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‘I’ll answer your question if you’ll answer one of mine,’ he offered, with such smooth guile that Nora almost grinned.
In fact, the knowledge that she was innocent of all his suspicions put her in a position of hidden strength when it came to bargaining with the truth. It was Blake who had secrets to protect.
‘As long as it doesn’t involve me giving you confidential information about my employer,’ she stated firmly.
He gave her a bland look. ‘I would never try to compromise your integrity.’ At her disbelieving snort, he added, ‘I have the greatest admiration for people who fight for their ethical principles.’
‘Even as you try to circumvent them,’ Nora murmured, although, strangely enough, she believed him. ‘So, what’s your one question?’ She propped her chin on her hand, the reflection from the flickering candles creating dancing flames of mischief in her honey-brown eyes, her sharpened wits ready to repel any attempt at subtle trickery.
‘Why are you afraid of heights?’
CHAPTER NINE
NORA’S BODY JERKED in surprise and her chin slid off the back of her palm, her teeth meeting with a sharp click that made her head hum.
‘That’s it? That’s your question?’
‘I’m curious,’ he said, hooking one arm over the back of his chair, angling his body towards her, his eyes intent on the startled oval of her face. ‘Is it a bad case of vertigo, or a genuine phobia?’
‘I don’t know what you mean by genuine,’ she flared defensively. ‘I’m not putting it on, if that’s what you’re implying—’
‘I think you’re confusing me with your former friend.’ Once again he displayed an alarming ability to read her mind. ‘I was in the glass lift with you, remember? I know you weren’t faking that panic attack…although if it was a full-blown phobia I doubt that I would have been able to distract you as completely as I did….’
Nora suspected he was seriously underrating his sexual impact, but she wasn’t going to pander to his already healthy ego by saying so.
‘I thought that fake florist you sicced on me—’
‘Doug is actually my Chief of Security,’ he said.
‘I thought Doug—’ she pinched out the offender’s name with disdain ‘—had ferreted out everything there was to know about me. Didn’t he mention how my parents died?’ Finding she needed to do something with her hands, Nora stood and began to clear the table.
‘Only that they were killed in an accident when you were four years old—I assumed it was a car crash.’ He circled her slim wrist with implacably gentle fingers as she reached across for his plate. ‘Leave the dishes,’ he ordered with rough impatience, tugging her around the edge of the table until she stood facing him. ‘What happened, Nora?’
Why was she resisting? It was old news, after all…
She sighed. ‘We were picnicking at a regional beach park and Mum and Dad went for a walk up a track over the headland. It was the day after some heavy rain and my mother slipped and went over the edge of the cliff. When my dad climbed down to help her they both fell to the rocks below.’
His lean face tightened with shock. His fingers slipped from her wrist to enclose her hand in a compassionate grip. ‘My God, you saw all this? No wonder you were traumatised—!’
‘Oh, no!’ She was chastened by his shaken response to her stark description. ‘Sean and I never saw anything—we were with my aunt at the far end of the beach where there was a sand-castle competition for kids. I didn’t know the details until years later. I can’t remember what they told me at the time. Sean was nine, old enough to understand what had happened, but I don’t even have any real memories of life with Mum and Dad.’
‘But you’ve been afraid of heights ever since?’ She glanced yearningly at the dirty dishes, but he caught her other hand and drew her reluctant body further between his splayed knees. ‘Nora?’
She sighed at the unyielding set of his jaw. This was the part she was really reluctant to talk about.
‘No, only since I was fourteen, if you must know. It was just a silly overreaction…’ She trailed off, but he waited patiently for her to continue. ‘I went on a biology field trip with my high school class. I didn’t realise until we got there that it was the same regional park. I’d never been back there, but we were up on the cliffs looking at nesting sites and I felt this compulsion to take a quick look over the edge—to—I don’t know—just to see.’
He leaned forward and she was aware of the hard column of his splayed thighs, the utter intensity of his gaze, the latent strength in the lithe body. It was both alarming and alluring to be the focus of all his concentrated attention, almost as if he really cared…
‘So I looked down—and I saw—a woman was sunbathing on one of the slabs of rock at the base of the cliff…She was lying on her back on a red towel with her long hair spread out around her head—for a moment I actually thought that all the red was her blood! I didn’t realise some of the guys in the class had been rough-housing around behind me, and right at that moment I saw her—’ Her breath grew choppy. ‘Well, do you know that silly trick where a person sneaks up and grabs you around the waist with a violent jerk that seems to shove you forward but really just rattles you in place—?’
Blake cursed, surging to his feet, flattening her captive hands against his chest before roughly enclosing her in protective arms.
‘Goddamned idiots,’ he growled into the nimbus of curls at her temple, his hand moving up and down her rigid spine.
Nora tilted her head back so that she could see his face, his ferocious scowl brightening her heart. ‘They didn’t know my history; they were just boys being boys. Any other time and place and I probably would have been able to laugh it off,’ she said, striving to be fair.
‘As it was, I totally freaked out. Completely lost the plot, right there in front of the whole class. It was so-o-o humiliating. I knew what was happening but I just couldn’t seem to stop myself—screams, tears, throwing up—and worse…’ She bit her unruly tongue, dropping her gaze, hoping that he wouldn’t pick up on that mortifying detail. For a shy overweight teenager, losing control of her bladder in front of her peers had been a deeply shaming experience.
