The Platinum Collection: An Australian Conquest: The Incorrigible Playboy / His Most Exquisite Conquest / His Bought Mistress

He stopped. His shoulders squared and she saw his back muscles tense. He half turned to face her, a cutting look in his eyes that ripped through the amusement in hers. ‘I’m not into playboy tricks, Elizabeth. I simply remembered you liked them at your birthday lunch.’

That coldly spoken Elizabeth slapped her with the realisation that she was offending him every time she painted him as a playboy. Perhaps even insulting him. He’d told her straight out that the label was wrong in his eyes. Had she been doing him an injustice all this time? What hard evidence did she actually have that he used women lightly? None!

There was a sitting shelf at one end of the pool, and she settled on it, still enjoying the soft ripple of the water around her dangling legs as she thought back over the two years Harry had been dipping into her life while she’d been working for his brother. When he’d first walked into her office he’d emanated a megawatt attraction that had put her in such a tizzy physically she had instantly mistrusted and disliked his power to do that to her.

She’d reasoned that a man with so much personal magnetism was very likely to stray from any relationship since other women would always be eyeing him over, wanting a chance with him, especially when he was both wealthy and sexy. Determined not to go anywhere near that playing field, she had kept a rigid guard against his insidious assaults on her armour.

Now it felt as though she had prejudiced herself against a man who might well be worth knowing in a deeper sense than she had ever believed possible. Could he actually fulfil everything she had been looking for? His brother had definitely been more the type of character that appealed to her—solid, responsible—not dangerous like Harry. Yet Michael had not seen what he wanted in her. And was Harry really dangerous, or was that a false perception on her part?

She watched him emerge from the villa and stroll across the deck towards her, carrying a platter of oysters, a bottle of wine and two fresh glasses. He’d tucked a white towel around his waist. The sky had darkened and the flickering light of the torches he’d lit at the corners of the deck was not bright enough for her to see the expression in his eyes. Was he still angry with her?

‘Shall I get out?’ she asked.

‘Not if you don’t want to,’ he answered with a careless shrug. ‘I can serve you just as easily there.’

‘The water’s lovely.’

‘Then stay.’

He set the platter on the deck, sat on the edge of the pool and proceeded to open the bottle of wine and fill the glasses.

‘I do like oysters, Harry. Thank you for remembering,’ she said, hoping to erase the aphrodisiac remark.

He handed her the glass of white wine with a droll little smile. ‘I remembered your sister saying you loved chilli mud crab, too. I know a restaurant in Port Douglas that specialises in that dish so I had it cooked for you and it’s waiting in the microwave to be heated up when you want it.’

She stared at him, horribly shamed by his caring and generosity when she had treated him so meanly, using him as a distraction, even to going to bed with him in this villa because of Michael bringing Lucy here.

‘I’m sorry,’ she blurted out.

He frowned. ‘Sorry about what?’

‘My whole attitude towards you. It’s been uncaring and bitchy and...and soured by things that you weren’t even a part of. I haven’t been fair to you, Harry. I’ve never been fair to you and I don’t know why you’re being so nice to me because I don’t deserve it.’ Tears suddenly welled into her eyes and she quickly tried to smear them away with the back of her hand. ‘I’m sorry. I’m all messed up and I can’t help myself.’

‘It’s okay,’ he said soothingly. ‘Just take a few deep breaths and let it all go. Life is a bitch sometimes. The trick is to get past the bad bits. I’ve been trying to help you do that, Ellie.’

Ellie... The soft caring way her childhood name rolled off his tongue brought another spurt of tears to her eyes and screwed her up inside, stirring up the craven wish for someone to take care of her. She’d been taking care of herself and Lucy for so long, she needed someone to simply be there for her. But she couldn’t expect Harry to keep doing that. She didn’t know how far his kindness would stretch. What she could do was bask in it for a little while.

It took quite a few deep breaths to bring herself under control enough to manage a smile at him. ‘Thank you for helping me.’

‘You do deserve to have nice things done for you,’ he said seriously. ‘Everyone does. It makes the world a happier place. My mother taught me that. She was brilliant at it.’

She sipped the wine he had poured for her, remembering Sarah Pickard’s description of Yvette Finn—a sunny nature, radiating a joy in life that infected everyone around her. ‘Sarah said you’re like your mother,’ she remarked, starting to reappraise the man in a completely different light to how she had previously perceived him.

He gave a wry shake of his head. ‘A hard act to follow, but I try.’

‘Tell me about her,’ she said impulsively, wanting to understand where Harry was coming from.

He made an indecisive gesture. ‘Where to start?’

‘Start with how your father met her,’ she encouraged.

He laughed. ‘In hospital. He’d broken his leg and Mum was the only nurse who wouldn’t let him be grumpy.’

‘She was an ordinary common nurse?’ It surprised her, having imagined that Franklyn Finn would have married some beautiful accomplished socialite.

Harry shook his head. ‘I don’t think anyone would have said she was ordinary. All the patients loved her, my father included. He always considered himself extremely privileged that she learned to love him back. It took him quite some time to win her.’

‘She didn’t like him at first?’

‘It wasn’t that. She wasn’t sure about how she would fit into his life. Dad was a seriously driven guy. In the end, she made up a set of rules for how their marriage could work and he had to promise to keep to them.’

‘Did he?’

‘Never wavered from them. She was the light of his life and he was never going to let that light go out.’ He grimaced. ‘In a way, I guess it was a kind fate that they died together. They were so tied to each other.’