‘It’s none of your business.’
‘Of course it’s not,’ she said cordially. ‘It’s just, I’m feeling ties all over the place, emotion, need, empathy. I’m trying to sort it in my head.’
‘I’m paying you to bring us to this island, not practise amateur psychology.’
‘Ouch,’ she said but she didn’t sound offended. ‘But you can’t blame me. Social niceties are for others. I’m guessing you went to the best schools. Me, I left school when I was sixteen. It’s a wonder I know how to use a knife and fork.’
She was smiling. Laughing at herself. Taking the tension out of the situation.
Making him smile?
His prickles settled. She was asking personal questions. Two could play at that game—and he really wanted to know.
‘So how come you left school at sixteen?’ he asked. ‘And don’t tell me it’s because you’re dumb. I don’t believe it.’
‘How can you be smart with no education?’
He could hear a note of regret behind the light words. ‘You were born smart.’
‘Yeah,’ she said dryly. ‘Thanks, but...’
‘But tell me. Why?’
‘Because isolation sucks.’
It was a blunt answer, harsh even. They were walking slowly along the moonlit sand. They were looking out at the night-time seascape instead of each other.
It was a good time for revealing...all?
‘You were lonely at school?’ he asked cautiously.
‘I loved school.’
‘Then why...?’
‘Because Grandma died.’ She sniffed, almost defiantly biting back emotion. ‘Okay, brief history. My grandpa was a fisherman and so were Mum and Dad. We shared a big old house up on the headland overlooking Rowan Bay. Big garden, enough land to run a few cows. Gran kept chooks. Her veggie garden was the best. Mum and Dad were sad they couldn’t have any more kids after me, but I had the best childhood. I had four grown-ups who loved me. Then, when I was eleven, Mum and Dad were killed in a car crash and our world sort of folded. I was okay. I was still loved, but Dad was Gran and Grandpa’s only child. Gran never got over it. She used to sit on the front porch and wait for them to come home, but of course they never did. And then she got cancer. She died the day after my sixteenth birthday and it was awful.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Yeah, well, I was still...okay. I was a kid. I had mates in Rowan Bay. Life went on. But after Gran died, Grandpa started sitting, as well. He stopped going out in the boat. He just sat. And one day I came home from school and looked at him and I thought he’s not even seeing me. I got the biggest fright. I suddenly thought, he’ll get cancer, as well. I know it’s illogical but I couldn’t shake it.’
‘So...’ he said cautiously, seeing her as she’d been then—alone, terrified.
‘So the next day I didn’t go back to school. I made Grandpa take me out fishing and we fished ever since. And it worked. We were a great fishing team. We had fun. Then two years back, he got sick. I’ve spent most of the last couple of years looking after him. Which was expensive to say the least. I had to sell the boat but I didn’t care. We were together all the time. He died six months ago and I don’t regret a single moment of the time I had with him.’
She paused then, obviously regrouping, and she managed a smile. ‘So if you ask me to say g’day in French or solve some sort of fancy equation I’m not your woman, but I can strip a mean engine and if you want a fish dinner I’ll get it on the plate for you. So that’s me, done. How about you?’
He didn’t answer.
He felt winded.
And ashamed?
He was smart enough to read the gaps in her story. He was also smart enough to hear the loneliness. A kid with lost parents. A teenager dealing with an old man with what sounded like chronic depression and then terminal illness. A young woman putting her life on hold...
‘Come on,’ she urged as they kept walking. ‘Your turn.’ Amazingly she was back to being cheerful. ‘Fair’s fair.’
‘Mine’s boring in comparison.’
‘So tell me.’
After that, he hardly had a choice.
‘I was a lot luckier than you,’ he told her. ‘I’m an only child, too, but I had both parents and grandparents. My grandparents are gone now, and Dad died three years ago but for my childhood I had an intact family. My mother’s still hosting society lunches, travelling, lording it over the ladies of Manhattan. She keeps in touch. I might be heir to the family dynasty but she sees herself as the McLellan matriarch. Even the most remote cousin knows its worth.’
Meg frowned, as if she was detecting undertones. As well she might. She was dissecting his words, looking for the parts she didn’t understand.
‘Family dynasty?’
‘Historically a line of hereditary rulers.’
‘I know that.’ She glowered. ‘I may not be educated but I’m not thick.’
‘Sorry.’
‘So you should be. So in the US... I figure the Kennedys are a dynasty. How does the description fit the McLellans?’
He smiled ruefully. She was smart, this woman. And...insightful? Seeing what was at the core of what he was saying. He took time to think of an answer that’d respect her.
‘In Manhattan? A family succession playing a leading role in the financial world. My grandfather explained it to me when I was six. Our family has power.’
‘So you rule Manhattan.’
‘Not quite,’ he said dryly. ‘But we do have influence.’
‘Hmm.’ She cast him a thoughtful look, then moved on to the personal. ‘So your mum and dad... They didn’t live in the house you were telling me about?’
‘My father was living in Sweden when he died. My mother hasn’t been near McLellan Place for years.’
‘They divorced?’
‘They’d never have divorced. That doesn’t mean they didn’t have partners but partners came and went. They both...bored easily.’
She thought about that, too, and then cut straight to the bone. ‘So did you bore them, as well?’
Ouch. What was he revealing?
‘Maybe,’ he said neutrally, trying not to feel as if she’d just nailed him, that she was seeing him as a kid alone apart from staff. His parents had indeed found parenthood too boring for words.
She walked a little way into the shallows, kicking up water before her. She was still barefooted—none of Peggy’s shoes came close to fitting her.
She was giving him space.
‘So this house in the Hamptons...’ she said at last when the silence started to get oppressive. ‘The cousins...family... You get together there for Christmas and stuff?’
‘Not there. When my father died I bought the place from the estate so it’s mine. I go there occasionally.’
‘By yourself?’ And then she caught herself and peeped a grin across at him. ‘Whoops, sorry. I’m not inquiring about your legion of lovers.’
‘So I shouldn’t inquire about yours?’
She chuckled. ‘I might even tell you.’ She left the water and came up the beach to join him again. ‘I’ve just knocked back one of the most romantic proposals you could imagine. Graham, Charlie’s son, thinks I’ll make a fine wife. He’s seen me pulling an engine apart and putting it back together, and his passion’s for expensive, stupid cars. He’s eaten some of the cookies I bring into the office and he’s seen me fish. He’s also seen me clear a drain, chop wood and cart a drunken punter off the boat, all by myself. A woman who can cook, clean, gut a fish, keep his car on the road and put him to bed when he’s drunk... I’m his wet dream. He says I can sell Grandpa’s place, pay off his mortgage, plus the money he owes his ex-wife, and we can live happily ever after.’
‘And yet you knocked him back?’ he said faintly and she chuckled again. It was a great chuckle,
soft and sexy.
‘I know. I’m so fussy. Graham says I’m doomed to be an old maid.’
‘I’m sure you’re not.’
‘I don’t think I’d mind.’ She paused, turning to stare out to sea. ‘There are a lot worse things to be. To have a marriage like your parents’...’
‘It suited them. They had money, the family name, the prestige of power.’
‘Power?’
‘Money means power,’ he said simply. ‘And there’s a lot of money.’
‘So this dynasty thing... When you offered to pay for my roof...’
‘I suspect one day’s power might more than pay for your roof.’
‘And you have a lot of...power?’
‘Yes. Financial juggling... It’s in my blood.’
‘Wow,’ she said but strangely she didn’t sound impressed. She almost sounded sympathetic. ‘But no one shares your house?’
But then she caught herself and the laughter returned. ‘Sorry, I forgot. Your litany of lovers.’
‘One a week and two on Sundays.’
‘Now, why don’t I believe that?’
Why? He didn’t have a clue. She was starting to seriously unnerve him.
Or was unnerve the wrong word?
It was the setting, he thought. The place. The events of the last two days.
If he saw this woman in Manhattan he wouldn’t look twice at her, he thought. He wouldn’t even see her.
Or maybe he would. Grease stained, barefooted, her short, copper curls tousled and stiff with salt and smoke... He’d glance twice.
Because she was out of place?
Because she was lovely.
‘We’d best get back to the house.’ He was starting to think he needed to be sensible where this woman was concerned.
‘Yeah, we get to sleep on Peggy’s living room floor.’ She sighed. ‘I’m thinking if we carted the tender up to the house it’d be more comfortable.’
‘You can have the settee.’
‘Have you sat on the settee?’ she demanded. ‘It has springs where no settee should have springs.’
‘We’ll manage,’ he said and then, before he could stop himself, he reached out and took her hand. ‘We’ve been through a lot together. Sleeping on a threadbare rug seems the least of it.’
‘Yeah,’ she said, but faintly, because suddenly she was looking down at their linked hands.
Because suddenly something was happening.
‘Matt...’ she said and her voice was uncertain.
‘Meg.’
Meg. It was a name. A word. Why it hung...
Something indeed was changing.
The night was still. The beach was deserted. The sky was a glorious panorama of stars, the like of which he’d never seen before, making the night seem almost magic.
Which was pretty much how he was feeling now. Unreal. Time out of frame.
This woman was nothing to do with him, nothing to do with his world, and yet she was standing before him, looking up at him, her gaze a question.
And her question was the same as his.
And her chin tilted, just a little, as if her part of the question had been resolved. It was up to him...
And the night, the peace, the warmth...and, being truthful, his need, answered for him.
He cupped her face gently with his hands and drew her to him.
He kissed her.
* * *
What was she doing?
This guy had paid for her services. He was one of Charlie’s punters. He was a customer, a fancy New York lawyer. He had absolutely nothing to do with her.
His hands cupped her face and she melted. Sense was nowhere.
His mouth touched hers and her willpower...everything...disintegrated in the need to be closer. His mouth claimed hers, and she felt as if her bones were melting. Her arms linked around him and it was as if she needed them to hold her up.
It didn’t make sense but part of her was thinking she was merging. Becoming one? If she wasn’t part of him she’d fall...
How stupid was that? But stupid was ignored. Everything was ignored. There was only the feel, the taste, the glorious wonder of being...cherished?
Loved.
There was a dumb word. She’d known this guy for less than two days. She was twenty-eight years old and she was sensible.
But sensible had gone the way of stupid. Irrelevant. The part of her brain doing the deciding decided the only available option was to concentrate on this kiss. To disappear into it, because it was magic.
She’d been kissed before—of course she had. She was twenty-eight years old and there’d even been some guys she’d seriously considered. A partner could have complicated her life with Grandpa but it wouldn’t have made it impossible. She’d never ruled out falling in love.
But not one of the guys she’d dated had made her feel like this.
Desired. Beautiful. As if the cocoon she’d built around herself was shredding and what was emerging was someone she didn’t know. She was someone who held this gorgeous, hunky, tender, strong, clever, amazing man close and who was claiming him.
Because that was what this kiss was. She wanted him, simple as that. Every fibre of her being was tuned to this overpowering need.
The kiss deepened and deepened again. His hands tugged her hard against him and she knew his desire was as great as hers.
But maybe they weren’t separate desires. Maybe they were the same, because that was how she was feeling. As if her body were fusing. One kiss...
It was so much more.
One body?
She loved the feel of him. His strength. The rough texture of his thick, dark hair as she ran her fingers through. The roughness of the stubble on his jaw. The sheer, arrant maleness of... Matt.
‘Matt...’
And somehow, through the passion of the kiss, she heard herself say it. And she heard in her voice her desire, the release of every vestige of self-control.
And he heard it, too, and somehow, appallingly, it made a difference. She felt his body stiffen, just a little. Just enough to matter.
He broke away. His hands still held, but as he gazed down at her in the moonlight she saw shock.
It was enough to send the same sensation through her. She tugged away and he let her go. They were left staring at each other, disbelief reflected in both their eyes.
It was Matt who pulled himself together first. Who managed to speak.
‘I don’t suppose,’ he said in a voice she hardly recognised, ‘that when we jumped off our burning boat you thought about packing condoms?’
It was enough. It made her laugh, even if the laugh came out choked.
‘I... No. I don’t know what I was thinking. And what sort of emergency bag doesn’t contain condoms?’
‘It’s a problem,’ he said, gravely now. ‘Though, Meg, maybe it’s just as well.’
‘Maybe it is.’ She was still having trouble getting her voice to work. ‘Matt, this situation is complicated enough. We do not need sex.’
‘No?’ And astonishingly there was laughter in his voice.
She looked up into those gorgeous eyes and found herself smiling in return. This situation was absurd. They’d been thrown together by the most appalling of circumstances. Emotion was everywhere.
Sex might even have been good.
Great?
‘We both need to take cold showers,’ she said, trying for astringency.
‘Have you seen Peggy’s hot-water service? That’s exactly what’s in store for us.’
She knew that. She’d had to heat water on the stove to give Henry a meagre bath.
Henry. The future.
‘We both know he can’t stay here.’ She said it deliberately, not just because it was important but also because it took their
minds—and their hands—off each other.
Laughter died.
‘I know that,’ he said. ‘Okay, Meg O’Hara. Let’s head back to the house and draw straws as to who gets to sleep on the lumpy settee or the hard floor. Reality starts now.’
It did.
But as they turned, Matt took her hand. Maybe it was because it was dark and she could trip on the rough track.
Maybe it was because he thought she needed protection.
Maybe it was because...they both wanted it?
Regardless, his hand held hers and she left it there. She even gripped his back.
It might be time for reality but she wouldn’t mind fantasy for just a while longer.
* * *
Meg slept on the settee, buffered from broken springs by a quilt and exhaustion.
Matt tried to sleep on the floor. Since he was a kid and a friend’s family had introduced him to hiking, he’d used camping, the wilderness to break the pressure of the stresses of the financial world. He was used to sleeping rough. A carpeted floor, cushions, quilts, didn’t stop him sleeping.
Meg within arm’s reach was a different proposition. He lay and stared into the dark and listened to her breathing and wondered what had just happened.
He’d kissed her.
He’d kissed women before. This was more than that. Much more.
It was the situation, he told himself. The emotion surrounding Amanda’s death, Henry’s bereavement. The long flight over here, jet lag, worry for Henry, then the fire on the boat and the adrenalin charge that had gone with it. The layers of sophisticated protection that he’d built around his emotions had been pierced and the kiss was the result. So it was the place, the situation.
The woman.
He lay and listened to her soft breathing and a part of him wanted to move across and take her into his arms. To feel her softness against his chest. To feel her mould against him, to need him...
Maybe that was it. The women he dated never needed him. He dated women who matched his world, sophisticated, intelligent...
Meg was intelligent.
And warm. And caring. And funny.
Cinderella and the Billionaire Page 8