Sparks Fly with the Billionaire

by Marion Lennox

  ‘Just us?’

  ‘With pensions and what I can earn, we can afford a place. It was the thought of paying off that debt that was killing me. And the camels...what was I supposed to do with the camels?’ She smiled across at him, a glorious, open smile of sheer gratitude. ‘I thought you’d destroyed us, Matt Bond. Instead, you’ve saved us.’

  ‘We’ve still foreclosed on the circus.’

  ‘Yes, but that was coming anyway,’ she said fairly. ‘And it hurts, but it would have hurt whenever it happened.’

  ‘Do you want help finding a place to live?’

  ‘You’ve done enough for us,’ she said gently. ‘Matt, back there when I heard you make the offer to Jack, I thought I should refuse. It’s charity, but then I realised it’s not me you’re offering the money to. I talked to Myra while you were going over the books. Do you know how close they were to getting all those animals euthanased? I think you’re wonderful, Matt Bond, you and your darling bank.’

  ‘Darling bank...’ In all the years he’d worked for Bond’s, he’d never once heard his bank described as darling.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, and sniffed and then turned and looked at the scenery below and he thought—she doesn’t know what else to say.

  Thank you.

  He didn’t want this woman feeling grateful to him, he thought.

  Why?

  ‘We’ll get as much out of this as we put in,’ he growled, but she didn’t turn back to him. He heard her sniff again.

  ‘I’m sure you will,’ she managed. ‘I’m sure you’re a banker through and through, and this is a very sound business decision. But you’re a lovely man, Matt Bond, and you make an awesome ringmaster and I don’t even mind if you foreclose on our circus—you are one special person.’ And with that she sniffed and subsided.

  He focused on the controls for a while.

  He was one special person?

  He glanced at Allie’s averted head and he thought of her cavorting in the muddy waterhole with her elephants and he thought of what she was facing now, her life ahead with a bunch of geriatric circus performers and he thought...he thought...

  He thought he wasn’t that special person. And he thought more chinks in his carefully built armour were being knocked out every minute.

  CHAPTER NINE

  HE LANDED ON the foreshore. Joe, the pilot, was there to greet them. ‘Successful day?’ he asked.

  Allie glowed and said, ‘Fabulous,’ and Matt saw Joe do a double take.

  They were both filthy but Allie was the filthiest. She was the one who’d played with elephants, and she’d spent time in the monkey enclosure as well. She’d dried out—the day was so warm her clothes had dried on her—but her hair was tangled, her clothes were smeared with mud and she looked...well, she looked as if she’d just come out of a waterhole filled with elephants. But Matt knew Joe wasn’t seeing that. He was seeing the glow, the woman underneath, and suddenly the effort to stay a banker was too much. What was resurfacing was that almost primeval instinct to hold her hard and say, She’s mine.

  Instinct was dumb. Instinct was wrong.

  Besides, if she was his, what would he do with her?

  Marry her? Take her back to Sydney? Give her the life of his mother and his grandmother? Matriarchs, raising the next generation of Banking Mathews while he banked on?

  What was he thinking? Allie was a circus performer, in love with elephants and dogs and aged performers and he...his life was the bank. Margot was getting better by the day. He’d promised her two weeks, but after that he’d return to Sydney, he’d get his life back and this time in Fort Neptune would fade to the aberration that it was.

  Joe was climbing aboard the chopper, waving farewell. ‘You’re looking good, sir,’ he yelled as the rotor blades threatened to drown out speech. ‘I’ll report back to work that I’ve now seen you without a tie. And with a girl who doesn’t wear a suit. Wonders will never cease. Expect to hit the front page of Business Weekly,’ he yelled and then grinned. ‘Only kidding.’

  And he was gone, leaving Allie and Matt gazing after him.

  The roar of the chopper faded to nothing.

  They should go.

  Where they were standing had been cleared for chopper landing—for emergency evacuation, for urgent transport, not just choppers of itinerant bankers. It was a spit of land reaching out into the bay, with the circus behind them.

  The sea was turquoise-blue, calm and still, with the small waves lapping at the shore the only sound breaking the stillness. The fishing boats were all out. There were only the tenders—small rowing boats—swinging at mooring.

  It was a perfect day.

  A perfect moment.

  Where to take it?

  It was Allie who made the decision.

  She took his face in her hands and she stood on tiptoe.

  ‘Thank you for today, Matt Bond,’ she told him. ‘Thank you for my elephants.’

  And she kissed him.

  * * *

  They’d kissed before. That kiss was still imprinted on his brain, a sweet, tender moment which, for a guy who’d had few such moments in his life, was one he’d remember.

  And want repeated? Maybe he did, because he surely didn’t step back now.

  But, as a banker, Mathew Bond would accept a kiss from a grateful client—or from a woman who wanted to get closer than he willed—and he’d know what to do with it.

  He’d kiss back—lightly. He’d take the woman’s shoulders—whoever the woman happened to be—and set her back and smile at her. And he had just the right smile.

  It was a smile that said the barricades were up. Very nice kiss, thank you, let’s move on.

  But this...

  This was Allie kissing him, and Mathew Bond the Banker might have every intention in the world of moving on but Mathew Bond the Banker wasn’t in charge right now.

  This was Matt, the guy underneath all that armour. All day long—or maybe it was since he’d met Allie, something had been chipping away, chipping away. He felt weird, exposed and uncertain.

  Or he had felt weird, exposed, uncertain. What was surfacing now was something deeper again.

  Primeval need.

  The need to gather this woman to him and hold.

  He’d felt it when Joe had smiled at her and he’d managed to suppress it. He’d been holding back. But now she had his face in her hands, she was right before him, she was on tiptoe, her lips had found his—and she was kissing him.

  Hard, fierce, wanting.

  This was no kiss of polite thanks. This was not even a kiss of desire for a relationship. It wasn’t a kiss of consciousness at all.

  It was, quite simply, a kiss of passion.

  All day he’d watched her emotions see-sawing. All day he’d seen something he’d never seen before—a woman totally exposed. Her love for those great elephants was deep and real. Her joy in knowing they’d live had unleashed any inhibitions.

  But this wasn’t a kiss of thanks. It was part of that same raw emotion, and he knew it the moment her lips touched his.

  Fire met fire. He took her by the waist and drew her to him, deepening the kiss, and it felt as if their bodies were fusing to become one.

  All day the chinks in his armour had been growing wider. Now it was as if the last of the brittle pieces were falling away, leaving him wide open—and this woman was sliding right in.

  She was reaching places he hadn’t known existed. The warmth of her, the heat, was wrapping itself around his heart, leaving him crazily vulnerable, but he was loving it. He was holding her and that was what he intended doing. Holding. How could he not hold on to this loveliness? How could he step away from this woman?

  Gloriously, she was kissing him still. She’d taken his face between her hands a
nd lifted her face to him. She was opening herself to him and the sensation was indescribable.

  What was happening to him? It felt as if all his foundations were crumbling to nothing.

  But now wasn’t the time for wondering about foundations. Who cared for foundations when he was holding her, crushing her breasts against his chest, feeling her mould to him, feeling her hands twine around his head, her fingers in his hair, feeling her mouth open under his, her tongue search as he wanted to search...

  Now was simply for being.

  Now was for kissing a woman called Allie.

  * * *

  What was she doing?

  She was kissing a man who was twisting her heart as it had never been twisted.

  He’d saved her elephants. She’d have kissed him if he was King Kong.

  But not like this, she thought, dazed. Never like this.

  Why was she kissing him?

  It was meant to be a thank you, she thought, but she knew that was just an excuse. She’d been aching to kiss him. Aching to touch him.

  Why?

  Because he was a banker who’d saved her animals?

  Because he was one hot guy?

  Because he’d saved her today?

  None of those things. She was being honest with herself here. She’d been sitting next to him in the chopper for the last hour and she’d been glancing at his face and she’d been thinking...

  He’s vulnerable.

  Poor little rich boy?

  But there was no need to take that to extremes, she’d told herself dryly. There wasn’t a lot for her to feel sorry about in Matt Bond’s world.

  And yet as she kissed him now, as she savoured the feel of him, the strength, the heat, the sheer masculinity of this gorgeous hunk of male, that strange feeling was still with her.

  He felt...empty, she thought. Alone.

  A loner?

  The two things were different.

  She’d been brought up in a circus family, surrounded by people who loved her.

  Did Matt have anyone who loved him apart from Margot?

  Did he want anyone else?

  She ought to pull away and think about it, but thoughts weren’t operating all that efficiently right now.

  Her toes were curling.

  Her fingers were in his hair. He had the most gorgeous hair, thick and black and curly. He used some sort of product that tamed the curls when he was in his suit, when he was playing the ringmaster, but today had got rid of any product. He was washed and wind-blasted, there was farm dust in his hair, her fingers were tangling...Ooh.

  She might or might not love Matt Bond, she decided at last, but she loved his hair.

  And, in turn, his fingers were investigating her tangles, gently, slowly, as if exploring every fibre—then drifting downward from the crown to her throat.

  His fingers...

  He was making love to her with his fingers.

  She was having an orgasm here. She was standing out on the spit on Fort Neptune’s harbour, she was being kissed by a man she’d met only days before, the kiss was public property—anyone shopping on the esplanade could see this kiss—and her insides were melting and this man’s hands were driving her wild and he was just touching her hair and her throat, for heaven’s sake, and she thought, she thought...

  She thought if it was in private she might rip his clothes off right here. Right now.

  Um...it wasn’t private. She was kissing a banker in full view of the world, and she’d instigated the kiss, and if she didn’t stop soon things would get well out of control, and she’d likely be tarred and feathered and run out of town as a scarlet woman.

  And she’d deserve it.

  Right, then.

  Somehow she moved—she must have moved—she must have made some vague motion of pulling away because, appallingly, he responded. He put his fingers to her lips as if it needed touch to break the seal. He pulled back, just a little, and the next moment he was holding her at arm’s length and she was looking into those gorgeous dark eyes and watching him smile at her and she was thinking....he’s just as confused as I am.

  And she was drowning in that smile.

  ‘Good...good kissing,’ she managed, and he managed a chuckle in return. She wasn’t fooled. He was as shaken as she was.

  ‘It’s good that we’re practising,’ he said in a voice that confirmed it. ‘We might get good enough to put it on the circus programme if we keep on like we are.’

  ‘We hardly need to put it on the programme.’ She glanced across the road, to the shops, to a small cluster of interested onlookers. ‘We’re giving a free performance.’ She shook herself, hauled back from his grasp, fought for reality. ‘Speaking of performance...’

  ‘You have heaps of time.’

  ‘Yes, but I need to go visit Grandpa first. I need to tell him what’s happening at the farm.’

  ‘You want me to come with you?’

  He said it lightly, but it wasn’t light. She knew it wasn’t light. It was a suggestion that they might take this further.

  Girl kisses boy.

  Girl takes boy to visit Grandpa.

  Not wise. Not wise at all. She gave herself a quick mental shake, reminded herself who she was, where she was, of all the people who depended on her, of how messy a relationship with this guy could be, and about thirty other very good reasons why she should be wise. Regardless, she almost caved in and said yes, but the reasons were there and she was a grown woman and she had to have some sense. Sense for both of them.

  ‘Thank you, no,’ she said, struggling to sound light. ‘It’s time I got back to normality. Thank you for today, Matt. Thank you for what you’ve done. Thank you for everything, but now I think it’s time to move on.’

  * * *

  ‘That was some kiss.’ He’d barely got in the door before Margot was right in front of him, her eyes twinkling with pleasure. ‘I didn’t know you had it in you.’

  ‘Margot...’

  ‘In front of the whole town,’ she continued. ‘In my day that’d constitute engagement.’

  ‘Margot!’

  ‘Well, why not? Oh, Matt, she’s lovely.’

  ‘She is,’ he said tightly and headed for his room. He needed to shower and change—and he needed time to himself—but he was reckoning without Margot.

  She was no respecter of persons, his Great-Aunt Margot, and she was no respecter of privacy. He walked into his bedroom and she walked right in after.

  ‘So now what?’ she asked.

  ‘I go and play ringmaster at tonight’s performance.’

  ‘That’s not what I mean.’

  ‘That’s all I’m capable of meaning right now,’ he told her. ‘She’s a great girl but I’ve known her for less than a week—and I can’t see her fitting into my world.’

  ‘Your world of banking?’

  ‘What else do you think I mean?’

  ‘Raymond didn’t think I’d fit in at Fort Neptune,’ she said stolidly. ‘I proved him wrong. It’s a pity I lost him before I proved it.’

  ‘This is nothing to do with you and Raymond.’

  ‘No, it’s all about courage. You keep your emotions filed under P for private, like the rest of your dratted family.’

  ‘Like you, too,’ he said, goaded. ‘You lost Raymond sixty years ago and you’ve buried yourself ever since.’

  ‘Living in Fort Neptune is not burying myself.’

  ‘No,’ he said shrewdly. There were things he’d thought about his Aunt Margot, things he’d never said, but if she was goading...and if she’d decided to die anyway... ‘But what about Duncan?’

  ‘Duncan?’

  ‘You know very well who I’m talking about,’ he said. ‘The Duncan who stops by every mo
rning to make sure you’re okay. The Duncan who’s rung me through the years to tell me things he thinks I ought to know—like when you broke your leg on the cliff and didn’t think to tell me. The Duncan who rang me and practically bullied me down here because he’s so worried—and he told me he asked you to marry him fifty years ago but you refused because you said you never wanted to forget Raymond.’

  ‘He married Edith,’ she said stiffly. ‘They had a lovely marriage until she died two years ago.’

  ‘So he fell in love,’ Matt said softly. ‘But he lost and he had the courage to move on.’

  ‘Well, you don’t have the courage to fall in love in the first place,’ Margot snapped. ‘At least I did it once.’

  ‘And it hurt so much you never did it again.’

  ‘So you don’t want that hurt?’

  ‘I did hurt,’ he said, his voice lowering to match hers. ‘I lost my entire family.’

  That caught her. She looked up at him, Bond eyes meeting Bond eyes and he thought—she’s almost a reflection of me.

  ‘We’re two of a kind,’ she whispered, mirroring his thoughts, and he winced.

  ‘Bonds.’

  ‘Cowards?’

  ‘Duncan will be round again tomorrow morning,’ he said. ‘You jump first.’

  ‘Are you joking? I’m eighty.’

  ‘All the more reason to jump fast.’

  ‘Mathew!’

  ‘I think I’m Matt,’ he said softly. ‘Some time today I think I left Mathew behind.’

  ‘Oh, my dear,’ she said, subsiding, for the anger and aggression had suddenly gone out of her. ‘Do you really think that?’

  ‘I don’t have a clue. Can you see Allie in my life? Or me in hers? Allie in Sydney or me living in a farmlet with the remnants of Sparkles Circus...?’

  ‘Duncan has ten grandchildren and two Jack Russell terriers,’ Margot retorted back at him. ‘And I have a cottage I love.’

  ‘So you’ve decided to die rather than compromise?’

  ‘Compromise is hard,’ Margot said. ‘As you get older it gets harder. And you...losing your family and finding the courage to start again...I know how hard it is.’