by Trish Morey
And how could she trust herself if, knowing what she did, she still practically swooned every time his lips drew close? Was it wrong to be so aware of and so attracted to your potential brother-in-law?
Tiny birds darted through the whispering treetops, unconcerned by her presence, while brightly coloured butterflies negotiated a zig-zag course through the air, so close at times that she could almost reach out a hand and scoop them into her palm.
It had just been a kiss, she reminded herself for what must have been the hundredth time. Nothing more. And nothing would come of it, she knew. A man like Daniel would have a little black book the size of the phone book; given the unsurprised look on Millie’s face when she’d been introduced, half of them had no doubt turned up here for a swim and who knew what else? A kiss would mean nothing to a man like him.
A few moments with the water lapping at her breasts gave rise to a new thought: maybe it did mean something? He was a businessman, used to tactics in the boardroom and no doubt in the bedroom. Was that latest kiss designed to throw her, to make her think he was interested, all in the hope of disarming her defences? Maybe he thought that if he seduced her he might drive a wedge between her and Jake? Divide and conquer—was that his ploy?
But if he seriously thought she could be seduced by a few kisses into doing his bidding he could think again. She kicked lazily at the water while she mulled over the thought, wondering if she could turn it to her advantage. She wasn’t sure she knew enough to play the attraction game; she hadn’t had near enough experience with men. But maybe, if he got to know her a little better, he might be more willing to listen to her, and maybe he might see that Jake wasn’t all bad.
The sun felt warm on her shoulders and she slipped back to duck them under the water to cool them down. She’d get out soon, before Daniel finished with whatever business was keeping him. But it was too delicious not to enjoy just a minute longer.
Her feet swirled the water behind her, not enough to break the surface, just moving the water enough so that it swirled and eddied around her in a blissful water-massage, soaking away the tensions of the day. She sighed and closed her eyes. A person could get used to this. Just a minute more…
Something cold hit her back and she came to with a start. ‘You’ll burn if you’re not careful.’
She would have jumped to her feet, but her arms were tangled, her thoughts already in havoc. Already he was there beside her, his feet planted in the water alongside and his hands on her shoulders, long fingers rubbing lotion into her skin, the press of his hand not allowing her up. ‘You were asleep,’ he said, clearly delighted with the discovery.
‘I must have dozed off,’ she said breathlessly. ‘It was so relaxing.’
‘You don’t feel relaxed,’ he bothered to note. ‘You feel as stiff as a board.’
There was good reason for that, she thought wryly as his hand sought to work the lotion into her back with long, languorous strokes. Long strokes that transmitted their languid caress all the way down to her core and made her even tenser. She squeezed her eyes shut, wishing she could so easily block out the sensations assailing her. This was no casual application of sun block. This was a caress. Every one of his fingertips was like a probe that sought and found exactly the right pressure points to make her gasp with pleasure.
When he kneeled down in the water alongside her, his second hand joined the first, one hand at each shoulder, his fingertips brushing perilously close to her breasts as he circled to her underarms. She couldn’t take any more.
She pushed up, turning her head to roll over. ‘I should get out.’ She almost wished she’d stayed right where she was, for now she could see him. Her mouth went dry. She was surrounded by water, had probably been soaking long enough to turn into a prune, but right at that moment her throat was drier than the Sahara in a sandstorm.
Because somehow she’d known he’d wear black, had known he’d wear it better than most against his sun-bronzed skin. But nowhere in her wild imaginings had she’d estimated he’d bypass simply being devastating and head into the realm of the gods of ancient mythology. He was way beyond dangerous. He was positively lethal.
‘There’s no rush, is there?’
Against her better judgement, his words made some kind of sense as she drank in the olive-skinned perfection of his torso, the whirls of dark hair dusting his naked chest, only to arrow down to his naval and disappear in a line in his trunks. Maybe he was right—there was no rush. So why her desperate rush to get away?
Oh yes…
‘Monica might call,’ she managed at last, levering the tongue from the roof of her mouth and peeling her eyes away to locate her sarong in the same action, mentally estimating the seconds before she could hide herself beneath it. ‘I want to be ready.’
‘She already called.’
Her eyes flicked back to his, sure she’d misheard. ‘She what?’
‘I just spoke to her. She couldn’t raise you on your mobile so she checked with your office and they told her you might still be up here.’
Now he had her full attention, and not just because he had a body that shorted her senses. She rolled over until she was sitting up on the submerged ledge of the pool, thoughts of imminent escape momentarily forgotten. ‘Monica called and you didn’t bother to let me know? When you know I’ve been waiting for her call?’
‘She did try to call you,’ he reminded her. ‘Is it my fault you didn’t pick up? But does it really matter who she spoke to? The important thing is, she said she’s delighted to have the wedding here on Kallista.’
‘Oh, I’ll just bet she did.’ Sophie rose up like the proverbial phoenix, water sloughing from her limbs. For the first time she was uncaring at being clad in only a bikini, if only because she was so angry. ‘Because you no doubt told her the Tropical Palms was now unavailable.’ She swiped up the sarong from the chair where she’d left it and knotted it around herself before searching for her phone, wondering how she could have missed a call. Even if she’d dozed off, it would have woken her.
‘It is unavailable. I didn’t realise it was a secret. You should have said.’
‘And you should have called me!’ she said, lifting her towel, knowing the phone had to be here somewhere. ‘Monica might be your sister, but I’m supposed to be the one who’s organising this wedding for her and Jake.’ She turned back, temporarily giving up on the phone. ‘Or did Jake jump up and down with excitement at the prospect of holding the wedding here too? Somehow I doubt it, given how much you two seem to get on.’
His lips were a grim line. ‘He was down at Reception. I didn’t speak to him.’
‘So you thought you’d take advantage before I had a chance to discuss the options with them first.’ And then she remembered—she’d been so busy thinking about that picture in the guest room, and so desperate to have her swim before Daniel emerged from his calls, that she’d completely forgotten to grab her phone from her bag. Damn.
‘What options?’ he challenged from the pool, leaning back on the edge, looking way too relaxed and reminding her again of how a crocodile looked before it launched its attack on unsuspecting prey. ‘You haven’t one other option and you know it.’
But it was Sophie who snapped, angry with him for being so high-handed, angry with herself for being so distracted by thinking about him that she would make such a stupid mistake. ‘Did I even get a chance to look? No, because the great Daniel Caruana has decided his is the only option. End of argument. Tell me, does it ever get boring riding roughshod over people or do you get some kind of kick out of it?’
‘What are you so angry about?’ The once-calm pool exploded, the water bubbling as Daniel erupted from the pool. Water sluiced from his body, running in rivulets down his long, powerful legs, and for the first time she got the full visual impact of the man under the clothes. He could have been a marble statue come to life, some mythical god from the ancient world with his proportional perfection of tautly packed body, long limbs and beating, savage
heart. Her own heart thumped loud as he strode purposefully towards her, but it was the potent look in his eyes that turned that thudding beat to fear.
‘You are lucky you have a venue at all,’ he snarled. ‘But, rather than thank me for bailing you out of your problem, you prefer to rail against me as if I have done you some kind of injustice.’
She turned to go, unwilling to hear any more, knowing that his words were at least partly true. Kallista did offer a solution to her problem of a lack of venue, even if it did offer up a host of other problems into the deal.
But she just couldn’t take any more. She’d felt the balance of power shifting, and control of this wedding slipping through her fingers, ever since she’d first arrived in Daniel Caruana’s offices this morning with what should have been the upper hand. And she’d felt control over her own emotions slipping away just as completely, until she felt raw, bruised and ill-prepared for yet another confrontation.
Yet another defeat?
Or would it end in yet another kiss? But even that would be no victory. ‘I don’t have to listen to this.’ But his hand stayed her forearm, his powerful flick wheeling her right back so that she crashed bodily against him, the shock momentarily winding her.
Another kind of shock had her gasping then, for nothing more than damp fabric—once warmed by sunshine, now warmed by body heat—lay between them where their bodies met from chest to knee.
He might just as well have flicked a switch inside her. Like a power surge she felt the burst of sensation, the contact of flesh against flesh generating a warmth that swelled her breasts and turned her nipples hard. At the same time it pooled and she felt aching heat low in her belly. When she breathed, even that tiny movement created a friction that ramped up the sensations tenfold. She couldn’t even take a breath without breathing him in with it.
‘What are you afraid of?’ he demanded, his eyes searching her face. ‘Why are you always so desperate to run away from me?’
‘Who says I’m afraid?’ But she belied her own defence with breathless words that sounded like she’d been turned upside down and shaken till they’d rattled from her.
He frowned, her trembling arm still held prisoner in his own. ‘Am I really that terrifying?’
‘I’m not…’ Her teeth snagged her bottom lip. There was no point pretending she wasn’t afraid, but she didn’t have to admit it, either. She kicked up her chin. ‘I’m not running now.’
The look in his eyes turned distinctly primal even as he smiled. ‘Just as well, because there would be no point. When I want something, I usually get it, whether or not it’s a moving target.’
In her fractured mind, his words made no sense at all. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘I want you, Sophie. I wanted you when you showed up in my office in a buttoned-up dress and with a buttoned-up attitude to match. I want you even more now I’ve seen you out of both of them.’
The shudder caught her unawares, like his words and she trembled openly against him. ‘Daniel, I…’
He stroked her hair, catching a stray tendril and winding it around her ear, his touch tender, sensual and tingle-inducing. ‘You feel it too,’ he said, even as his gaze remained focused on the hand stroking her hair. ‘You feel this attraction between us.’
She tried to tell herself it was all part of the plan. Tried to convince herself that this was what she had wanted, to get Daniel on side and ensure that he might be more receptive to ensuring the wedding between his sister and her brother would be a success.
But how could she pretend it was all part of a plan when she didn’t have to pretend to sway into his touch? How could she make herself or anyone else believe it was otherwise? Then she felt his lips press against her hair, his warm breath against her scalp, and she was very nearly undone.
She swallowed against a need to lift her face and meet his lips with her own. Fought against it with all the power she could summon. But there was hardly any resistance left in her.
When he acted arrogantly and made all the decisions, when he was overbearing and unbearable with it, she could summon a resistance and fight him. But when he was like this—tender, gentle and with a touch that melted her bones and defused her resistance—how could she fight?
She couldn’t.
Not when she knew he was right. Not when she knew she wanted him too. Damn it.
Sophie heard a knock and the sound of a door sliding behind her and she jerked away, but not as far as she’d have liked to because Daniel still kept hold of her arm. ‘Excuse me for interrupting,’ she heard Millie say, ‘But Monica’s on the phone again asking to speak to Miss Turner.’
It took a second for her brain to shift gears and to make sense of Millie’s words. ‘To me?’ Daniel nodded.
‘I didn’t get a chance to tell you, but Moni said she’d call again once she’d had a chance to talk to Jake.’
Sophie didn’t have to ask why he hadn’t had a chance to say it—because she hadn’t let him. She’d jumped straight down his throat and practically accused him of hijacking the wedding arrangements.
‘I’m sorry,’ she managed. ‘I got the impression you were taking over.’
‘So I gather.’ He managed a tight smile. ‘Maybe you’d better go take that call.’ He nodded towards the door. ‘Millie will show you to the office.’
‘You’re not coming?’
‘Moni asked to speak to you. I thought you might appreciate doing it alone.’ He watched her watching him for a second and then he said, ‘Are you going to take the call or not?’
She nodded and disappeared into the house.
It was only a small lie, he told himself as he headed for his suite. He would normally go out of his way to be there, overseeing the call, ensuring it went in the right direction. But he’d planted the seed in Monica’s mind and got her excited, and he was sure not even Fletcher could change her mind. She had no other option now. It was Kallista or nothing.
Besides, there was no way he was going to speak to Fletcher. He couldn’t even bring himself to hear the man’s voice.
If all went to plan, he would never have to. Once Jo contacted him and made him an offer, he’d be all too willing to escape a wedding planned slap-bang in the centre of the enemy camp. It shouldn’t be long now, and they wouldn’t see Fletcher for dust.
He snapped on his shower and waited for the steam to rise as he reefed off his swimming trunks, a niggling concern in the back of his mind.
Because there was another reason that had kept him from being there for that call. It was the smile he’d heard in Moni’s voice when she’d talked about Fletcher, the admiration, the adoration.
Almost as if…
Almost as if she really was in love with him.
The thought nearly turned his stomach. No way, he thought, discarding the notion as he stepped under the cloudburst spray. She only thought she loved him. She was infatuated, like she always was, and probably on the rebound.
But if she did love him?
He breathed deeply, turning his face under the torrent. Then she would take the break-up harder than ever. He hated his own part in it, hated that he had to be the one to save her and yet maybe hurt her in the process. But who else could do it? Who else knew what Fletcher was capable of?
No, it was better to suffer now than for her to discover later that Fletcher had only ever been interested in her money.
And one day she would thank him, he was sure.
Monica was every bit as excited as Daniel had maintained. Getting married on Kallista was, in her words, a dream come true and she couldn’t be happier. Then she handed the phone over to Jake so he could have a few words with his sister.
‘What do you think, Jake?’ Sophie asked. ‘Are you happy about the change in venue?’
‘Sounds like we haven’t a choice, given the Tropical Palms has cancelled. But Monica’s over-the-moon happy. And if Daniel can see his way clear to offer his island I don’t see how I can say no.’
Whi
ch meant she couldn’t say no. She dragged in air, suddenly hot, those places in her body that had so recently been pressed up against Daniel’s hard, packed torso throbbing all over again. For Jake’s agreement had sealed her fate—the island of Kallista would host the wedding and there was no getting out of it now, no escape from dealing with Daniel Caruana. But when had that concept secretly thrilled rather than repulsed her? And when had she started looking forward to seeing more of him, rather than less?
When he had set her body alight with just one look, just one touch? Or when he had told her that he wanted her?
‘What does surprise me,’ her brother continued, forcing her thoughts back to the phone call, ‘is that he’s being so supportive. I didn’t expect that.’
He wasn’t the only one. In one day she’d been witness to Daniel acting as if Jake was the devil incarnate who would never in a million years marry his sister, then offering his idyllic island as the venue for them to seal their vows. And here was Jake, more resigned than enthusiastic about the change; she knew he was going along with it because it was what his bride wanted.
‘What happened between you two?’ she asked. ‘I’m beginning to hope Daniel might be coming around to the idea of his sister getting married, but something more than high-school competitiveness must have happened. His reaction this morning to the news was nothing less than extreme.’
There was a weary sigh at the end of the line and she suspected it wasn’t all about jet lag. ‘Look, Sophie, it’s not something I really want to talk about over the phone. I’m not even sure I know the whole story myself. I was hoping I could clear the air with Daniel before we left but he wouldn’t return my calls.’
‘Maybe you should come back via Cairns, then, and sort it out before the wedding. Daniel might be more comfortable with the whole idea by then. It could be a good time to mend some bridges.’
‘Maybe you’re right. Hey, we’ve gotta go. We’ve got a surfing lesson booked.’
She was just saying her goodbyes when he said, ‘Oh, hang on—Monica just wants to say something.’
