By Royal Command. Robyn Donald
loser. His thrusting bone structure—high cheekbones and a chin that took on the world—spoke of a total lack of compromise.
And now that he’d dropped the mocking veneer, neither old clothes nor villainous stubble could hide his formidable authority. Beneath the beachcomber persona was pure alpha male, testosterone and arrogance smoking off his bronzed hide like an aura. Untamed, certainly, but—intriguing, if you fancied men who looked as though they could deal with anything up to and including marauding Martians.
In other words, she thought hollowly, just the sort of man to take her to Paige’s pet village—if she could ignore the instincts that warned her to run like crazy in the opposite direction.
He looked up, meeting her sideways glance with a coolly speculative survey.
Lauren’s self-possession crumbled under an awareness as steamy and ruthless as the tropical heat. Not my type! she thought fiercely. She preferred men with at least basic social skills. More colour stung her skin, fading swiftly at the note of desperation in the receptionist’s tone.
Black brows meeting above a nose that hinted at Roman gladiators, the newcomer posed several staccato questions, to which the woman responded with increasing reluctance.
Feeling like an eavesdropper, Lauren examined a rack of postcards. Fans hummed softly overhead, sending waves of sultry air over her bare arms. The small resort promised total relaxation, and what it lacked in modern luxuries it made up for in exquisite beauty and peace. Until this man appeared she hadn’t missed air-conditioning a bit.
Now, in spite of the heat, she wished she’d slung a shirt over her shoulders before leaving her cabin.
Eventually the receptionist’s lengthy explanation—punctuated by worried glances at Lauren—wound down to a conclusion.
Something was clearly amiss; a chilly emptiness congealed beneath Lauren’s ribs, but she hadn’t come all this way to be fobbed off.
The man turned to inspect her. ‘Why do you want to go to this village? It has no accommodation for tourists, nothing to do. The only bathroom is a pool in the river. They are not geared for sightseers.’
He had a faint trace of an accent, so elusive Lauren wasn’t sure it existed. Exasperated by the beads of moisture gathering across her brow and top lip, she evaded his question. ‘I know that, but I’m not planning to stay. All I want is to spend an afternoon there. In fact, that’s why I came to Sant’Rosa—specifically to go there.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t see that it’s any concern of yours.’ Lauren didn’t try to hide the frosty undertone to her words.
He shrugged broad shoulders. ‘Whatever your reason is, it’s not good enough,’ he said flatly, and forestalled her instant objection. ‘Come and have a drink with me and I’ll explain why.’
Was this merely a pick-up? Obscurely disappointed, Lauren glanced at the receptionist, who hurried into speech with an air of relief. ‘Mr Guy will help you,’ she promised, indicating the man with a wave of one beautiful hand and a smile that paid tribute to his potent male magnetism.
OK, so he wasn’t a rapist or serial killer. Not here, anyway.
‘In that case, I will have a drink, thank you,’ Lauren said calmly, wishing that she’d worn something cool and well-cut and sharply classical—and a lot less revealing.
And it would help to have some make-up to shelter behind; sunscreen and a film of coloured lip gloss were flimsy shields against the hard intimidation of his gaze.
The man beside her walked as silently and easily as a panther, his controlled grace hinting subtly of menace. Lauren resented the way he towered above her, especially as each inch of powerful, honed male exuded a potent sensuality.
So his name was Mr Someone Guy. Or Mr Guy Someone. And she wasn’t going to tell him who she was; if he didn’t have the manners to properly introduce himself, she certainly wasn’t going to make the effort.
As though he felt her survey, he shafted a glance her way. A high-voltage charge sizzled between them, part antagonism, part heady chemistry. Tension jolted her heart into overcompensation.
Turning her face resolutely towards the small bar, she decided wildly that he was wasted here. A man who gave off enough electricity to melt half the world’s ice caps should head for some place where his talents could be really appreciated.
The North Pole, for instance.
Who was he? The local layabout, angling for a wild holiday fling? Or perhaps looking out for a rich, lonely woman to rescue him from all this tropical heat?
No. Disturbingly sexy he might be, but instinct warned her he was more buccaneer than gigolo.
In the voice her half-brother, for whom she worked, referred to as Patient but Friendly Executive, she asked, ‘Do you own the resort, Mr Guy?’
Winged black brows lifted. ‘No,’ he said briefly. ‘It belongs to the local tribe.’ Without touching her, he steered her across to a table beneath a large thatched umbrella. ‘This is probably the coolest spot around, and it’s got a good view of the lagoon.’
Grateful for the shade, she lowered herself into a chair and persevered, ‘But you live here? In this particular area of Sant’Rosa?’ she amended, when his brows lifted in saturnine enquiry.
‘Off and on.’ He nodded to a waiter. ‘What would you like to drink?’
‘Papaya and pineapple juice, thank you.’
He ordered it for her, and a beer for himself. A tiny gecko scuttled across the table; smiling, Lauren watched it disappear over the edge. When she looked up, Guy was watching her.
‘You’re not afraid of them?’ he asked.
A subtle intonation convinced her that he wasn’t English. ‘Not the little ones, although some of the big ones have a nasty predatory gleam in their eyes.’
He laughed outright at that—another slow, sexy laugh that brushed her taut nerves with velvety insinuation.
‘They won’t bite, not even in self-defence,’ he said, stressing the first word just enough for Lauren to immediately wonder if he bit—and when…
He finished, ‘But you’d be surprised at the number of women who are terrified of even the tiny ones.’
‘Men too, I’ll bet. It makes you wonder why some people come to the tropics.’ Was the stubble soft to touch—or bristly? She’d never kissed a man with that much—
Whoa!
He leaned back in the chair, his pose utterly relaxed, but his level, cool gaze held her prisoner. ‘So why are you here? More specifically, why are you determined to find your way to one of the more untamed spots on Sant’Rosa?’
She parried, ‘Is that untamed as in dangerous?’
‘As in without conveniences,’ he told her, his keen gaze steady and intimidating. ‘But it’s in the border area, and the border between Sant’Rosa and the Republic has always been tense.’
‘I thought the treaty after the civil war stopped the threat of an invasion by the Republic.’
Wide shoulders lifted in a slight shrug. ‘A new player—a charismatic preacher—seems to have got together a ragtag following on both sides of the border. He’s preaching part religious revival, part cargo cult. Which is—’
‘I know what a cargo cult is,’ she said crisply. ‘Its followers expect a saviour to bring them the benefits of western civilisation. I’d not realised they could be violent.’
‘So far they’re not, but over the past couple of days there have been rumours that someone is supplying them with weapons.’
Not that anyone had actually seen the rifles and explosives that were being talked about. Guy suspected they didn’t