by Maisey Yates
“Have you spoken to Maddy?” Lily asked, looking at him over the rim of her wineglass as she took a sip, leaving the imprint of her glossy lipstick behind. Normally he wouldn’t think anything about such a normal occurrence, but something about it, about the lingering imprint of Lily’s lips, was sexy beyond reason.
“I talked to her while you were showering. She’s having fun in Switzerland. No media and good skiing.”
“I’m sorry she’s going through this. It isn’t fair. Seems to be the natural state of sexual politics though. If a woman has sex with a man, he uses it against her. If she turns him down … he still finds a way to use it against her.”
“You’re not the biggest fan of men, are you?”
“I like men that I know personally. Men as a species I sometimes have issues with. Or maybe, more specifically, cultural traditions that allow them to get away with pretty despicable things that women would never be forgiven for.”
“Do you speak from experience?”
She slid her hand up and down the stem of the glass, the movement so erotic he felt the impact of it down in his groin. Ironic and inappropriate considering the topic of conversation. But then, he was a man. And she was very much a woman.
“Not anything close to what Maddy is dealing with, but I know what it’s like for men to make assumptions.”
“Jeff Campbell was making assumptions, wasn’t he?”
She nodded. “Yes, he was. And I was partly glad to cancel the contract because of that. I didn’t want to have to deal with another awkward conversation where I have to explain that a friendly greeting is simply a friendly greeting and not an invitation for sex.”
“You called me sexist for basically saying the same thing about women I’ve worked with.”
She frowned. “Well, you didn’t have any lingering repercussions for turning your PA down.”
He quirked an eyebrow. “You don’t think her showing up naked in my office was over the top? What if the roles were reversed?”
She grimaced. “Okay. Point taken. People can be awful. Both genders. But I am sorry that Maddy’s having to deal with this.”
“Me, too. She’s been through enough.” He didn’t usually talk about their growing-up years, or, more specifically, Maddy’s growing-up years. But it seemed fair that Lily understand since she was in the middle of everything.
“She moved in with me when she was ten,” he said. “My parents weren’t caring for her. Not properly. So I went and got her and brought her home with me. She stayed until she went to college four years ago.”
“You raised her?”
He shrugged. “More or less. I was twenty-five, nowhere near ready to be a father, especially not to my ten-year-old sister, but it was what she needed. And I know I wasn’t really a great substitute for a father. But I did what I could. I made sure she went to prom. And that her date—skinny kid, very annoying—got threatened within an inch of his life beforehand. A shocking number of high school students lose their virginity at prom.”
It was strange to hear Gage talking like this. Like a concerned parent. Like a man who had faced things she hadn’t even tried to imagine dealing with.
Lily’s heart clenched tight. She’d always assumed that Gage was just a carefree playboy. The kind of man who played around simply because he had money and power and no woman would say no, and no one would look down on him for simply doing what men did.
But, just like that wildlife preserve he hadn’t yet shared with the public, there was more to him. He’d raised a child. He’d been there for his sister when no one else had.
“For the record, she was back at ten o’clock on prom night,” he added.
“Does that mean you let her date live?”
“I did. But I wouldn’t have if he’d done anything to hurt her. Or if he’d taken advantage of her, or caused her pain in any way.”
She bit her lip. “Are you going to let Callahan live?”
“Weighing the pros and cons of it.”
“I didn’t realize that you’d been through that with her.”
He shrugged again, like he always did when things turned personal. “I did what I had to. I wanted to do it. I love Maddy.”
“It really makes sense to me now, why you’re doing this, why it’s so important for you to protect her. In a lot of ways you’re more like a parent than a brother.”
And again, she felt something shifting inside of her, felt some of her defenses weaken, begin to crumble. If he was nothing more than a carefree playboy, then it was easy to brush off her attraction to him. And while, clearly, he had strong playboy elements, he was also a good person. She liked Gage, she always had, but now she liked him more, and that complicated things, especially when the liking mixed with her steadily growing attraction for him.
She took another fortifying sip of wine and then realized that fortifying herself with the heat-inducing, slightly drugging liquid wasn’t the best idea.
“I’m tired. Jet lag,” she said. And lines were becoming muddled, thanks to the wine and the sudden revelation about Gage. “I should go to bed.”
Gage nodded. “Good night, Lily.”
Later, when she was in her bed, trying to fall asleep, she kept hearing that deep husky voice over and over again, telling her good night. And it was far too easy to imagine he was in her bed saying it, holding her close to his hard, hot body.
She wrapped herself tightly in her blanket and curled her knees up to her chest, trying to stop the ache that was pounding inside of her. The ache that was turning into a shocking feeling of emptiness that her body seemed to think only Gage could fill.
CHAPTER SIX
BREAKFAST with the board was an event. They were businessmen, so they weren’t seeking public displays of affection at least, but they did want to know how the scandal with Maddy was going to affect the bottom line.
“Not at all,” Lily insisted. “The incident with Maddy barely made a dent in the international media. William Callahan isn’t famous worldwide. And we’re going to make sure we publicize the Forrester Wildlife Preserve that Gage established here on Koh Samui.”
“The cynical might argue that I set aside all of that land to keep my competition out,” Gage said when the members of the board had left the table, off to a golf game Gage had arranged for them.
“Yes, the cynical might,” she said. “But your motives aren’t important.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“In this context, yes, I do. As far as life application goes, of course motivation matters. But this is for a sound bite, a press release. They can speculate about your motives all they like, but the important thing is that you did it. At least that’s how those concerned about environmental impact will see it.”
“Interested in sightseeing today?”
She raised her eyebrows. “Don’t we have paperwork to file, or something?”
“Not today. I thought you might enjoy seeing some of the island. The main focus of this resort is simply bringing people into the natural beauty of Thailand. That’s why, at my resort, I haven’t made a golf course and built bars along the beach. It would be good PR if you were familiar with the place.”
She sighed. “Using my job title against me. Shameless.”
He looked at her. “I can be.”
Silence, the thick tense kind, settled between them again. Lily licked her suddenly dry lips, and his eyes dropped, following the movement. A rush of pure feminine pride raced through her. That she could affect a man like Gage was nothing short of incredible. She had no experience at all and he had likely slept his way through the phone book.
But she wasn’t imagining it. He was feeling it too. The insistent beat pounding inside of her, demanding satisfaction.
She looked away and tried to steady her breathing, tried to think logically. They were adults, and that meant there was only one place an attraction like this would end if it was acted on. And that was in bed. All fine for most people, but she had less experience
than most teenagers, and Gage was a thirty-seven-year-old man with years of experience. It was an incongruous, insane combination.
“Bring a swimsuit,” he said finally, breaking the tension between them. Most of it anyway.
“I don’t have one.”
He frowned. “You didn’t bring a swimsuit to an island?”
“It’s a business trip.”
He lowered his voice, his blue eyes intense. “I think it’s a little more than that.”
She shook her head. “No. Don’t say that. Don’t talk about it.”
“Because if we don’t talk about it we don’t feel it?”
“Because it’s stupid. We work together.” She didn’t even pretend to be ignorant of what he meant. What would the point of that be?
No matter how much she wanted to deny it there was an attraction between them. An attraction that, if she was honest, had been there, smoldering since that very first interview, the one that had not resulted in her being hired. Which was why, even though she’d been put out that he’d chosen someone else, she’d been relieved that she wouldn’t be the one who had to work with him every day. Because he’d affected her in ways no other man had, and it wasn’t something she’d been prepared to deal with. She still wasn’t, she just didn’t have a choice now, since she was stuck in a foreign country with the man, pretending to be his fiancée.
“I don’t swim, actually,” she said, the thought of being that exposed making her feel jittery. It was less a matter of revealing her body, and more a matter of losing her image, her business suits and killer shoes, which always helped her amp up her confidence.
He arched an eyebrow. “You don’t know how to swim or you don’t swim?”
“Is there a difference?”
“A pretty big one. The difference between whether or not I have to jump in and save you if you fall overboard.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Okay, I know how, I just don’t.” Not in front of him anyway. “And anyway, if I fell overboard, you know you would jump in after me.”
A slow smile spread across his face. “Maybe. I’ll have a member of the staff track down a swimsuit for you. You’ll enjoy yourself. Trust me.”
The boat ride out to the small island just off the south side of Koh Samui was incredible. The water was completely clear, the depths of the ocean clearly visible as they floated over the surface of the water.
Lily found herself relaxing, even in Gage’s presence, which was a strange feeling. But the scenery was so gorgeous and the small yacht skimmed so smoothly over the small waves, that it was simply impossible to fight the effects.
Even the swimsuit, a barely there bikini held together with tiny strings, no longer had her feeling so tense. Of course, she was covered with a T-shirt and shorts, so that helped.
She’d worn a bikini once before. Something she’d purchased herself for her sixteenth birthday. Her mother’s boyfriend had seemed to think it was some sort of invitation. She felt incredibly lucky to this day that he’d been more of a jerk, rather than being outright evil. At least he’d listened when she’d said a very emphatic no. But the lingering memory of his alcohol-flavored kiss was more than enough to remind her of where men sometimes saw invitation and opportunity.
She didn’t really believe Gage would do anything like that, though. She never had. He would never need to force himself on a woman. He wouldn’t anyway. She was confident in that. But the bikini itself wasn’t the biggest worry. Without her business clothes, without that reinforcing barrier between them, she was afraid she might forget why she couldn’t give in to the attraction they both very clearly felt.
So don’t forget.
Gage steered the yacht into an alcove that was surrounded by a sheer rock face that created a natural wall of privacy around what looked like a small swimming area. The water was clear here, too. Lily could see silver flashes beneath the surface that she knew were fish.
“I can definitely see why you built a resort out here,” she said.
“I visited Thailand for the first time when I was in college. I knew I wanted to do something here then. I was just waiting for the right time.”
She sat up in the deck chair she’d been lounging on. “You built the business up by yourself?”
He nodded. “Started small, with residential homes that I fixed up. Then I found some land to subdivide and built a neighborhood, which got me off to a pretty good start. I started looking for investors after that.”
“Why resort properties then?”
“Because they’re more profitable. The industry is more stable. There’s a class of people that will always vacation no matter what.”
It sounded like her own reasoning for her job. It wasn’t as though she loved public relations more than anything. But she was good at it, and she made good money at it. It served her sense of ambition, her drive to succeed. Her need to put more and more distance between the new Lily and the Lily she’d left in Kansas.
“How about you, Lily? Did you start your business by yourself?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“No help?”
She laughed. “No one in my family would have known how to help. Actually, I don’t have all that much family. Just my mother and whatever man she’s shacked up with at any given moment.”
More than she’d intended to share. How did he do that? He had a way of making her want to bare all to him. Wanting to make him understand her, when she really should care.
“It takes a lot of drive to make your own success,” he said, looking at the island in front of them instead of at her.
“Yes, it does. Why didn’t your family help you, Gage? Your parents had money.”
“I wouldn’t take money from them. Not after what they did to Maddy.”
The glint of rage in his eyes was so intense, so feral, that if it had been directed at her, she almost would have been frightened of him. There was so much more to Gage than she’d originally assumed. Carefree playboy. Was that really how she’d seen him just a week ago? Oh, she’d always sensed a level of intensity beneath the surface, but she’d thought that was just ambition, drive for his career. It was more. A lot more.
“At least she had you,” she said softly.
There hadn’t been anyone for her. Her mother had been too caught up in the soap opera of her life, and there certainly hadn’t been an ally available in the scores of men her mother had lived with over the years.
A flash of a feeling, a strange longing, shook her. What would it be like to have someone support her? Stand by her no matter what? To have someone in her life that cared about her in the sacrificial way that Gage loved Maddy.
She blinked. There wasn’t anyone. And she didn’t need there to be anyway. That was what made her mother so weak. Her mother needed someone else to make her feel complete, needed drama and loud fights and passionate sex to feel alive. Lily made herself feel alive. She pushed herself, supported herself. She was the only one she counted on for anything, and that was the way it had to be. If she let herself down, there was no one else to blame, and there was no one else hurt. It all came down to her.
Usually, those thoughts left her feeling fortified, but not now. It just made her feel lonely. She used to ache like this all of the time. Wish that someone would care for her, care about her. She’d let it go so long ago she hadn’t realized that those old longings still existed … they were buried, but still there.
She inhaled a sharp breath of the hot, damp air.
“Of course she had me,” Gage said, his voice hard. “I would never leave her to fend for herself.”
A tightening sensation curled in her stomach. Envy, she realized. Envy that Maddy had someone who cared for her so much, to love her so much, even if her parents hadn’t. Lily hadn’t had anyone. She still didn’t.
“Let’s swim,” she said, the words leaving her mouth before she had a chance to process them. She didn’t really want to reveal her body to Gage. She valued her image, the shield she’d put up around
herself, too much to make herself so exposed. But she realized that if she didn’t do something she was in danger of doing something much stupider than that.
“I didn’t think you swam.”
“It’s too beautiful to resist.”
Gage dropped anchor on the boat and stepped back down on to the deck, gripping the bottom of his T-shirt and pulling it off in one fluid movement.
Lily felt her jaw go slack, and she knew that she looked as awestruck as she felt. She’d never seen Gage without a shirt. She’d mostly seen him in business attire, which was a massive treat for the eyes. And then, in preparation for the yacht trip, when he’d changed from his suit into pair of well-worn, well-fitted jeans and a threadbare T-shirt that revealed hints of his musculature beneath the soft, thin fabric, she’d found him incredible.
But now, standing in front of her with nothing but those jeans, low-slung, revealing lines that seemed to point straight down to a part of his body that should be completely off-limits to her, even in her mind, he had the power to stun her completely.
His chest was essentially mind-numbing. Acres of golden skin with just a slight dusting of dark hair, his muscles well-defined, shifting and bunching as he moved around the yacht, tying off ropes and making sure everything was secure for them to disembark.
When he straightened she couldn’t help but watch the play of his ab muscles, shifting, rippling.
Oh, my …
Her heart thundered and her mouth went completely dry.
She owned beachfront property. She saw half-naked men every day of the week. And she even liked looking at them. But never, ever, had she been unable to do anything but stare. But she couldn’t tear her eyes away from him.
Now she really needed a swim. And she hoped the water was cold enough to jar her out of whatever stupor her hormones were lulling her into.
He unsnapped the top button of his jeans and the intensely provocative motion shook her back to reality. “What are you doing?”
