening she’d been aware of him—almost as though his presence indicated some form of threat.

Oh, don’t over-dramatise, she scoffed. The stranger didn’t deserve it; she was still—unfairly—reacting to Sean’s intrusions. Because of him she was totally off good-looking men.

For the rest of the evening she kept her gaze scrupulously away from the grey-eyed newcomer. But that sense of his presence stayed with her until she left the hotel and walked into the car park, stopping abruptly when a dark shadow detached itself from the side of her car.

‘Hi, Jo.’

She froze, then forced herself to relax. On Rotumea the only danger came from nature—seasonal cyclones, drownings—or the very rare accident on the motor scooters that were everywhere on the roads. There had never been an assault that she was aware of.

Nevertheless, Sean’s presence jolted her. She asked briskly, ‘What do you want?’

This time he didn’t bother smiling. ‘I want to talk to you.’

Without changing her tone she answered, ‘You said everything I needed to hear the last time we met.’

He shrugged. ‘That’s partly why we need to talk.’ His voice altered. ‘Jo, I’m sorry. If you hadn’t turned me down so crudely, I wouldn’t have lost it. I really thought I was in with a chance—after all, if old Tom had been able to keep you happy you wouldn’t have made eyes at me.’

It wasn’t the first time someone had assumed that Tom had been her lover, and each time it nauseated her. As for making eyes …

Jo reined in her indignation. Distastefully she said, ‘As an apology that fails on all counts. Leave it, Sean. It doesn’t matter.’

He took a step towards her. ‘Was it worth it, Jo? No matter how much money he had, sleeping with an old man—he must have been at least forty years older than you—can’t have been much fun. I hope he left you a decent amount in his will, although somehow I doubt it.’ His voice thickened, and he took another step towards her. ‘Did he? I believe billionaires are tight as hell when it comes to money—’

‘That’s enough!’ she flashed, a little fear lending weight to her disgust. ‘Stop right now.’

‘Why should I? Everyone on Rotumea knows your mother was a call girl—’

‘Don’t you dare!’ Her voice cut into his filthy insinuation. ‘My mother was a model, and the two are not synonymous—if you understand what that means.’

Sean opened his mouth to speak, but swivelled around when another male voice entered the conversation, a crisp English accent investing the words with compelling authority.

‘You heard her,’ the man said. ‘Calm down.’

Jo jerked around to face the man who’d sat at the next table as he finished brutally, ‘Whatever you’re offering, she doesn’t want it. Get going.’

‘Who the hell are you?’ Sean demanded.

‘A passing stranger.’ His contempt strained Jo’s nerves. ‘I suggest you get into your vehicle and go.’

Sean started to bluster, stopping abruptly when the stranger said coolly, ‘It’s not the end of the world. Things have a habit of looking better a few weeks down the track, and no man’s ever died just because a woman turned him down.’

‘Thanks for nothing.’ Sean’s voice was surly. He swung to Jo. ‘OK, I’ll go, but don’t come running to me when you find yourself kicked out of Henderson’s house. I bet anything you like he left everything to his family. Women like you are two a penny—’

‘Just go, Sean,’ she said tensely, struggling to keep the lid on her embarrassment and anger.

He left then, and when his footsteps had died away she dragged in a breath and said reluctantly, ‘Thanks.’

‘I suggest you let the next one down a bit more tactfully.’ A caustic note in the stranger’s voice was overlaid with boredom.

Jo caught back a terse rejoinder. In spite of his tone she was grateful for his interference. For a few moments she’d almost been afraid of Sean.

‘I’ll try to keep your advice in mind,’ she said with scrupulous politeness, and got into her car.

Once on the road she grimaced. The spat with Sean had unsettled her; she’d totally misread the situation with him.

Like her he was a New Zealander, in Rotumea to manage the local branch of a fishing operation. Although from the first he’d made it clear he found her attractive, he’d appeared to accept the limits she put on their contact with good grace. Several times she’d searched her memory in case something she’d said or done had given him the idea that she wanted to be more than friendly. She could recall nothing, ever.

Frustrated, she swerved to avoid a bird afflicted with either a death wish or an unshakeable sense of its immortality. Naturally, the bird was a masked booby … the clown of the Pacific.

Concentrate, she told herself fiercely.

After Tom’s death, Sean’s suggestion of an affair had come out of the blue, but she’d let him down as gently as she could, only to be shocked and totally unprepared for his sneering anger and contempt.

She didn’t like that he’d lain in wait for her to deliver that insulting apology. His belief that she and Tom were lovers still made her feel sick. It seemed that Sean believed any relationship between a man and a woman had to have a sexual base.

Neanderthal! In a way Tom was like the father she’d never known.

That night she slept badly, the thick humidity causing her to wonder if a cyclone was on its way. However, when she checked the weather forecast the following morning she was relieved to see that although one was heading across the Pacific, it would almost certainly miss Rotumea.

Then her shop manager rang to apologise because a family crisis meant she wouldn’t be in until after lunch, so Jo put aside the paperwork that had built up over the month since Tom’s death, and went into the only town on the island to take Savisi’s place.

And of course she had to deal with the worst customer she’d ever come across, an arrogant little snip of about twenty whose clothes proclaimed far too much money and whose manners reminded Jo of an unpleasant animal—a weasel, she decided sardonically, breathing a sigh of relief when the girl swayed, all hips and pout, out of the shop.

But at least Savisi arrived immediately after midday to relieve her. She drove back to the oasis of Tom’s house, yet once she’d eaten lunch she paced about restlessly, unable to draw any comfort from its familiarity.

In the end, she decided a swim in the lagoon would make her feel more human.

It certainly refreshed her, but not enough. Wistfully eyeing the hammock slung from the branch of one of the big overhanging trees, she surrendered to temptation.

Her name, spoken in a deep male voice, woke her with a start. Yawning, she peered resentfully through her lashes at the figure of a tall man with the tropical sun behind him. She couldn’t see his features, and although she recognised his voice she couldn’t slot him into her life.

Groggy from sleep, she muttered, ‘Go away.’

‘I’m not going away. Wake up.’

The tone hit her like an icy shower. And the words were a direct order, with the implied suggestion of a threat. Indignant and irritated, she scrambled out of the hammock and pushed her mass of hair back to stare upwards, her dazed gaze slowly travelling over the stranger’s features while she forced her brain into action.

Oh. The man from last night …

Feeling oddly vulnerable, she wished she’d chosen a bathing suit that covered more skin than this bikini.

Not that he was showing any interest in her body. That assessing stare was fixed on her face.

‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded. ‘This is a private beach.’

‘I know. I came to see you.’

Although Jo just managed to stop a dumbfounded gape, nothing could prevent her jerky step backwards. Shock, and a strange feverish thrill shot through her, dissipating when she realised who he had to be. Hastily she shoved on her sunglasses—a fragile shield against his penetrating survey—and blurted, ‘You’re the solicitor, right?’ Frowning, she added, ‘I thought you weren’t coming until tomorrow.’

Not that he looked anything like a solicitor. Nothing so tame! Pirates came to mind, or Vikings—lethal and overwhelmingly male and almost barbaric. And very, very vital. It was hard to imagine him sitting behind a desk and drawing up wills …

‘I am not the solicitor,’ he said curtly.

Her eyes narrowed. ‘Then who are you?’

‘I’m Luc MacAllister.’

Like his face, the name was familiar, yet her groggy mind couldn’t place it. Warily, she asked, ‘All right, Luc MacAllister, what do you want?’

‘I’ve told you—I came to see you.’ Again he seemed bored.

Before she could organise her thoughts he spoke again, each word incisive and clear.

‘My mother was Tom Henderson’s wife.’

‘Tom?’ she said, everything suddenly clicking into place with ominous clarity. Heat stained her face.

So this large, brutally handsome man was Tom’s stepson.