The Pleasure King's Bride. Emma Darcy

      Tension gripped her entire body as she fought the deeply personal needs he evoked. She wanted this man. She wanted to experience all of him so badly, it was like being torn in two, the rational part of her mind insisting an intimate involvement with him would spill over to an attachment with Alicia and the money men would never allow it, not in the long run, so it could only end in wretched torment.

      Jared made one of his graceful gestures, the long artistic fingers opening in a curve of giving as he softly added, “Of course, the choice is yours.”

      What would it be like to have those fingers caressing her, making her feel loved and cherished and precious to him? Her stomach clenched in a savage desire to know how it would be...the pleasure King making love to her...to have this, just for herself, for at least a little time. Her heart drummed a vehement plea to make her own choice—a choice that shut out every other factor that had ruled her life for so many years.

      “I’d like to go, Mummy.”

      And why shouldn’t she? Christabel thought fiercely, looking at her daughter with an aching well of love. Why shouldn’t Alicia enjoy the company of a man who didn’t see her as a pawn in a monstrous web of greed? To add something more normal to their life here in Broome...why not?

      “Then we shall go,” she answered decisively, defying all the gremlins that rode on her shoulders.

      Alicia clapped her hands in delight and lifted a gleeful face to Jared. “Honey prawns,” she archly reminded him.

      He laughed at her, his whole body visibly relaxing as he assured her, “I never go back on promises. Honey prawns there shall be.”

      “And chocolate chip ice-cream?”

      “Alicia!” Christabel chided.

      “I was just asking, Mummy,” came the hasty justification.

      “You know it’s not good manners.”

      A doleful sigh. “Sorry.”

      Christabel sighed, too, afraid she was committing an act of utter madness on an impulse she would inevitably regret, yet when she lifted her gaze to Jared’s and saw the happy warmth in his eyes, she couldn’t bring herself to care about the consequences of her decision.

      “Six-thirty would suit us better,” she said, wanting time to dry her hair, time to feel all a woman’s anticipation in the indulgence of getting ready for an evening with a man who truly wanted only her, not her connection to obscene wealth.

      “Fine by me.” He smiled the words, a smile that curled Christabel’s toes.

      “Thank you.” Her voice came out husky, furred by emotions rushing free from the strictures of years of discipline.

      “My pleasure,” he replied, then transferred his smile to Alicia. “Chocolate chip?”

      Her hands flew up into a fervent wish grasp. “Please?”

      “I’ll get some on my way home.”

      “Oh, thank you!”

      He lifted his hand in a farewell salute to both of them, then strolled away with the air of a man who had come and conquered and the world was now his oyster.

      Except it wasn’t, Christabel thought ruefully. Only this little bit of the world belonged to Jared King. She remembered her visit to the great outback cattle station owned by his family, a vast land holding on the other side of the Kimberly from Broome. King’s Eden, it was called. She’d been amongst the contingent of the family’s employees in the pearl industry, invited to Nathan King’s wedding, which had been an eerily soul-stirring ceremony, initiated by Aborigines playing didgeridoos.

      She was glad she’d gone, glad she’d experienced such a unique insight into the traditions of the outback and the feeling of an ancient, timeless heritage that was tied to the land. Not the wealth made from it. The land itself. King’s Eden.

      Would she prove to be a serpent in Jared’s Eden? The carrier of evil that would poison his piece of paradise?

      Sooner or later they would come—the powerful men in suits—and they’d destroy the normality of the life she’d established here, destroy whatever natural connections she’d made with people.

      Christabel shivered.

       Some things can’t be stopped.

      Jared’s words...but they applied to much more than their feelings for each other. Still, for a little while...a defiant recklessness surged over the torturous fears...she would have what she wanted. And so would Jared.

      It was his choice, too.

CHAPTER TWO

      FEAR...because he’d been wearing a suit.

      Jared mulled over that information as he drove back to the main shopping area to buy the chocolate chip ice-cream. It was another piece of the jigsaw he’d been fitting together ever since he’d met Christabel Valdez. The more he thought about it, the more it felt like a key piece.

      His unexpected apparel had represented some kind of threat to her peace of mind. Was the suit simply an image that evoked bad memories, or was there more to it than that, a fear of someone who always wore suits turning up in her life again?

      Jared didn’t care for this last thought. Yet perhaps it tied in with her living in a caravan, a mobile trailer home she could take with her if she felt the need to move at a moment’s notice. On the other hand, many people enjoyed the sense of a nomadic life that a caravan allowed. Not everyone wanted to put down roots in one place. Impossible to really know Christabel’s truth until she chose to reveal it herself.

      It wasn’t the done thing to pry into the background of people who came to work in the Australian out-back. There could be many reasons for dropping out of more sophisticated centres of civilisation. It might be as simple as a wish for a change of lifestyle, a need for space, a desire to experience something different...in which case they usually told you so. But there were those who stayed silent, wanting to shed what they’d left behind...and that was their personal and private business, to be respected as such.

      Christabel projected the first attitude but gave out so little of her past, Jared had concluded she wanted to shut the door on it. What had been tantalising, and intensely frustrating to him, was her stance of keeping everyone, including him, at arm’s length, as though she couldn’t bring herself to trust a close relationship, however much she might want it.

      And she did want it with him.

      Jared’s fingers curled more tightly around the driving wheel as triumphant excitement coursed through him. At last he’d broken through her resistance. She’d given in. Though why now...he shook his head. It didn’t matter.

      Perhaps it was the realisation that her fear—whatever its cause—was unfounded with him. If so, all the better. He didn’t want fear to play any part in their relationship. He’d sort that out soon enough, now he had the chance to get close to her, closer than he ever had before in five long months of laying subtle siege to her defences.

      Christabel...

      He smiled on a wave of sheer exhilaration as he rolled the lovely lilt of her name through his mind...a name he’d thought might haunt him all his days, accompanied by a vision of eyes that glittered like gold in moments of fierce emotion and darkened to a simmering, sensual amber in moments of pleasure.

      A woman with the heart of a tiger, he’d often thought, imagining her stretched out on his bed, lazily slumbrous, yet with those eyes inviting dangerous play, her satin-smooth olive skin gleaming, the rich abundance of her glorious long hair spreading silkily across pillows, the soft, perfect femininity of her body calling to everything male in him, a beautiful exotic mystery.

      A haunting name, a haunting image...and all this time it