Nathan’s new house stood at the top of the Tygerberg hills in Cape Town, and she could see Table Mountain and most of the city from where she was. It reminded her of how small her problems were.
Even the after-effects of a bad relationship.
‘How about we start with an introduction?’
Her words were said a little breathlessly, and she cleared her throat. Nerves had replaced panic, and she glanced around. No one was paying attention to them. That helped.
‘Lily Newman—best friend to the bride-to-be.’ She offered a hand.
‘Jacques Brookes—brother of the groom-to-be.’
He took her hand and it was like touching the coals of a fire. It made her want to break the contact immediately, but he held on, shaking her hand slowly. The heat went up her arm, through her chest...
Before it could move any further she pulled her hand away. ‘Nice to meet you,’ she said, and folded her arms, constraining the hands that suddenly wanted more of the fire. ‘It probably would have been better if that had happened before the whole debacle inside.’
‘I don’t know,’ he answered with a sly smile. ‘It was much more interesting than the way I usually meet girls.’
‘I’m sure you must mean women, because clearly...’ She gestured to herself, and then flushed when she saw appreciation in his eyes.
But he only said, ‘Touché,’ and made her wonder why she’d said those words.
They’d made her sound sassier than she was. As if she was in his league. As if she was used to playing the cat-and-mouse game of flirtation. She almost laughed aloud at the prospect of being in any league.
No, she thought as she took in how effortlessly Jacques’s muscular body wore his suit. He was way too attractive to be interested in her. Someone who looked like him spent time with models and actresses—definitely not with women who had more than twenty-five per cent body fat.
She distracted herself by offering the explanation he’d asked for earlier. ‘Kyle’s my ex-fiancé—’
She broke off when he lifted a hand, and she saw that his ring finger was a little crooked.
‘The one who dumped him a month before the wedding?’
‘Yes.’
‘I always thought the woman who did that had some balls.’
She smiled. ‘Thanks.’
‘It doesn’t explain why you dated him in the first place.’
It was the same thing she’d asked herself when she’d realised how poorly he’d treated her. But that realisation had only come at the end—when she’d been forced to see the truth. She’d been blinded by how charming, how handsome he was at first. And at all the times when he’d switched it on again sporadically throughout their relationship.
But the simple truth was that the blinkers had been kept in place because he’d been interested in her. It had been intoxicating—until it hadn’t been. And then she’d found him with a naked woman and regained the gift of sight. It had grown clearer with each hour that had passed after she’d ended it. With each phone call Kyle had made. With each threat...
She was ashamed that she’d dated a bully—that she would have married him—just because she didn’t think enough of herself. She’d dealt with bullies her entire life—she should have known better. And then there was the guilt, the indignity of her actions after the break-up...
‘Some things you only realise with time,’ she finally answered Jacques.
‘Touché,’ he said again.
She watched him shift his weight from one leg to the other and frowned. The movement was so out of place for a man who clearly had an abundance of confidence. She thought of the conversation she’d overheard, wondered if what she saw was vulnerability, and felt it hit straight at her heart.
No! she commanded herself. She had her hands full with her own problems. Like the store she’d wanted all her life—had sold a piece of herself to start—which was failing. She needed to focus on fixing that—on fixing herself—before she could even think of getting involved with someone else’s problems.
And yet when she looked at the sexy man in front of her the resolutions that she’d thought were firmly in place seemed hazy.
‘Kyle didn’t seem to like you,’ Lily said to distract herself. ‘Why is that?’
Jacques moved closer, and the breeze brought his fresh-from-the-shower scent to her nose. Her insides wobbled as attraction flowed through her, but she chose to ignore it.
Or tried to.
‘We have history.’
Lily waited for him to continue. When he didn’t, she said, ‘That’s all you’re going to tell me?’
He chuckled. ‘Apparently not.’
He leaned against the balcony’s railing.
‘Our families run in the same circles, so I’d met him a few times before Nathan started to work for him. Because I knew he was a—’ He looked at her, as though checking what her reaction would be, and then continued with a grin. ‘Because I knew he wasn’t a very nice person, I used to make a game out of stealing his dates.’
Her heart raced. ‘But you stopped?’
Something sparked in his eyes. ‘A while before you, yes. Unfortunately.’
Her face heated and she leaned against the railing as well, looking away from the view he was facing towards. She didn’t want him to see how uncomfortable he made her. And heaven only knew why she was staying there with him so that he could make her uncomfortable.
‘Why?’
‘Why did I stop?’
She nodded, and he sighed.
‘Because Nathan started working for Kyle’s firm. Because I stopped going to events he would be at.’
Jacques fell silent, and Lily wondered if he was remembering why he’d stopped going to those events. Had it been because he’d started playing rugby? Because he’d stopped? Had it been during the year after he’d stopped?
She folded her arms again when guilt nudged her at the way she’d got the information to wonder those things at all.
‘And,’ Jacques said after a while, ‘because I didn’t have time to deal with the punches he tried to throw at me.’
Surprise almost had her gasping. ‘Kyle tried to hit you?’
His lips curved and her pulse spiked.
‘Tried being the operative word. It was entertaining for me...painful for him, I imagine.’
‘You hit him back?’
‘Don’t sound so surprised. I was defending myself.’
It took her a moment to process that, and then she laughed. ‘I would have paid to see that.’
He smiled. ‘You could still see it.’
She gave him a look. ‘I’m not actually going to pay you to hit my ex.’
Jacques laughed. ‘It wouldn’t cost you much if you wanted me to, but I wasn’t talking about that. I saw the way he looked at us when he heard we were together. He hated it. So I bet if you and I go into that party right now and pretend to be a couple for a while longer his reaction would pretty much be the same as a punch in the gut.’
She’d barely had enough time to consider his proposal before he’d pushed up from where he was leaning and moved closer to her, sliding an arm around her waist. Her eyes widened and her mouth opened as she drew a quick breath. She watched his eyes lower to it. He only needed to dip his head—it was barely five centimetres away—and she would know if she could really feel that scar during a kiss...
He moved his mouth until it was next to her ear and whispered, ‘Kyle’s watching, so you might want to make that decision quickly.’
CHAPTER TWO
JACQUES COULDN’T DENY enjoying the way the woman he’d only just met shivered in his arms. Or the look her ex—a man he had a very low opinion of—was aiming at him. But those things were irrelevant to him at that moment. What was relevant w
as an opportunity to do just as his PR firm had advised. An opportunity that had just fallen into his lap, and would get him exactly what he wanted if he used it properly.
Lily shifted, reminding him that the opportunity wasn’t an it but a who.
‘If I say yes, will you let go of me?’
She asked it in a shaky tone, and he looked down into uncertain eyes. They became guarded a moment later, and he frowned, wondering where the spirit he’d admired earlier had gone.
‘I’ll let go of you regardless, Lily.’
He spoke softly, but forced his heart to harden. He couldn’t feel anything for her—including empathy. It would make using her a lot more difficult.
It sounded harsh, even to him, but he knew he would do it if it meant he could redeem himself from the mistakes he’d made in the past. He’d been trying to do that since he’d realised he was only proving people right—specifically his father—by acting the way he had during the year after his suspension.
The realisation had had him channelling the ‘I’ll do whatever it takes’ motto he’d been known for during his rugby days into building a sporting goods company. Into making it a success.
Now it was. And yet people still thought of him as the bad boy who’d beaten up his opponent seven years ago, and it grated him. So when he’d heard that his old rugby club was being sold, he’d known it was an opportunity. He could go back to the root of it all—to where his problems had started.
The irony was that he needed a better reputation to get the club he believed would change his poor reputation. And Lily was the key to that.
‘Let’s do it.’
The words were said firmly, surprising him after the brief moment of vulnerability he’d just seen, but he simply asked, ‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes.’
She gave a quick nod, and then moved her mouth so that it was next to his ear, just as he had done to her earlier. It made it seem as if she was responding to his question—something her action made seem suggestive—and he would have appreciated the strategy if a thrill hadn’t gone through his body, distracting him.
‘We’ll have to tell Caitlyn about this. If she sees us and thinks we’re together she’s going to freak out.’
She pulled back and laid a hand on his chest—an intimate gesture that had his heart beating too hard for his liking.
‘That would probably be best,’ he answered stiffly.
It took him a moment to figure out whether his tone came because of the effect she had on him or the prospect of speaking to his brother.
A fist clenched at a piece of his heart as it always did when he thought of Nathan, but he tried to focus on his task. He took Lily’s hand and led her through the crowd of people he no longer cared enough about to know to where his brother and Caitlyn were standing.
Holding Lily’s hand sent awareness up and down his arm, but he ignored it. Attraction wasn’t something new to him. There’s more with her, a voice taunted, and again he tried to think of something else. But his options seemed limited to things he didn’t want to think about, and he sighed, realising he would have to face at least one of them.
His brother won, Jacques thought as they reached the circle of people Nathan and Caitlyn were surrounded by. The easy air that Nathan carried around him—the way it translated into ease around people—had always been something Jacques had admired. Sometimes envied. Until he’d realised that people were overrated. One day they saw you as a hero, doing things they admired—the next those very things were criticised and that was how they defined you.
But Jacques knew it was also the easy way Nathan approached their less than stellar parents. How he was still in touch with them when Jacques hadn’t seen them in years. How he could still want to be a part of their family after all they’d had to deal with growing up...
He stopped that train of thought when he saw they’d attracted Nathan’s attention, and with a slight nod of his head Jacques indicated they go to a quieter corner of the room.
‘I’m glad you came,’ were the first words from his brother’s mouth.
‘You knew I would.’
Nathan sent Jacques a look that had a lance of guilt piercing his chest. It made him think about how he hadn’t seen either of his parents there that evening—Surprise, surprise, he thought, despite the relief coursing through him—and he realised it was disappointment, not accusation, that had Nathan doubting Jacques. And that it wasn’t exactly Jacques, but their whole family.
While Jacques sympathised with his brother, that feeling was capped by the memory of the thousands of times Jacques had warned Nathan to stop hoping with their parents. Jacques had learnt a long time ago that it would get him nowhere. His anger about it had ended his career, after all. Had taught him to stop trying. And, since he hadn’t seen them in seven years, he figured he’d succeeded in that.
‘Congratulations,’ Jacques said, remembering that this was the first time he’d seen his brother and his fiancée since they’d got engaged.
He brushed a kiss on Caitlyn’s cheek, enjoying the smile that spread over her pretty face, and then went in for the obligatory handshake and pat on the back with his brother.
‘While that was both amusing and touching,’ Lily interrupted with a small smile, ‘I know you both have to do the rounds, so we just wanted to tell you we’re going to pretend to be dating so that I can make Kyle feel a fraction of what I felt when I walked in on him and her—’ she nodded a head in the woman’s direction ‘—naked.’
By the time she was done Jacques could tell that she was out of breath. Which didn’t surprise him, since with each word the pace with which she’d spoken had increased. What did surprise him was what she had said—that Kyle had cheated on her. While he’d been amused at being roped in to being a pretend boyfriend earlier, he understood why she’d done it now. And he no longer felt amusement over the situation.
There was a stunned silence, and then Caitlyn said, ‘Honey, are you okay?’
‘I’m fine.’ Lily brushed one of her delightful curls from her face. ‘We just wanted to warn you in case you wondered. Or got asked about it. And, while we’re speaking about that, we’ve been dating six months. You and Nate introduced us.’
Jacques’s lips twitched at the way their story had evolved, but the amusement faded when he wondered how Kyle could have cheated on someone like Lily.
Someone like Lily? a voice questioned, and he realised it sounded crazy. He barely knew her—she might have cheated on Kyle first. But given what he knew about Kyle and the few moments he’d spent with Lily he highly doubted that she’d been in the wrong.
His opinion of Kyle dropped another notch, and the temptation to relive the night he had knocked the man out boiled in Jacques’s blood. He frowned, wondering where the intensity of his feelings—a mixture of anger and protectiveness—came from. And then he felt his brother’s gaze on him, and looked up into a flash of warning.
Since he’d experienced a surge of protection for Lily himself, he understood it. But it singed him to know Nathan was thinking about Jacques’s past with women. And it burned to know his brother’s warning was on point, considering what he planned to use Lily for.
‘You don’t have to worry, Cait,’ he said, distracting himself.
He knew Caitlyn was the one to win over if he wanted his plan to work. Caitlyn gave him a quick nod, then turned her attention to Lily.
‘You know I never liked him—especially after everything...’ She trailed off, glancing at Jacques. Then she quickly said, ‘I give my blessing for this fake relationship in the name of payback.’
Caitlyn had sparked his curiosity, but it was forgotten when Lily smiled and his chest constricted.
Simple attraction.
He willed himself to believe that when his skin prickled as she took his hand again. And when she look
ed back with those beautiful eyes of hers to check whether he was okay with it and his heart raced.
He gave her a quick nod, and she started towards the doors that led to the side of the balcony that held the pool. Before he could take more than a few steps with her, someone touched his arm and he looked back.
‘Please...be careful with her,’ Caitlyn said, looking at him with eyes that reflected her plea.
‘I... I will,’ he answered, before he could think to say anything else, and the gratitude that shone from her face had his stomach dropping.
He glanced at his brother, saw the frown that suggested Nathan didn’t believe him, and his stomach dropped even further. He turned back to Lily, following her until she stopped next to the pool, and tried not to think about the interaction he’d just had. It made him wonder what it was about Lily that inspired the protectiveness he’d seen in the two people he’d just spoken to—the protectiveness that he’d felt himself.
He cleared his throat. ‘Are we going for a swim? I didn’t bring my swimming trunks...although I have nothing against stripping down to my birthday suit.’
‘What?’ she gasped, and a smile spread across his face.
‘I’m kidding, Lily. Unless...?’ he teased, and enjoyed the way red tinted her olive skin.
The colour made him think of the other women he’d dated—he used that term loosely—who spent hours in the sun trying to get that tone. Something told him that Lily would never spend so much time on such a vain endeavour. Not when he was sure the messy auburn curls surrounding her face hadn’t been tampered with. When he was sure her beautiful face bore almost no make-up. Her hazel eyes weren’t highlighted by mascara or liner. The blush on her high cheekbones wasn’t artificial, nor was the pomegranate hue of her full lips.
As attracted as he was to the outside—he took a moment to enjoy the way her body filled out the dress she wore, just as he had when he’d been coming down the stairs—he found himself more intrigued by what the outside told him. How many women did he know who would come to an upper-class party without plastering their faces with make-up? How many would leave their hair in its natural state when every other woman had hers sleeked up in some complicated style?
The Millionaire's Redemption Page 2
