Two Weeks in the Magnate's Bed

by Nicola Marsh

  ‘Don’t you know?’

  Surely her dramatic eyes, her shaded cheeks and her pearly pink lips along with the sexy dress were enough of a clue?

  Confusion creased his brow. ‘Know what?’

  ‘I did all this for you.’ She gestured towards her dress, her hair, her face. ‘To show you there’s more to me than just a brain and a smart mouth.’

  His frown deepened. ‘But I already know there’s more to you. You’re a gym instructor, for starters.’

  She had to tell him. All of it. Now that she’d fallen for him, hoped for a future with him, he had to know.

  Besides, it wasn’t as if she’d deliberately lied to him. She’d just let him assume she was a boppy, trendy fitness freak, rather than a boring, conservative curator.

  ‘Actually, I’m not a gym instructor.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I don’t work at a gym. I’m just a member.’

  His jaw clenched. ‘Then where do you work?’

  ‘At the Sydney Museum. I’m head curator there.’

  His muttered expletive had her repressing a smile.

  ‘Tell me you’re a qualified aerobics instructor and I haven’t hired someone liable to send my insurance premiums to the bottom of the ocean?’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’m qualified. It’s a hobby.’

  He shook his head, as if trying to fathom what sort of a crazy person would work in a museum all day, then become a gym instructor for kicks.

  Propping her elbows on the railing, she leaned back. This might take a while, and when she’d bored him senseless he’d probably jump overboard.

  ‘I’ll give you the abbreviated version. I was raised in Melbourne. You know about my botched relationship. When it soured, I moved to Sydney. Not just because of Jax, but to get away from myself, start afresh. I wanted to try new things, do stuff outside my comfort zone, so I joined a gym.’

  She’d never forget her first step class, when she’d slunk in wearing a faded T-shirt and baggy tracksuit pants and been confronted by twenty Lycra-clad fitness fanatics in fancy joggers.

  ‘I made a sloth look good, so joining a gym was huge for me. The bizarre thing was I got hooked to the point where I took an instructor’s course. Not that I’ll ever do anything with it—’ he raised an eyebrow ‘—after this cruise, that is. But it was something I needed to do—something to build my confidence, to chalk up in my quest to try new things.’

  Something shifted in his eyes. Wariness? Hurt? She belatedly realised he’d probably add himself to that list.

  ‘Curator, huh?’

  ‘Yeah.’ She flicked her hair over her shoulder, not used to wearing it softly curled with tendrils tickling her.

  ‘I guess it fits.’

  His eyes hadn’t lost their brooding expression, and her heart sank further. She’d hoped that by telling him the truth he might soften a little, understand where she was coming from. By the look of his compressed mouth and the deep groove between his brows he didn’t.

  ‘Fits?’

  ‘Your image…before this.’

  He waved towards her in a vague gesture, and acute disillusionment made her want to rip the designer dress off and fling it overboard.

  ‘Before looking like a woman who wants to impress a man?’

  He shook his head, thrust his hands into his pockets. ‘You don’t need to go in for all this fake stuff to impress me.’

  ‘But you said—’ She bit her tongue, wishing she had more experience with men, wishing she had half a clue where to go from here.

  She’d tried to show him she wanted him by changing her appearance but he didn’t get it. Worse—he didn’t like it.

  So what was her next move? Tell him outright? Yeah, like she’d have the guts to do that.

  ‘What did I say?’

  ‘Nothing, Popeye.’

  ‘Popeye?’

  At last she’d made him smile—albeit by a slip of the tongue.

  She held up her hand. ‘Don’t you dare make a wisecrack about your muscles!’

  She expected him to laugh, but instead he held her gaze a moment longer, his eyes gleaming with desire before it faded as fast as his smile.

  Shaking his head, he raked a hand through his hair. ‘I’m sorry, but I really have to go. We’ve got a PR disaster in the making on our hands, and I need to deal with it.’

  ‘And?’

  There was more: she could see it in the clenched jaw, the rigid shoulders.

  ‘Add to that the fact my work schedule triples in the final two days of a cruise.’

  He was dumping her, in no uncertain terms, before they’d even properly started.

  She hadn’t expected this, couldn’t have braced herself for it, seeing how he’d been acting towards her before tonight, and nothing could stop the sharp, stabbing pain cleaving her in two.

  Mustering the limited reserve that had got her through the confrontation with her CEO when he’d told her she wasn’t ‘assertive’ enough to go on the Egypt jaunt, she effectively blanked her expression.

  ‘I understand.’

  He reached out to her, but her infinitesimal move back had him dropping his hand uselessly to his side. ‘It’s business.’

  ‘Business. Right.’

  The first prickle behind her eyes had her frantically searching for the nearest escape. She couldn’t cry, wouldn’t cry, and she’d be damned if she showed him he had the power to make her do so.

  ‘You better get to it, then.’

  She turned on her heel and walked away, head held high, though her impulse was to hike up her skirt and make a run for the welcome seclusion of her cabin.

  This was what happened when she stepped out of her comfort zone, when she tried to be someone she wasn’t: an awful, unmitigated disaster that would take her a lifetime to recover from.

  She’d tried to make a big statement. Well, she’d done that all right. Pity Zac wasn’t interested in reading the signs or hearing what she had to say or anything else.

  She bit her top lip to stop the sobs bubbling up from deep inside. She hated the taste of the lipstick, wishing she could swipe a forearm across her mouth and wipe it off. But she was already drawing curious glances from the odd passerby strolling on deck, and she had a reputation to uphold even though her instructor contract would be fulfilled tomorrow.

  Even here, now, she couldn’t shrug off her responsible work ethic, and at the thought of returning to the museum next week, with sadness in her heart and no charming smiles from a suave sailor to brighten her days, a lone tear seeped from the corner of her eye and ran down her cheek.

  Picking up the pace, she ran for her cabin, wishing she could run from the mess she’d made with Zac as easily.

  Zac clenched his fists and shoved them deep into his pockets, torn between wanting to chase after Lana and jumping overboard. Both options held the same danger: he’d be floundering way over his head.

  He’d deliberately driven her away.

  He’d seen the hurt in her eyes, in the tremble of her lip, and he’d felt lower than pond scum. But what choice did he have?

  He’d planned on telling her the truth tonight, about exploring their relationship further after this cruise, but he couldn’t do it now. Her little bombshell had put paid to that.

  As if the dramatic change in her appearance hadn’t already set him on his guard, the truth behind her move to Sydney sealed it.

  She was a woman seeking change, a woman dissatisfied with her current life, a woman searching for something new.

  A woman like Magda.

  He’d survived losing Magda, had lived through the pain of seeing her change before his very eyes, had hidden the devastation when she’d walked out on him in search of more than he could give.

  It had taken him years to figure out they never would have worked, even if he hadn’t gone back to shipping. Magda had been needy, demanding all his attention, wanting to be the focus of his world. Their initial attraction had been powerful, all-consuming,
and he’d mistaken it for love. He had given up his career for her temporarily, would have done anything she asked in those heady honeymoon months.

  But his folly had cost him dearly—had nearly killed his uncle. Which was exactly why he couldn’t let him down now.

  Though maybe he was being a tad harsh? Lana was nothing like Magda. She didn’t demand to be noticed; in fact the opposite. It had been her lack of artifice that had first drawn him to her; her natural vivacity had been a refreshing change.

  Everything in his life was fake, all about ‘show’ for the passengers, yet she was real—so real he could hardly believe it. He felt good when he was with her, felt as if his life wasn’t a sham, especially with the current subterfuge driving him to distraction.

  He wanted to feel that good all the time. Wanted to cement their relationship and take it as far as it could possibly go.

  And he’d just learned she had a fulfilling career of her own—a job that would need her attention during those long months when he wasn’t around if he took a chance on a long-distance relationship.

  But should he? After tonight’s metamorphosis, after what he’d learned, he’d be a fool ten times over to contemplate taking their relationship further. She was hell-bent on trying new things, on boosting her confidence. What if he was just part of her quest?

  She’d seemed so natural, so unaffected, so real. But did he really know her at all?

  Unexpected pain, deep and raw, gnawed his gut at the thought of not seeing her every day, not hearing her quick comebacks or her gentle teasing.

  He’d grown to love the way her eyes lit up when she saw him, the way her lips curled up at the corners when she was thinking, the way she blushed when his teasing hit too close to the mark.

  Grown to love?

  Hell, no! He couldn’t love her.

  He wanted to test the waters with her, see if they could have a long-distance relationship without the complications of love and need and expectation.

  Love complicated everything. Love tugged at his loyalties, making him choose between an uncle he couldn’t abandon and a woman who’d stolen his heart without trying.

  But what if it was too late?

  He loved her.

  And he’d hurt the woman he loved. He hated what he’d done to her tonight, all in an act of self-preservation.

  She was too special. She didn’t deserve to be treated that way. He needed to make amends.

  Starting tomorrow, when he’d wrestled this irrepressible, overwhelming, surprising emotion into some semblance of control.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  WHEN the ship docked at Vila the next morning, Lana almost bolted down the gangway. Anything to escape a possible encounter with the man she could happily strangle with her bare hands.

  She’d pegged him for a smart guy. Well, he couldn’t be too smart if he hadn’t read the signs last night—the biggest, most glaring sign of all being her dressed to the hilt.

  Not that she’d be wearing that dress again. It now lay in a rumpled, crushed heap on the floor of her cabin, after she’d ripped it off and flung it into the corner the minute she’d got back last night.

  She felt like her old self today—well, almost, if she discounted a broken heart—in long baggy cut-offs, a loose tank top and comfy leather sandals.

  As for trying to get enigmatic sailors to believe she was willing to put her heart on the line for them—never again.

  She planned on having Room Service for the last dinner tonight, and on skulking from deck to deck to avoid Zac. Irrational, as he could easily find her by waiting outside the gym at the end of her aerobics classes, but she’d face that particular scenario if and when it happened.

  Though after last night she seriously doubted he’d be seeking her out again. He’d made that more than clear.

  Touring Vila, the lovely capital of Vanuatu, proved to be a good distraction for a few hours, but once she reboarded the jitters started again, and she slunk from the staircase to her cabin, darting quick glances up the corridors in the hope of avoiding him. She needed to get past this—get a grip.

  With a muttered curse that rarely slipped past her lips, she fumbled her key before jamming it in the lock.

  ‘I thought I’d find you here eventually.’

  She jumped, her heart sinking as Zac’s deep voice rippled over her, still holding the power to set her pulse racing.

  Determined to play it cool, she turned. ‘Was there something you wanted?’

  ‘You know damn well what I want.’

  He had the audacity to try a roguish smile after what had happened last night?

  Her eyes narrowed as she tried her best death glare—the one that got co-workers to do her bidding without a word.

  ‘Actually, I don’t. I have no idea what’s going on in that big head of yours.’

  ‘Big head? Now, that’s the woman I know and love.’

  Her heart skipped a beat, several beats, before she realised it was a figure of speech.

  ‘I’m tired.’

  His smile faded when he reached for her hand and she snatched it away. ‘We need to talk.’

  ‘I don’t think so. You made it pretty clear how you feel last night.’

  ‘That’s what I want to talk about.’ He rubbed the back of his neck as if he had a pain there; probably her. ‘All I’m asking for is a chance to explain.’

  She should send him on his way. She should ignore the tiny flicker of hope kindling deep inside. Instead, her stance softened under the hint of vulnerability in his eyes, at his earnest, almost pleading expression.

  She held up a finger. ‘You get one chance.’

  His ecstatic grin had the corners of her mouth twitching in response. ‘I finally figured it out.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What you were trying to show me last night.’

  She bit back the words about bloody time. The confidence her make-over had inspired was a crumpled heap, along with the dress. She couldn’t have this conversation now—not in the corridor outside her cabin. She could invite him in… A thought she contemplated for all of two seconds before discarding it as quickly as her make-up last night.

  ‘When I told you how much I wanted you the other night I said I’d back off until you showed me you wanted me as much.’

  Her skin started prickling as she shuffled from foot to foot. She soooo didn’t want to talk about this now, but with his intense gaze fixed on her she had nowhere to hide.

  Reaching out, he touched her cheek softly, a brief, tender touch that conveyed more than words ever could. ‘I think you were trying to show me last night, but I was too hung up on irrelevant things to really notice.’

  His eyes searched hers for confirmation, and all she could do was stand there like a dummy, racking her brain for a quick comeback, a brush-off, anything coherent, and coming up empty.

  Leaning forward, he brushed her ear with his lips. ‘I’m as emotionally involved in all this as you are. Maybe more. And I want to show you how much.’

  His warm breath fanning her neck sent a shudder of yearning through her. His declaration left her in little doubt what he meant.

  Heck, she’d always thought actions spoke louder than words, and if they’d made a mess of things trying to articulate how they felt maybe she should go for broke and let him show her?

  Taking a deep breath, and hoping her voice wouldn’t quiver as much as her insides were at that moment, she said, ‘Last night was a big deal for me. I was trying to make a statement, to show you I’m not just some mousy geek.’

  His hand rested on her hip, caressed her, gently tugged her closer. His molten gaze, an incandescent blue like the hottest flame in a fire, was riveted to her lips.

  ‘Mousy geek? More like sex goddess.’ He dipped his head, stole a kiss, tempting her, confusing her. ‘And you want to know what else I think?’

  He cradled her chin, tipped it up so she had no option but to meet his blazing gaze head-on.

  ‘I think you hide behind
those old clothes of yours when inside is a passionate, exciting woman struggling to break free. A woman wanting to express herself. A woman who is driving me crazy with how much I want her.’

  With her heart thundering in her chest, filling her ears with its pounding, she could pretend it had drowned out his words. But it hadn’t. She’d heard every single word. All of them true.

  She did want to break free, to express the passion bubbling away beneath the surface, locked away where no man had untapped it.

  Here was a man who could do it, a man who’d captured her imagination closely followed by her heart from the first moment she’d met him, despite all protests to the contrary.

  Here was a man who could give her what she’d craved since his first scintillating kiss: fulfillment.

  Mustering every ounce of courage she possessed, she stepped into his personal space. ‘My showing you last night didn’t work quite as I intended, so how about I show you like this?’

  She stood on tiptoe, brushed her lips against his, initiating a kiss for the first time in her life. And it felt great. Liberating. Incredible.

  Zac moaned and grabbed her hand. ‘Come with me.’

  She clung to his hand, almost tripping in her haste to keep up with his long strides as they followed several staircases marked ‘CREW ONLY’.

  Wouldn’t Beth have a field-day with this? Her conservative cousin being dragged off to a sailor’s cabin! Oh, yeah, there’d be at least a year’s worth of gossip out of this!

  She muffled a snort and he slowed. ‘Going too fast for you?’

  ‘It’s taken us this long to get to this point. What do you think?’

  His answering grin held wicked promises she intended on holding him to as he picked up the pace, guiding her through a host of warren-like corridors before stopping in front of D21 and inserting a key.

  ‘I know we could’ve used your cabin, but this way you have the option of leaving any time you like,’ he said, stepping aside to let her in. ‘Because if it’d been the other way around I wouldn’t leave your side till you booted me out the door.’

  Her heart soared, and she wondered how she could have ever doubted him? To understand her enough to know this was a big deal, to know she might want to flee to the privacy of her cabin later if things got too much—simply, he was incredible.