by Ally Blake
And really, when it came down to it, thank goodness for that.
Dylan sat back from the dinner table, replete. Another rambunctious Kelly family dinner done with.
The minute he’d hit the long table in his parents’ over-decorated dining hall, he’d eaten like a man possessed. Caramelised pork with green papaya salad, duck breast with blood orange & quince marmalade, goat’s cheese baklava. He’d not missed an offering, filling his stomach in an effort to quell that other hunger that had cloaked him all afternoon.
Wynnie Devereaux might have been a pain in his behind, but she’d also left him with an ache everywhere else. He’d felt her liquid brown eyes grazing his cheek all afternoon until he’d taken to his office washroom and shaved. His palm had tingled with the feel of her hip sliding against it until he’d purposely scalded himself on a too-hot cup of coffee. No matter the hundred other jobs he’d had to do, he hadn’t been able to erase her from his mind.
It certainly hadn’t helped that his phone had run hot all afternoon from media outlets looking for quotable quotes about his relationship with the CFC and his opinion on the woman of the hour.
Having to find new and interesting ways of not saying he mostly wanted to throw her over his shoulder and give her a good spank had taken its toll.
Food and lots of it had worked for a couple of hours which had made for a nice relief. As had making mention of the incident, every chance he’d had. He patted his tight belly. So long as he didn’t make fuelling his sexual appetite with food a habit.
‘Are you sure you’re done there, bro?’ his younger sister, Meg, asked. ‘For five bucks I’ll let you lick my plate.’
He offered her a shark’s grin. ‘The day you put in an honest day’s work at an honest job, then you’ll understand why some of us need big dinners. We often miss lunch rather than make it the focus of our day.’
She poked out her tongue and took off into the next room with her mobile phone already glued to her ear.
‘She’s almost thirty, right?’ he asked his father.
But Quinn Kelly was already pushing back his chair and sneaking outside. Dylan nodded to his parents’ butler, James, to make sure the old man wasn’t sneaking outside for a cigar.
Dylan sat forward and ran a hand over his mouth. He’d always thought them a tight-knit family. Until a few months back, on the night of his father’s seventieth birthday, when they’d discovered a secret that threatened to knock their foundations out from under them.
His father, the true king behind the Kelly Investment Group, the powerhouse who had made their family the most influential in Brisbane, a man they had all thought might defy the odds and live forever, had serious heart problems that had led to him being brought back to life twice.
That night they had closed ranks, and told no one—for the sake of the financial stability of the business, and for the sake of their father’s health.
Dylan’s position as guardian of the parts of his family’s lives deemed not fit for public consumption had only become all the more critical overnight.
It was a job he was more than happy to do. A job he’d needed to do since that long-ago day when the whole city had woken up to find their newspapers filled with pages dedicated to the gory specifics of the horrifically messy breakdown of his engagement.
If he’d been any other jilted man, with any other surname, nobody would have given a hoot. He’d realised that day the precarious position his whole family was in, and he’d taken it upon himself to be all of their safeguards against menace, exposure and innuendo.
Once James came back and intimated that Quinn was not disobeying doctor’s orders, Dylan was able to relax. He shook off the dark memories of that long-ago, cloistered version of himself and glanced down the table to find his youngest brother, Cameron, and his new bride, Rosie, finishing off a bottle of wine, not even realising everyone else had gone.
A couple of minutes went by before Dylan realised he was still watching them.
His back teeth clenched and he downed the last swig of Scotch in the glass held tight in his fist. Of all of his family he got on best with Cam—he was a sharp guy, and he wished him all the luck in the world. But in the back of his mind he worried for him. Odds were Rosie would turn out not to be the woman Cam thought she was.
‘Aren’t they just the sweetest things you’ve ever seen?’
Dylan blinked, and turned to find his mother standing behind him, a beatific smile on her face.
He stood and turned his back on the couple, hoping not having them in his sights might make the discomfort behind his ribs go away.
‘So sweet my teeth hurt. Now when are you going to realise having us over is not akin to a state dinner? You can keep the Wedgwood in the cupboard. Bring out the Ikea flatware for us next time.’ He kissed his mum on the cheek, and walked away, hoping to make a stealthy exit.
He headed through the drawing room only to find Brendan sitting at a table with a desk lamp, reading over some contract or other. He’d always been a workaholic, but even more so now that he was secretly running KInG while Quinn was forcibly sitting in his office playing solitaire all day instead of running the multibillion-dollar company that had likely taken ten years off his life in the first place.
Dylan stuck his hands in his trouser pockets and watched his brother a moment longer.
Brendan had been in a long-term relationship himself once, and had been left deeply hurt and alone. True, Chrissy had died unexpectedly, leaving him with two gorgeous young daughters to help fill the gap, both of whom were upstairs now, sleeping like angels, but Dylan still felt an empathy with the guy. If Brendan took a moment to bend, or appear even slightly less than indestructible, maybe they could be stalwarts together, resiliently emancipated from the burden of needing love.
‘So that disturbance today,’ Brendan said, causing Dylan to leap out of his skin. ‘I assume you cleaned it up.’
‘Assume away.’
Brendan managed to hold his breath for about three and a half seconds before closing the contract and looking up. ‘I saw the news. Handcuffs? Seriously?’
Dylan grinned. He couldn’t help himself. Hearing the word ‘handcuffs’ come out of his stiff older brother’s mouth was almost worth the afternoon chasing the owner of the handcuffs around the deep dark recesses of his mind.
He leant against a twelve-foot bookcase and crossed one ankle across the other. ‘Her name’s Wynnie. She wants us to help her save the world. I offered to take her to the moon and back instead.’
Brendan frowned even more than usual. ‘You didn’t—’
‘Hey, a good time with me and she’ll have trouble remembering her own name.’
Brendan rubbed his fingers over his eyes. ‘Why, oh, why did she have to be a woman?’
Dylan grinned. ‘It was a fifty-fifty chance and the gods love me.’
When Brendan looked as if he was about to burst a blood vessel Dylan sat in a chair across from him and filled him in on the specifics—Wynnie’s new position, the details of her pitch, and the fact that she would not be getting back into the building any time soon.
‘The deal wasn’t worth considering?’ Brendan asked.
‘The deal was probably fine. But I have no intention of dealing with someone who all but blackmailed me into giving her the meeting in the first place. It’s not a precedent I believe we want to set.’
Brendan’s hard face softened into what looked to be the beginnings of a smile. ‘You want her to know you’re the biggest baddest image manipulator in town, not her.’
Dylan just stared back.
And Brendan shook his head as he opened the contract up again and began to read as he spoke. ‘A Trojan horse, that’s what she was. Letting her in the building was as good as admitting defeat. But if you think it’s best to keep her at bay, then fine. That’s the end of that.’
Dylan stared at the ends of his fingernails so long he lost focus. That was the end of that. No more Wynnie Devereaux. No more meetings,
no more sightings, no more thinking about her.
Or her tousled hair. Or sweet-smelling skin. Or the blaze of attraction that had grabbed him and not let him go. Or the fact that while she claimed her name wasn’t French her accent did have the sexiest tinge of European schooling about it. Or that he’d never met anyone, not even within his own boisterous gutsy family, who had the gumption to put their own pride, their own self-interest, a mile down the line behind standing up for what they believed in.
And she had promised she wasn’t yet done with him. He wondered what other surprises she might have in store for him beneath her tough outer layer. Beneath that so-close-to-see-through-it-hurt top, beneath those tight white pants that left little to the imagination, beneath that delicate G-string—
‘Another drink, sirs?’ James asked from the doorway.
Brendan shook his head without looking up.
While Dylan dragged himself from the chair with a loud oomph. ‘Not for this little duck. I’m home to bed.’
He slapped James on the shoulder as he passed. ‘You’ll keep an eye on them for me, won’t you, James? Make sure they don’t burn the manor down, or get caught in public naked, or do anything else I would have to clean up in the press the next day?’
‘Always, Master Dylan.’
‘Good man.’
CHAPTER FOUR
WYNNIE’S knee jiggled and her eyes hurt from staring agitatedly at the sun-drenched glass front of the Morningside café.
Her wrist ached from whipping her chai latte for the past ten minutes. To be more specific, the muscles ached. Her handcuff injuries were still swathed in bandages and magic cream; hence the need for a long-sleeved leather jacket over her black and white striped T-shirt.
Her eyes swept past warm orange walls, mismatched wooden chairs and deep purple couches as she glanced at the flat-screen TV on the wall behind the counter. A frothy current-affairs morning show was on, and in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen it told her she’d spent twelve minutes staring. Waiting. Knee-jiggling.
That was twelve extra minutes she could have slept. Twelve extra minutes in which she might have found time to cover the panda patches under her eyes and done something with her hair rather than just run hopeful fingers through it in the cab.
Brisbane’s balmy weather, that was what had kept her awake the past few nights. Years spent in more reasonable, temperate climes meant her system was reeling from a little heat shock. Watching the fan spin above her bed, casting long shadows across the moonlit ceiling, while her hot, spreadeagled body took every whisper of shifting air it could, she had finally fallen asleep some time just before sunrise.
Her night sweats had had nothing to do with the fact that she knew that at seven-thirty this morning she’d be sitting in this very café awaiting the arrival of Dylan Kelly.
She looked to the TV again, and suddenly there she was in all her handcuffed glory. A static image over the newsreader’s left shoulder spun to fill the screen showing her strapped to the inane sculpture while Dylan Kelly paced about her like a lion baiting his prey.
It was said that a camera added ten pounds. On Dylan Kelly wherever the camera had added bulk, it had worked. She shuffled on her seat, heat rising up her back, slithering behind her knees, pooling between her breasts.
She, on the other hand, with the wind flapping at her hair, and in her fanciful floral top, her knees knocking, her eyes locked in on Dylan’s every move, did appear the ‘eco-warrior’ each outlet had labelled her. She wondered which one had written the wire and which others had barely bothered changing a word.
Either way, the term didn’t sit well with her at all. It conjured up images of red paint-bombs, and angry protestors and tear gas.
And Felix. The last time she’d seen him at seventeen years old, he’d had the gleam of battle in his eye as he’d excitedly told her he was in Brisbane to protest with a group of mates. She’d been so proud of his passion. Little had she imagined the extent of the collateral damage involved in the war he had been about to wage, all in the name of the environment.
Her hand went straight for her mum’s butterfly clip, today attached to the band of her watch.
Her family hadn’t been brought up that way. Their focus had been living off the land, and leaving as small a mark upon it behind them as possible. It helped forge a more intimate community better connected to the world around them.
Finding a way to give the rest of the world just a taste of that idyllic existence was what she was working so hard to achieve now.
The café door swung inwards, a blinding flash of sunlight reflected off the angled glass and into her eyes.
A male form burst into the space, but she knew in an instant it wasn’t the male form she sought. It was a more slightly built, younger man in a suit, talking non-stop into a mobile phone.
Her spine relaxed and she reached for her glass—Her fingers curled into her palm before she reached it.
The young man wasn’t alone. He held open the door deferentially, and in his wake came another. Pale grey suit, white and grey striped shirt, no tie, platinum-framed sunglasses, broad shoulders, short dark blond hair, a chiselled jaw and lips built for sin. Head down, reading a newspaper held in one hand, this male seemed to suck every ounce of sunshine from the bright room.
As he moved away from the door the light redispersed itself into a more normal pattern and Dylan Kelly came into focus.
No more trying to tell herself that heatstroke had caused the sexual overdrive that had overcome her the last time they’d met. It was all him. She picked up her drink, downing the cooled muck in one hit.
All that was just too damned bad. This meeting was all about the work. It was her second take at chip, chip, chipping away at his rock-hard veneer.
He lifted his head as though he’d only just realised where he was. The man at his side, whom she now recognised as his assistant Eric, mimed that he would get the coffees. Dylan nodded once, then his eyes swept the room.
An equal mix of anticipation and trepidation slid through her body as she waited for him to catch her eye. Dylan wasn’t exactly expecting her. She’d started off with the heroine-on-the-train-tracks approach, this time she was going with the sudden-leap-from-behind-a-tree attack.
Then suddenly she wondered if he’d even recognise her if he did spot her. What if she’d built up their first meeting into some kind of rare, mythical, sexual awakening when for him she’d been one of a dozen crazies he’d dealt with that day?
The urge to dive beneath the low coffee table nudging at her calves was a strong one…until his head stopped its slow perusal of the room so quickly his cheek clenched, and the newspaper in his hand crumpled beneath a tensed fist.
She took a deep breath and said, ‘Here we go again,’ beneath her breath, before giving him a jaunty wave.
Eric appeared at his side, noticed Dylan had turned to stone, then followed the direction of his gaze. When Eric saw her with her hand raised, the colour drained from the poor guy’s face.
It wasn’t as though she’d expected a big hello and a kiss on the cheek from Dylan, but brutal exasperation radiated from his entire body. Pesky as her job meant she could be, she’d never brought about that kind of intense reaction in another person before.
He reached up and slid off his sunglasses. The hit of those glinting blue eyes felt like a sucker punch to the stomach, even this time, when she ought to have been expecting it. Or perhaps that was her very problem. The expectation of seeing him again, of wondering if her reaction to him would be as outrageously vivid as the last time, had grown exponentially with every passing hour since she’d last walked away.
She stood, and waved an arm towards the matching couches surrounding the low-slung coffee table she’d secured for their ‘meeting’. This time she’d had two days in which to get completely ready. She had all the information she needed right in front of her—statistics, research, cost-projections. And since the emails she’d sent had bounced, she had pamphlets,
proposals and contracts at her fingertips.
Dylan’s cheek twitched.
Wynnie’s stomach rolled over on itself. Time slowed to a most painful rate. Her jacket began to feel like a hotbox. Come on, she begged inside her head.
And then he smiled. Wide lips. Straight white teeth. His cheeks lifting to create half a dozen deep creases around each blue eye.
When his smile turned to laughter, she called out across the cafe, ‘What?’
He began snaking around the haphazard tables in between them until they were separated by the coffee table alone.
‘What?’ she said again.
‘You.’
‘Me what?’
‘You are one tenacious woman, Miss Devereaux.’ His smile eased until it was all in his eyes.
As she drowned in a sea of sky blue, her neck relaxed and her muscles grew loose. Loose enough she smiled right on back. ‘The sooner you realise I’m not going away, the sooner you’ll stop ignoring me.’
He tossed his sunglasses onto the couch and shucked off his jacket, his shoulder muscles bunching and shifting beneath his light cotton shirt. ‘I’m afraid I couldn’t ignore you even if I wanted to. We’ll be sitting here today, Eric,’ he said, and Wynnie glanced over his shoulder to see his assistant hovering.
‘Sure thing, boss,’ he said, then scurried off to grab their order.
Not quite believing her luck, Wynnie waited until Dylan sat before sitting again herself. Her knees knocked as she leant over to neaten up her presentation and the fabric of her skinny jeans rubbing together sent hot sparks up her legs.
What with her leather jacket, her hot jeans, the chai latte in her belly and Dylan Kelly smouldering at her three feet away, she was very much in danger of heatstroke.
She ran a hand across her forehead to find it was moist. Deciding it was better to appear foolish than to faint, she took off her jacket and all but whimpered with pleasure when her arms were bare to the blissful air-conditioning.
Unfortunately it took Dylan half a second to reach out and grab her hands. ‘Now what the hell have you gone and done to yourself?’
