‘He’ll be fine,’ Blake reassured her for the thousandth time.
‘I’m eleven thousand kilometres away.’ Daniel had informed her of the distance after looking it up on the internet.
‘He’s having the time of his life with his cousins.’ He took the wallet from her hands and slipped it back into her bag. He clasped both her hands in his. ‘Remember the last time we were here?’ he asked, his gaze dangerous and full of suggestion.
She drew in a slow breath. ‘Those days changed my life forever.’
‘I know you still don’t believe me, but my life changed that day, too. Sarah, you lived in my heart —’
‘Excuse me.’ Katie’s sharp voice guillotined the conversation.
Blake dropped Sarah’s hands and stood.
‘The guests are starting to arrive,’ Katie said. ‘We really should go in.’
‘Thanks, Katie. We’ll be there in a moment.’
Katie hesitated. A second look from Blake moved her off quickly. He extended his hand. ‘Time to make some money.’
Sarah didn’t take his hand. ‘I’m scared,’ she said.
‘Some of the richest, most influential people in the world will be in that room today,’ Blake said in a low voice. ‘I’m not telling you this to scare you. I’m telling you because this is your opportunity. Tell the world about orangutans. Tell them about the Sanctuary. Tell them how this game can help orangutans roam wild again in Brunei. Tell the world how your work has been the driving force behind a small jungle economy. I want you to see how reaching out is better than locking yourself away in the depths of the jungle. This is how you’ll keep the Sanctuary alive.’
‘But I don’t know if I can do it.’
‘Well, I know you can.’ He clasped both her hands, hauled her up, walked her across the lobby and into the grand ballroom. The packed room echoed with animated conversation.
She recognised some of the country’s top government officials. Her chest tightened. All the well-rehearsed words of her speech vanished.
‘That’s the Minister for Environmental Management and Heritage.’ Sarah pointed to a short, intense-looking man. ‘I’ve been trying to get a meeting with him for years.’
‘Well, have one now,’ Blake said.
‘No,’ Sarah said, holding back. ‘I . . . We can’t . . . We have to go through official channels.’
‘Let’s just see.’ He walked her over to where the minister stood chatting to a small group.
‘Good morning, everyone.’ He introduced himself. ‘This is Sarah Walker, CEO of the Hope Orangutan Sanctuary and the brains behind the project.’
A quick round of introductions followed: a journalist from the Financial Times; a TV reporter from the local television station; a representative of the World Wildlife Organisation. Just having face-time with these three people would have made the day worthwhile.
‘So, Minister, how does the government support the Sanctuary?’ Blake asked.
Sarah wanted to slink away. Walk away. Run away. How did Blake know how to talk to power people with such ease and directness?
‘We are very supportive of Ms Walker’s work,’ the minister replied.
‘In what way?’ Blake asked.
‘Each year we review her application for funds.’
‘How’s this year’s application progressing?’
The minister didn’t skip a beat. ‘We have plans to increase our funding this year.’
Katie tapped Blake on the shoulder. ‘It’s time to start.’
‘I’d be honoured if you could join us on stage, Minister, and announce the potential funding.’
The knot of nerves in her stomach turned into a seething sea of anxiety. Blake wasn’t following the rules. He wasn’t going through the proper channels. There’d be no way the minister would be forced into such an announcement.
The minister’s eyes travelled to the television cameras set up in front of the stage. ‘An excellent plan,’ he decreed with a perfect politician’s smile.
Sarah’s eyes flared and her heart flipped, but she held herself steady to stop her jaw dropping indelicately to the floor.
‘Brilliant,’ Blake said. ‘Let’s get underway.’
He led Sarah from the group. ‘Ready?’ he asked.
‘I’m terrified.’
‘Come with me for a moment.’ He took her through a staff-only door.
‘Blake, we can’t go in here.’ But he gripped her hand and tugged her into a dim corridor.
‘Sarah, without you, none of this would’ve happened.’
‘Maybe, but without you, none of this could’ve happened.’
He placed his hands on her cheeks and kissed her. Deep. Long. Her nerves took a back seat to desire.
‘We make a great team,’ he said.
Before she could tame her riotous breathing, he pulled her through the door and up on stage. Heat touched her face. Spotlights hit her eyes. The hum of the crowd ratcheted up. A mass of faces tracked her journey to the microphone. With Blake by her side, it was as though she could achieve the impossible.
‘Thank you for listening.’ Sarah clicked to her last slide, an image of her team and the Sanctuary’s twenty baby orangutans. She stepped back from the microphone. Roaring applause sounded through the room. She shook not just with relief but also with joy. She knew her face was flushed and her heart still banged hard in her chest, but the presentation had been seamless.
Blake claimed the microphone for the final flourish.
‘I think we’d all agree this is an environmental initiative deserving of global support and recognition. With Orangutan Food Fight, Hunt-F Tech plans to bring the plight of the orangutans to the world and raise money to build a sustainable population here in Brunei.’
He paused and swept his gaze across the room.
‘I give you Orangutan Food Fight.’ The game’s logo leapt onto the screen with a digital counter underneath. The counter displayed a zero. ‘Five, four, three, two, one.’ Immediately, the number jumped.
Two. Ten. Thirty. Fifty.
The audience hummed. Blake checked his watch. ‘Fifty games downloaded in the first thirty seconds. I hope you all bought Hunt-F Tech shares this morning.’
The assembly laughed. A number of journalists hurried to the exit.
‘We have a few minutes for questions, then those journalists joining us at the Sanctuary will need to assemble outside. The bus will leave immediately after the conclusion of questions.’
The number multiplied faster than kids’ hands reaching for birthday cake.
‘Sarah. Sarah.’
She turned back to the crowd and located the journalist calling her name.
‘How does your son feel about being the star of what’s sure to be a global phenomenon?’
‘He’s very excited. But I won’t let it go to his head.’
A man dressed in a T-shirt emblazoned with a famous British tabloid newspaper masthead stepped forward.
‘Sarah, is it true you’ve been living in Blake’s apartment? Is this more than a professional relationship?’
Sarah’s heart fumbled in her chest. She tried to swallow, but her throat felt horribly dry. Blake stepped up next to her and leaned into the microphone.
‘Sarah and I met many years ago when my company conducted business in this country. I thought living in my home would be better for Sarah and her son while we worked the long hours required to bring this project to fruition. Hotels aren’t much fun for kids.’
Sarah tried to bring her breathing back under control but it raced in and out. Katie tapped her watch from the side of the stage. It would all be over soon.
‘That’s all we have time for today. Thank you, everyone, for coming,’ Blake said. ‘Katie will now outline the rest of the proceedings.’
‘Follow me,’ Blake said.
Sarah stuck close to Blake as a throng of journalists and dignitaries crowded around them.
The tabloid journalist pushed to the front of the crowd
.
‘Come on, Blake. Don’t give that pap answer. What’s with you and Sarah?’ He shoved a small tape recorder in Blake’s face.
Blake eyeballed the journalist and affected a this-could-be-your-last-story smile.
‘Ah, Trevor, always the best questions from you. Sarah and I have formed a strong working relationship over the development of the game. Who better to bring authenticity to a game than a woman who has lived with these animals her whole life?’
Blake turned from the annoying man.
‘Sarah, can you add to that?’ The tape recorder bumped her cheek as the journalist thrust it forward.
Blake placed his hand over the device and forced it back down.
‘Sarah’s needed for the next phase of the trip.’
‘Ah . . . yes.’
She took her cue and walked with purpose from the room and broke into a trot once she’d fled the ballroom.
One of Blake’s staff showed her to the rugged four-wheel drive that would take them out to the Sanctuary. She hurled herself into the passenger seat and slammed the door. The tinted windows blocked her safely away from the outside world.
What had she done? She hadn’t thought this through. A camera crew walked past the car. She slid down in her seat. This game would expose Daniel to the world. Their lives to the world. And could expose the secret of Daniel’s paternity.
Chapter Seven
Standing in the middle of the humid jungle with an orphaned orangutan in his arms wasn’t something Blake had ever envisaged. The baby ape’s arm wound about Blake’s neck and the animal looked up at him with dark, soulful eyes. He scratched the infant’s tummy and was rewarded with a big-lipped grin.
The jungle seethed with life. Wild sounds emanated all around: the tonk-tonk sound of a brown barbet; a barking lizard’s grunt; the trees creaking and rustling and groaning. A recent shower had left the jungle smelling fresh . . . of exotic fruit, lush foliage and rich, damp earth. Water dripped from the plants like a steady flow of tears. A green snake skittered up a nearby tree. He watched its careful, steady progress until it disappeared into the thick, green canopy.
He turned his attention back to Sarah, who stood in the centre of the group of journalists. She held their rapt attention.
‘In the wild, mothers are with their babies twenty-four hours a day for the first seven or eight years,’ Sarah said. ‘In order for these babies to grow up healthy, happy and with the skills they need, we have to simulate that level of parenting. Each of these babies has two babysitters who monitor them around the clock. They teach them to climb trees, feed themselves and other essential life skills.’
The baby clung closer and rested his head on Blake’s chest. For the first time in forever, he felt actually present in that moment. Being cuddled by a wild animal, in a jungle, watching Sarah with . . . with absolute bursting pride. What she’d achieved in this remote place, with such limited resources was beyond astounding.
They’d changed into jungle gear at a road stop on the way to the Sanctuary. Sarah now sported a pair of shorts and a T-shirt that showed off her muscled body. Sweat tinged the fabric across her chest, making her shirt cling deliciously to her breasts. The thick socks and steel-capped boots gave her a sort of Lara Croft appearance. That don’t-mess-with-me quality, which he found incredibly seductive. He patted his charge, to stop his mind heading off into sweaty-bed-action territory.
An hour later, Blake stood next to Sarah as they waved off the majority of the media from the Sanctuary. The sun dipped in the sky. The tour of the facility had been a huge success. Fortunately, Sarah’s relationship with Blake was of zero interest to the environmental media and Sarah had been able to concentrate entirely on the Sanctuary, her work and the animals. The journalists had probed with intelligent questions, and Sarah and her team had impressed everyone with their knowledge, dedication and commitment.
‘I can’t believe it,’ Sarah said, her voice still infused with breathy enthusiasm. ‘That was incredible. Did you hear? Global Preservation magazine is going to run a cover story on us. They’ve asked for some of my photos.’
Blake took her in his arms. Heavy jungle air fed the lust that had been building all day. ‘You were incredible.’ He ran his hands up her back, feeling the muscles through her cotton shirt.
‘Blake. Stop.’ She glanced about. ‘Someone will see.’
A small number of journalists were staying overnight to report on the first release of orangutans into the wild, which was to take place the next morning. But Tino had already led them off to the bunkhouse.
‘There’s no one about,’ he said, pulling her close, moulding his body with her own. Driving himself wild in the process.
‘Come on. Let’s get inside. You don’t want to be out here when the mozzies descend.’
She led him down a narrow path to a basic wooden building. It stood a little apart from the rest of the Sanctuary buildings in a small clearing near a stream. The cicadas hammered out their evening refrain. Various animals screeched somewhere in the distance. The sky boiled with a thousand black bats flying low over the trees.
The evening dropped quickly into a heavy blanket of darkness. Sarah stepped onto the small wooden verandah and flicked on a dim outside light. The naked bulb only illuminated a few metres into the inky black.
‘Take off your boots out here,’ she said, dropping onto a wooden bench. ‘Otherwise the house gets full of mud and leeches.’
‘Sounds like an intoxicating mixture.’ He sat next to her and hoisted off his boots. Cakes of mud dropped onto the bare wooden boards.
‘Ha, ha.’ She stood and barred the doorway. ‘Just remember, this is not London or some five-star hotel. Our funds go into caring for orangutans. Okay?’
‘There’s nothing to apologise for,’ Blake said. ‘This is your home and you do amazing work out here. I’m so proud of you.’
His words didn’t seem to register. She hesitated, her hand on the doorknob.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We need to phone London and find out the sales numbers.’ With no internet or mobile-phone coverage in the jungle, Blake had been going crazy. It was probably the first time in his adult life that he’d been without his multitudinous communication network.
Sarah opened the door and ushered him inside.
‘Cosy.’ Did his smile disguise his utter shock? He’d been prepared for austere but . . . The sparsely furnished living area was not much bigger than the average hotel bathroom. A shabby galley kitchen that lined one wall featured hideous orange and moss-green diamond-pattern tiles. A battered wooden table with four chairs occupied most of the remaining space except for a single bed up against a wall with a few shelves hammered above it. An old oriental rug covered a large section of the clean but rough concrete floor. Everything in the place screamed just make do.
‘You’re horrified, aren’t you?’ Her tone begged him not to be.
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Horrified didn’t describe his rioting emotions. At that moment he felt he could donate his entire fortune to compensate Sarah for the hard life she’d led. He dumped his pristine designer overnight bag on the hard bed. ‘Daniel sleeps here?’
Sarah opened a side door, which led into a bedroom. ‘Yes. We only have one bedroom,’ she called. ‘If you need the bathroom, we all use the central amenities block.’
Blake had known hardship in his life. Serious hardship. But this life presented a whole new level of hardship. No matter how bad things had been for him and his family after his father had died, they’d never had to cross a malaria-carrying, mosquito-infested forest to use the loo.
He ran his finger along the myriad books on the shelf above Daniel’s bed. The titles consisted of a second-hand mix of classics and popular children’s books. If Daniel had consumed all these, he was probably the most well-read nine-year-old at his school. Stacked at the base of the bed, on an old trunk, was an ancient but complete set of Encyclopaedia Britannica. Next to it was a neat pile of exercise books. He sa
t down and flicked through the top one. The pages were covered in small, neat sums. Complicated maths. Even equations and simple trigonometry. From what he could gather, this was seriously advanced maths for a child Daniel’s age. He replaced the book and paced the room.
The dining table was covered with a completed jigsaw puzzle – a detailed map of the world.
‘We finished that before we left for London,’ Sarah said, coming up next to him. ‘I like to find different ways of making Daniel’s school lessons come to life.’
She’d changed her T-shirt and the smudges of dirt had disappeared from her face. Her hair was down and she brought with her a delicate scent of jasmine and citrus. He’d phone London and then they’d have the whole night ahead of them, alone, in the jungle, all hot and sweaty. The thought drove his core temperature higher than its already tropical level.
He tapped his finger on England’s capital. ‘Let’s phone London and find out how sales are going.’ He looked around for some form of modern communication.
‘Do you think we’ll have sold many more games?’
‘You really are an internet virgin,’ he said. ‘These things can go viral within minutes.’
‘How?’
‘Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, Tumblr. You know . . . social media?’
‘Of course I do.’ But she looked down at the puzzle and tapped a wayward piece back into place.
‘Ever used any of them?’
‘No, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be able to. I’m not stupid.’
He placed his hand on her shoulder. ‘There are lots of things I might think about you, but stupid isn’t one of them. Why don’t you put on the news and see if we’ve made the headlines?’
She tilted her head and sent him a you-poor-love smile.
‘What?’ he asked.
‘We don’t have a TV.’
He looked around the small space. Not one modern trapping in sight.
‘Ah, right. Phone? You do have a phone, right?’
She pointed. No wonder he hadn’t noticed it. The old asparagus-green dial-up phone sat on the bench. He hadn’t seen a phone like that since . . . since a trip to the science museum.
Billionaire's Pursuit of Love: Destiny Romance Page 12
