His first thought was that after the site inspection tomorrow he would get the hell out of Dolphin Bay. But he’d promised to be Ben’s groomsman. He cursed again. He was trapped here—with a woman he wanted but suddenly couldn’t have.
The door opened behind him, a shaft of light falling on the deck. He moved away. He was in no mood to talk. To Ben. To Jesse. To anyone.
‘Sam?’ Her voice was tentative but even without turning around he knew it was Kate.
He turned. There was enough moonlight so he could see the anxiety on her face. She was wringing her hands together. He ached to reach out to her but he kept his hands fisted by his sides.
‘Let’s walk out to the end of the dock,’ she said. ‘You feel like you’re on a boat out there. And no one can overhear us.’
He fell into step beside her. A row of low-voltage sensor lights switched on to light them to the dock. The builder in him admired the electrics. His male soul could only think of the beautiful woman beside him and regret about what might have been.
They reached the end of the dock without speaking. A light breeze coming off the water brought with it the tang of the sea and lifted and played with the soft curls around Kate’s face. She seemed subdued, as if the moonlight had sucked all that wonderful vivacity from her.
She turned to him. ‘I had no idea you were building the resort.’
‘I had to keep it confidential. I didn’t know you were involved in any way.’
‘It was the first time I heard I was to liaise with you. I hadn’t seen that coming.’ She looked up at him. Her face was pale in the weak, shimmering light, her eyes shadowed. ‘This...this changes things, doesn’t it?’
‘I’m afraid it does,’ he said, knowing from the regret in her eyes that she was closing the door on him before it got any more than halfway open.
‘It...it means I have to say no to that date,’ she said.
One part of him was plunged into dismay at the tolling finality of her words, the other was relieved that he hadn’t had to say them first.
‘It means I have to rescind the offer,’ he said gruffly. ‘I have an iron-clad no-dating-the-clients rule.’
Her short, mirthless laugh was totally unlike her usual throaty chime. ‘Me too. I’ve never thought it was a good idea. There can be too many consequences if the dating doesn’t work out but you still have to work together.’
‘Agreed,’ he said. ‘There are millions of dollars at stake here.’ And his company’s reputation—especially at the time of a publicly scrutinised buy-out bid. The company had to come first again—as it always did. This time, it came ahead of him dating the only woman who had seriously interested him since his broken engagement. Again he had that sense of the business as a millstone, weighing him down with protocol and obligation—as it had since he’d been fourteen years old.
Kate laughed that mirthless laugh again. ‘Funny thing is, I suspect it’s Ben’s clumsy attempt at matchmaking and it’s totally backfired.’
He gave a snort of disbelief. ‘You think so?’
‘The groomsman thing? The cooked-up excuse to get me to show you the land when there’s no real need for me to?’
‘My take on it is that Ben thought you knew more than anyone else about the plans for the new resort. You were the best person for the job. Why would you believe any differently?’
‘I guess so,’ she said with a self-deprecating quirk of her pretty mouth. ‘But the out-of-the blue request to be a groomsman?’
Sam snapped his fingers. ‘I get it—you were concerned an extra member of the wedding party would put your schedules out?’
Her smile was forced as she raised her hand. ‘Guilty! I guess I was a little disconcerted about that. But I mainly felt bad for you being coerced into being a groomsman on such a trumped-up excuse. You don’t seem to be comfortable with all the wedding stuff—I saw you yawning during the meeting. Then you get thrown in at the deep end.’
‘Ben didn’t have to coerce me to be his groomsman. I liked the idea of being your escort at the wedding.’
Wouldn’t any red-blooded male jump at the chance to be with such a gorgeous girl? Or had Jesse done such a number on her she didn’t realise how desirable she was?
Truth be told, if it hadn’t been for the prospect of more time with Kate, he’d rather have stayed a guest and stood apart from the wedding tomfoolery. Now he would have to spend the entire time with Kate, knowing she was off-limits. It would be a kind of torture.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘It will be nice to have you there. It might have been awkward with Jesse otherwise. People would have been gossiping. Even though...’
‘It has to be strictly business between us now.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I...I realise that.’
The tinkling, chiming sound of rigging against masts from the boats moored in the harbour carried across the water, adding to the charm of the setting. Dolphin Bay was a nice part of the world, he conceded. For a visit, for work—a vacation, perhaps—but not to live here.
‘We should be going back to the others,’ she said with a notable lack of enthusiasm.
‘Yes,’ he said, without making a move.
The last place he wanted to be was back in the boathouse. He liked being out here on the dock talking to her, even if the parameters of the conversations they could have had now had been constrained.
Suddenly she slapped her hand on her arm. ‘Darn mosquitoes!’
She reached into that capacious shoulder bag, burrowed around and pulled out a can. ‘Insect repellent,’ she explained.
‘You really do have everything stashed in there,’ he said, amused.
‘Even a single mosquito buzzing its way down the coast will seek me out and feast on my fair skin.’ As she spoke, she dramatised her words and mimed the insect dive-bombing her in a totally unself-conscious manner.
Lucky mosquito. Sam could imagine nuzzling into the pale skin of her throat—kissing, nibbling, even a gentle bite...
That was forbidden territory now.
‘Want some?’ she asked.
Mosquito spray? ‘No thanks. They never bother me.’
‘Lucky you.’ She stood away from him and sprayed her legs and arms with a spray that smelled pleasantly of lavender.
‘You’re not suited to beach-side living, are you?’ he asked when she came close again.
‘Not really,’ she said. ‘Insects adore me and I burn to a frizzle if I’m out in the sun in the middle of the day. But I love to swim, and the mornings and evenings are great for that.’
A moonlight swim: her pale body undulating through the shimmering water, giving tantalising glimpses of her slender limbs, her just-right curves; he shrugging off his clothes and joining her...
This kind of scenario was not on. Not with a client.
He cleared his throat. ‘I like to start the day with a swim. Where do you recommend?’ he asked.
‘The bay is best for quiet water. Then there’s Big Ray surf beach—you get to it via the boardwalk. Around from there is an estuary where the freshwater river meets the sea. It’s magic. Not many people go there and you can swim right up that river without seeing another soul. Oh, except for the occasional kangaroo coming down to drink.’
‘It sounds idyllic,’ he said.
‘That’s a good word for it. I can show you how to get there on the map. I’d offer to take you but that’s—’
‘Not a good idea,’ he said at the same time she did. Not with him in his board shorts and her in a bikini. Or, with that fair skin of hers, did she wear a sleek, body-hugging swimsuit?
A cold sweat broke out on his forehead. Somehow he had to stop himself from thinking of Kate Parker as anything other than a client. She was the Hotel Harbourside client liaison. Nothing more.
‘I’ll
have to have a word with Ben,’ said Kate. ‘About his matchmaking efforts, I mean—well-meaning but misguided.’
‘Ben’s an amateur. You haven’t seen misguided matchmaking until you’ve met my mother. She’s a master of it.’
Why had he said that?
Why not?
Kate was a client. That didn’t mean he couldn’t have a personal conversation with her.
‘But not successfully?’ Kate asked.
What had she called herself? A stickybeak. It was such an Aussie expression but so perfectly summed up a person who couldn’t resist sticking their noses into other people’s business. He preferred her description of herself as having a healthy curiosity. And right now he could tell it had been piqued.
‘I veto all her efforts,’ he said. ‘I might work in the family firm but I run my own life.’
That hadn’t always been the case. His father had been overly domineering. His mother had just wanted him kept out of her hair. There’d been an almighty battle when his mother had planned to send him to boarding school—with his father victorious, of course. As a child he’d had no choice but to go along with the way they’d steered his life. As a teenager he’d rebelled against his father but still had little choice. The real confrontation hadn’t come until he’d turned twenty-one, nine years ago.
‘Your mother—she’s in Sydney?’ Kate asked.
An image of his mother flashed before his eyes: whippet-thin in couture clothes, hair immaculate, perfectly applied make-up that could not disguise the lines of discontent around her mouth or the disappointment in her eyes when she looked at her son. Her son who’d chosen to follow his father into the rough and tumble of the construction industry—not a law degree or a specialist medical degree she saw as more socially acceptable. Not that she ever complained about the hefty allowance the company brought her.
He looked at Kate in the moonlight, at her hair, a glorious mass of riotous waves, her simple dress, her eyes warm with real interest in what he had to say. She seemed so straightforward. So genuine. Never had two women been more different.
‘Yes. She’d never stray from the eastern suburbs.’
‘And your father? I wondered about the “and son” bit in your company name. Are you the son?’
‘You realise that’s question number four?’ he said.
‘I guess it is,’ she said. Her dimples had snuck back into her smile but now they disappeared again. ‘Sorry. I guess I shouldn’t ask more questions now...now things have changed.’
‘As a business client? Why not? Fire away.’
‘And, in fact, it’s a three-part question.’
‘Well, number two was a two-part question.’
‘I start as I mean to continue.’
‘So I’ve got a four-part question to look forward to in the next stage of my interrogation?’
‘Maybe. I’ll keep you guessing.’ Her delightful laughter echoed around the beach. ‘But in the meantime, do you want to answer part one of question four?’
‘My father died three years ago.’
The laughter faded from her voice. ‘I’m so sorry. Was it expected?’
‘A sudden heart attack. He was sixty-seven and very fit.’
‘How awful for you. And for your mother.’
‘It was a shock for her. She was my father’s second wife and considerably younger than he was. Didn’t expect to be left on her own so soon.’
‘And you?’ Her voice was gentle and warm with concern. ‘It must have been a terrible shock for you too.’
He’d been in Western Australia when he’d got the phone call, a six-hour flight away. He’d never forgiven himself for not being there. He’d been so concerned with proving himself to his father by fixing the problems in Western Australia, he had missed his chance to say goodbye to him.
‘Yes. Worse in some ways, because suddenly I had to take over the running of the company. I hadn’t expected to have to do that for years to come.’
‘That was a truckload of responsibility.’
He shrugged. ‘The old man had been preparing me for the role since I’d been playing with my Lego, teaching me the business from the ground up. He was a tough taskmaster. I didn’t get any privileges for being the boss’s son. I had to earn my management stripes on my own merits.’
‘Still, actually taking the reins of such a large company must have been scary.’
‘The first day I took my place at the head of the boardroom table was as intimidating as hell. All those older guys just waiting for me to make a mistake.’ He had never admitted that to anyone. Why Kate? Why now?
‘But you won their respect, I’ll bet.’
‘I worked hard for it.’ Too hard, perhaps. He hadn’t had time for much else, including his fiancée. That was when she had started accusing him of being an obsessive workaholic who put the company ahead of everything else—particularly her. He’d come to see some truth in her accusations.
‘Good for you; that can’t have been easy,’ said Kate. ‘Which brings me back to question four—you’re the son in the company name?’
‘Actually, the son was my father. My grandfather started the company, building houses in the new suburbs opening up after the Second World War. My dad grew the company far bigger than my grandfather could ever have dreamed. In turn, I’ve taken it even further.’
‘Obviously you build hotels.’
‘And office towers and shopping malls and stadiums. All over the country. Even outside the country.’
In the three years he’d been at the helm he’d steered the business through tough economic times. He had pushed it, grown it. He didn’t try to hide his pride in his achievements. They’d come at a cost—his personal life.
Kate went quiet again. ‘You must have thought I was an idiot for suggesting you were here to build a wedding arch.’
‘Of course I didn’t think you were an idiot. I’m a builder. I can make arches. Fix drains. Even turn my hand to electrical work if I have to.’ He held out his hands. ‘With the calluses to prove it.’
She turned away so she looked out to sea and he faced her profile—her small, neat nose, her firm, determined chin. ‘But you’re also the CEO of a huge construction company. That’s quite a contradiction.’
And now she was his client.
He realised the distance their business roles now put between them. Once more his commitment to the company came over his personal happiness. It was a price he kept on paying.
And he wasn’t sure he was prepared to do that any longer.
* * *
Kate found it difficult to suppress a sigh. Be careful what you wish for.
She hadn’t wanted to be distracted by Sam while she sorted out her life after the Jesse issue. Now Sam could not be anything more than a business connection.
Her disappointment was so intense she felt nauseous, choked by a barrage of what might have beens. She hadn’t been able to get him off her mind since he’d walked into the restaurant. But how did she stop herself from being attracted to him?
Because the more she found out about him, the more she liked him.
Still, she had had practice at putting on a mask, at not showing people what she really felt. At hiding her pain. At being cheerful, helpful, always-ready-to-help-out Kate.
She would simply slip into the impersonal role of client, hide her disappointment that she couldn’t spend time with Sam in any other capacity. She must remember to thank Ben for the opportunity to deal with the CEO of the company building her dream hotel.
It was probably for the best, anyway. She wasn’t ready for romance, especially with someone who lived so far away. The four hours to Sydney might as well be four hundred as far as she was concerned. One of the reasons Jesse had been appealing was that, although he worked overseas now, he intend
ed to settle in Dolphin Bay.
She looked down at her watch, the dial luminous in the dark.
‘We really should be getting back,’ she said, aiming for brisk and efficient but coming out with a lingering, ‘don’t really want to go just yet’ tone that wouldn’t fool anyone as smart as Sam.
‘I like it out here,’ he said. He hunkered down on the very end of the dock then swung his long legs over the edge. He patted the place next to him in invitation. ‘No one will have missed us.’
Against her better judgement, she joined him. She was hyper-aware of his warmth, his strength, his masculinity, and she made sure she sat a client-like distance from him so their shoulders didn’t touch. The water slapped against the supports of the pier and a fish leapt up out of the water, glinting silver in the moonlight, and flopped back in with a splash.
‘You’re right; it’s like being on a boat,’ Sam said.
‘Without the rocking and the seasickness.’
‘Or the feeling of being trapped and unable to get off exactly when you want to.’
Her eyes widened. ‘You feel that way about boats too?’
‘I’ve never much cared for them. Which is at odds with living on the harbour in Sydney.’
‘Me neither,’ she said. ‘I’d rather keep my feet firmly planted on land.’
‘Definitely not a seaside person.’
‘In another life I’d probably live in a high-rise in the middle of the city and go to the ballet and theatre on the nights I wasn’t trying the newest restaurants.’ Now she did indulge in the sigh. ‘Trouble is, I love it here so much. I wasn’t joking earlier when I said I thought it was the most beautiful place in Australia.’
‘That hasn’t escaped my attention,’ he said.
‘It’s familiar and s—’ She hastily bit off the word ‘safe’ and said, ‘So relaxed.’
‘It’s nice, I’ll give you that. But have you been to many places to compare?’ he asked.
‘Do I really sound like a small-town hick?’
‘Anything but,’ he said. ‘I was just interested. I’ve travelled a lot; we might have been to the same places.’
The Tycoon and the Wedding Planner Page 5
