'You might have told me!' Natalie gave Kip a small, green-eyed glare that amused him even more.
'I thought I'd keep something in reserve in case you lost interest in me,' he volunteered, and that got a very quick retort, even though her face flushed swiftly.
'Believe me, I'm not interested in you. I appreciate your kindness and now, of course, I'll have to see something of you to get details of the dam. But don't go thinking that... Anyway,' she finished in lame embarrassment as he simply watched her mockingly, 'the minister told my father he would get me in touch with the person in charge.'
'Didn't he just, though?' Kip murmured sardonically. 'Gabriel Basoni has an overdeveloped sense of humour.'
'I—I'm sorry,' Natalie said with belated regret. 'I know I've been a nuisance. Can you tell me about the dam now?'
'I'll tell you over dinner one night.' There was a firm tone to his voice that informed her he would talk when he was ready and right now was not the time. She had the sense to shut up and take pictures, her mind panning the shots from this magnificent road.
'How did you come to work for a Canadian firm?' she asked as he led her back to the vehicle and set off again for the hotel that could now be seen perched on the hillside, surrounded by jungle, looking quite spectacular.
'I joined the firm immediately after I qualified. I've worked for them ever since.'
'So you were here all the time?' She looked at him intently, determined to wheedle out as much information as she could without any dinner.
'Apart from almost one year when I was out of action. I was injured.'
'Were you here during that uprising?' Natalie knew , there had been a lot of trouble in Madembi that had coincided with the building of the dam, and she sensed a good story in it. In one way or another, news was in her blood, just as it was in her father's.
'No. I just missed that. After things returned to normal and we set up again, I came out here to take charge. Kane Mallory handed things over to me arid went back to Canada. He married my sister, Andrea.'
That stunned her but only for a moment. She looked at him with a great deal of satisfaction. 'Your brother-in-law is the head of Mallory-Carter? Ah!' It was delightful to be able to play the same sort of game with him that he had played with her. Unlike her, though, he didn't rise to the bait, and she knew at once that he had laid this little trap deliberately.
'Now what do I say to that?' he derided. 'Do I get all hot under the collar and assure you that I got where I am on merit and not because of any nepotism?'
'I wasn't about to...' Natalie began hastily, remembering that she would need Kip Forsythe for the next few days at least. He glanced at her scathingly, not at all deceived.
'No? Every chance you get, those little claws are unsheathed, as if you were a small green-eyed black cat, fighting for survival. It must be a hard world you live in, Natalie, even under Daddy's wing.'
'I'm not under his wing. I get no favours and I don't want any. At work I'm just like anyone else—one of the boys. That's how it is.'
'It must be very tricky for the other boys,' he murmured wryly. 'You must have to fight them off. I have a great deal of sympathy for them because even I'm not immune. It's taken a lot of self-restraint to live in the same house for these few days and not devour you. Believe me, I wanted to.'
'Don't think that just because you've been kind I'll let you say anything you like to me!' Natalie looked almost wild-eyed, whipping up anger to cove/the other feelings that were rising swiftly to the surface. When he glanced across at her she looked hastily away, hoping that her flushed cheeks showed resentment only.
'I want to make love to you, Natalie. You know that.' His quiet, dark statement seemed to strike right through her, sending shivers up her spine. For a moment her breath stopped. From anyone else it would have been a proposition and she would have dealt with it accordingly. It was unnervingly different from Kip Forsythe— like a statement of fate.
'Don't talk like that!' Even to her own ears, her voice sounded frantic. He was making things quite impossible and he must know it. She had never found it possible to flirt. Besides, she loved Neil and she didn't want another man telling her things like that. Even his voice made her shiver. She felt guilty, confused and frighteningly weak.
'Why? Because I'm putting things into words when you would prefer them to be demurely hidden? I was brought up to tell the truths the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me.'
There was laughter there again, back in his voice, and she rounded on him furiously, angry at the wild beating of her own heart.
'Is this how you amuse yourself? Trying to upset me?'
'I'm not trying to upset you, butterfly. I'm merely warning you,' he assured her quietly. 'After all, you're still here and so ^un I. Circumstances will throw us together. So far, you've been in a slightly pitiful condition, and I did tell you that I was a gentleman of the old school. When you're quite normal and recovered, we'll discuss that affair you mentioned.'
'I'm recovered now, and if you think I'm the sort of person who...'
'I think you're beautiful, desirable and utterly scared. I want you: Here we are.' He swung the Land Rover in between high gates and Natalie decided to keep quiet. It was more dignified and decidedly safer. She had to be cool with Kip but he made it very difficult. When she was acting a part, as she often did to protect herself, Kip managed to see through her and cut the ground away from under her with a few words or even with a look. She found herself adding up the days to her departure in some real agitation.
The Kabala Hotel was luxurious, a showpiece for a country newly emerged into the twentieth century. The great white building was even more impressive at close quarters than it had been from a distance. It had been built with tourists in mind, the surrounding gardens, where crested cranes roamed freely, a colourful array of palms and shrubs and great lawns stretching to the jungle edge that clothed the sheer drop to the waters of the dam.