Christian hid his hands behind his back. "My reality has a lot more zeros in it."
"Well, mine doesn't." She reached around him to make him take the money and his arms came about her like muscle-sheathed iron.
"People around here tell me you peg your worth too low." His arms tightened. "And on the subject of unfinished business, I still haven't kissed you properly-improperly-yet."
His arms were warm against her back, his mouth inches from hers. Kezia began to struggle. Christian released her and raised his brows in mock surprise. "I thought you said I couldn't burn you now, even if I tried?"
Needing to have the last word made her reckless. "I also said I might just burn you, so don't play chicken with me. Unless you mean it." She threw the envelope down between them like a gauntlet. Then swallowed.
Christian pocketed the money, his eyes never leaving her face. "Oh, I mean it," he said slowly. "If you won't take my money-" his smile brought the butterflies back "-how about I put myself at your service for three hours?"
"That's some hourly rate," she said dryly, "but I like the idea of having you in my power."
"For three hours I'll do anything you want."
"Anything?" Kezia managed an ironic expression but her heart wasn't as good at overlooking innuendo. Unwittingly, she put a hand on her heart and Christian's smile reached his eyes. "You mean, dig potatoes or put out the trash or … "
"Get dirty," he agreed softly, and she stopped pretending she didn't understand his meaning and started pretending she could manage this.
CHAPTER SEVEN
"OKAY, I'LL ADMIT to a little sexual curiosity." Kezia regrouped, that wasn't what she'd meant to say. "But." That was better. "Why would I-Miss Uptight Whatever-abandon my principles and sleep with you on your last night in town?"
"Because you want to as much as I do. Because if you don't get some serious fun, you'll implode. Because I don't need you like everyone else around here seems to."
She could say nothing to that.
"What would it be like-" his casual tone was intensely seductive when combined with the lazy eroticism of his gaze "-to give yourself permission to be selfish? To take what you want from someone who doesn't need you to care about his feelings? To have a man devote himself entirely to your pleasure?"
It was a fantasy she hadn't known she harbored. With an effort Kezia remembered he'd broken her heart and she still had painful scars. "So you're offering to be my sex slave for three hours?" she countered, deliberately reducing his offer to carnal.
"No." He sounded surprised and her cheeks burned with mortification. Christian tucked an errant strand of hair behind her ear, trailed his fingers, feather-light, across her heated cheek. "But your idea sounds a hell of a lot more fun than mine."
"What idea is that?" Don appeared at Kezia's elbow and put his empty glass on the bar.
"She wants a sex slave," said Christian frankly, "and I'm applying for the job, so go away."
"So like her grandmother." Don patted Kezia's hand then asked Christian, "Is there really no way around that letter? We couldn't give one of your cars to the tax department, for example?"
"None of my money, in any shape or form, can come near the place," quoted Christian, and just like that a solution came to him, so simple he could have kicked himself for not thinking of it before.
Excited, he jumped off the bar stool. "I forgot to make a call." He hesitated, looking at Kezia, knowing he was losing the chance to exorcise the soul-searing memory of first love with the grownup realism of down-and-dirty sex. "You know where I sleep."
"Sleep well," she retorted, but she looked like a woman reprieved, which bugged him all the way up to his room.
The day Kezia had arrived at high school and accepted his smile at face value, he'd liked her. All the other girls either vied for his attention or, sufficiently frightened by their parents, crossed the street to avoid him. But after school that first day, Kezia had crossed it to walk with him. "You're heading in the same direction," she'd explained. "Would you mind showing me the quickest way home?"
He'd quipped, "Baby, I'm the guy who can take you all the way," and she'd said, "Thank you very much." He'd spent most of that first walk home trying to explain that being sixteen and ignorant was all very well in some mission. But in a country town like Waterview where sex was all teenagers had to think about, she needed to wise up or she'd find herself in a barn with her panties around her ankles.
Which was precisely what he'd intended for Marion's older sister, Sally, that night, after she'd intimated that she'd go all the way with him. Instead he'd endured two years of blue balls waiting for Kezia.
As he waited for his partner to pick up, it occurred to him that leaving as the good guy had somehow become more important than sexual conquest.
This afternoon Kezia had suggested she'd changed her mind all those years ago, throwing everything he believed about her into doubt. Except it turned out she hadn't changed her mind and he could continue to think of her as an emotional coward. But that didn't square with the woman who had coolly mortgaged her future to save others.
Christian was frowning over her inconsistencies when his partner picked up. "Luke? It's me. How would you and Jordan like to own a bankrupt hotel in a rural backwater? It has dwindling business and needs thousands of dollars spent on renovations." Luke was obviously stunned into silence on the other end. Christian laughed. "And I haven't even mentioned the rat."
"Either that woman is standing there with a gun to your head or you're in love with her. Which is it?" Luke's dry comment wiped the grin off Christian's face.
"Neither," he said shortly. Quickly he outlined his plan and asked his partner to pick it over for holes.
"Jordan's here for dinner," said Luke. "I'll run it by him."
As he waited, Christian relaxed. Between the three of them, they'd make this work. Years ago, Jordan and Luke had talked Christian into getting his feet wet as a white-water rafting guide on the Whanganui River. Christian had then talked them into sinking their earnings-earmarked for masters degrees-into a downpayment on the ailing company they guided for. Now they owned a multimillion-dollar tourism concern.
Luke came back and suggested a few modifications. "Incidentally, Jordan thinks you're deluding yourself."
Christian frowned. "I'm sure we've covered all the bases."
"He thinks it's love, too."
"I hate to throw cold water on your fevered imaginations," Christian said with exaggerated patience, "but I've already been there, done that and got the T-shirt that says Sucker."
"You two have history?" Luke's tone lost its lazy drawl. "How interesting that you never told us."
"Gotta go now, thanks for the help." Christian rang off. For a moment he stood pensive, then knuckled down to the business of extricating everybody from this mess-including himself.
AT 1:00 A.M. KEZIA GAVE UP on sleep and crept like a ghostly wraith in her satin nightdress into the sitting room. She switched on a lamp, hauled a cardboard box close, and began to sift through papers. Her thoughts were in chaos. She had to bring order to something or she'd go mad.
Her tears fell on her grandmother's spidery handwriting but she angrily wiped them away. She may have lost her inheritance but she had her health, her job skills … many of her staff were far worse off. And she'd come through Christian's visit unscathed. With a pithy curse, she reached for the tissues and blew her nose hard.
She was an astute, sensible woman with responsibilities she should be thinking about right now, but what was she doing? Aching for a man who offered her a respite from virtue.
No other lover had aroused the passionate side of her nature, and with Christian would go her last opportunity to play without boundaries.
You know where I sleep.
Before she could talk herself out of it, Kezia stood and walked along the passageway to Christian's bedroom door. Took a deep breath and knocked.
He opened it, tie and jacket discarded, a cell phone pressed to his ear. The sight threw Kezia completely. She'd expected a moonlit shape that would segue into hers. Instead she was faced with a fully dressed man in a prosaic conversation about transferring funds. It occurred to her that alcohol might still be affecting her judgment.