His Last Chance at Redemption

by Michelle Conder

  Leo muttered a curse under his breath. If he’d been dealing with Australians or the English the negotiations would have been finished by now. No way would they have pulled up stumps to be wined and dined with a decadent lunch midway through an important meeting. No, they would have put up with soggy sandwiches and finger food at the conference table until the deal was signed, sealed and delivered. Then gone out and got drunk by way of celebrating.

  ‘Well, that settles it.’ Tom clasped Lexi’s shoulder lightly and Leo was glad to see her eyes flicker to Tom’s hand uncertainly as she shifted out from under his hold. ‘Come on,’ he said to Lexi. ‘I promise you’ll love it.’

  ‘Where’s Ty?’ Leo found himself asking. ‘Your charge.’

  Lexi looked at him but he couldn’t read her expression. ‘He’s still asleep. He probably will be for another forty minutes at least.’

  With no other way to prevent her from going with Tom, Leo signalled a nearby steward. ‘Have the jet skis organised for Mr Shepherd and any other interested guests.’ Then he turned back to Tom. ‘Be careful.’

  Tom shook his head as if Leo was mad. ‘I always am, man; don’t sweat it.’

  Leo shoved his hands into his pockets and watched as Tom cupped Lexi’s elbow and led her towards the elevator, annoyed when she didn’t shake him off the second time.

  ‘I don’t think he’s realised she’s off-limits yet,’ Danny murmured.

  Leo shot him a warning look. ‘That’s because she isn’t.’

  Leo stormed down to the conference room and ignored the irrational urge to go after Lexi and take her out on the thing himself.

  Not that he wanted to go out on a damned jet ski. He wanted to focus on what he enjoyed most—business. He’d been working for two years on developing this ethanol plant and he wasn’t about to jeopardise it to have fun in the sun.

  What did he care about the sparkling blue waters of the Aegean, or the sandy islands surrounding him? To him, this location was just another venue to continue his business dealings. Relaxing was something he did after hours either at the gym or with a woman. Lazing around on a beach or riding a jet ski had never been on his list of things to do.

  But half an hour later he was glad he’d insisted Danny stay in the meeting because he was the only one holding it all together. For some reason, Leo couldn’t seem to get his brain into gear. Maybe he’d had too much sun upstairs because the state-of-the-art airconditioning wasn’t doing anything to cool his blood. Nor was the buzzing of the jet skis and the delighted catcalls and squeals of his guests as they enjoyed themselves outside his window.

  Leo paced around the airconditioned room and understood how a jungle cat felt locked up in a zoo.

  He noticed the conversation had stopped and waved his hand absently. ‘Carry on,’ he said to the Greek minister’s young and ambitious lawyer. ‘I’m listening.’

  He ignored Danny’s concerned glances and stalked over to the window, watching as four jet skis were lined up ready to race.

  One of the men yelled, ‘Go’ and they all gunned the engines, the skis lurching full speed over the water. Leo’s eyes cut to Tom, who had Lexi on the back without a life jacket. A cold sense of dread settled over his skin. He should have stopped her from going. Or, better yet, gone with her. His instincts had been on high alert and if she got hurt it would be his fault. He didn’t question his need to protect her and nor did he ignore it. The last time he had, he’d lost his brother.

  ‘Take five, gentlemen,’ he threw over his shoulder as he marched out of the room.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  HE MADE it to the lower deck just as Tom hit a rough patch of water and the ski lifted into the air and landed at a sharp angle. Leo’s heart flew into his mouth as Lexi screamed and flew off the side of the machine and disappeared under the water. For a split second he was paralysed as the rider behind Tom rode dangerously close to the wake.

  Then he moved. Jumped onto the lower ramp and grabbed the remaining jet ski from one of the attendants, flying out over the sparkling sea to where Lexi had gone under. The other riders hadn’t realised what had happened and Tom had just got his machine under control when Leo reached the place Lexi had gone under.

  Fortunately, her head broke the surface but Leo could see she had swallowed water and was having trouble breathing.

  He cut the engine and leaned down over the side. ‘Lexi, give me your hand,’ he shouted. She looked disoriented and flailed around and Leo hooked his arm around her torso and hauled her up in front of him.

  ‘Is she all right?’ Tom called out as he pulled up alongside.

  ‘You’d better hope so, Shepherd,’ Leo snarled. He quickly ran his eyes over Lexi, but he couldn’t get a good look at her as she curled over his arm retching violently.

  Leo cursed, ordering Tom to go back and get the in-house doctor. He held Lexi against his chest as he yanked on the throttle and headed towards the nearby island. It was closer than the yacht and he wanted to get her horizontal as quickly as possible.

  The small curved inlet was deserted and once he hit the shallow water he jumped down and swung Lexi up into his arms. He ran through the breakwater and dropped to his knees and gently laid her onto the sand. She was shaking with reaction, her clothes clinging to her like a second skin, but other than that she didn’t appear injured.

  ‘Did the ski hit you anywhere?’ he asked hoarsely.

  She shook her head and winced a little. ‘No.’ She raised a shaky hand to push her hair out of her eyes and he leaned forward and did it for her. ‘I think I just got winded when I hit the water.’

  She tried to sit up but Leo held her down with an unsteady hand on her shoulder. ‘Lie back. Shepherd’s getting the doctor.’

  ‘I’m okay.’ She moved her arms and legs carefully to make sure. Leo’s heart was still lodged in his throat and adrenalin coursed through his blood.

  ‘Just keep still,’ he growled, the wealth of emotion in his voice raising her eyes to his. He couldn’t look away and nor, it seemed, could she. The world receded; even the relentless heat from the sun in a cloudless blue sky faded into the background as Leo felt emotions he didn’t want to name roll through him, searching for purchase.

  Without conscious thought, he raised an unsteady hand to the side of her face. ‘You could have been killed.’ His voice was rough and heat arced between them as he gazed into golden eyes framed by long, wet, spiky lashes. His fingers stroked into her hair and she nestled her cheek into the curve of his palm.

  Fascinated, Leo watched the gold of her eyes become eaten up by black, leaving only a ring of emerald-green, and his body caught fire at the implicit message her dilated pupils transmitted to him. Green. Her eyes turned green with passion.

  As if somehow driven by the need to affirm that she was okay, Leo’s eyes dropped to her parted lips seconds before his head followed.

  He didn’t know if she too was driven by the scare of her accident but her mouth flowered beneath his and her hands speared into his hair as she answered the urgent demand of his lips.

  One of his arms banded around her lower back as he raised her to him and he felt the tips of her breasts nestle against his chest as she strained closer, the heat of her body burning through her flimsy vest top and his shirt as she caught fire in his arms.

  Her urgency more than matched his and he revelled in the way she tried to take charge of the kiss, her thumbs gliding over his cheekbones as she held his face steady while she sipped and nipped at his mouth. He let her play for maybe a second before crushing her mouth beneath his. She moaned and he answered that sound of pleasure with a low groan of his own, pressing her back into the sand and taking control of the kiss.

  This was total insanity but he couldn’t deny how much his body ached to take her. His tongue curled around hers and his mouth turned hard as the same primitive hunger he’d felt with her the other night took hold and threatened to consume him, all sense of reason and caution flying into the air to be fried by the midafter
noon sun.

  He didn’t know how it was possible for the sound of the approaching jet ski to be heard over the loud beating of his heart but fortunately it brought him to his senses and he wrenched his mouth from hers, his body throbbing with unslaked desire.

  Her mouth was kiss-swollen and he knew the good doctor would know what had happened even if he hadn’t seen them and Leo cursed his own stupidity. The woman had nearly died in an accident and he’d what—tried to ravish her?

  Emotions exploded through him and landed with unerring accuracy on Tom Shepherd as he barrelled up the sand towards them. Rage the like he couldn’t remember took over from lust and circuited his body. His muscles tensed and for a split second he contemplated meeting him halfway and putting his fist through his face.

  Lexi must have sensed his intent because she placed her warm palm on his forearm. ‘Don’t.’ That softly spoken plea brought him back to his senses and stopped him in his tracks. A bar room full of men hadn’t been able to stop him after he’d located the man responsible for the death of his uncle in a work-related accident but this woman could contain him with the slightest touch. Of course he’d been irrational with pain at the time his uncle had died, but somehow the emotions he’d felt today when he’d watched Lexi go under hadn’t been that much different. Which was absurd. He’d loved his uncle and didn’t care a whit about Lexi Somers.

  ‘Lexi, are you okay?’ Tom’s concern was palpable and Leo shook off his disconcerting thoughts and pierced him with a look. If he but knew it, Tom Shepherd was only standing because of the woman he’d nearly killed. He hadn’t put a life jacket on Lexi and Leo knew why. And he knew why Tom had gone extra fast to make her cling to his back. Had she enjoyed it, pressed up against Tom’s back as she’d held tight? Had she been thinking of Tom when she’d responded to his kisses moments ago? Leo inwardly cursed the direction of his thoughts. This sense of jealousy—because he recognised that was what it was even though he had never experienced it before—was so unlike him. Women were always easy to come by and easy to let go.

  Unused to feeling so out of balance, Leo turned his anger on her. ‘Why the hell didn’t you insist on wearing a life jacket?’ he snarled.

  He could see his sudden attack had startled her and that she was floundering over how to answer him.

  ‘That was my fault, Leo,’ Tom answered like a protective beau. ‘I said she wouldn’t need one.’

  ‘Excuse me. If I could just see the patient.’ The doctor pushed the two men aside and crouched beside Lexi and Leo paced away from them before he did hit Tom. He hadn’t been in a fist fight for seventeen years and he was disgusted with his loss of control that nearly saw him in one now. He didn’t understand this possessive urge he felt towards Lexi Somers but it had to stop. She wasn’t his and she never would be. He would never want her to be, despite his continued desire to take her to bed. That was just lust. Unusual in its intensity, yes, but still something he could control.

  The doctor finished examining her and sat back on his haunches. ‘You’re fine. You’ve taken in a bit of water but your lungs sound clear enough. It doesn’t appear you were hit and I expect you’ll make a full recovery by this evening, but get some rest when you get back all the same.’

  ‘I feel fine now,’ Lexi said, hugging her knees close to her chest.

  ‘Thanks, Gerard,’ Leo murmured. ‘Tom can return you to the yacht.’

  Tom hesitated. ‘I’m really sorry, Lexi.’

  ‘That’s okay, Tom. Accidents happen.’

  ‘No, they don’t,’ Leo cut in. ‘That was a stupid thing to do, Shepherd, and if I see you on one of my skis again without a life jacket I’ll find someone else to do the East India project.’

  Lexi’s eyes flew to Leo as he squared off against Tom. The East India project was his idea? Lexi was shocked. The man worked tirelessly to save men he had probably never met after a building accident, knew the name of a staff member who ranked low down on the yacht’s employment hierarchy, and now funded documentaries to bring the plight of children in the Third World to the attention of others—and these were just things she knew about. It didn’t make sense that a man like that would not want to have a relationship with his son.

  Unless he was still pining for the mother of that child?

  Lexi’s throat constricted at the unexpected thought that Leo might still be so in love with the beautiful Amanda Weston that he couldn’t even stand to have their son in his orbit if he couldn’t have her as well. Not that he’d said as much—but what other explanation could there be?

  Lexi remembered how her own mother had been so deeply affected when her father’s double life had come to light she had never risked her heart on another man again, turning instead to fostering children to fulfil the void his defection had left behind. Lexi had admired her mother for providing such a caring environment for other children, but she had always struggled when a child who had become part of their family had been returned to their own home.

  ‘Okay, okay, my friend; I can see you’re upset.’ Tom held his hands up towards Leo in a conciliatory nature. ‘We’ll talk later by which time I hope your ire has cooled enough to accept my most humble apology.’

  Lexi was surprised at Leo’s aggressiveness and felt sorry for the retreating Tom. It had been remiss of him not to remind her to wear a life jacket but …

  ‘Leo, really … it was an accident,’ Lexi protested.

  ‘It was avoidable.’ Leo turned to face her, his blue eyes rapier sharp as he glared at her. ‘If you had been wearing a life jacket you wouldn’t have gone under,’ he rasped forcefully.

  ‘I didn’t know I had to.’ Was this really the same man who not twenty minutes ago had kissed her into a liquid puddle of need?

  ‘I know that,’ he snapped. ‘And you know the reason Shepherd didn’t tell you to put one on.’

  His icy gaze raked down over her body and it took her a second for his meaning to register. ‘Are you suggesting …? That’s ridiculous,’ she said indignantly.

  ‘It’s the truth. He probably took his cue from your flirting with him during lunch. Probably earlier in the pool, for all I know.’

  Lexi felt a blast of anger curl her hands into fists. ‘And I suppose that kiss before on the sand was my fault as well? I encouraged you by lying back, unable to catch my breath.’

  Leo rubbed the back of his neck. ‘That kiss was the result of an extremely stressful situation,’ he grated.

  ‘Do tell.’

  ‘Do tell what? As I recall, you weren’t exactly reluctant a few minutes ago.’

  Lexi shut up then. He was right; she’d been far from reluctant and she needed more time to reconcile her attraction to a man she didn’t respect and who confused her mind and her senses in equal measure. She still felt light-headed from his kiss and the heat of his body pressing her so firmly into the sand.

  ‘Yes, well, as you said, it was stress. And I think we should just forget it ever happened.’

  ‘Fine with me.’

  Lexi felt lost for words at his easy acceptance of her rebuttal and leant forward to brush the sugar-soft sand from her legs. What had she wanted him to say? That his kisses had been special? As if.

  ‘We should get back,’ he bit out tersely.

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed absently, too caught up in her own tumultuous response to this man to wonder at his irritation.

  Leo led the way down to the water’s edge and it wasn’t until the hot sand gave way to the coolness of the water that she realised just how she would be getting back to the yacht.

  ‘I’m not riding with you on that,’ she protested a little too vehemently.

  Leo waded towards the jet ski. ‘What are you going to do—swim?’

  He swung himself up onto the bobbing ski with envious athleticism, his leanly muscled torso rippling beneath his still damp shirt from where he’d held her wet body against him. ‘It’s not that far,’ she said, trying to calculate the distance between the island and his yacht.
r />   ‘It’s over two kilometres and you’ve had a fall.’

  ‘I was only winded,’ she reminded him.

  Leo gunned the engine and stretched out his hand. ‘Get on,’ he snarled, not bothering to hide his annoyance.

  ‘You’ve ruined your trousers,’ she commented inanely, noticing for the first time that he was still wearing suit trousers that were wet up to his knees and moulded to his muscular calves.

  ‘My trousers are the least of my concerns,’ he dismissed, beckoning to her. ‘Come. You need to get out of this hot sun.’

  Lexi eyed the jet ski dubiously. ‘Can’t you call the tender?’

  ‘What with?’ His lips curved into a mocking smile. ‘My bat phone?’

  Lexi didn’t know if he was being humorous or not, she just knew that touching him was a bad idea. She fiddled with her necklace and his eyes narrowed on the movement.

  ‘Don’t make me have to come over there and get you,’ he warned softly.

  Lexi’s heart skipped a beat, images of him lifting her up with those muscular arms and cradling her against his solid chest motivating her to wade through the warm water towards him. There was plenty of room behind him anyway and if he went slowly enough she wouldn’t even have to hang onto him.

  ‘Promise you won’t go fast.’

  ‘Whatever you want,’ he drawled and Lexi’s eyes cut to his. Whatever she wanted. She wanted him to kiss her like he had on the beach and never stop.

  No.

  She blinked away the unwelcome thoughts—that was so not what she wanted. Tomorrow she would be back in London and this weekend would be a distant dream. A one-night stand with a Russian playboy with questionable morals was not what the good doctor had ordered at all!

  She reached out to take his hand and could have kicked herself for not grabbing the side of the ski instead when he effortlessly hauled her up in front of him, his strong thighs moulded to the outside of her own.

  Lexi sucked in a quick breath. ‘I can ride behind.’