The Prince's Pleasure. Robyn Donald

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СКАЧАТЬ amongst the other bankers in a final posed photograph on the museum steps. Buttering toast with a vicious sweep of the knife, she said to the empty kitchen, ‘I wonder just how much being superbly photogenic has helped his career as a banker. Lots, I’ll bet.’

      A swift glance through the window revealed a mellow autumn day, perfect for travelling. She planned to touch up her tan for ten glorious days at the beach house owned by the parents of a schoolfriend on an island forty miles north of Auckland. She had it all organised: days of glorious solitude stalking the perfect shot that was going to win her a competition.

      Still chewing toast and honey, she cast a cold glance at the newspaper. The morning after that icy interview with the Prince the gossip columnist had struck again wondering archly:

      What is going on between gorgeous Prince Luka and the lovely photographer? The same little bird that saw them together on the first night of the conference noticed the photographer emerging from the Prince’s private elevator with tumbled hair and distinctly bee-stung lips. Watch this space!

      So by now he’d be convinced she was feeding the wretched woman information.

      Not that Alexa cared. ‘Not even the tiniest bit,’ she said, smiling brilliantly—and lying.

      The island, she decided three hours later, manoeuvring her friends’ elderly four-wheel drive vehicle over the narrow winding track from Deep Harbour, was the ideal place to blob out—and to chisel a dangerously magnetic man out of her brain.

      The Thorntons had sited their bach on the ocean side of the island, more exposed to the waves and the winds than the gentler leeward side. That fitted Alexa’s mood perfectly, as did the comfortable middle-aged house crouched above a sweeping beach with sand the colour of fine champagne.

      And the forecasters were predicting that the weather would stay in Indian summer mode until after she returned to Auckland.

      Determined to enjoy herself, Alexa opened glass doors to let in the air, turned on the power and the water, and began to unload the vehicle. That done, she rang Sally Thornton in Auckland to tell her she’d arrived safely.

      Then she ran down the beach for a quick dip to wash off the road grime. At last, clad in denim shorts and a sleeveless blue-green T-shirt that gave some colour to her eyes, she strolled out onto the deck and stared out to sea.

      ‘Not another house in sight,’ she said with satisfaction. The ruinous farmhouse along the beach, crouched defensively behind thick old trees, didn’t count.

      Smiling, she dragged a lounger out onto the deck and squinted along the bay, mentally framing at least three superb shots. Tomorrow she’d go out and see what else she could find. She wanted to play with black and white shots.

      Out of nowhere sprang the image of Luka’s face when he’d accused her of leaking gossip to the press—a face with the kind of hard, forceful bone structure that photographed magnificently.

      ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ she muttered in frustration.

      Absurdly sensitive to beauty she might be, but it was ridiculous to obsess about a man she’d only seen three times. OK, so he kissed like a dark angel, but punishing kisses had gone out with her mother’s generation. No, her grandmother’s!

      Alexa grinned suddenly, recalling her grandmother—bright, modern, and tough enough to be a solo parent when it would have been a lot easier to put her son up for adoption. Gran would have had no truck with punishing kisses either. Her smile faded swiftly as loneliness rolled over her in a dark tide.

      Her happy, charmed life, so safe and secure, had come to a bitter end. Her mother had died after a long illness when Alexa was just fourteen; two days previously, on the way home from the hospital, Alexa had been the only survivor of a motorway accident that had killed her father and grandmother. Stunned with grief, and left without relatives, Alexa had spent the rest of her school years in a foster home.

      Yet, unlike some of the others there, she’d had happy memories. Just what sort of memories haunted Luka of Dacia, who’d admitted to imbibing distrust with his mother’s milk?

      ‘Get out of my head!’ Alexa commanded the man who’d had her dismissed like a dishonest servant.

      Late that night, woken from a deep sleep by something she’d barely heard, she pulled on a woollen jersey against the chilly air and made her way out onto the deck. The timeless silhouette of the hills brooding against the night sky and the subtle obsidian sheen of the sea beneath the stars usually satisfied something deep in her soul, but not tonight. The warm glow from the small lamp in the sitting room beckoned much more strongly.

      She’d swung around to go inside again when a point of light stopped her. Adrenalin powered up her pulse-rate by several beats a minute. No one had lived in the old house along the beach since the owner had been forced to spend his final years on the mainland.

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