Price of Passion Read Free Page A

self. That it had also taken him by surprise was evident from his hypersensitivity to any hint of possessiveness, and his thinly veiled restlessness whenever they had been together for any length of time. Sophistication had been the name of the game, and for a while she had actually carried it off.
    She caught herself up before she could begin to wallow in bittersweet memories, her determination hardening. Oh, no, she wasn’t going to let herself fall back into that trap! She was no longer that woman—willing to pander to his genius at the expense of her own needs and goals.
    ‘What’s going on is that I’m taking a long-overdue holiday,’ she said firmly. ‘I’ve accrued so much extra leave over the past two years that my boss was forced to point out a clause in my contract that says I have until next month to use it or lose it—’
    ‘Marcus?’ he interrupted sharply, latching onto the notion that his New Zealand publisher was involved. His eyes kindled with fury at the treachery. ‘Enright sent you to find me?’
    ‘Nobody sent me to find you—Marcus has no idea where I am,’ she insisted with perfect truth. Her reputation as a dedicated employee who could always be relied upon to work above and beyond the call of duty to support good client liaisons had taken a knock with her abrupt decision to take all the accumulated weeks owing on such short notice, and it had dived even further when she had rejected Marcus’s belated offer of a compensatory bonus if she sacrificed the accrual. Enright Media was a very tightly run ship, and it had entailed a lot of fast juggling of favours to get others to take on her responsibilities as well as their own while she was away, but as a researcher she was in a good position to know where the bodies were buried, and how and on whom to apply pressure. A disgruntled Marcus had been forced to concede that he had no legal grounds for insisting she break up her holiday allowance into smaller units, particularly as it meant she would be on deck over Christmas, when staff with young families were clamouring to jump ship.
    ‘I told you, I’m on a holiday. That’s when normal people take a break from their workaday lives to rest, travel or zonk out on a beach somewhere.’
    ‘And you expect me to believe that of all the holiday homes in all the beach resorts in all the world, you walk into this one?’ he demanded, his deep, velvet-smooth voice steeped in sarcasm.
    The paraphrase of the famous line from Casablanca struck a painful chord. It had been Kate’s ability to recognise quotes from old movies and obscure film noir classics that had captured his attention two years ago, when they had met at one of Marcus’ champagne-drenched book-launch parties. They had spent the early part of the evening trading one-liners, Drake’s fierce competitiveness challenged by her phenomenal memory for trivia and cool capacity to carry a bluff. Their feuding banter had become increasingly provocative as the night had worn on and Kate had shocked everyone, herself included, by leaving on his arm.
    ‘Coincidences do happen,’ she pointed out, relaxing deliberately back against the bench and taking another sip of her tea.
    His handsome face rearranged itself into sharp angles of contempt. ‘If I tried to use that tired old cliché in a book it would be laughed off the shelves.’
    ‘Which is why they say that truth is stranger than fiction,’ she said lightly, regarding him over the rim of the chunky mug. For once she almost felt in control of the relationship as she watched him vibrate with frustration. She was aware of a repressed violence in his nature, but for all his physicality she had never felt threatened by his considerable strength. At thirty-three, he had the maturity and experience to handle his inner demons. Whenever he exploded, it was with clever words rather than crude muscle.
    ‘The strange truth being that less than four weeks after I leave Auckland you “just happen”