QUADE: THE IRRESISTIBLE ONE

by Bronwyn Jameson

  So, what had dragged her off in such a rush? What had kept her occupied all this time?

  * * *

  The phone rang while he was in the shower and he didn't even stop to grab a towel. When he heard her voice, nothing but a simple hello, relief stole his breath, his strength, his cool.

  "Where the hell are you?" he ground between clenched teeth. "Why didn't you turn up for golf this afternoon?"

  She paused, just long enough for him to picture the hint of a frown furrowing the pale skin of her forehead. "How did you know that?"

  Her quiet question, his racing pulse, the water pooling around his feet, the tick of the old-fashioned clock – every damn thing grated against the fractured edges of his temper. "Because I was there, damn it. Where were you?"

  "I'm in Sydney. It's a long story—"

  'Then let's just stick to the short version."

  "Fine." One second to the next, her voice had chilled twenty degrees. That grated as well. "Mitch had a child-care crisis. I'm helping him out."

  "You flew to Sydney to baby-sit?"

  "I flew to Sydney because my brother needed me."

  "Sounds like your brother needs to get his act together."

  "Really?" she asked, the sarcasm so heavy he could feel it dripping through the phone line. "That's funny because, of all people, I thought you might understand."

  "What? Your need to skip out on something you were afraid you'd fail at?"

  Silence followed, so thick he felt its presence like a physical thing, like a cold, solid wall of dread. What was he doing here? Scrubbing a hand over his face, he struggled to form some words of apology. Some explanation for the irrational clutch of fear that had carried him along, unthinking, on a reactive wave.

  "Actually, I didn't mean you skipping out on your career. I meant you might understand what Mitch has been going through ever since his wife decided marriage and rearing a child was inconvenient to her career."

  Her words hit him sidelong with the force of a sledgehammer. How the hell did she know about Kristin, about her decision? "What are you talking about?" he asked slowly.

  "About Mitch, about broken hearts, about pain that rips you apart inside." She'd been talking about Mitch's wife, her choices, not Kristin. He felt the tension in his jaw give a fraction. "Look, I only rang to let you know my whereabouts because I thought you wanted to know. For some dumb reason I imagined I heard concern in your messages."

  "You did."

  "Oh."

  He wanted to say more, to explain why he'd been on that damned golf course in the first place, but not over the phone. He'd handled this whole thing poorly – okay, disastrously – from the get-go, and he intended making it up to her grandly. Not over the phone, not with her hundreds of miles away. In person. Very much in person.

  "When are you coming home?" he asked, feeling in control for the first time all day. It was a sensation he welcomed with open arms.

  "I'm here for the weekend, flying back Monday morning. I'll be going straight to work."

  "Will you call in here after work, on your way home?" Eyes closed, he waited for her answer. Told himself it didn't matter because if she didn't call on him, he'd be down there in a flash, bashing on her door, demanding she hear him out.

  "Okay."

  "Okay," he repeated, feeling like a man who'd just earned a reprieve, a guilty man who didn't deserve one. "I'll see you then."

  * * *

  Three hours until she was due – if she finished work on time, if she didn't have hours to make up after leaving early Friday, if she didn't decide to make him sweat it out in penance – and he was as edgy as the feral chickens that skittered around his shed. Every time he rolled out from under the car he seemed to startle one into wild wing-flapping retreat. The way he'd been tossing tools around today, he didn't blame the birds.

  With a wry shake of his head, he propelled himself back beneath the jacked-up vehicle. It was a way to pass the time. Plus he'd found extra incentive to get the car finished – sometime during the past week he'd learned that Chantal had a thing for it. Not an historical interest, not a mechanical curiosity, not even an aesthetic attraction for the low-slung, red classic.

  She had a fantasy. A hot, sweaty, no-holds-barred sexual fantasy involving this car. In what context he didn't know, but he was up for finding out.

  With a grin on his face, he returned some of his attention to the job in hand, the rest to a sultry stream of car fantasies. When he heard the low thrum of an engine ten or so minutes later, he thought the fantasy thing was getting a little too real and shook his head clear.

  The engine cut out and a car door slammed. Quade's heart slammed against his ribs. This was no figment of his imagination, although he couldn't help conjuring up a few reasons for her early arrival. As edgy as he, she couldn't wait for the end of the day. She had to see him now. She had to have him now.

  As he rolled out from beneath the car, anticipation filled his body with fierce intensity. The explanations and apologies better not get too involved. She better be wearing a skirt. Because car finished or not, he was up for finding out all her car fantasies right now. Fully up.

  By the time she came through the door he was on his feet and wiping the grime from his hands. Before he'd finished one finger, he could tell she was in no mood for fantasies … unless they involved extreme violence. Great big galloping qualms trampled all through him, but he smiled regardless. "Would it help if I explained that phone call?"

  Eyes flashing dark fire, she came to a halt in front of him. "It would help if you explained what you were doing on that golf course with Godfrey on Friday."

  * * *

  Chapter 11

  «^»

  "Helping you out."

  Chantal had trained hard at the school of cool and collected, but every lesson exploded in a blistering red mist when Quade shrugged and calmly offered that answer. Rage shimmered through her as she whipped the rag from his hands and threw it to the floor.

  "By offering advice to Godfrey? By recommending he send clients to big-city firms? Is that how you were helping me out?" She didn't wait for his answer, barely gave him a chance to narrow his gaze before she lit into him again. "Because from where I'm standing it looks more like you're helping out one of your old buddies. Andrew McKinley. Name ring a bell?"

  His head lifted a fraction, as if she had rocked him and that felt good. Incredibly, vindictively good.

  "Well, of course you've heard the name. After all, you recommended him!"

  "Godfrey asked my advice on a hypothetical situation, I gave it. You want to tell me why that's a problem?"

  "Damn right I do. That was my client. My case!" Not a hypothetical, but Emily Warner. To her mortification tears blurred her vision and she had to look away, to gather herself, before she could continue. "You had no right to interfere."

  "Now hang on a minute—"

  "I will not hang on to anything a minute unless it's your neck!"

  He stared at her a moment, a muscle working in his cheek. "Don't you think you should take this up with your boss?"

  "I did. But my boss happens to have this hotshot international attorney – sorry, ex-attorney – for a nephew and when he gives advice, it's gospel."

  "I called it as I saw it," he replied all cool, unperturbed logic.

  Chantal felt her cool and logic slip another notch. "During a casual chat on a golf course? For crying out loud, you didn't even have all the facts!"

  "I had enough to discern it's a complicated case, one worthy of an estate specialist. I offered that opinion, and I stand by it."

  "You don't think I'm up to it, do you?" Eyes narrowed, she glared up at him. "Same old, same old."

  "If you're referring to what happened at Barker Cowan, then you're way off beam. You were a second year student—"

  "Who you didn't trust to do a simple job."

  "Don't you think it's time you let that go?"

  Until Quade came back into her life, she thought she had
. But somehow he managed to dredge up every buried insecurity, every old doubt about her ability, even when the voice of logic told her to take another look. Exhaling heavily, she looked away, down, studied an oil stain on the concrete floor.

  "It's only a case, Chantal," he said very softly.

  Her head whipped up. "It's only the most important thing in my life. I've been working my butt off for weeks on this, night and day and weekends. It's the case I've been waiting for. The one that will make a difference."

  "For your career prospects."

  Not a question. A statement of fact, as cold and hard as the look in his eyes. He folded his arms across his chest and Chantal felt a sudden urge to shake her head. No, no, no, no. That's not what I meant, at all. I have handled this all wrong. Don't shut me out.

  "Shouldn't this be about what's best for your client?" he asked.

  "Yes. You're right." Absolutely right.

  "Pleased we agree on something."

  Silence settled, awkward and uncomfortable. So much had been said poorly, so much left unsaid, and Chantal searched for an opening, a chink in his impenetrable expression. "What else did you and Godfrey discuss?"

  "Is that any of your business?"

  The coolness in his eyes should have been a signal. Don't go there, Chantal. Don't pursue this. But she couldn't help herself. "If it's about my workplace, then, yes, it is my business."

  "No, and here's some free advice." The set of his jaw hard and unyielding, he leaned forward as if to lend weight to his words. "Don't ever presume that I will discuss any business with you, your workplace or mine, just because we are sleeping together."

  Staggered – by his icy tone, his uncompromising expression, but mostly by the message – she took a step back. He was cautioning her against using their relationship, against using pillow talk? To what ends? To gain some kind of privileged information?

  A short burst of laughter rose inside her. The idea was ludicrous. She'd been scratching for a conversation starter and he'd turned it into … into a character judgment. And how little he thought of her. As the notion took hold, hurt swamped her, so powerful it forced her back another step.

  "Don't worry your conscience over that happening." Her voice sounded as tight and brittle as she felt. As if one more knock would shatter her like fine china on the concrete floor. "We won't be sleeping together any more."

  "Quitting, Chantal?"

  Chin high, she glared back at him. "You're the expert, Quade. What do you think?"

  "Meaning?"

  "You seem to have managed your share of quitting lately. Your job, your engagement. Your whole life, pretty much."

  The calm line of his mouth thinned. Well, good. Finally she had managed to make some impact. "You don't know anything about that."

  "Oh, and I wonder why? Could it be because you haven't told me one damned thing about it? Because all you were prepared to share with me was your body?"

  "I never promised you anything else."

  But during the last idyllic week she had allowed her heart to hope, to dream of a future beyond the bedroom. She had even convinced herself that Friday night's phone call was born of concern for her well-being, and her soaring hopes had delivered her home on a cloud of blissful anticipation.

  To Godfrey's bombshell. To this eye-opener.

  The man she imagined herself in love with had no confidence in her capability as a lawyer and no respect for her ethical integrity.

  Head high, she forced herself to hold it together, to contain the angsty pain that screamed for release. To twist her mouth into a tight little smile and respond to that final slap of reality. He had offered her nothing but his body.

  "No, you didn't."

  * * *

  Pride kept her walking out of that shed, head high despite the tears misting her vision, praying that her movements didn't look as wooden and jerky as they felt. That same pride kept her going over the next weeks, filling the long days and nights with any tedious, mind-sapping work she could find. It kept her from spilling her heartache to Julia, and it kept her driving past Quade's driveway with her head held high, kept her from succumbing to the powerful urge to pull the wheel right and not stop until she was in his arms.

  Pride did all that, but self-honesty forced her to accept one truth – he had been right about Andrew McKinley. To build the strongest possible case, to ensure the best chance of winning. Emily needed a man like Quade's estate specialist buddy on her team. Unfortunately Emily didn't see it quite the same way. Even after they traveled to Sydney for a meeting, she stubbornly insisted they could do without an arrogant city wig.

  Two weeks later they had reached an impasse. Chantal expelled a frustrated breath and buried her head in her hands just as a knock sounded on her office door.

  "Everything all right?" Godfrey asked from the doorway.

  "Nothing I can't handle."

  "I don't doubt that for a minute, but sometimes it helps to talk it through."

  "Do you have a free hour or ten?" she asked with a mocking smile.

  "If you don't mind walking while you're talking then, yes, I do."

  Friday afternoon, golf afternoon. Chantal sat back in her chair and chewed her lip. For the past three weeks and four days Quade's quitting allegation had plagued her conscience. When Mitch's phone call came – that solid-gold excuse to bail out of the golf engagement – she'd been one second away from calling Quade, begging him to come and hold her hand. She'd proven herself as a first-rate nine-carat coward, one step removed from a quitter.

  This afternoon, right now, she could make it up to herself. She could do this golf thing. She would do it.

  Slapping her palms down on the desk, she pushed to her feet. "I'm up for some walking and talking. Thank you, Godfrey."

  I hope neither of us regrets it.

  * * *

  Thirty minutes later the first arrow of regret pierced her right through the heart. Quade. In the Country Club car park. Hauling a golf bag from the trunk of his car.

  Her instant response – an actual physical jolt that stiffened her limbs and tensed her muscles – brought her car to an abrupt halt. And she sat there hunched over the wheel, heart beating erratically, while her eyes ate him up. The long line of his back, the sun-brightened gleam of his hair, the square line of his jaw, the dark shadow of a frown as he lifted his head.

  His whole body stilled, paused as if he sensed her watching, and in that second she swore her heart stopped beating. Then he swung around, a swift movement that brought his gaze directly to hers. She could not look away. The pull of that vivid green gaze was so forceful she could feel herself trapped in it, sucked forward by it, as if into a vortex.

  Dimly she heard the honk of a horn and, with immense difficulty, she shook herself out of a moment as intense as any she had ever experienced. The horn sounded again, more urgently, and she realized that she was blocking the road. With an apologetic wave, she released her foot from the brake pedal and steered into a park, a regular spot, not one situated in the middle of the road.

  By the time she turned off the engine and looked around Godfrey blocked her view, but she could see he was shaking Quade's hand and that two golf buggies sat side by side behind their parked cars. Tension curled in her stomach as – somewhat belatedly – the significance struck. No coincidence but a prearranged meeting. There were no other cars she recognized, no one else preparing to hit off.

  Just Godfrey and Quade and she as the third.

  * * *

  Avoiding awkward conversation was as easy as hooking every drive into the rough, as simple as pretending utter concentration on every approach shot and putt. But after four holes Chantal despised her cowardly tactics. Wasn't this afternoon about proving something to herself? Hiding behind trees was not the way to go about bolstering her self-respect. Playing no-speaks with her neighbor, ditto.

  The next time Godfrey strode away to take his shot, she set her shoulders, stiffened her spine and made an effort. "Zane tells me you've
almost finished the MG."

  "Almost." He was gazing off into the distance, as if he couldn't stand to look at her. Swallowing the bitter hurt of that thought, she forced herself to try again. Three chances. Three innocuous conversation starters. If he couldn't do better than one-word answers, the message would be clear.

  "And the garden's coming along? Julia thinks it's going to look magnificent in a couple of years."

  "It will be." Three words. Wonderful.

  They both watched as Godfrey's approach shot popped up, bounced all the way across the green and plopped into a deep sand bunker on the far side. Talk about symbolic. Her heart had just executed the exact same deep fall.

  "Have you decided what you're going to do with your acres? Because I didn't ever introduce you to the vineyard consultant. I promised to do that, at the wedding."

  Perhaps her last-ditch attempt at conversation had sounded as frantic as she felt, because he finally looked at her. Right at her. Her heart raced as she gazed back into those tired, shadowed eyes. Tired? Shadowed? She swallowed and tried not to conjecture why.

  "I managed to meet up with Harrier," he said slowly.

  "You did?"

  "Yeah. His number's in the book."

  Of course it was. But she'd been incapable of such simple deduction. The way he'd been looking at her, the way her crazy heart and body and soul responded with a wild cry of hope. Oh dear Lord.

  "He mentioned how I cut in on him at the wedding. When he was dancing with you." Their gazes met. Memories of that night blazed between them in a bolt of vivid blue heat, before he looked away. His mouth twisted wryly. "Lucky for me he doesn't hold a grudge."

  When he strolled away to take his shot – Godfrey's ball had just burst from the bunker in a spray of sand and come to rest by the flag – she released a long whoosh of breath. Her pulse still hadn't settled, and as he hunkered down to line up his putt, she allowed herself a brief, silent whoop of cautious optimism. Then she noticed the way his chinos pulled across the muscles of his thighs, and unadulterated heat obliterated her tempered warm optimism.

  Through the heat haze she watched him sink his putt. Three putts later she'd done the same, a decent result for her, and when Godfrey finished they walked to the next tee and started all over. Two holes later she found herself alone with Quade again, as they walked toward their second shots. Godfrey's drive had landed on the opposite side of the fairway.