by Ally Blake
Meg Kelly was a clever girl. She’d made the temptation far too great.
Wynnie had one last chance to find out if Dylan was all she so deeply thought he was, or whether her usual bad judgment made her just another notch on the smiling assassin’s bedpost.
And one last chance to convince KInG to join with the CFC.
Her cheeks flushed as she realised her first thought had been Dylan, and not how precipitous an opportunity she had just been thrown to get her job done.
Either way, Wynnie couldn’t turn Meg down.
‘I’d be delighted.’ Wynnie smiled at Meg over the top of her drink. ‘So why aren’t you the vice president of some fabulous company?’
Meg’s mouth twisted into a smile. ‘If I’d been this age in the eighties—the days of three-hour lunches, junkets overseas and perks up the wazoo—then who knows?’
The door swung open and Rylie flounced in, obviously having heard the tail-end of a story she’d heard before. ‘You’d never have carried off the shoulder pads.’
‘Oh, well. Too bad. A life of leisure and avoiding making excuses to the fam is to be my lot. Here’s my mobile number.’ Meg handed over a shiny white business card with a large bold embossed letter ‘M’ above a mobile number and an e-mail address in bold hot pink letters. ‘Message me your address and I’ll swing by and pick you up at yours at say three o’clock and we’ll head to the manor from there.’
‘Sounds good.’
Meg stood and Wynnie did the same.
‘You coming?’ Rylie asked Meg, and the two of them bounced out the door, waving their goodbyes.
Wynnie slumped back onto the couch and stared at Meg’s card, wondering how on earth she would explain her presence at his family’s home to Dylan, and wondering what else she could possibly think to say to him after that.
CHAPTER NINE
DYLAN hid on his hands and knees behind a manicured hedge in the centre of the park at the rear of his parents’ Edwardian-style home, ostensibly counting backwards from thirty-eight. That was as high as Olive, Brendan’s youngest, knew how to count.
‘Ready or not, here I come!’ he bellowed after enough time seemed to have passed, and the direction of the squeals that followed told him the girls were both in the exact same places they had been the week before. Didn’t mean he couldn’t take his time finding them.
It took a loud oomphing sound to make getting up easier.
‘Don’t do that,’ Cameron said as he wandered over, carrying a bone-china plate covered in crumbs that told of intensely delicious hors d’oeuvres, which Dylan was missing out on.
Food had worked a treat the last time he was here and trying to stop thinking about what lay beneath Wynnie’s outer layers. Now that he knew the answer in brilliant, intimate detail he feared he might need a table full all for himself.
‘You’re older than me,’ Cameron said. ‘You’re giving me a bad image of what I might be like in two years.’
Dylan brushed grass off the knees of his casual, hide-and-seek-ready trousers. ‘You’re married now, remember. I’ll give it a year before everyone starts thinking you’re older anyway.’
‘Nah. My love’s glow will keep me ageless and this good-looking forever. You, on the other hand, as a ridiculously determined single man, will wear mismatched socks and lose your car keys and your sentences will be replaced by mumbles. But you’ll still be welcome at Rosalind’s and mine.’ Cam added a slap to the back as he said, ‘Old man.’
‘Leave me be, I have pre-teens to entertain. Only the cool uncle gets that job. But first tell me where I can get my mouth around some of that food. My stomach needs filling and fast.’
‘Not just yet. Meg’s here, and she’s brought a little friend,’ Cameron said with just enough of a smile in his voice Dylan knew the joke was about to be on him.
Dylan glanced up at the house to see his sister and…
His empty stomach went into free fall and landed somewhere in the region of his knees. ‘You have got to be kidding me.’
Cameron laughed. ‘Don’t tell me she’s brought an old flame here to haunt you again.’
When Dylan said nothing but continued to stare, Cameron added softly, ‘Or perhaps it is a new flame.’
If the fire in his belly had anything to say about it, Cameron was spot on. So much for splitting from the TV studio quick smart to give himself the chance to clear his head of her—to remove himself from her soft warm body, her delectably sharp tongue, her expressive eyes that told him right there on live television that, despite the games, despite the professional gulf between them, she hadn’t had enough of him any more than he’d had enough of her. Now the mere sight of her in the distance deluged him with all those intense feelings again like a sudden summer storm.
Nevertheless he rallied to shake his head. ‘Less of a flame, more of a thorn in my side.’
Since that morning she’d pinned her fringe from her forehead, leaving her face open and guileless, her waves curling softly against her cheeks. A pale blue and cream lace top gently draped over her shoulders, whispering across her breasts, veering in to show off her small waist and stopping just below the beltline of tight jeans. Her flat silver shoes gave a bounce to her steps.
He’d never seen her look so pretty, so utterly feminine. The latent he-man instincts she always seemed to conjure up flew into overdrive and his skin began to tighten and prickle and hurt.
He curled his fingers into his palms. So far the only way he’d found to make those persistent and highly inconvenient feelings go away was having her naked skin flush against his own. Meaning either he had to make love to her every night for the rest of his life, or this unhealthy relationship had to come to a swift end.
‘Dylan,’ Cameron mumbled, apparently still beside him.
‘What?’ he barked.
‘Would I be completely wrong in thinking that you might be glowing?’
The bark turned to a growl. ‘So wrong it makes me wonder if your new wife is not beating you about the head as you sleep. It’d be a fast way for her to come into a quick fortune, you know.’
Cameron’s glare was baleful, and Dylan knew he’d overstepped the mark. He patted his brother on the back and added, ‘Though if you snore the way you used to at camp I wouldn’t blame her if she did.’
Cameron forgave him with a smile, before moving off in the direction of his new bride. The two of them couldn’t seem to be apart for longer than five minutes.
As though Dylan were in need of any other means to add to his now almost constant discomfort, he took a step Wynnie’s way but stopped when his mother cut them off. Wynnie’s smile seemed genuine as his mother kissed her on the cheek. She said something then that made his mother laugh.
Her hair was fluttering across her face, the breeze sucking her filmy top to her skin shaping every delicious curve until he had no choice but to remember the sheen and tone of every inch of skin.
And those big brown cow eyes just made him melt in places he didn’t know it was possible for a grown man to melt. Thank God the rest of her made the rest of him rock-hard.
He took another step towards the house and stopped again when his father appeared from nowhere to join the welcome party. She shook his hand, looked him in the eye and cocked her head to one side as he told her some story or other. likely about golf, or sailing.
She listened. As though she just knew there was no greater way to Quinn’s good graces than to make him think he was fascinating.
As the rest of the gang, bar him, joined in the welcome Wynnie’s melodic laughter rang across the lawn. Her bright eyes shone, even from this distance. She showed no fear of the usually amply intimidating group. And as one they bowed towards her like sunflowers to the sun.
Each and every one of them on the board of the Kelly Investment Group.
‘Oh, crap,’ he said aloud as his blood began to chill in his veins.
No wonder her eyes were yet to seek him out. He was the very last person she had come here t
o see.
Damn Meg and her meddling. He had to clean up her messes more than everyone else’s combined, and right now he wanted to ring her little neck. But she’d have to get in line. Wynnie Devereaux was right up front.
Since the hideous, unscrupulous, malicious break-up with Lilliana, his eyes had been wide-open to the fact that every woman he’d ever known had wanted something from him. Wynnie was no different—she’d just been so upfront about wanting to get into bed with KInG his usually rock-solid guard had slipped. And he’d spent the past week following his groin rather than his gut. Shame on him, twice over.
Brendan, who was leaning against a pillar on the outer rim of the circle, caught his eye over a cup of coffee. He raised an eyebrow before tilting his head in Wynnie’s direction.
The Trojan horse might not have made it back inside the building, but she had made it smack bang into the middle of the inner sanctum, and it was entirely his doing.
It all came back to the small pile of photocopied news stories Jack had left him with; Wynnie questioned day after day for twelve days, not because there was any evidence she’d had anything to do with the attack on the laboratory, but because she’d refused to say a word about where her brother might be. Twelve days she’d kept her mouth shut. Not giving up her family to save herself.
He’d held on to that, tightly, as he’d called in a favour to get a ticket to the museum ball. It had thrown him in the way of a swinging fist, and sent him to her bed.
But the truth was he actually had not one clue if she had been involved with radical, violent, environmentalist saboteurs. Video footage and witness evidence said her brother most certainly was. Seven people had been injured that day, including one who was put into a wheelchair for life. And here she was in his home, mixing with his family. He didn’t know which direction to step first.
The family split in all directions, and Meg’s arm linked through Wynnie’s as she took her down onto the grass. Wynnie’s eyes skimmed the park until they found his and there they stayed.
Her soft pink lips curved into a private smile, and even from twenty feet away he could see the pink rising in her cheeks.
He gritted his teeth and fought back the urge to throw her over his shoulder and drag her the hell out of there as fast as his legs would carry them.
When he realised he wasn’t sure if his desire to do so was about keeping her from getting any closer to his family, or because he wanted to get her alone, he managed to squash his inner Neanderthal, and find enough calming breath to appear cool.
‘Dylan,’ Meg said, smirking as if she were eight-years-old and had caught him kissing Katie Finch in the cloisters at the front of the house. ‘I believe you know my new friend Wynnie. I picked her up in the green room after Rylie’s show. Already I love her to bits.’
‘How could you not? She’s a jewel.’
He glanced at Wynnie. Her big brown eyes were lit up from the inside. Questions and newfound nerves and attraction skittered behind her gaze but far too quickly to decipher exactly what she was thinking. He blinked at her, his expression a blank mask, hopefully letting her think he didn’t care.
‘Now we had a great talk in the car on the way here,’ Meg babbled, ‘all about her work, and I just love what this girl has to say. She’s smart, and I know you appreciate smart. So why aren’t you being a good boy and doing exactly what you’re being told and agree to turn off some lights and fork out on ceramic mugs rather than plastic cups in the office, for Pete’s sake?’
Why? Why indeed? Put like that it seemed like the simplest thing in the world for him to do. Hell, he could write a memo in ten seconds flat, and Eric would make it happen before lunch.
But with Wynnie Devereaux standing there before him looking like a wood nymph who’d skipped out of the Kelly Manor’s small forest, looking like the woman who’d fallen apart, twice, in his arms less than twenty-four hours earlier, looking like the woman who had skirted the rules again and again to get around him to get to his family, there was no way on God’s green earth he was going to say yes.
Wynnie sat on a white cane lounge on the Kellys’ immaculate back lawn, shaded by a large cloth sun sail, sipping at a glass of iced tea.
She only listened with half an ear as Quinn Kelly told a story about the time he went on an African safari. Squeals of delight kept her mind focused on the action occurring somewhere over her right shoulder.
The one or two glances she had managed afforded her glimpses of Dylan playing with his two young nieces.
She bit at her left thumbnail, her brow tight from over-furrowing. If she’d had any concerns about the extent and breadth of her feelings for Dylan after the way he’d made love to her the night before, the image of him running in random circles chasing down two adorable girls in pigtails, not caring if he got grass stains on his trousers or their gorgeous pastel dresses, magnified every trepidation tenfold.
The back of her hair suddenly began to itch, and she was sure she was being watched. Not only watched, stared at.
The burning feeling moved down her neck, between her shoulder blades, over her hips, caressing her thighs. She sucked in a deep shaky breath and willed herself not to turn around, not to check to see if it was all in her head.
Her will was obviously not nearly as strong as her curiosity. She flicked her hair off her face and shot a quick glance over her shoulder to find Dylan throwing a soft ball from one hand to another, watching her as the girls ran off in opposite directions.
She searched his eyes for the heat she’d felt, but they were closed to her. She gave him a discreet nod. It took longer than was in any way comfortable for him to do the same back.
Maybe if she’d been able to corner him for a minute before his family had cornered her she could have told him this was all Meg’s idea. That she’d never had any intention of storming the family compound on her quest to rid the world of incandescent light globes. Perhaps he might not look at her quite so darkly.
Her heart reached out to him. Imploring her to let it do its thing. To care, to want more for herself, to love…To give him the chance to do the same, no matter how great the probability her job, his stubbornness, her fear of getting close, whatever lingering issues he still had with his ex-fiancée all meant that she would get hurt as usual.
She’d never felt the way she felt with Dylan when she’d been with any other man. Or with any other person, for that matter. With him she felt as though parts of herself that had never seen the light of day were now in full bloom.
His dark eyes slid past hers as though she were of no more interest to him than the chair she sat upon.
Her heart sank. Then again, maybe a minute’s conversation wouldn’t make a lick of difference.
‘Don’t you think?’
Quinn’s deep drawl echoed on the periphery of Wynnie’s mind. She turned back to find him watching her with a question in his pale blue eyes.
The only answer she could think in that moment was, ‘Right. Of course.’
Brendan leant forwards to grab a napkin, his eyes barely touching hers before he said, ‘Dad I’m not sure if you realise this was the one who handcuffed herself to our sculpture a few days back.’
Wynnie felt her neck warm. Dealing with Dylan might have been like bouncing between a rock and a hard place, but she certainly had no ally in Brendan.
Meg grinned at Wynnie, her eyes twinkling as she silently encouraged her to leap in, but as far as she could tell Meg held little sway. She was treated like the princess, not allowed to lift a finger even when she wanted to.
The silver fox, Quinn Kelly, might be her only hope.
‘Ah-h-h,’ Quinn said, looking at her as though for the first time. ‘The Trojan horse.’
She glanced back at Meg hoping to make sense of the comment, but Meg just shrugged.
‘Okay, Ms Devereaux, you’ve made it further than anyone else in your position has ever made it before. I’ll give you props for ingenuity. So tell me, why should we spend our time and mone
y reorganising the meticulously efficient way we believe we do business when the largest, richest industrial states in the world aren’t bothering?’
Her last chance. With Dylan, and with the Kellys. Dylan was sending burning arrows into the back of her head; Quinn Kelly was giving her five minutes. The way she saw it she didn’t have a choice.
Wynnie sat up straighter in her high chair, clasped her hands atop her knees and looked every one of them in the eye as she said, ‘I love ice cream.’
‘Ice cream,’ Brendan repeated, deadpan, but at least she knew he was listening.
‘I lo-o-ove ice cream,’ Meg said. ‘I’d eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner if I had my way.’
‘Vanilla ice cream is my all-time favourite,’ Cameron said, before sending goo-goo eyes at his wife.
She opened her mouth to move on when the scent of clean linen and fresh-cut grass washed over her in a wave of heat.
A large hand curled over the back of her chair, fingers stopping against her shoulder blade, the effect of the touch sluicing much further.
‘What did I miss?’ Dylan asked from behind her.
‘We were having a lovely discussion about ice cream,’ his mother said, all politeness.
Wynnie leant forwards ever so slightly but enough that she could focus on her pitch. Four minutes. She could see in Quinn Kelly’s eyes that was all she had. And even with Dylan glowering and breathing down her neck, she was in so deep already she was going to use every one of them.
‘I love ice cream,’ Wynnie repeated. ‘In fact, my love affair with the stuff could be considered counter-productive.’
Dylan snorted. Her cheeks warmed, she gritted her teeth, and crossed her legs away from his general direction.
She smiled at Mary, who was smiling at her. ‘So I always buy low fat. My friend Hannah rolls her eyes and tells me if I truly wanted to make a difference to my waistline I wouldn’t eat the stuff at all. But I know myself too well for all that. I will eat ice cream. So I figure if I can do a little bit of good by choosing low fat, then that’s a step in the right direction.’
