Her Bad Boy Billionaire Lover (Billionaire Lovers)

by Barbara Bretton

She'd been drifting into a light doze when he approached.

  "Are you asleep?" His voice was rough honey pouring over her. The accent was both foreign and familiar, that blend of British inflection and American energy that was pure Australian.

  Her eyes fluttered open. "Not now, thanks to you."

  "Good. Sleeping's a waste of time."

  She propped herself up on her elbow and took a good look at the man who stood in front of her. Nothing about him was familiar or comforting. He had danger written all over him, from his broad shoulders to the rippling muscles of his chest and belly. Certainly she'd never seen his type on the air-brushed beaches of Palm. Backlit by the fierce sun, he glowed with an aura of raw strength and sexuality.

  Ah yes. This was danger. A walk on the wild side of love. A delicious ripple of excitement began in the pit of her stomach.

  Smiling with the confidence peculiar to a girl who had never known rejection, she tossed her hair back from her face. This was a game she knew and understood. The parry and thrust of flirtation. The delicate art of promises no one expected you to keep.

  He dropped to his knees next to her and she caught the sun-warmed scent of his skin. His eyes were an odd shade of deep amber, framed by spiky dark lashes that made the color all the more striking. A slow heat radiated out from her core.

  "Do my back, would you?" he asked. His wicked grin said something else entirely.

  "I'll do your back," she said lightly, "if you promise to do mine."

  "Anything you want." His dark gaze lingered on her breasts which strained against the two triangles of fabric covering them.

  No, she'd never seen a man like him before, not anywhere. Everything about him, from his chestnut hair streaked from the sun to his bronzed frame screamed danger. He wore cut-offs and a wicked grin and she knew that if she lived to be a thousand years old she would never find a man more perfect for her.

  Nothing else mattered. Not reason or propriety or the fact that they hadn't a chance in the world to make it work.

  One month later they were married.

  One year later they divorced. Clean, neat, and painless.

  Except for the fact that Megan was pregnant with his child.

  #

  Val's voice brought Megan back to the present.

  "Look at that," said Val as Sandy accepted an invitation to dance from a balding man with a wide smile. "I would've figured he was on his way to ask you to dance. I saw the way he was checking out that strapless gown of yours."

  "We had a run-in on the stairs earlier," Megan said with a rueful smile. "I'm afraid he can't control those hands of his. The sea air must do something to their hormones."

  As if on cue, a young man in an Armani jacket sidled up to her and held out his hand.

  Be nice, she warned herself. His daddy might own the company.

  "Yes?" she asked, as politely and sweetly as she could manage.

  "Dance," he said, obviously a man of few syllables. "How 'bout it?"

  She upped the wattage on her smile. "Sorry," she said lightly. "Not tonight."

  He hesitated, debating the wisdom of pursuing the issue, but she swiveled her chair around once again, cutting short the encounter.

  Val looked at her with open curiosity. "A bit brusque, weren't you?"

  "Why lead him on?" Megan said.

  "That wasn't a marriage proposal," said Val. "Just your run-of-the-mill rhumba."

  She shrugged, feeling the uncomfortable pinch of the truth. Just yesterday Ingrid had lectured her on her non-existent social life. You have a wall around you, Megan. There's a big wide world out there beyond work. It's time you took a bite out of it.

  She'd convinced herself that being Jenny's mother was enough, that The Moveable Feast could fill whatever empty spaces remained inside her heart at night when she was alone in bed with the sultry breeze whispering through the curtains at her window, reminding her that before she knew it she'd be thirty, then forty, then grandmother to Jenny's children and sensual love would be a distant memory as faded as flowers in a forgotten scrapbook.

  She laughed softly at the lie. Every caress, every hot wet kiss, every second of exhilarating passion that she and Jake had shared seemed as if they had happened last night.

  Memory was a treacherous thing. Arguments and unpaid bills were long forgotten, but the freckle on his left shoulder blade or the way he looked at the moment when he . . . oh, those memories were still there, waiting.

  If only she could see him again, talk to him, be with him, burn him from her memory once and for all so she could get on with her life. Was that so much to ask?

  "Save me from travel agents with dancing feet." Sandy reclaimed her seat next to Megan.

  Megan spun around in her seat, grateful to be pulled away from her thoughts. "That bad?"

  "The worst. Someone repossessed his sense of rhythm and forgot to tell him." She sipped her creme de menthe. "Of course, there was one good thing about the experience: I got a close-up of that gorgeous piano player." She sighed dramatically. "Now that was one fine specimen."

  "I hadn't noticed."

  Sandy lowered her voice conspiratorially. "My dear, this one is hard to miss. Tall, dark, golden brown eyes to die for. And that voice! I tell you it just doesn't get much better than that boy."

  An odd sensation grabbed Megan by the throat. "What about his voice?"

  "Oh, you know," said Sandy, waving a hand in the air as she searched for the right words. "One of those gritty voices that manage to sound smart and sexy and savage at the same time. An Aussie, I think."

  Megan glanced across the room toward the man at the piano. He sat in shadow, head down, long and tapering fingers moving across the ivory keys. There was something about the curve of his neck, the pure masculine grace of his movements that made her heart swell with emotion.

  "What about those shoulders?" mused Sandy. "I wonder if he ever played football."

  He wasn't a brilliant piano player. His hands were too large for finesse, his movements too strong for delicacy. The softer notes of the song were trampled over by his extremely male approach. She wondered how a man like that had managed to snare a position on the Sea Goddess. Unless, of course, the powers-that-be had decided every seagoing vessel needed a resident Adonis to stride among the mortals.

  She knew all about Adonises. She'd married one. Adonises didn't fare well when it came to real life. When push came to shove, they abandoned the mortal women who loved them and retreated back to Mount Olympus where they could frolic with goddesses.

  Turn around, Megan whispered silently. Let me see you....

  The lights went up and he turned around and what she'd been dreaming of and dreading and praying for the last six years finally happened.

  Jake Lockwood was back in her life.

  Chapter Two

  Sandy leaned over and touched Megan's forearm. "Are you okay?"

  Megan nodded, not trusting herself to speak. All the times she had imagined seeing Jake again, all the elaborate fantasies she had entertained were nothing compared to the reality.

  He slid over on the bench, making room for a flirtatious blonde with more than music on her mind. Pain, hot as the blade of a knife, sliced through her. She hated that girl for her easy grace, her laughing eyes, the fact that she sat next to the only man Megan had ever loved.

  "He's gorgeous," Sandy breathed as Jake charmed the crowd gathered near the piano. "He has them eating out of his hand."

  "He has that talent." Megan's voice was sharp. Clumsily she rose to her feet. "I'm leaving."

  "Megan, you can't. It's early. If you don't like the music, we could--"

  Things like this didn't happen in real life. Smart women didn't moon over their ex-husbands. And, even if they did, those ex-husbands didn't reappear one day out of nowhere as if conjured from a dream. She needed fresh air, anything to clear her head and snap her back to reality.

  She pushed through the crowd near the doorway and stepped outside. The tropical breezes cares
sed her like a lover's touch, intensifying the painful surge of emotion inside her chest. The only sounds were the click of her high heels on the wooden deck as she made her way aft and the hum of the ship's engine as it cut through the water. Sea spray glistened on the railing. Stacked on the starboard side, white deck chairs made grey, ghostly shapes in the darkness.

  She told herself he was a mirage, a trick of lighting, of years of wondering. Nothing more than a potent combination of brandy and loneliness. Tomorrow morning she would wake up and everything would be back to normal. Her body wouldn't ache for his. Her heart wouldn't still beat in synch with his heart. She'd be Megan McLean of The Moveable Feast, on her way to securing the future for her little girl.

  Run, a small voice whispered. Nothing good comes of moonlight and stars and the smell of the sea.

  But she stood at the railing.

  And she waited.

  "Don't do this to me, Jake." Her voice broke the stillness of the endless night. "Say something."

  He stepped out of the shadows and her heart seemed to stop for an instant. This was no dream. He stood before her and she understood in the deepest recesses of her soul that the power he had over her was absolute. The sea might be calm but she was standing in the eye of a storm.

  He was taller, broader than she remembered, so perfectly male in every way that she feared she would go up in flames simply from wanting him.

  "It's been a long time, Megan." Her name on his lips triggered a flood of memories.

  Open for me, Meggie...don't hold back....

  "Still beautiful," he continued, his tone light.

  "You sound disappointed."

  "I don't mean to." His eyes traveled the length of her body. "Growing up agrees with you."

  She bridled at his words. "You might like to try it someday."

  He stepped closer. She held her ground, the light of defiance in her eyes.

  "You saw me in there, didn't you, Megan."

  She shrugged and he caught the scent of roses on her skin. "What if I did?"

  "Did you think you could avoid me for the next week?"

  "Five days," she corrected him. "I was willing to give it a try."

  "The ship's not that big. Sooner or later we'd have to come together."

  The double entendre in his words was not lost on either of them. She gathered her shawl more tightly about her shoulders and lifted her chin. Get hold of yourself! Don't let him know he still has that effect on you. She wasn't a girl any longer, naive and innocent and believing in forever-after. She was a woman who'd known heartache and loss. She was the mother of a small child, his child, and she'd kill before she let him break her daughter's heart the way her father had broken hers.

  #

  She was different somehow, Jake noted as he approached her, and it wasn't just the passage of time that had brought about the changes. At twenty-five she scarcely had to worry about lines and wrinkles. Her face was as smooth as he'd remembered; her luxuriant mane of auburn hair was as shiny and full as always.

  But still there was something, some indefinable element that had changed. She seemed experienced, as if the world had touched her. Changed her in ways he didn't know, would never know. He found it hard to believe she'd spent the last six years in a convent. She was a sensual, vital woman. Thinking she had turned away from the physical side of life was unfair, unreasonable and exactly what he wanted to believe. She's not your wife any more, Lockwood. You have no hold on her. If she'd taken one lover or one hundred, it was no business of his.

  "This has been wonderful," she said, her words clipped. "We must do it again." She heard the tremor in her voice and silently cursed the wild emotions tearing at her heart. There was something infinitely seductive about familiarity.

  He blocked her escape. "This is a small ship. We can't avoid each other."

  "We can try." He was so close to her that she felt the heat of his body. He still smelled of sunshine and spice. She hadn't expected that something so insignificant would be her undoing. She wanted to bury her face against his neck and--

  She tried to push past him but he grabbed her wrist, his strong fingers easily encircling it.

  "Why did you run away?"

  "I needed some fresh air."

  "You wanted to get away from me, didn't you? Admit it, Meggie."

  "Don't call me Meggie," she snapped, regaining her composure. "Nobody calls me that."

  "I always called you that."

  "You don't have that right anymore." She met his eyes. "What are you doing here? Did you track me down?" Ridiculous though it sounded, she couldn't come up with a better explanation.

  His eyes narrowed slightly. "What would you say if I told you I owned this ship?"

  She started to laugh. "The truth never did stand in your way, did it, Jake."

  "Too hard to believe I could make something of myself?"

  Color flooded her cheeks and she blessed the darkness. "I didn't say that."

  "You didn't have to."

  "I saw you playing the piano, Jake. That's nothing to be ashamed of." Said in the precisely patronizing tones of a girl who couldn't believe she'd ever know such a person, much less have married him.

  "About where you'd expect me to end up, isn't it, playing piano in a bar." There was an edge to his voice, a tone of defiance.

  "This is a beautiful ship," she said, tilting her chin. "You could have done much worse."

  "Yeah," he said after a moment. "I could have."

  The meaning of his words was clear and instantly she found her old rich-girl persona returning full force. She should thank him for it. "I'm so pleased you've found gainful employment," she said with a toss of her head. "If I remember correctly, that used to be a problem."

  Not even the darkness could hide the look of anger in his eyes. "Want to see my resume, Meggie? You might find a few surprises."

  "I've had enough surprises for one day, thank you." She felt giddy and disoriented, as if someone had taken her life and tilted it on its side. "Shouldn't you be getting back to your piano gig?"

  "I'm finished for the night."

  "Don't let me keep you then." She turned away from him, her heart pounding wildly inside her chest. She hadn't felt this exhilarated, this alive in years. The feeling was as dangerous as it was exciting and she wanted nothing more than to run as far away from him as she could get.

  "So what are you doing here, Meggie? Hard to believe Daddy's sending you out to work."

  She would rather die than let him know how much this cruise meant to her. "Oh, you know how it is," she said, her tone breezy. "Even debutantes are trying their hand in the job market."

  "You're here to work?"

  "You don't have to sound so surprised."

  "You forget who you're talking to," Jake said. "I'm the guy who taught you to boil water."

  "Well, believe it or not, I'm trying for a franchise with Tropicale and if you do anything to sabotage me, I'll--."

  "Sabotage?" His expression darkened into a scowl. "What the hell kind of life are you leading these days? Why would I sabotage you?"

  She'd cut too close to the bone with that statement, revealing much more than she'd ever intended. Her father's treachery had left scars too deep to share with anyone. Especially not with Jake. She looked at him, memorizing the strong jaw, the powerful shoulders, that sad look in his eyes against the time when he would once again be gone. He was as rootless, as insubstantial as the Caribbean breeze, a perfect lover but no husband at all, and she would be wise to remember that.

  But, dear God, he was beautiful. A fine starburst of lines radiated from the outer corners of his eyes and shadowed his smile. He looked rougher than she'd remembered, more dangerous if possible.

  That was the difference. He was a man now, not the wild boy she had loved during their marriage. For a moment, she allowed herself to forget the bitterness of their divorce and drink in the masculine splendor of his lean, tanned face. Her fingers ached to trace his high cheekbones, to glide ac
ross his mouth, to outline the stubborn angles of his jaw.

  Life had been kind to him these six years past and for one fierce instant she despised him for all that she'd lost.

  #

  He saw the change in her instantly. Color rose to her cheeks and her eyes flashed with fire, but beneath the fire was a vulnerability that stopped him in his tracks. He'd seen that look in her eyes only one time before, when she lay beneath him as a girl on the brink of womanhood.

  The level of tension between them escalated sharply and he was reminded of the sudden storm, turning the air electric with its power.

  How could he have believed this encounter would be easy. He'd approached this first meeting confident that once he saw her and spoke to her, he'd realize she held no magic for him after all. Wrong, he thought, watching the play of starlight in her eyes. Not only was the magic still there, so was the pain and the anger and the whole messy, complicated history between them.

  "Let's get a drink." They needed something else to occupy them, a civilized ritual to help contain the primitive emotions that threatened to veer out of control. "We can talk about old times."

  "No, thank you."

  The schoolmarm sound of her voice suddenly enraged him. "Grow up, Megan. If you're going to play the businesswoman game, at least play like an adult." They never had been very good at civilized rituals.

  "I don't know what you're talking about."

  "I've seen your kind before, playing worker bee while some poor lackey does all the dirty work back at the office."

  Her look was scornful but there was something beneath the scorn that drew him closer.

  "It's not like that?" he demanded. "You'll have to do some fast talking if you want me to buy that line."

  "I don't give a damn what you buy," she snapped. "I know who I am and what I'm doing and I don't particularly care what you think about any of it."

  "Spoken like the only daughter of Darrin McLean," he said with a harsh laugh. "I'll bet he's still spoiling his little princess and screwing his competition while they--"

  "You bastard!" The sound of the slap bounced off the water and back at them. She began to tremble.