Suspicious Ways

by Lexxie Couper

  Jack dragged his mouth from hers, his chest heaving. The heat from his body pervaded hers, licking over her flesh like a lover’s kiss, sending waves of squirming tension into the pit of her stomach. She caught the soft whimper in her throat before it could slip past her lips. Even now, when he’d come back to destroy her life for a second time, she hungered for him. Craved his touch. Even now, with the stinging memory of their last meeting in her mind—tangled sheets, tears, pain, his disgust and her shame—she wanted him.

  Intense green eyes roamed her face, lingering on her lips as he pulled a long, ragged breath. “I knew your surrender would be like this.”

  Ali’s breath caught in her throat. Surrender?

  Self-disgust flooded through her. God, she was an idiot. He’d played her like a damn fool. Like a giddy little teenager with a crush. She shrank as far from him as possible and pushed her back to the cabin door. No matter what her body was screaming for her to do, she had to get away from him. Now.

  Before she made a fool of herself again.

  Jaw clenched, she gave him a look of loathing. “Go away, Jack.”

  A flicker of annoyance crossed his face, dark and impatient. “Ali, you’re being childish. We have to talk. I want to explain—”

  Cold anger crashed over her. Powerful and consuming. “The last time we talked,” she snarled, squaring her shoulders and giving him an icy stare, “two things happened. You accused me of killing my father and we slept together.” Her voice turned flat and she shook her head. “Both were mistakes.”

  Jack looked down at her, his face expressionless. For a second, she thought he was going to say something. But he didn’t. Instead, he dropped his arms and stepped away.

  Ali glared at him again, the sinful taste of his lips like taunting honey on her own. “I know how little you think of me, Jackson McKenzie, but I never thought you’d take my father’s yacht from me.” She opened the cabin door and stepped down into Wind Seeker’s hull, her heart threatening to explode. “I hate you, Jack,” she said, looking up at him from the galley. “I truly hate you.” And with that, she turned her back on him and crossed the galley.

  Wind Seeker stood still for a moment, the soft beat of water lapping against its hull the only sign fate hadn’t frozen time. Ali held her breath. Would he come after her? Or would he…

  The yacht pitched gently, followed by the sound of Jack’s feet landing on the jetty and walking away.

  “Damn it,” Ali whispered, dropping onto the starboard lower bunk.

  Four years ago, he’d called her a killer, taken her virginity, ripped her heart out and left her without a word. She should know better. But it seemed she didn’t. Because the throb between her thighs was growing stronger with every breath she pulled, and the aching want in her chest was growing hotter. She let out a long sigh, aching with want. He was gone. Again. Leaving her alone on her yacht and craving his touch, just like he had all those years ago.

  A sickening knot twisted in Ai’s belly, self-contempt warring with traitorous need. His yacht, Ali. His yacht.

  Jack sat in the cockpit of Suspicious Ways, watching as the late summer sun cast stretching shadows over the surrounding boats of the marina. The metallic clang and clink of masts and rigging disturbed by the gentle swell calmed him. To a degree. Two years had passed since he’d been aboard his personal yacht, a craft of such elegance and beauty it was held in the highest esteem throughout the sailing world. He should be grinning from ear to ear. Should be. Instead, he was aroused and angry and confused as hell.

  He shook his head, gulping another mouthful of beer from the sweating bottle in his hand. Once again, Ali Graham had knocked him so far off-kilter he didn’t know which way was up. Dragging his free hand through the tousled mess of his hair, he looked over to Wind Seeker. Two hours ago, she’d stormed down the jetty, face set, jaw clenched. Her long smooth limbs—kissed golden by the warm setting sun—moved with an innate grace he’d always admired. She’d look glorious. Furious as a summer storm, but glorious.

  Pulling in a steadying sigh, Jack turned his attention from Ali’s boat to the towering buildings hugging the harbor’s edge. Chest muscles tight, he watched a few scattered windows light up as dusk set in. Why did that woman disturb him so much? He was thirty-five years old, for Christ sake. The social circles he moved in placed him in contact with women far more sexually overt, more forward and experienced than Ali Graham, yet somehow his gut still knotted like a naïve schoolboy’s whenever he thought of her.

  And he thought of her often.

  Unbidden, an image of the slender woman filled his head, chin tilted in obstinate defiance, blue eyes flashing. Those eyes had captivated him the very second they’d first met, despite the fact she’d only been seventeen. A baby to his twenty-eight years. They’d filled his very dreams and fantasies every night, something that both unnerved and disturbed him. He remembered thinking even back then that a man could get lost in their depths if he wasn’t careful. He’d fought like hell to be careful. Christ, had he fought, if for no other reason than his friendship with her father.

  He’d fought like hell to be careful today, but then he’d seen her, touched her, smelled her, and careful had gone to hell. Which was exactly where he should be now after what he’d done.

  He’d been finishing his latest commission in the States when Ali’s bank manager had called to request a meeting as the loan guarantor. Jack had agreed straight away. For four years, he’d thought of Ali, no matter how hard he’d tried not to. He’d wondered how she was, what she was doing. For four years, he’d denied he still held dreams of a future with her. Coming back to Sydney was the perfect excuse to see her. Maybe take her to dinner, maybe hold her, say he was sorry. There’d been no plans to take possession of her business and yacht then, just a simple desire to see her, to find out why Andrew’s business was in trouble and to offer his help.

  But then he’d learnt Ali was sailing for Zane Peterson. That Peterson was making noises at the yacht club about buying Ali’s business, letting it be known she was his, that their relationship was special.

  In the space of a heartbeat Jack had changed his plans. Had gone from an altruistic motivation to a much darker one.

  Thudding footsteps on the wooden jetty killed the bleak memory. A wiry man leapt into the cockpit, his tanned, leathery face split by a broad smile. “I’m guessin’ from the look on your face Ali Graham knows you’re back in town.”

  Jack gave the new arrival a wry grin. “You could say that.”

  The other man squinted at him with sharp brown eyes. “You did something’ stupid, didn’t you?”

  A snort escaped Jack as he handed his ex-boss a cold beer. “Possibly.”

  “Ah, shit, Jack.” Mike Turpin—the man who had taken a young, untested boat designer as an apprentice when no one else would—dropped onto the opposite bench seat. “What did you do?”

  Jack didn’t answer.

  Mike raised an eyebrow. “Is this mopin’ about over Zane Peterson? About what I told you drivin’ back from the airport? Or how you feel about Ali?”

  Anger rolled over Jack, hot and raw and painful. He gave Mike a flat glare, his gut knotting. “Of course it’s about Peterson.”

  The name tasted like bile on his tongue. Not a day passed when Zane Peterson didn’t enter his mind. Zane Peterson. Sydney’s most notorious entrepreneur. The man Jack hated with every molecule in his body.

  That Ali was sailing for the evil bastard made Jack sick. If he’d known before now that Peterson was preying on her, he would have been back in the country in a heartbeat. Instead, he’d been farting around in Florida, pretending he wasn’t thinking about her, doing everything in his power to forget her. He’d left her defenseless to Sydney’s biggest predator, and the bastard had made his move. The first of many that would get Peterson exactly what he wanted. And according to Mike, exactly what he wanted currently was Ali.

  Jack’s gut twisted at the thought.

  “Listen, mate—” M
ike rested his elbows on his knees, fixing Jack with a pinning stare, “—I don’t know what you did after I dropped you off at the bank, but be careful. Peterson turned up here about forty-five minutes ago lookin’ mighty pissed an’ askin’ if you were around.”

  Jack narrowed his eyes. “You truly think I’m scared of Zane Peterson?”

  “No, I don’t. But since you left, he’s got more contacts in his pocket than Rupert Murdoch, an’ he gets more powerful with every dollar he makes.”

  The knot in Jack’s stomach tightened. “You don’t have to remind me who Peterson is, Mike. I know all about his contacts. It was my niece they found dead aboard his motorboat, remember.”

  As always, the thought of his niece was like a knife sinking into his heart. He’d promised his sister he’d look after her only child when she’d come to study at Sydney University. Instead, Trudi had become Peterson’s plaything. And then…

  Mike’s eyes grew worried. “What’s goin’ on, Jack? I saw Ali earlier and she didn’t look happy. Not at all. And now Peterson’s lookin’ the same and it’s your name he’s sayin’. What have you done to piss ’em off? What are you up to?”

  Removing his glasses, Jack rubbed at his face, his gut tight.

  Was what he’d done to Ali anything to do with his feelings for her? Or was it all just retaliation? Vengeance?

  Or something as tortured as redemption?

  Christ. Where the hell was his mind?

  Lost. Somewhere in his jealousy, he guessed. He had no damn right being jealous anyway. Ali Graham meant nothing to him anymore. And she’d made it perfectly clear he meant nothing to her.

  Except for the kiss. The kiss they’d shared on Wind Seeker that afternoon blew that theory right out of the water.

  Lifting his head, he stared at the surrounding boats, seeing nothing but an image of Ali. Smiling, laughing, stubborn Ali. Gut twisting, he turned back to Mike. “Are they involved, Turps? Is Ali more than just on his sailing crew? Is she also in his—”

  “I’ve told you already, Jack,” Mike cut him short. “I don’t know. Ali rarely talks to me anymore. Hell, she rarely talks to anyone.” He scratched at his whiskers. “Since Andrew’s funeral she’s changed. Too many idiots around her sayin’ idiotic things. She hardly mixes with anyone at the club, an’ the only time she’s down here now is when she’s on Wind Seeker.” He paused for a second, studying Jack with a wary frown. “Or on Peterson’s boat.”

  Before he could stop it, an image of Ali and Zane Peterson flashed through Jack’s head, surreal in its vivid clarity. Peterson’s hairy, meaty arms wrapped around her slim waist, the flashy gold rings on his pudgy fingers glinting as they snaked over her sun-kissed flesh, roaming over her body, groping the sublime curves of her bare—

  He shook the image out of his head, his chest unbearably tight. Replacing his glasses, he looked at his old friend. “You were right, mate, when you said her business was in trouble. She’s almost bankrupt.”

  “Bankrupt? I didn’t know it was that bad. She’s copped a lot of unfair muck-slingin’ from the old blokes around here, I have to say. They still reckon she’s the upstart, brash American teenager they first met when the Grahams moved here, no matter how polite and courteous she in on the water. The fact she still has an accent doesn’t help her either. Not with the old salts and not with overseas visitors. Tourists sailin’ on Sydney Harbor don’t wanna hear a Yank talkin’, no matter how well she says g’day. But bankrupt? What happened to Andrew’s life insurance?”

  Jack could only shake his head, a fact that angered him greatly. He should know. Andrew Graham had been his best mate, his sailing partner and his business partner. He shouldn’t have deserted his friend’s only child to life’s cruelties just because he couldn’t keep his dick in his pants. Couldn’t control the way he wanted—

  “So why is Peterson pissed at you?” Mike asked, his stare steady. “What did you do since I left you at Ali’s bank?”

  A dull pressure thumped in Jack’s temples. “Stopped him.”

  Mike sat back. “Stopped him what?”

  “From getting something he wanted. I paid out Andrew’s loan and sent Peterson a message telling him Ali’s business was no longer hers.” Jack’s stomach rolled, the heavy harbor air making him sick. “As of this afternoon I own Wind Seeker and With the Wind Charters, and he can’t get her.” He swallowed, the slip bitter on his tongue. “He can’t get it, I mean.”

  Stunned disbelief wrinkled Mike’s weathered face. “You what? Jesus, Jack, you’re meant to be Ali’s friend, not the guy who takes everythin’ she—”

  “I know what I am,” Jack cut him short. “But believe me, Ali wants as little to do with me as I do her.”

  Mike snorted. “Bullshit. You forget who you’re talkin’ too, mate. I know exactly how you feel about Ali Graham an’ little has nothin’ to do with it. I think I’ve known longer than you have. An’ I can tell you the way you’re behavin’ now is not the way a man behaves towards the woman he—”

  “It’s done, Mike. And I’m not changing my mind.”

  “But—” Mike frowned, “—what about Ali? What about her business? Her father? Is this how you honor Andrew’s memory?”

  Jack looked away, not wanting to meet the knowing look in his old friend’s eyes. Zane Peterson was a cancer. A cancer that devoured young women like Ali. The thought of Ali ending up like his niece—stretched cold and lifeless on the morgue’s metal slab—scared the shit out of him so much he broke out in an icy sweat. He’d do anything to prevent that from happening, whatever the costs. Even if it meant destroying any fragile remnants of a relationship he and Ali once had. “Peterson is evil, Turps,” he said, his voice close to a snarl. “You know that as well as I. I couldn’t stand back and let Ali become his next play thing.”

  Mike gave him a long, serious look. “She may be already, mate. He’s the only bloke I’ve ever seen her with. And the way he looks at her, the way he talks about her…”

  Jack shook his head. “No. I can’t believe that. She’s too strong willed. Too damn independent and stubborn.”

  “Too spirited and too attractive,” Mike added. “Everything Zane Peterson finds irresistible in a woman.”

  Jack’s gut twisted. Everything he found irresistible in a woman as well. No, not just any woman. Ali Graham. The only woman he’d ever found irresistible was Ali bloody Graham. So irresistible he’d run from her. Turned his back on her for his own sanity and hers. And now he was back and she hated him.

  Christ, what the hell am I doing?

  He scrubbed at his face with his hands. “I’ve spent years convincing myself I was over her.” He dragged his hands through his hair again, looking over to Ali’s empty yacht. “But God help me, Mike, all it’s taken is the mere thought of her in someone else’s arms for me to realize I’ve been deceiving myself all along.”

  He let out a low sigh. Ali was completely and utterly under his skin.

  And that was by far more dangerous than Zane Peterson could ever be.

  Chapter Two

  Ali flung her little Mini through the dark city streets with reckless haste, her stare locked on the road, her heart slamming in her chest.

  What was she doing? She must be out of her mind.

  “No.” She shook her head, her flat mutter like a shout in the silent cabin of her car. “Not out of my mind. Just desperate.” She gripped the steering wheel harder, skidding around the last turn that would take her to the opulent and ultra-expensive homes in Darling Point. In one of those homes was a self-serving, arrogant, smug yacht-stealing bastard. She hoped. She knew his brother had been house sitting while he was overseas, but surely now Jack was back in Australia, he’d go to his own home? If he’d checked into a hotel she was screwed.

  She ground her teeth and pressed her foot harder to the accelerator. If Jackson McKenzie thought he could just waltz in and take everything from her he was wrong. She wasn’t giving up without a fight. And she would fight nasty if it came to i
t.

  She’d made herself a promise four years ago as she scattered her dad’s ashes over the waters of Sydney Harbor from the bow of Wind Seeker. She’d promised she would keep his business going. She would keep his dream alive, regardless of what people said, regardless of what it took. Sydney’s tightknit sailing community had opened their arms to her dad, accepted him as one of their own—a man who knew boats, who respected the water and could drink like a true sailor. When Ali had been at the helm the night he’d died—a nineteen-year-old from Connecticut who most of the yachtsmen deemed reckless and cocky—they’d turned their back on her, holding her responsible for her dad’s tragic death.

  Ali hadn’t cared.

  The old salts and pretentious boaties alike could whisper behind her back, mock her gender and accent and age as much as they liked and do their best to destroy her spirits, but she’d sworn to herself she could do it. She would do it. For her dad, her mom and herself. She’d worked her butt off, had invested so much to keep that promise. And she had kept it. She’d kept With the Wind Charters afloat. Until today.

  She shifted gears, the engine of her Mini groaning with protest at its brutal treatment. “Damn you, Jack.”

  Why it was Jack’s fault her car wasn’t handling this trip well, she couldn’t tell. But then, she’d never driven like this before, so it had to be his fault.

  Childish, Ali. Very childish.