The Playboy's Redemption (The Mackenzies)

by Diana Fraser

  A fidgety hand was placed on her arm. She glanced at Pete’s frowning face. “Susannah.” His tone held a warning.

  She turned back to James. “We make wines.”

  “That hadn’t escaped my notice. But thank you for the reminder.”

  “We’re a boutique winery, we’re individual, we’re not a mass market winery that will add significantly to your bottom line.”

  Pete’s grip on her arm tightened. “Susannah!” The warning was stronger this time.

  “Pete, it’s fine,” James reassured. “It’s best to be clear about my intentions from the beginning. That way no one is under any illusions.” James looked at Susie once more. “I have extensive wine holdings and an investment in a small up-and-coming vineyard fits into our strategy.”

  “Why? What is your strategy?”

  “That, Mrs Henderson, I believe is my business.” James’s voice was quiet but firm. The humor had dropped from his eyes and they now held only challenge. “Suffice to say, I’m very aware of what Whisper Creek has to offer and have no intention of changing its strengths and brand.”

  Susie sat back in the hard, oak-backed chair, only partially reassured.

  “But,” James continued, “I have every intention of building on them and making it the profitable company I believe it could be.”

  “Perfect!” Pete jumped up, obviously anxious to avoid any further tension. “So, if everyone’s happy?” Pete gave Susie a warning glance. “Let’s move on to the serious business of eating and drinking. Time’s slipping by and I’ll need to leave soon to catch the ferry.”

  She nodded hesitantly. The buy-out was a fantastic windfall for Pete and it should be a fantastic opportunity for her. It would ensure the future of the winery. It would ensure her future. But it was Mac. Her nickname for him popped up into her mind, driven deep through years of heartache. But it had survived. What else had survived of their relationship? Was it really business, or was there something personal behind the investment? She didn’t trust him. She had no reason to trust him.

  She gave the pen a twirl on the desk, before suddenly grabbing it. She clasped it in her hand and brought it up in front of her face, clenching it lightly. She grimaced. “I’m sorry, something’s bothering me, something’s not quite right here.”

  She heard Pete groan but she couldn’t go back now.

  She looked directly at Mac. This was between him and her. It had nothing to do with Pete. “Something’s…not right…Mr. Mackenzie,” she repeated softly.

  He remained motionless, his white shirt, open-necked under his exquisitely cut silk suit. Tanned, blue, blue eyes and dark hair. How could anyone be so handsome? How could a man be so handsome, when she was so plain? How could she have allowed herself to feel—to have felt, she reminded herself—so much for someone who had always been so patently out of her league?

  His eyes were intense as they stared back at her, his brows knitted together in a slight frown as if trying to understand something. “Is that so? And what can I do to persuade you that everything is absolutely right, that everything is just as it should be?”

  A wave of heat rose through her body in response to his probing stare. She willed the blush to stop but it kept on shifting up her body, lighting up her face, no doubt like a beacon, just as it had when she’d been a teenager, creating a tension in her chest that quickened her breathing. She cleared her throat and tried to pull her eyes away from Mac’s face, but they only shifted down to his hands, loosely steepled on the table, as if the tension between them didn’t exist. Or perhaps, unlike her, he felt it but was capable of dealing with it.

  “Susannah.” Pete’s voice was strained as he tried not to overrule her in public. She held up her hand to him.

  “It’s my future, Pete, I need to know what’s going on.” Her eyes flicked up to Mac’s eyes once more. “How can you persuade me that everything’s as it should be? By being honest with what you want from this arrangement. We’re a small company, insignificant by your standards. What can we possibly offer you?”

  She could see in his eyes that he knew what she was asking.

  “An opportunity to get back to basics. To start afresh. One doesn’t often get given that opportunity—to create something new. Is that honest enough for you, Susie?”

  The name by which he’d always called her, slipped out and surprised everyone, breaking the spell, confounding and deepening the atmosphere.

  Pete looked from one to the other. “So… do you two… know each other?”

  “Yes. Coincidence, isn’t it?” Susie addressed her remark to James, not Pete.

  “Coincidence?” James paused. “No, not really.”

  “Care to elaborate?” Susie heard the chill in her voice.

  James turned to Pete. “It was at the Lakehouse Cafe that I heard the gossip about a winery for sale. I thought I’d check it out on the Internet.” He turned back to Susie. “I watched the video and I saw… a familiar face. Not”—he inclined his head to Susie—“a familiar name.” He turned to Pete. “I knew Susie as Susie Shaw, not Susannah Henderson.”

  “Henderson is my married name.”

  “Anyway.” He shrugged. “One look at the video and I was hooked.”

  Susie ground her teeth. Damn that video. She knew she should never have done it. It wasn’t her thing, but Pete had persuaded her that they couldn’t afford anyone else and no one knew the winery better than she did.

  Pete nodded. “Ah, well, that explains it. So, shall we have a quick tour of the winery before we leave?”

  “Perfect.” James’s gaze returned to Susie, having barely glanced at Pete.

  Pete opened the door and Mac rose with his usual graceful ease and walked out into the lobby with Pete. He’d always been aware of his body, and how to use it. Instinctively she brushed down her work shorts, conscious of the difference in their appearance. It made her feel at a disadvantage and she made a mental note that this would be the last time she felt like that.

  She glanced around and saw James had left some papers on the table. Just at that moment he returned, by himself.

  She picked up the papers and held them out to him. “Grown forgetful?”

  He shook his head, no sign of a smile now. “No. I remember everything.”

  “And you still choose to come here and buy a company I’m involved with? I’m surprised.”

  “Are you? Why?” Again, he was being deliberately obtuse.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” she said, layering the sarcasm thickly. “Perhaps because ten years ago I told you I never wanted to see you again?” She could see she’d hit a raw nerve by the tension in the fine lines around his eyes that she hadn’t noticed before. His face was immobile and, for the first time, serious.

  “Ten years is a long time.”

  “Not so long when the facts remain the same, when the feelings remain the same. When nothing’s changed.”

  “And that’s where you’re wrong.”

  “No, I’m not. You were a bastard then, and I’m sure you’re a bastard now.”

  He shrugged. “A bastard maybe, but I’m also the owner of this winery.” He tapped the papers he was still holding, onto the table between them. “Signed and sealed. Everything has changed.”

  She felt as if she’d been struck, winded. She sucked in a deep breath, desperately trying to regain her sense of self-possession. She never lost it. She was always in control, always in charge, since James had left, anyway.

  “Everything? You want to change the winery?”

  “That depends on what I find.”

  Susie looked at James, acutely aware of the warning in his answer. “And what is it you’re looking for?” The shadow of sorrow she’d seen in his eyes earlier, deepened, casting a corresponding shadow on her own soul, like it or not.

  “What I’m always looking for, Susie.”

  “Entertainment? Bored are we?”

  He was standing too close to her now and she smelt his aftershave, subtle and potent. “I’
m after satisfaction.” His breath was warm against her skin, which prickled with awareness. She struggled to keep her breathing even.

  “Satisfaction for a spoiled, bored womanizer with more money than he knows what to do with?”

  She was irritated to note that, rather than being offended, a smile tugged at his lips. “You have been following me then. I’m flattered.”

  “Don’t be. It’s hard not to come across someone whose every move is recorded faithfully in the tabloids.” She shrugged deliberately but it was too stiff to be convincing. “You’ve been everywhere, with everyone and you’re bored. But you won’t find satisfaction here. You’ll need all the time in the world to get that. You won’t get it from investing funds in a small winery. You won’t get it from one week on Waiheke Island.”

  “Really? Then perhaps I should stay longer.”

  Susie’s heart sank. “No way.” She shook her head.

  “No need to panic. I’m kidding. One week is all I have left.”

  “All you have left? I’d have thought someone with your money would be free to do whatever you liked.”

  “Not after next week.”

  She frowned, but before she could respond, Pete walked quickly into the room. “Time’s slipping by, James. Would you like a quick tour before you go?”

  James hadn’t taken his eyes off Susie. “Sure.” He turned abruptly to Pete and smiled. “And then perhaps dinner tonight with Susie and a longer tour tomorrow.”

  “Great idea.” Pete looked from one to the other. “If that’s okay with you, Susannah? It won’t interfere with any arrangements with Tom, will it?”

  Susie shook her head, wishing Tom hadn’t been mentioned. The tension that had gripped her from the moment she’d heard James’s voice, gripped her more tightly still. She swallowed. The thud of her heart seemed to compete with the precise tick of the second hand from the antique clock out in reception. She turned to James suddenly. “One week?”

  “Just a week. To check things out. To make sure things are as they should be, and then I’ll be off.”

  She nodded slowly. He’d be going. It would only be for one week. She’d spent ten years without him, growing stronger with each passing day. She could do this. Besides, what was the alternative—a winery owned by someone whose heart lay elsewhere and without any funding to ensure its future?

  “Okay.” She’d manage to evade him over the weekend somehow. “I’ll meet you at the cafe at seven. If you’re sure you won’t be bored.”

  Pete nodded approvingly and stepped aside for James to leave first. But James didn’t move straight away. He held her gaze but she refused to look away, despite the blush she could feel rising until her cheeks stung.

  “Oh, I doubt we’ll be bored. In fact, I’ll make sure we won’t be.”

  James only half-listened to Pete as a furiously blushing Susie, muttering excuses, squeezed past them into the winery. He smiled as the smell of machinery oil and lemons wafted over to him. Who’d have thought it could have a stronger effect on his body than the most expensive perfumes? He sighed, glanced briefly at Pete who was giving some last-minute instruction to one of the staff, and then shifted his hungry gaze from Susie’s t-shirt, tight over tense shoulders, to her shorts. There, his eyes lingered, admiring her perfectly formed behind. The shorts had definitely seen better days, for which James thanked God. They’d been washed to within an inch of their life and fell in soft folds around her curves. He suddenly had a vivid, visceral recollection of their one night together as lovers. Of how his hands, tentatively at first, had explored her body as their relationship had changed from best friends to lovers.

  It hadn’t been his first time with a woman, but it might as well have been because the experience had been as different to anything he’d experienced, as winter was to summer. The heat of her skin beneath his fingers, and later, tight around his body, had seared deep inside of him, consuming him. He’d felt, what she’d felt; he tasted her as she’d tasted him, they’d become one—complete.

  And seeing her now, after all this time, he realized nothing had changed. He still wanted her.

  No, there were many words that could describe the next few days but “boring” wouldn’t be one of them.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Susie hesitated at the door of the busy cafe and saw James immediately. He looked incongruous with his expensive suit and perfect good looks in the scruffy cafe, where locals and tourists spilled out onto the terrace. She smoothed down one of the few good dresses she owned and wove her way around the tables, greeting friends as she went. James stood up when she approached.

  “You look beautiful, Susie.”

  “It’s Susannah. And no, I don’t.” She reached over and picked up the wine list. “Have you ordered yet?”

  He sat back down, a seductive smile lingering on his lips. “No, I’m old-fashioned like that. I thought I’d wait for you. What do you recommend?”

  She cleared her throat and studied the list she knew by heart. “Is our Syrah okay with you?”

  “Perfect.”

  She signaled to the waitress and ordered the wine. Then she took a deep breath. She could do this. She just had to keep it neutral. “So… is this your first visit to the island?”

  He grinned, leaned forward, his elbows on the table, supporting a too-intent gaze. “Not to Waiheke, but I’ve never been to this part of the island before. It’s very beautiful.” But his eyes were looking at her, not the view.

  She swallowed hard, willing a blush not to emerge. She was nearly twenty-eight years old, a professional, and many other things besides, and she could handle meeting an old boyfriend. But this was Mac, Mac, Mac. The name hammered into her head, trying to destroy her hard-won calm. Be the woman in the video. She cleared her throat. “Yes, it is.” She took another deep breath. “Here on the ridge we’ve 180 degree views of the Hauraki Gulf, north to the islands and west to Auckland.”

  His lips twitched as if he knew what she was doing. “Really? Fascinating.” He leaned back again in his chair, framed by the rampant vine that clung to the rough-timbered pergola. He looked like a model on a stage set—out of place, transitory. She clung to the thought—he’d get bored, he’d be gone inside a week. She focused on pouring out two glasses of wine, took yet another deep breath and handed him a glass. His fingers brushed hers and she drew back quickly, as if burned. She shot him a dark look and held the glass up to his, in challenge. He swirled and inhaled the wine, nodding appreciatively, before tapping his glass casually against hers.

  “Here’s to the future of Whisper Creek.” He uttered the words like a promise of seduction.

  “And may its future be not so very different from its past.”

  They sipped the deep red wine, without taking their eyes from each other. The low apricot beams of the late sun sparkled in the cut-glass facets of the wineglass, showering his hand with light.

  He nodded appreciatively. “It’s good. Very good.”

  “It’s 100% syrah from our own grapes. Limited in quantity of course, but the quality’s good.” She watched with fascination as he swirled the wine around the glass. It took all her restraint not to reach over and run her finger over the flickers of light that played on his hand as it caressed the stem of the wine glass. She remembered the gentle touch of his hand around hers, tugging her into mischief, restraining her from harm. Or mostly. She swallowed. “It’s not as important as cabernet sauvignon to us, nor the chardonnay, but it really plays to our strengths—the dryness of the climate, the hot summers…” She trailed off, suddenly aware that the movement of his hand had stopped. She looked up to meet his gaze, the heat in his eyes slamming her defenses back into place. She couldn’t let herself get sucked under by his charm. “Are you even listening to me?”

  “Of course, Susie. Hanging on every word. Something about wine, I think.”

  She refused to rise to the bait. “What would you like to eat? I’m afraid we don’t have a large selection.”

  He glance
d at the menu and frowned. “So it seems.”

  She bristled at the implied criticism. “We aim for quality rather than quantity. We focus on in-season specialties.”

  He leaned forward, his eyes practically stroking her skin until it rose in goose bumps. “Quality is good.” His seductive voice sent a sharp tug of desire through her body. “But quality and quantity is better.”

  She sat bolt upright. “Quality and quantity? You’re not only talking about the food are you? What kind of changes do you plan to make with the winery? Surely not to increase production by importing grapes from other vineyards?”

  “Put it this way, there’s room for improvement to the bottom line.”

  “Bottom line?” Susie sucked in a deep breath, buying time to rein in her temper and her fears. She focused on placing the glass quietly onto the rustic table. “Whisper Creek isn’t about the bottom line. I’ve spent the past eight years working here with Pete, building it up from nothing to become a well-regarded boutique winery. And now—”

  “You’re scared I’ll destroy your dreams?”

  “Yes.”

  “They’ll disappear anyway unless you pay attention to the profit margin.”

  “Pete said you didn’t intend to make changes.”

  “Correction. I assured Pete I would neither close down the winery nor amalgamate it with others. I’m sure he wouldn’t think it against our terms if I improved it. It doesn’t sound like a hanging offense to me. Does it to you?”

  “Depends on what you have in mind.”

  “And that, Susie, depends on what I find when I look around the winery and talk with the staff, tomorrow.”

  “Okay.” She nodded, her mind racing ahead as she planned what to show him, and what to avoid showing him. “I’ll show you around the winery tomorrow and you can meet everyone. Then there’s The Lodge which is a reasonable earner.”

  “Ah, The Lodge. The cafe is part of The Lodge’s operations, right?” She nodded. “The Lodge could be an extremely good earner if done right. Still, I’ll reserve judgment until later.” He looked around the hectic scene, where it was obvious the waitress couldn’t cope. He turned back to her. “We can start with the food. So why don’t you choose from the menu for me?”