'Yes,' she answered, barely able to draw breath. 'And since the delivery has now been made, please excuse me.'

She swung on her heel, heading for the open doorway, desperately needing s.p.a.ce to rethink this whole situation with Nick Armstrong.

A hand clamped on her shoulder, forcibly halting her flight.

Then to her utter horror, her hat was yanked from her head and she felt her hair spilling from the pins she'd used to fasten it out of sight-hair that Nick was absolutely certain to connect with the fairy princess!

CHAPTER FIVE.

SHEER desperation drove Barbie's reaction. It felt as though everything was zooming out of control and she had to hang on to it somehow. Her hands flew up to grab her tumbling hair and she spun around, tearing her shoulder out of Nick's grasp.

'My hat!' she shrieked at him in outraged protest.

His face was set in aggressive determination, his blue eyes blazing a mocking triumph, and he took absolutely no notice of her protest. In a lightning-fast move, he reached out and whipped off her sungla.s.ses, leaving her face totally naked to his view. Naked and hopelessly vulnerable to positive identification. Which he made, beyond any shadow of a doubt.

'So!' His mouth curved into a nerve-shaking smile of sardonic satisfaction. 'We meet again. Quite intriguing...reincarnation.'

Barbie's mind boggled over his meaning. The shock of being so abruptly and effectively unveiled was still pounding through her. Her hands remained stuck in her hair, though any rescue operation there was now futile. All she could do was stare helplessly at him as he folded her sungla.s.ses and tucked them into his shirt pocket.

'They're mine,' she said, fighting to regain some iota of control.

'Safe-keeping,' he a.s.sured her and in another startling action, strode right past Barbie, straight for the door which he not only closed but stood against, blocking any path to freedom. 'Safe from interruption, as well,' he declared, emanating resolute purpose.

Like a powerful magnet he'd drawn her gaze after him, and she stood half-turned, watching him, totally mesmerised by what he intended to do next. Her heart was hammering in her ears. Slowly, without any real decision-making at all, her hands slid from her hair and her arms dropped limply to her sides, defeated in their quest to ward off a moment that had come, regardless of her efforts to stop it. Her hat was forgotten. Nick Armstrong dominated her entire consciousness.

'From heavenly fairy princess bestowing favours...to dark lady of vengeance in one fell swoop,' he commented with a wry twist of his mouth. 'Do you enjoy playing mind games?'

The shock question jolted her mind back into some semblance of working order. 'You weren't supposed to recognise me.'

His eyebrows lifted challengingly. 'So you wanted the upper hand of checking me out while I was under fire from the dearly departed Tanya.'

'Something like that,' she admitted.

'The relationship with Tanya was in its death throes before the party. Neither of us was happy with the other.'

'Then why were you still together?'

'The party was planned some time ago. It seemed...' He shrugged. '...ungracious to retract the invitation.' His eyes glittered with a surge of desire that encompa.s.sed Barbie, stirring a host of ungovernable responses. 'Though I've regretted that mistake ever since,' he softly drawled, raising goose b.u.mps on her skin.

'You didn't care about her feelings,' Barbie shot at him in wild defence, dredging up the nine-year-old memory of how he hadn't cared about her feelings, either. He'd thanked her for the twenty-first birthday gift she had thriftily saved to buy him, then put it aside. But when the s.e.xy tart with the sports car gave him the same gift-albeit worth a lot more money-he'd worn it for everyone to see whose offering he prized more.

'Some feelings can override all others,' he answered.

Yes, like feelings below the belt. Nothing to do with his heart, Barbie thought, fighting to retain some sensible perspective on her experience of his actions.

'They can even reach past a superficial disguise,' he went on, stepping away from the door, towards her, instantly raising her tension and enveloping her in his as he continued talking to her. 'There I was, looking at the broken wings, and suddenly I felt your presence in this office.'

He couldn't, Barbie fiercely reasoned, not wanting to believe it. Probably a desire to transfer a lingering fantasy into substance.

'My scalp actually started tingling,' he said, closing the distance between them at a slow deliberate stroll.

Barbie felt her own scalp starting to tingle with the intensity of feeling he was projecting at her. Had she done that to him while she'd stood looking at him, recalling how it had felt when he'd kissed her?

'An extraordinary sensation,' he continued. 'Like a shower of magic setting off waves of intense awareness.'

Her stomach contracted, whether in panicky fear or some treacherous excitement she had no idea, but she was certainly experiencing intense awareness now as he came closer and closer. It didn't occur to her to move backwards. Her whole concentration was wrapped up in watching him. She even forgot to breathe when he gestured at her clothes.

'When I swung around to find seemingly a stranger in black, I thought all my instincts were out of kilter.' He stopped barely an arm's length away and his eyes mocked her belief in being unrecognisable. 'Then you spoke...and the voice was unmistakable.'

Her breath whooshed out on a gust of outrage. If that was true, how come he hadn't recognised it as Barbie Lamb's voice when she'd sung on Sat.u.r.day night? Hadn't he even bothered to listen to her all those years that her family had mixed with his? Or maybe he had a short-a very short-memory span. Either way, Barbie seethed over his recognition.

'Angry that your deception didn't come off?'

'I don't believe you. Why remove my hat if you were so sure?'

'To stop you from leaving.'

'And my sungla.s.ses.'

'I hate talking to people who hide their thoughts behind dark gla.s.ses. I wanted to see your eyes.'

'You had no right.'

'You walked in here to get at me. You weren't asked to do this job. You chose it, because it involved me. I think that gives me the right to ask why...and see the answer in your eyes.'

Barbie didn't want to answer him.

'You couldn't keep away?' he asked softly, seductively.

'Yes, I could,' she retorted, resenting his power to attract, even against her will. 'This was business. Why should I knock back a job because you're at the end of it? You have no power over my life, Nick Armstrong.'

His eyes flashed a sharp challenge. 'Then it won't matter if you give me your name.'

'I've given you what I've been paid to give you. You have no right to more,' she argued.

'You weren't paid to respond to my kiss as you did,' he shot at her with blazing conviction. 'And yes, Tanya did muddy the situation. But don't tell me it was only business that brought you here today. You thought it was a safe way to see...to know...if what you'd felt then could be felt again.'

Her heart felt as though it was being squeezed. She did want him-had always wanted him-but how could she feel this turbulent desire for a man who'd been so cra.s.sly insensitive to her young love? Her gaze flicked to the broken fairy wings.

'I wanted to fix them for you,' he murmured.

More easily fixed than a broken heart, she thought savagely, returning her gaze to his, her inner agitation increasing at the raw flare of need and want she saw. Did he have a heart to break?

'Why?' she choked out.

'Because they were part of the magic that happened between us. It was perfect, and to have anything belonging to you, or that moment of coming together, reduced to tatters, feels wrong.'

He certainly hadn't felt that way nine years ago, Barbie told herself, but somehow the reminder was losing its power to armour her against the feelings he stirred. It was different now. He cared. Or was it her own need to believe he did, pressing that view?

He reached out and gently stroked her cheek. 'It was real...what we felt. It's real now, too. Which proves it wasn't fantasy.'

Her skin heated and tingled under his touch. For the life of her she couldn't move. With feather-light fingertips he seemed to be infiltrating her bloodstream, making her pulse beat faster and faster. His voice was drumming through her brain and heart, setting off echoes she couldn't stop.

'And it wasn't one-sided. You kissed me right back. You were with me.'

With him...with him...with him...

The yearning welled up in her like an unstoppable tidal wave. The s.e.xy tart with the sports car was sucked away. So was the black-haired witch, Tanya. This was her time with Nick...the man she'd loved, hated, dreamed about. Why not have it? Why not?

His fingers drifted into her hair. His head bent, his mouth coming closer and closer to hers. Antic.i.p.ation zinged through her, blowing all worrisome thoughts away. Her whole body craved the kiss that was coming, everything within her poised to match it with that one previous, sensational experience. Would it be the same? Would it be more?

His lips brushed hers. She closed her eyes, her entire being focused on the soft sensuality of this initial pressure, an intensely erotic caress, lips sliding over hers, changing direction, exploring, tasting, his tongue delicately probing, exciting a compulsion to take some initiative herself, to gather sensory impressions of him and arouse the same excitement she felt. She didn't want it to be like a one-sided dream.

Her tentative a.s.sault on his mouth triggered a more aggressive possession of her own and Barbie was instantly caught up in a pa.s.sionate entanglement that was certainly not the fluffy stuff of dreams. The wild explosion of sensation was like a cascade of fireworks, fountains of brilliant pleasure shooting in every direction, intense bursts of excitement flaring, lingering, overtaken by more and more fantastic effects.

She loved it, revelled in it, exulted in it. Her arms curled around his neck, wanting to hold him close, wanting to feel all of him as she had before Tanya had broken the spell on Sat.u.r.day night, real flesh-and-blood Nick, hot and hard and male, pressing the unmistakable strength of his desire for her, man and woman surging towards an intimacy that demanded urgent fulfilment, and everything within her craving it, sizzling with need.

'Nick!'

The call of his name was like a whip-crack, slicing through their mounting enthralment, a sharp discordant intrusion on an intensely private togetherness, yet they were so deeply immersed in each other, disengagement was reluctant on both sides.

'Nick! Have you totally lost it?' came the harsh, exasperated demand.

Nick's slowly expelled breath tingled over her sensitised lips as he interrupted their kiss to growl, 'Get out, Leon.'

'Oh, great!' A jeer of fuming frustration. 'I bring Sue Olsen along to check you out personally, and the fairy princess is already history.'

Sue? Barbie's eyes flew open. Her sluggish brain snapped to red alert. Sue could mess up everything!

'I don't need help,' Nick tersely a.s.serted, loosening his embrace, sliding one arm away from her as he half turned to put Barbie in clearer view of his friend. 'I've got her right here with me. So take yourself off, Leon.'

'Barbie!'

Shock horror from Sue, her mouth gaping as she released the fatal name that could link to a memory Barbie couldn't bear to have raised in Nick Armstrong's mind. Barbie Lamb...the horrible childhood nickname, Baa-Baa...it would ruin what they shared now. Totally ruin it. He'd start thinking about her differently, be amused instead of stirred, and he'd remember how she'd felt for him at sixteen...

Panic welled up in Barbie as she stared at her friend who was standing just to the side of Leon Webster and close to the door he'd opened, undoubtedly expecting his partner to be at work. How could she stop any further revelation?

'It is her!' Leon agreed in surprise, taking in the tumbling ma.s.s of blond hair on top of the very different clothing. 'In black drag?'

'A Drop Dead Delivery came in from the harpy who broke my fairy wings,' Barbie shot at Sue, hoping to shut her up. 'I had to come...'

'Business.' Sue caught on, collecting herself enough to glare disapprovingly at Nick. 'And he a.s.saulted you again.'

'Looked mutual to me,' Leon declared, turning an arch look on Sue. 'Trying to work damages on this score is not going to wear. She was certainly not fighting, not the slightest sign of struggle. In fact...'

'Do you mind?' Nick cut in. 'This is my private office.'

'Which happens to be for work, Nick,' came the fast and pointed retort. 'Remember work? What we're supposed to be doing here?'

'And I see the delivery has been made,' Sue said, expressing equal disapproval of the current use of Nick's office. 'Come on, Barbie. You're leaving with me.'

'Barbie...'

Nick's softly musing repet.i.tion of her name squeezed her heart. She couldn't let him start thinking about it, possibly making the connection to the girl he'd known when they'd shared the same neighbourhood.

'It's Sue's nickname for me,' she blurted out, feverishly seeking some meaning for it as he looked quizzically at her. 'Like barbed wire. I'm usually very p.r.i.c.kly with men who come on to me.'

'And you should be p.r.i.c.kly with this one, too,' Sue strongly advised, ever sharp at picking up the ball. 'He's not just coming on. He's charging.'

Nick ignored this remark, ignored both Leon and Sue, focusing entirely on Barbie, his vivid blue eyes eloquently pleading the cause of a here-and-now involvement which he wanted to stretch beyond this moment. To her intense relief, there was no flash of memory clouding that desire, nothing but the need to know, the need to reach out and hold on.

'So what is your real name?' he asked.

Her mind whirled, groping for an answer. She was christened Barbara Anne. Her second name should be easy to remember.

'Anne,' she replied. But what about a surname? Lamb was a dead giveaway. 'Shepherd,' she added, the sheep a.s.sociation popping out. 'Anne Shepherd.'

He smiled both encouragement and satisfaction in her conceding it to him. 'So now we're properly introduced.' And his voice was like warm velvet, caressing her.

'Right!' Leon snapped. 'Having got that settled...'

'b.u.t.t out, Leon. I have more to settle.' Nick's expression changed to one of powerful intent as he looked at his partner and Sue beside him. 'If you'd be so kind as to leave us alone for a few minutes...'

'Fine!' Leon agreed on a huff.

'I'll wait in reception,' Sue instructed, giving Barbie a look that asked if she had a hole in her head.

And Barbie briefly wondered if she did as they left, closing the door behind them. Then Nick was turning back to her, lifting the arm he'd freed, tenderly stroking her cheek, her hair, his eyes telling her how very desirable he found the woman she now was. It was like champagne bubbling through her blood, too wonderfully intoxicating to dilute it with any bitter dregs from the past.

'Meet me after work. We'll have dinner together. Is that possible?'

'Where?'

'Where do you live?'

That was tricky with Sue all too ready to mouth off. If she was to keep her real ident.i.ty a secret-and that was paramount right now-best to keep Nick away from their apartment in Ryde.

'I'll meet you in the city,' she said, showing a reservation about accepting too much too fast.

He didn't argue. He smiled rea.s.surance, probably remembering her claim to p.r.i.c.kliness. 'Whatever you wish. Do you know the restaurant, Pier Twenty-One, at Circular Quay?'

'I'll find it.'