by Sami Lee
“Well, yeah.” Her cheeks turned pink and she busied herself wiping down the bar counter that didn’t need wiping. “I never had a brother and I kinda think of you that way.”
David managed to muster a smile. “I never had a sister and I kinda think of you that way too.”
For a moment, the sharing made things a tad awkward. Then they grinned at each other.
Kerri laughed. “Now we’ve got that settled, it’s time you stopped being such a sook and got back to work.”
Sook. David wondered if that was a word Sarah would know. She’d probably tell him the term was wuss. He smiled, picturing it. Then he frowned because smiling hurt, especially when he was smiling about Sarah.
He moved through the rest of the week in a daze, although he could no longer put his ennui down to a perpetual hangover. He missed Sarah. She’d only spent one weekend on his property but she’d left her indelible mark. Buster, recovered well from his brush with death and once again fetching sticks in his spare time, often turned to David in bafflement, silently asking where his new lady friend had gone. The house was still cold at night, even though the first day of spring had come and gone. Yet David couldn’t start a fire because that always reminded him too acutely of the night he and Sarah had slept on the rug in front of the hearth, talking, laughing and making love until sunrise.
She’d left without giving him hope there could ever be more than the perfect weekend they’d shared. David wasn’t sure when or if the hole she’d ripped in his chest would heal over.
Another weekend passed, blessedly full of customers to charm and other things to do around the place. Monday morning, David popped down to the cellar door to do inventory. When he passed through the bar area, a yellow sticky note resting on top a newspaper caught his eye.
The note was from Kerri. Are you sure you’ve played every last card you have?
The paper was folded in three, showing one of the inside pages instead of the front. David recognized it as a popular Melbourne rag, probably left behind by one of their visitors from the city. It was the kind of publication that had a society page and when David lifted Kerri’s note away, the picture underneath was revealed.
What he saw didn’t register at first. Or maybe that was his self-defense mechanism kicking in, saving him from the initial shock with a cotton-wool sensation of numbness. He stared at the photo, his breathing growing shallower by the second as the truth finally began to set in.
She wore black, an elegant gown even more expensive looking than the one she’d worn that first time, the fine black wool dress he could still feel beneath his hands when he closed his eyes at night. The snap had obviously been taken at a formal event, because her companion wore a tuxedo. He also had his arms around her.
David was staring at a picture of another man with his arms around Sarah.
And his lips on hers.
* * * * *
The view beyond her office window was gray again. Locals always assured her the overcast conditions never lasted, that Melbourne was a city of four seasons in one day. This afternoon it could well be sunny once more.
But to Sarah the view would appear gray in any case.
“I’m about to head out to lunch if that’s okay. Can I get you anything?”
Sarah turned toward the doorway to see her secretary standing there. The thought of food didn’t appeal and coffee had been doing little lately to relieve her of the dragging sense of exhaustion that accompanied her throughout each day. “No thanks. I’m fine.”
Heather was about to take her leave when, with a hand on the open door, she hesitated. “If you don’t mind me saying so, Sarah, I don’t think that’s true.”
Surprised as much by the woman’s uncharacteristic dissension as by the use of her Christian name, Sarah sat a little straighter and frowned. “Pardon me?”
Visibly taking a breath, the other woman advanced into the office. “You do not seem fine.”
And here Sarah had been hoping she was hiding her malaise so well. Deflated, she let out a breath and sank back against the cool Italian leather of her desk chair. “Am I that transparent?”
“Not to anyone else,” Heather assured her. “But I’ve been working with you pretty closely for months now and in my opinion you’re not acting like yourself.”
“Not myself, huh?” Sarah mused. “I wonder what that really means.”
She’d been trying to figure out exactly who she was and what she wanted out of life incessantly the last fortnight. Was this job, this all-consuming career really all she needed to be happy? In her heart, Sarah knew work wouldn’t be enough. She wouldn’t look back on her life as an old lady and thank her lucky stars she’d chained herself to the office all these years. If she didn’t find love, didn’t have a family and real friends, she would be filled with regret.
As it always did, the idea of love made her think of David. Instinctively, Sarah’s mind careened away from those memories. They filled her with too much painful disappointment.
“If I had my guess, I’d say there was a man involved.” Heather’s suggestion shook Sarah from her inner turmoil. She gave her secretary a sideways glance, to which the other woman squared her shoulders. “I’m prying now, aren’t I?”
“A little, yes.”
“Am I going to get fired for it?”
Sarah couldn’t stifle the twitch of her lips. “Of course not.”
“Well, I might as well stick my foot all the way in my mouth then. Whoever it is, talk it out with him. You’re killing yourself this way—too much work, not enough food, no social life at all. It’s not healthy.”
“I have a social life—of sorts.” Sarah thought of the one evening she’d spent any time with a man since she’d left Windy Valley and cringed inwardly.
Somehow interpreting her thoughts, Heather said, “I’m not sure attending a work-related formal dinner with Richard Abercrombie counts as a social life. Not when it’s obvious you didn’t enjoy yourself last Saturday.”
“What makes you say that? Everyone else seems to think I enjoyed myself immensely.”
“Yes, I saw that picture in the paper.” She added shrewdly, “You looked more like you were trying to fight him off than being swept away by passion.”
The description was so accurate that Sarah’s lips twisted with chagrin. “Dear lord, it was awful. He was awful. He knew that photographer was there and grabbed me before I had a chance to avoid it. All he wanted was a photo of himself with me in the paper.”
“Lovely,” Heather drawled.
“Unfortunately all too often the way my ‘dates’ go.” Realizing she sounded as if she were about to throw a pity party for which she was the guest of honor, Sarah physically shook herself. “Never mind. I didn’t like him anyway. He was so full of himself and smarmy, not at all like…”
Sarah covered her mouth. Not even that god-awful, uninvited smooch from that leech Abercrombie had erased the memory of David’s lips on hers. She thought about him all the time, day and night. She’d find herself daydreaming in the middle of meetings, wishing things could be different. She’d come to accept she didn’t like her apartment with its austere furnishings and tomblike atmosphere. Not even the view of the city beyond her window—myriad colored lights twinkling on the gentle bends of the Yarra River—could fill her nights with even a modicum of joy.
She’d always taken a certain comfort in the constant movement and noise that came from living an urban life. It had given her the false impression she was never truly on her own and in the past had enabled her to ignore the loneliness that gaped inside like a dark chasm. But the activity around her no longer had that effect. Now she felt separate from it all, no longer a part of her surroundings. As though she’d left a piece of herself somewhere.
Windy Valley.
“What’s keeping you from being with him?”
The question turned Sarah’s attention back to her assistant. She opened her mouth to verbalize all the sensible reasons she had for keeping herself apart from the ma
n, the life she yearned for. She hadn’t known him that long, the financial gap between them would cause problems, people would think bad things about him. But the words didn’t come. None of them seemed…enough. Not enough motivation to keep going on this way, drifting from day to day without any hope that things would change or improve.
She stared at Heather, dumbstruck.
Heather smiled. “You’re Sarah Harrington, you know. You can have anything you want.”
Anything I want.
David had said much the same thing to her. Sarah hadn’t believed him. Despite being the only daughter in a wealthy family, she hadn’t been raised with a sense of entitlement. She’d been raised to believe in duty. It was her duty to carry on the legacy her father had started, to be part of the company that fed and clothed her and sent her to an Ivy League college.
She’d performed that duty now for over a decade. Perhaps it was time she started living for herself.
The phone rang and Heather reached to answer it. Sarah stood and walked to the window, gazing out at the city. To the north beyond those buildings was Windy Valley. And David.
Only an hour away. Why in hell wasn’t she driving out there to see him every chance she got? She could fit him in around her job—if she even wanted to keep doing her job, that was. And he didn’t even get the papers delivered out there. What on earth did he care what a faceless journalist said about him in some second-rate rag?
As for her father…
“Sarah, it’s Mr. Harrington for you.”
A laugh burst out of her. What timing. Her father calling her from the other side of the world right at this moment, when she was considering…
“Should I put it on speaker for you?”
Heather’s tentative question made Sarah realize she hadn’t moved away from the window. She hadn’t shifted her gaze from the horizon. “You do that. Then please, go to lunch.” She turned around and smiled at her secretary. She was probably beaming. “And thank you.”
Heather shrugged, the bemused smile on her face indicating she wasn’t quite sure what she’d done. Then she pushed a button on the phone, hung up the receiver and slipped out of the room.
“Sarah? What the devil is going on down there?” Her father’s first demand vibrated through the office. “I hear there’s a delay with the opening of the new Harry’s Nook. Unacceptable. I sent you down there to make sure the schedule stayed tight. How could you let a pencil pusher from the local council have any impact on…”
Sarah found herself tuning her father out. Experience had taught her the best way to deal with his drill-sergeant voice was to remain silent and let him rant. She waited for him to take a breath then jumped in. “There will be no delay, I’m handling the council. A couple of T’s to cross, I’s to dot, that’s all. The opening is still on schedule.”
“That’s not what I hear from Bilson.”
“Edward Bilson always overreacts. He doesn’t trust my leadership because I’m a woman.”
“He tells me you’ve been disappearing from work. Canceling meetings.”
Sarah bit back a curse. She’d been aware of Edward Bilson’s attempts to undermine her with her father for a while but hearing how she’d basically been tattled on made her see red. “I canceled two meetings, one weekend.” The best, most romantic weekend of her life. Hell. Wasn’t she entitled to a little romance? A burst of rebellion shot through her like adrenaline. “I spent the weekend with a man, Dad. And I don’t regret a single second of it.”
“Sarah!”
Sarah almost laughed. It took a lot to shock the tough-nut Victor Harrington. “It’s called having a life, something I’ve denied myself too long.”
The pause after her pronouncement thrummed with tension. At length, Victor began, “I don’t know what’s gotten into you, Sarah, but I don’t like—”
“Be quiet for a second, Dad. I need to talk to you—to really talk to you. Promise me you’ll hear me out.”
Another long pause. Then her father’s gruff response. “All right. You’ve got two minutes.”
Sarah rolled her eyes. Only her father would seek to time his own daughter’s big life confessions. “It might take five—or even ten. You’ll survive it, just listen.”
Now that she finally had the stage, Sarah wasn’t exactly sure what to say. She sat on the window ledge, forming her thoughts for several seconds that dragged interminably. When she heard the outer door to her office suite open, she thought it was Heather returning for something she’d forgotten. She wondered if she ought to pick up the phone receiver after all. Before she could reach the desk, the door to her office burst open.
She blinked, yet the scene before her didn’t change. David stood in the opening. He wore a dark suit, its shape emphasizing the breadth of his shoulders and narrowness of his hips. He carried a rolled-up newspaper in one hand. His dark gaze landed on her for a drawn-out moment, his intense focus making Sarah’s heart stop.
Then a scowl drew his eyebrows together. He began striding toward her.
Heart hammering, Sarah gaped. On the other side of the world, her father sat silently waiting for her to continue speaking. Too shocked by David’s sudden appearance, she couldn’t utter a single word to either of them.
“Is this what you want, Sarah?” He brandished the newspaper. With a glance, Sarah noted that it was folded with the picture of her and Richard Abercrombie facing outward. She returned her attention to David’s thunderous expression. “You want a guy who can put on a suit and perform for the cameras? You should have said so. I used to do the business thing, I haven’t forgotten how to kiss corporate butt. And I scrub up all right in a suit.”
He held his arms wide, a gesture compelling her to take in his appearance from head to toe. The Australians had such an endearing way of understating things. Scrub up all right indeed. He was beyond devastating in that dark jacket, his crisp white shirt offsetting the sleek blue tie beautifully. The civilized outfit didn’t entirely conceal the wealth of primal masculine strength in his physique. He was, in a word, incredible.
“I can take you to any damn dinner or cocktail party or charity-auction wankfest you want. Unless you really want this guy.” He waved the paper at her again before slamming it down on her desk. “Tell me, would you rather have him kiss you—or would you rather have this?”
Before she could guess what he intended, David grasped her shoulders and yanked her toward him so her breasts crushed to the solid wall of his chest. Then he took her mouth, his kiss savage, dominating. Sarah’s response was instinctual—a moan of surrender coupled with the immediate parting of her lips so he could delve past them with his tongue. Need, sheer sexual need, mingled with a powerful sense of rightness, of belonging. This was right. He was right.
David was The One.
All too quickly, he wrenched his mouth from hers. Still grasping her shoulders, he stared into her face. “Did his kiss make you respond like that?”
Breathless, Sarah could only shake her head.
“You don’t want him.” The statement was full of snarling satisfaction. “You want me. You want someone who makes you come alive, someone who makes your toes curl when he kisses you, who makes love to you so thoroughly you forget everything else. I can handle anything your life throws at me, Sarah. Your status, your father—who frankly sounds like a bastard who should get a friggin’ clue and butt out of your life—your money—”
“Ah, David.” Finally locating her voice, Sarah tried to interrupt his diatribe.
But David pushed on. Relentless. Determined. “I don’t want to hear your excuses anymore, Sarah. You pushed me away not because you didn’t think we could work out our differences. You did it because you were afraid. Afraid you were wrong about me, that your instinct to trust me is wrong. It isn’t, lady. I will never hurt you like those other men did. I would never take money over you. I will sign any bloody document to that effect, that your overbearing father and his legal cronies want to draw up—”
Uh-oh
. “David, really. Stop.”
“I won’t touch a cent of your money. All I want is you.” His gaze was so intense, the passion in his eyes hit Sarah like a jolt of pure espresso. He meant every word. All he wanted was her. Just her, Sarah. Not the money, not the prestige of the Harrington name.
And she wanted him. Only David.
Sarah reached a hand up and caressed his cheek. It was smooth and he smelled like woodsy cologne. Even in a fury like he had been, he’d taken the time to shave and put on a suit, to prove to her he could adapt to her life. That he could take a place in it.
But Sarah didn’t want that. She wanted the both of them to make a new life together.
She let out a shaky sigh and touched her cheek to his. “Oh, David.”
“Sarah.” He drew her close so she fit snugly against his solid frame. “Give us a chance. I can spend some time here in the city, you can come to Windy Valley whenever you can. We’ll talk and laugh and make love by the fire all night. I’ll whisper sweet, dirty things in your ear until you beg me to—”
The sound of a throat being loudly cleared cut off the rest of David’s sentence. He drew back, his brow furrowing. “What was that?”
Her father drawled, “That was the overbearing bastard.”
At David’s confounded look, Sarah pointed to the phone on her desk, wincing. “I was on speakerphone with my dad when you came in.”
Sarah might have laughed at the pure mortification on David’s face if she didn’t feel so bad for him. His face actually flushed red.
From the desk, her father’s disembodied voice, laced with displeasure, growled, “Is this what you wanted me to hear, Sarah?”
She showed David a bemused smile. “Not exactly.”
David’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “So he heard all that?”
“I heard enough,” came Victor’s gruff reply.
“Oh shit,” David groaned. “I feel like I’m in a particularly upsetting episode of Charlie’s Angels.”
“What I want to know,” Victor went on, “is if you meant everything you said.”
Pushing out a sigh that visibly rid him of his embarrassment, David stared deep into Sarah’s eyes. He cupped her face with a tender hand. “I meant every word. Sarah is the love of my life and I’ll do whatever it takes to be with her.”
