Chapter 48

"NICKY!"

Matt gritted his teeth as Peter Owen headed towards them, arms outstretched.

"You look wonderful!"

His bedroom-blue eyes might just get socked out if they kept gobbling her up.

"Who'd have thought that skinny little red-haired kid would bloom into such a beauty?'' he raved on, grabbing her upper arms and planting a kiss on both cheeks.

She laughed and bantered, "Who'd have thought Peter Pan would become such a maestro of the theatre?''

Peter Pan was right, Matt thought darkly. The man was forty and still sparkled with the exuberance of a boy who'd never grow up.

"What a premiere! Are you proud of me?" he preened. Again she laughed. "Immensely. You're Superman tonight." "That's exactly how I feel. I could leap off tall buildings..." Pity he didn't do it!

"Well, don't go faster than a speeding bullet," she teasingly advised. "Enjoy the moment."

"Ah...you always were a sweetheart, Nicky dear. Good to see you!

Got to go and mix now but I'll claim a dance from you later." Over my dead body!

He shot a grin at Matt. "Look after her. She's very special." I don't need you to tell me that.

Matt forced a smile. "Great night, Peter! Well done!"

He paused, lifting a hand in salute to the real star. "Gina sang like the angel she is," he said with sincere fervour before moving on to spread himself around.

It made Matt feel mean about his more violent thoughts. He knew there was real affection between Gina and Peter. Even Alex had grown to like the man. Peter was godfather to their baby daughter. But he did have a reputation for being a world-class womaniser.

Matt turned to the woman beside him, taking some encouragement from the fact that she hadn't tried to drift away in the crowd of people at the party. On the other hand, she probably didn't know anyone here, apart from Peter and the King family. Mostly she'd been silent, filling the time by sampling the gourmet finger food being carried around and offered by numerous waiters.

Had his words as they'd left the theatre got through to her?

Her gaze was following Peter's progress through the crowd. Did she want him back in her life? He'd made her laugh. Matt hadn't heard her laugh before. Usually he did share lots of laughter with the women he spent time with. Why was everything so intense with this one?

He was getting obsessed with her, thinking of little else. Having sex with her hadn't given him any relief from it, either. If anything, it had locked him into a deeper pursuit of the woman she was. He wanted to know how her mind worked, what she felt, how she saw things.

"Do you like being called Nicky?" She shrugged, not looking directly at him as she flatly answered, "It's a name from a different life."

"One you've moved on from," he pressed, wanting it to be so.

"Yes and no." Her gaze slowly lifted to his, the rich brown of her eyes somehow reflecting a depth of feeling that put him instantly on alert. "Do we ever really leave our past behind? Aren't we the sum of all our years?" A wistful smile flitted across her very kissable lips. "Perhaps even more.

Look at you..."

"What about me?"

"You have a heritage to live up to, as well. Don't you feel that?" "No. I am who I am."

"One of the Kings. Like Alex and Tony whom you invoked earlier as examples of what a father should be. And I'm sure you consider yourself in the same mould. The King mould."

He frowned over this assertion. Pride in his own individuality wanted to deny he was like his brothers, yet they did all have the same background, the same upbringing. There were common factors. And they lived by the same principles, principles that had been hammered into them by their grandmother. Their heritage...

A waiter came by with a tray of drinks, diverting Nicole's attention to it. She picked up a glass of champagne and sipped as though she needed the kick of alcohol. Matt swiped a glass, too, before the waiter moved on. He thought about Nicole's heritage as he sipped.

Her mother had been Irish. She'd met and fallen in love with Ollie Redman when he'd been touring Dublin, married him and came to Australia. There'd been no maternal family in Sydney for Nicole to fall back on when her mother had died. No paternal family, either. Ollie Redman had spent most of his young life in an orphanage. He probably hadn't known what a father should be, having had no role model himself.

People were the sum of their lives... So what did that make Nicole?

"Why did you take on this project?" he asked, a sixth sense telling him the answer would be enlightening.

She slanted him a half-mocking look. "To find out what a different life was like."

The life of a long-rooted family. That he was part of. Shock stiffened his whole body. Was this why she'd had sex with him? An intimate experience with one of the Kings? The only one who wasn't married?

His mind went into a ferment. She might have been thinking about it ever since they'd met in his office. Certainly when she'd come up to the park, she'd been considering it, wanting it. She'd been eyeing him off as he'd shown her the photographs in his home. If he hadn't put her professionalism on the line, stung her pride...

But they were past that now and tonight she'd taken what he'd offered without so much as a hesitation. Taken it and revelled in it every bit as much as he had. So she would want more. One taste wasn't enough. It certainly wasn't enough for him. They'd barely begun to explore ... what it was like.

Her head was slightly bowed as though she was contemplating the contents of her glass. His gaze drifted down the gleaming flame-red fall of her hair, the fine silk of it caressing the bare white skin of her back above the dip of her gown, a dip that revealed the sensual curve of her spine.

Below it, her delectable bottom jutted out, begging to be touched. Matt felt himself getting aroused, thighs tightening, sex stirring. He wanted this woman again. Again and again and again.

She was rubbing her index finger idly around the rim of her glass. The urge to snatch it away, force her to look at him and admit what she wanted was strong. Then they could get out of this party, go to his room or hers, and...

"What you said about charm..." She lifted her head and there was sadness in her eyes, making a savage mockery of the desire running rampant through him. "Neither my father nor Peter had family behind them. The charm is a defence against that emptiness, and a reaching out to be liked. A need for everyone to like them, even if it is only on a superficial level."

She paused, her eyes begging some understanding from him. "You don't have that need, Matt. You're very secure in the life you were born into. It makes a difference."

He felt chastened. He was more fortunate than others with his family. No denying it. Yet he couldn't imagine himself not making his own way to a life he could be proud of, in every sense. Having to be propped up by others, dependent on what they did for him...no, that was not a situation he'd ever want or accept.

"Maybe it does," he grudgingly conceded. "But in the end, everybody is responsible for what they make of their own lives. There are choices."

And she'd chosen to have sex with him!

She must have read his thought. A tide of heat rushed into her cheeks. He wondered if she cursed her white skin for being such a telltale barometer of her feelings. It gave him a kick, just watching it, though he'd prefer to touch. His hands itched to touch.

"I think choices are shaped by what's gone before," she argued. "People fall into them because..." She stopped, floundering in the face of what she saw in his eyes.

Matt wasn't hiding what he was thinking, what he was wanting. "Because a need pushed them that way?" he finished for her.

"Yes," she whispered.

"And when there's a mutual need, it's even easier to go with it," he pushed, all his energy pumping into drawing her with him. "And why not? Why not see where it leads?"

She stood absolutely still, her gaze fastened on his, her lips slightly parted as though she needed to suck in air, but if she did it was imperceptible. Matt suspected her lungs weren't working at all, seized up with tension, as his were, waiting for the line to be crossed. The fire in her cheeks did not abate. She didn't speak but Matt knew in his bones she wanted what he wanted. An exhilarating recklessness zinged through him.