by Kris Pearson
“And?” Dread ran like ice water through her veins. Yesterday he’d been on top of the world, but yesterday he’d been less than her lover. Now he was everything to her, and what was bad for him was every bit as bad for her.
He continued to walk in silence for a while longer, face grim, eyes focused out to sea, but his thumb ran over and over hers in a tiny warm caress so she held her tongue until he was ready to tell her more.
“Soft spots!” he suddenly spat out. “Bloody soft spots! The ground’s full of peat. God knows how far we’ll have to excavate to find a solid platform to build on.” He shoved an angry hand back through his hair. Anger boiled off him in dense clouds. Jetta imagined steam rising.
“Peat? I suppose that’s why the Camellias grow so well around there. There are lots of them over in the park,” she said.
“You’re not helping, Ms Horticulture,” he muttered between clenched teeth. “I’m kicking myself. I should have got a thorough geological survey done. So much for trying to save a few dollars. But—flat land, built on for the last eighty or ninety years, no obvious problems. Who’d expect that? It’s not like it’s the side of an unstable damn hill, or a gulley someone’s filled in and not compacted properly...”
Jetta shrugged, unable to help, and knowing he didn’t really want her opinion anyway.
“The alternative is to drive dozens of long piles in to float the concrete foundation slab on,” he fumed. “Nine or ten meters deep, depending on how far down the bloody soft spots go.”
Suddenly unable to contain his frustration, he let go her hand and vaulted up to stand on the sea wall, hands alternately thrust into his jeans pockets or his hair, eyes closed as he tried to ignore the enormity of the problem, then wide open again as he stared down at her.
“The difference could be another two or three hundred thousand bucks over the whole site. That’s money I don’t have. Where the hell am I going to get it?”
“You could borrow?”
“Babes, I’ve borrowed until I squeak. I’ve everything invested in this scheme. All my savings for the past ten years. Everything except the car. I’m running so close to the wind that one more gust’ll knock me over.”
He stood balanced against the sea, fuming and worrying.
“I need to get a couple more sold,” he said. “The deposits would almost see me through—for now. What a freaking mess!”
“Perhaps you could just build four?” she asked. Maybe Gran’s house might be safe after all, and she could continue with her plan to renovate and live there.
“Four? Dream on! I’ve budgeted for eight—all the economies of scale are geared to eight. Any fewer and the whole project collapses.”
He jumped down to give her an absent-minded hug—the merest clasp of a hand around her waist, and a very approximate kiss on one cheekbone. After his tender thoroughness of the night before it felt less than enough. “No, it’s eight or nothing,” he continued, releasing her and starting to walk again. “And right now it’s looking more like nothing.” He pressed the heel of his hand against his forehead as if that might realign his thinking and send the problems packing.
“Can you borrow more somewhere else?”
He gave a bitter laugh. “Where did you have in mind?”
“I don’t know, Anton. I haven’t a clue where you’ve already borrowed from. Banks? Mortgage brokers? Lawyers?”
“Yup—plus my mother, and Ben and Paul, who all helped to back me in a small way and hoped to make a profit.” He shot her an anguished look. “God—I’ll take them down with me at this rate. And my credit cards are maxed to their limits, too. Any more good ideas?”
“Surely it’ll be okay somehow?”
He brushed her optimism aside. “I was still just safe until this jumped up and bit me. Just safe. Big risk, big reward.”
His long lively face contorted with worry. She thought of his devil-may-care throat slitting gesture the day before. There’d been no worried expression then; now his air of concern was palpable.
She wrapped her arms around him in a much better hug than he’d given her, forcing him to stop walking.
“Just chill for a minute—okay? There’s got to be a way around it. Just got to be.”
“A couple of quick sales are the only way I can see out of the mess—and they’re not a permanent fix.”
“Well, start with that.”
“Yes boss,” he said, managing a weak version of his former dazzling smile.
“You might find the peat isn’t deep. Or isn’t over the whole site.”
“And pigs might fly,” he said, lifting her off her feet and swinging her round in a circle. “Feel like you’re flying, Miss Piggy?”
He set her down and they walked on without talking for the next few minutes. Jetta kept sneaking sideways glances at him. What a difference one day had made to their relationship. Not that it was a relationship, she reminded herself. He was a friend—a good friend—and a wonderful lover until Friday if she was lucky. She couldn’t expect anything more than that.
But now, somewhere deep down near her heart, warm powerful feelings pulsed. New feelings. Puzzling, hard to ignore feelings. She wanted to look at him constantly. To touch him and caress him and do anything that would make his life better. Or, in this case, less worrying.
“There’s only one way you’re going to solve this,” she said, catching his ferocious expression from the corner of her eye. “Drill some experimental holes as soon as you can.”
“We’d need a proper drilling rig for that,” he said. “Forget about the cost for a minute. Could be days before I find anyone free. Right now the construction industry’s in turmoil.”
Jetta raised her eyebrows. “So—do you know anyone you can offer a Sunday cash job to? An owner/operator maybe? I don’t suppose a staff member could just drive off in a huge truck unnoticed?”
“Damn right. But...” He thought for a few moments. “Crank—the driver you met yesterday—he has a brother in the business.”
She smiled with quiet satisfaction as he pulled out his phone and started the chain of calls that led to the brother.
“Big brain for a little girl,” he teased once he’d done the deal.
“It’s in my interests to help if I can,” she said. “I have half a house on the line, too.”
“So you do,” he said with less warmth in his voice. “How could I forget that?”
The momentary life evaporated from his face. She’d just added another worry to his huge burden. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“What time does your drycleaner close?” he asked, ignoring her reply.
*
An hour later, Jetta’s senses sprang alert as Anton appeared in the dining room. She glanced up from the travel documents she’d been sorting on the big oak table, and found a fine navy pin-striped suit that echoed his blue eyes, and a snowy shirt and red silk tie. “That’s a bit over-the-top for Saturday afternoon,” she said, once again struck a visceral blow by his physical beauty.
“Never going to sell fancy apartments wearing old jeans,” he said, face grim as he turned and strode down the long hallway. “I’ve made some room in the wardrobe for you,” he yelled back over his shoulder as he scooped the car keys from their customary perch on the narrow table. “Expect me when you see me.” The front door slammed behind him, and the echo floated back to mock her.
Slowly the butterflies in her tummy calmed and the thudding in her chest returned to its normal speed. How did he do that to her?
Why of all the men in the world was it him?
She’d seen him arrogant and angry, confident and carefree, teasing and tender—and now ferociously worried.
He might be a blood relation.
He was definitely a lover with unlimited patience and stamina, initiating her into true womanhood with affection and care.
But he could still be a con man, with the cunning to cheat her out of her inheritance.
Anton, who are you really? And how wil
l I escape from you now with my heart whole?”
*
He returned hours later, tie askew, hair on end, whiskey on his breath.
“Yes?” she asked. “No?”
“Maybe,” was all he said. It was accompanied by a shrug and a grimace that could have meant anything. She sighed. Rumpled and slightly desperate looked good on him. Almost better than the impeccable finish he’d left the house with.
She glanced at her watch; it was after nine. “Have you eaten?”
“Not much. Don’t bother.”
“It’s no bother to make you a quick omelet.”
“I know what I’d rather have.”
She flicked her eyes up to his with more attention. The husky timbre of his voice lifted all the tiny hairs on her skin, and he surveyed her with something like ownership... lids drooping a little, attention centered absolutely on her.
Suddenly her breasts heated, and her belly filled with fluttering wings and deep hot ripples.
No gentle seduction tonight, she thought. However lustful he might appear, she was right there with him. Every bit as turned on. Utterly matching him in mood.
She shoved her chair aside and stood, dragging in a long breath as she reached for the ends of his loosened red tie. She spared him the briefest of glances and turned away, tugging. Felt the tie tighten and then slacken as he followed.
A flare of triumph raced through her. Her braless nipples squirmed into tight buds, and her sex tingled— soft, moist and full of anticipation.
Her super-sensitive lips hungered to taste him again. The flavor of whiskey, the feel of his invading tongue. If she had him for only a few more days, she’d take greedily and regret nothing.
The bedroom door swung open with a protesting creak. Everything had gone vivid—too bright, too loud, too strong. In his case, too quiet.
Jetta turned. His eyes blazed hot and sexy, then darkened as they latched onto the jutting nubs under her T-shirt.
“No,” she said as he made a move towards her. “My choice tonight.” She stepped away, intensely turned on by having such a perfect man at her beck and call. “Lose the tie,” she suggested.
Anton yanked at it and threw it onto the bed—a scarlet streak of challenge against the white of the duvet cover.
“And the jacket.”
He shouldered it off and she reached out for it, making him wait by opening the wardrobe and searching for a hanger. He stood silently, but waves of lust crashed and rolled through the air behind her, landing on her nape and careering down her spine.
She turned, and those same waves danced over her nipples, slid past her belly and concentrated hotly between her thighs. “I might just do the belt myself,” she murmured, pulling his shirt out and taking her time. Brushing against his erection as a small extra torture. She drew his zipper down as Anton popped shirt buttons. “Off,” she said, indicating his trousers.
He slid them down his long legs. One corner of his mouth quirked.
“And those.”
He toed off his shoes and peeled away his briefs and socks.
“So—just the shirt,” she murmured, surveying him with what she hoped was a confident gaze. She couldn’t resist a glance south to his groin. To her nine-year-old eyes, Uncle Graham had had an immense and ugly protrusion under his hairy, doughy gut. Now, looking at Anton, she saw a tall taut penis standing firm and proud against the lower sweep of his hard golden belly. The open fronts of his white shirt framed it to perfection.
All those years I wasted! But without this lovely man, I’d still be lost. Now I want, I want.
“On your back,” she said, wondering if he’d obey.
He met her eyes with a look that was part lust, part disbelief, part acquiescence—and then threw himself down across the bed like a waiting sacrifice.
Jetta stood looking at him for a few moments, meeting the challenge in his eyes while her heart thumped and thudded, and the heavy pulse echoed in her groin. She lowered one knee onto the bed and stretched over him to pick up a condom packet from his bedside chest. When he raised a hand to take it from her, she sent him a stern ‘hands off’ glare. Biting the corner off the bright little pack, she ripped it open by tiny degrees, then tossed it onto the duvet cover for later.
“Put me out of my misery,” he groaned.
“You’re not in misery,” she taunted, as fire and longing swept through her. “You’re getting what you deserve. You kept me waiting last night.”
“And wasn’t it worth it?”
“Absolutely worth it,” she purred, standing again to strip off her jeans. His eyes followed every movement of her hands—the button, the zipper, the slow easing of the fabric past her hips, down her thighs, past her knees. His gaze fastened on today’s thong, the second in Bren and Hallie’s gift pack. A lacy silver spider-web stretched from hipbone to hipbone, backed by a scrap of black silk.
She kicked her jeans and sandals aside, and sashayed around the end of the bed in a deliberate catwalk act, stopping to tilt a hip in his direction, then turning her back on him, knowing he’d get bare butt and minimal elastic. She smiled over her shoulder, still posing.
“Get down here,” he growled.
She resumed her little fashion parade, holding his gaze, and spicing it up by drawing her T-shirt off as she strutted. She paused, close to his head. The soft cotton stroked her erect nipples as she pulled it higher and higher above him. Finally she tossed it aside.
She felt fantastic. Powerful and female and swollen and sexy.
She peeled the thong off and stood with her legs parted, hoping he’d see she glistened with slippery arousal.
He looked wonderfully uncivilized, lying in wait on the big low bed. How could he be sexier in an unbuttoned shirt than totally naked? Was it the illusion that he couldn’t quite wait to be undressed for her?
She knelt, a knee either side of his face, and he gave an earthy grunt as he grabbed her and pulled her down. His mouth closed around her clit, his tongue pushed inside her, and she bent low to clasp his hips and bury her face in his groin, licking and sucking him in return, loving the mysterious scent of him and the power she had now.
“Condom,” he insisted a little later, trying to pull away.
Jetta released him with regret, and rolled the condom on leisurely as he growled throaty curses and hurry-up imprecations. Then she turned around and straddled him, taking him in a hot, slow, smooth slide.
“I had such a good teacher,” she whispered.
Chapter Fifteen — Key to the Suitcase
On Monday morning, Jetta stepped from the Porsche, impatient to settle the true legal situation of number fifteen. Anton seemed relaxed about it. Her suspicion that he was some sort of con man had ebbed away to almost nothing.
He held the building’s door open. Her heels tapped sharply as she walked across the intricate tiles of the antique floor.
She still yearned to save the old house, but feared today meant the end of everything. If the lawyer had arranged to pay all of Gran’s household bills automatically, then there’d be current insurance cover. The fire damage could be repaired, and the door to the site office removed if the whole house was hers.
But if it was, that would cast Anton deep into debt from which he might not recover for many years. Her loyalties swung in both directions; fight for her old family home and let Anton sink? Or desert her dream, and help her lover succeed?
She glanced across at him as the elevator rose, remembering his tender seduction on Friday night, and their sexy games on Saturday.
The drilling rig on Sunday had established beyond doubt that the foundations for the apartments needed massive extra ground works. That night’s lovemaking had been desperate consolation more than anything else.
She stole another glance at his steely expression. Maybe nothing could save him anyway if the money situation was as grim as he claimed. Her heart constricted with pain for him.
The elevator door slid open. This time, Winters and Watersons’ premis
es were brightly lit, and the holiday notice had gone from the glass door. Jetta sucked in a deep breath for courage and preceded Anton into the reception area.
“Mr Haviland!” the forty-something receptionist exclaimed with evident surprise and pleasure.
“Morning Sue. Is Horrie in yet?”
“Yes indeed. But he’s not expecting you.”
“He’ll see us, I promise. We have an emergency, and he’ll want to know about it.”
Round-eyed with curiosity, the woman led them to one of several dark timber doors, knocked, and pushed it open. “Mr Haviland to see you, Mr Winters,” she announced.
Jetta stood back as Anton strode toward a big silver-haired man seated at a gleaming mahogany desk. The air was thick with pine fragrance.
“Anton, dear boy,” the lawyer said, rising from a creaky chair. “Sorry about the smell. Sue decided the office was musty after being closed up, but she’s gone overboard with the air freshener.”
Anton managed a chuckle at that, although Jetta knew he must feel wretched.
He shook Horrie’s hand, and said, “I’ve brought someone to meet you. Someone who ought to know all about you, but doesn’t. This is Jetta Rivers, Lucy Haviland’s grand-daughter. Jetta, this is Horrie Winters.”
The lawyer turned in Jetta’s direction. “Miss Rivers? At last we meet. I’m so sorry to hear Lucy’s gone. I didn’t know until I returned from holiday. A dear, dear lady.”
She shook his proffered hand, murmuring thanks for his sympathy.
He waved them both to green leather armchairs.
“Jetta needs you to confirm the situation with the house,” Anton said. “You thought she knew all about it, but she hasn’t a clue. She thinks I’m trying to steal half of her inheritance—putting it bluntly.”
“Not really,” she objected.
The lawyer’s bushy eyebrows pulled together, and he pursed his lips. “Ah,” he said. “Good heavens. Did you not get any of the correspondence?”
Jetta shook her head, spirits plummeting. So it was true—only half of the house was hers. “I presumed I’d get something once Gran died,” she said. “Confirming details and so on. But there’s been nothing yet.”