Kimberley Blackstone's long stride--and the Louis
Vuitton suitcase she towed in her wake--gathered momentum as
she left customs at Auckland's airport and headed toward the
exit. Despite the handicap of her three-inch heels, she hit
the arrivals' hall at a near jog, her focus on grabbing the
first taxi in the rank outside, her mind making the
transition from laidback holiday mode to all that awaited
her at House of Hammond on her first workday after the
Christmas-New Year break.
She didn't notice the waiting horde of media until it
was too late. Flashbulbs exploded around her like a New
Year's lightshow. She skidded to a halt, so abruptly her
trailing suitcase rammed into her legs.
This had to be a case of mistaken identity. Surely.
Kimberley hadn't been on the paparazzi hit list for close to
a decade, not since she'd estranged herself from her
billionaire father and his headline-hungry diamond business.
But, no, it was her name they called. Her
face the focus of a swarm of lenses that circled like avid
hornets. Her heart started to pound with fear-fuelled
adrenaline.
What did they want?
What the hell was going on?
With a rising sense of bewilderment she scanned the
crowd for a clue and her gaze fastened on a tall leonine
figure forcing his way to the front. A tall, familiar
figure. Her head came up in stunned recognition and their
gazes collided across the sea of heads before the cameras
erupted with another barrage of flashes, this time right in
her exposed face.
Blinded by the flashbulbs--and by the shock of that
momentary eye-meet--Kimberley didn't realise his intent
until he'd forged his way to her side. Possibly by the sheer
strength of his personality. She felt his arm wrap around
her shoulder, pulling her into the protective shelter of his
body, allowing her no time to object. No chance to lift her
hands to ward him off.
In the space of a hastily drawn breath, she found
herself plastered knee to nose against six-feet of
hard-bodied male.
Ric Perrini.
Her lover for ten torrid weeks, her husband for ten
tumultuous days.
Her ex for ten tranquil years.
After all this time, he should not have felt so
familiar but, oh dear Lord, he did. She knew the scent of
that body and its lean, muscular strength. She knew its heat
and its slick power and every response it could draw from
hers.
She also recognised the ease with which he'd taken
control of the moment and the decisiveness of his deep voice
when it rumbled close to her ear. "I have a car waiting
outside. Is this your only luggage?"
Kimberley nodded. A week at a tropical paradise did not
require much in the way of clothes. Especially when she was
wearing the one office-style dress and the only pair of
heels she'd packed. When he released his grip on her
shoulder to take charge of her compact suitcase, she longed
to dig those heels into the ground, to tell him exactly
where he could park his car along with his presumptuous
attitude.
But she wasn't stupid. She'd seen Perrini in action
often enough to know that attitude yielded results. The
fierce expression and king-of-the-jungle manner he did so
well would keep the snapping newshounds at bay.
Not that she was about to be towed along as meekly as
her wheeled luggage.
"I assume you will tell me," she said
tightly, "what this welcome party is all about."
"Not while the welcome party is within earshot.
No."
Barking a request for the cameramen to stand aside,
Perrini took her hand and pulled her into step with his
ground-eating stride. Kimberley let him because he was
right, damn his arrogant, Italian-suited hide. Despite the
speed with which he whisked her across the terminal
forecourt, she could almost feel the hot breath of the
pursuing media on her back.
This was neither the time nor the place for
explanations. Inside his car, however, she would get
answers.
Now the initial shock had been blown away -- by the
haste of their retreat, by the heat of her gathering
indignation, by the rush of adrenaline fired by Perrini's
presence and the looming verbal battle --her brain was
starting to tick over. This had to be her father's doing.
And if it was a Howard Blackstone publicity ploy, then it
had to be about Blackstone Diamonds, the company that ruled
his life.
The knowledge made her chest tighten with a familiar
ache of disillusionment.
She'd known her father would be flying in from Sydney
for today's opening of the newest in his chain of exclusive,
high-end jewellery boutiques. The opulent shopfront sat
adjacent to the rival business where Kimberley worked. No
coincidence, she thought bitterly, just as it was no
coincidence that Ric Perrini was here in Auckland ushering
her to his car.
Perrini was Howard Blackstone's right-hand man, second
in command at Blackstone Diamonds and head of the mining
division, that position of power a legacy of his short-lived
marriage to the boss's daughter. No doubt her father had
sent him to fetch her; the question was why?
On his last visit to Auckland, Howard had
attempted--not for the first time--to lure her back to
Blackstone's, to the job she'd walked away from the day she
walked out on her marriage. That meeting had escalated into
an ugly word-slinging bout and ended with Howard vowing to
write her from his will if she didn't return to Blackstone's
immediately.
Two months later Kimberley was still here in Auckland,
still working for his sworn enemy at House of Hammond. They
hadn't spoken since; she hadn't expected any other outcome.
When her father said he was wiping his hands of her, she
took him at his word.
Yet here she was, being rushed toward a gleaming black
limousine by her father's number-one henchman. She had no
clue why he'd changed his mind or what the media presence
signified apart from more Blackstone headlines and the
certainty that she was being used. Again. Sending Perrini
was the final cruel twist.
By the time they arrived at the waiting car, her blood
was simmering with a mixture of remembered hurt and raw
resentment. The driver stowed her luggage while Perrini
stowed her. She slid across the silver-grey leather seat and
the door closed behind her, shutting her off from the
cameras that seemed to be multiplying by the minute.
Perrini paused on the pavement beside the hire car, his
hands held wide in a gesture of appeal as he spoke. Whatever
he was saying only incited more questions, more flashbulbs,
and Kimberley steamed with the need to know what was going
on. She reached for her door handle, and when it didn't open
she caught the driver's eye in the rear-view mirror.
"Could you please unlock the doors? I need to get
out."
He looked away. And he didn't release the central
locking device.
Kimberley's blood heated from slow simmer to fast boil.
"I am here under duress. Release the lock or I swear I
will--"
Before she could complete her threat, the door opened
from outside and Perrini climbed in beside her. She'd been
closer inside the airport terminal, when he'd shielded her
from the cameras with the breadth of his body, but then
she'd been too sluggish with disbelief to react. Now she
slid as far away as the backseat allowed, and as she
fastened her seatbelt the car sped away from the kerb.
Primed for battle, she turned to face her adversary.
"You had me locked inside this car out of earshot while
you talked to the media? This had better be good,
Perrini."
He looked up from securing his seatbelt and their eyes
met and held. For the first time there was nothing between
them, no distraction, no interruption, and for a beat of
time she forgot herself in those unexpectedly blue eyes, in
the unbidden rush of memories that rose in a choking wave.
For a second she thought she saw an echo of the same
raw emotion deep in his eyes but then she realised it was
only tiredness. And tension.
"I wouldn't be here," he said, low and gruff,
"if this wasn't important."
The implication that he would rather be anywhere but
here, with her, fisted tight around Kimberley's heart. But
she lifted her chin and stared him down. "Important to
whom? My father?"
He didn't have to answer. She saw it in the narrowing
of his deep-set eyes, as if her comment had irritated him.
Good. She'd meant it to.
"Did he think sending you would change my
mind?" she continued coolly, despite the angry heat
that churned her stomach. "Because he could have saved
himself--"
"He didn't send me, Kim."
There was something in the delivery of that simple
statement that brought all her senses to full alert. Finally
she allowed herself to take him all in, not lounging with
his usual arrogant ease but sitting straight and still.
Sunlight spilled through the side window onto his face,
highlighting the angles and planes, the straight line of his
nose and the deep cleft in his chin.
And the muscle that ticked in his jaw.
She could feel the tension now, strong enough to suck
up all the air in the luxury car's roomy interior. She could
see it, too, in the grim line of his mouth and the intensity
of his cobalt-blue eyes.
Despite the muggy summer's morning Kimberley felt an
icy shiver of foreboding. Beneath the warmth of her holiday
tan her skin goose-bumped. Something was very, very wrong.
"What is it?" Her fingers clutched at the handbag
in her lap, gripping the soft leather straps as if that
might somehow anchor her against what was to come. "If
my father didn't send you, then why are you here?"