by Kris Pearson
“Yes, but…”
“Come and look.” He set her down and led her up the wide timber stairway, giving her no time to protest. “I’d strip out the top floor first. Use the master bedroom as living space. It’s plenty big enough. Four more bedrooms—one for us, an office each, a spare for guests.”
“But…”
“Yeah, no kitchen up here,” he said as they reached the top of the stairs. “But there’s a big sun porch I could convert as a temporary solution.”
“Anton!”
“Bathrooms need a total refurbish. I don’t mind if you want to style them so they look original as long as everything’s replaced and working well.”
She set her hands on her hips and sent him a mock glare.” And when is this all going to happen? How can you afford it, anyway? You’re up to your ears in debt.”
He reached over and cupped her face. Smiled his most disarming smile. “If it’s what you want, we’ll manage. The big reception rooms downstairs will make a great design studio and architects’ office to be going on with. We can tear out some of that overgrown garden for customer parking. And… if…” He lost his momentum and ducked his head for a few seconds. “Um… if there were children later on… well… plenty of space for all that.” Suddenly he looked like a shy schoolboy.
Jetta took a moment to let everything sink in. This was so big that her brain refused to process data at normal speed. “So,” she said slowly, “You’re saying you want to live here, with me, work from here, maybe have a family together?”
He nodded, and swallowed. His Adam’s apple slid up and down. He was nervous! Her super-confident, gung-ho man had a vulnerable spot after all. And it was her. She turned her face against his palm and kissed it. “And we’d live at Number One while this top floor was remodeled?” she asked, turning and surveying the top gallery with its extravagantly carved balustrades.
“Hell, yes. It’s too cold here yet.”
“And maybe move in for summertime?”
“The apartments will be finished in a few weeks. I know it looks like an ongoing mess, but it’s only final details now.”
She wrapped her arms around herself and paced a few steps away, a few steps back. “And the money will be okay?” she asked. “You’ve enough to repay everyone you borrowed from for the apartments?”
“More than. Enough to pay for quite a chunk of this house, too.” He gathered her into his arms. “What’s with all the questions?”
“And the upgrading here?” she pressed. “How are you going to cover that?”
“Details, baby. I’ve made it work once, and I can do it again.”
Jetta’s heart banged and fluttered about behind her ribs. He’d do this for her?
“But you don’t like old houses,” she objected.
He sent her a sizzling grin. “But you do. And what my woman wants, she gets.”
Jetta thought of her untouched trust fund, and silently thanked her grandfather and Horrie for their good work on her behalf. “I might be able to help out on the finance front,” she murmured. “Some dear old men made some sensible investments for me a long time ago.”
She enjoyed watching his mouth drop open. Enjoyed even more stretching up to nip his bottom lip and then turning her teasing into a deep and loving kiss.
The End
*
Thank you for reading my books. I hope you enjoyed them and will try some of my others. I love writing for you, and always love finding you’ve left a review where you bought the book. Don’t be shy — say what you thought, what you liked and anything you didn’t. It will help more people decide to buy, and encourage me to write the kind of books you want.
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Hard to Regret
Heiress Anna Wynn is hiding a secret – a secret that has blighted half her life and forced her to become an unfulfilled over-achiever. Even preparing for her wealthy family’s summer break in their idyllic New Zealand holiday house, Anna has to be all business and is strung tight as piano wire. Finding her bedroom appropriated by an over-muscled, overbearing, testosterone-soaked tower of annoyance is the final straw.
Dragged up under the callused thumb of his dirt-poor father, Jason Jones regrets his choice of security over his dream. His ambition to work as a freelance photographer has been ruthlessly supressed in favour of setting up his own construction company. He has a pre-Christmas deadline looming on the current project, and the last thing he needs is constant surveillance by the owner’s sharp-tongued daughter – or the lure of her hot body and big blue eyes.
Forced to endure each other’s company in the small-town beach house, mutual frustration and undeniable chemistry pull Anna and Jason together for a few stolen days. Enemies become lovers – but how long before secrets are revealed that will change everything?
Excerpt
“I’ll do it,” Annaliese Wynn said, heaving her bags from the back of the taxi to save the obese driver waddling out. Finally she’d be swapping her stilettos for summer sandals and solitude, and hopefully winding down from the everlasting treadmill of her life.
As she listened to the waves crashing on the shore of Scarlet Bay, she drew a deep satisfied breath and discovered the delicious aroma of grilling meat wafting on the warm breeze. She glanced at her watch. Someone was barbecuing. At ten-fifteen? She inhaled again. Her tummy gave an unladylike gurgle. The barbecue smelled amazing after her hasty early breakfast of a fresh pear.
Sighing, Anna clicked the bag handle up into place and rolled the case over the cracked concrete path to the old shorefront cottage. This would be her last holiday here before it was demolished to make way for a new, much larger dwelling for her extended family to share. She unlocked the front door and stepped back into her childhood. Faded Indian cotton curtains, Great-aunt Emily’s fussy watercolours (also fading) and… the back door at the end of the hallway swinging wide open!
She stood stock-still, like a cat transfixed by a bird that had just landed unwisely close. Loud masculine laughter billowed in and echoed around the high-ceilinged space.
“Shit, no…” someone said.
“Totally crappy luck,” another man agreed.
“And probably a spoiled little bitch,” a deeper voice added.
Anna released her bag, set down her laptop, and crept the length of the old house on tiptoe, trying to stop her high heels from echoing on the varnished hardwood floor. She thrust her head through the doorway. “What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded.
Four pairs of eyes swivelled in her direction. Three men stuffed meat into their mouths and chewed.
“Ms Wynn?” the deeper voice asked. The attached male raised a can of cola and took a leisurely swig. Dark eyes locked with hers over the shining can, and she watched his tanned throat constrict as he swallowed. He lowered the drink and wiped the back of his hand over his mouth.
Melting His Heart
Kate Pleasance is on her best behavior. Matthew McLeod is certainly not. She really needs the job he’s interviewing her for. He totally wants the unexpected candidate in his bed. But is Kate spying for her famous father? Should Matthew trust her in the least? Join them in the beautiful New Ze
aland alpine resort of Queenstown, famous for its daredevil extreme sports. Will Kate dare? And is Matthew the devil he seems to be? WARNING: Contains one tall tortured man who’s super-talented in bedrooms and boardrooms.
Excerpt
Kate Pleasance scrolled through the online job ads for the morning, and stopped when SUPERWOMAN WANTED jumped out at her. Could she be a superwoman? She huffed out a sigh. She’d been pretty damn super for the last three months!
With nothing to lose, she emailed her CV and a slightly cheeky letter. She was exactly ready for a different life—away from the sad memories of her mother, and far away from all the people and places she’d known when she was Simon’s partner. This definitely sounded different—something she could get her teeth into and distract herself with—and in New Zealand’s most famous alpine resort, too.
As she alighted from the commuter jet a bare week later, the biting June air seeped through her cream Merino suit jacket, through her camisole, into her very skin. From the plane, Queenstown had looked deceptively summery—blue sky from edge to edge—even though there was an icing-sugar dusting of snow on the surrounding mountains. She’d left sixteen degrees at home, way to the north in Auckland. Here it was a crisp and shimmering eight.
She scanned the arrivals lounge where other passengers were greeting friends and relatives. Charlotte had said she’d be there to meet Kate, but what did Charlotte look like?
Not like the elderly lady in the blue hat. It hadn’t been a quavery old voice on the phone.
Hopefully not like the harassed-looking woman with the screaming child— although she certainly seemed in need of a helpful companion.
And certainly not like the tall dark man with his head down, studying something. They were the only people who’d not claimed their passengers yet. Perhaps Charlotte was still finding somewhere to park her car? Kate strode resolutely on.is
Matthew compressed his lips and lifted his eyes from the photograph clipped to the CV. That had to be the Pleasance girl in the cream suit. The photo showed a pale young woman with her dark hair pulled back and pinned up. She stared primly into the camera lens—trying to look businesslike, he supposed. Trying to look innocuous enough to gain access to his home where she could spy for her ruthless father, more like!
He saw now that she was unusually tall, moved with easy grace, and had hair right out of a shampoo ad—thick, glossy, and flowing down past her shoulders today. His fingers twitched at its imagined softness and warmth. Scheming bitch! The severe CV photo certainly didn’t do justice to candidate number three. For the interview, she was apparently turning on all her feminine wiles in an effort to put him and Lottie off their guard.
The Boat Builder’s Bed
A windy day...a flyaway signboard...a hideous crunch. Sophie Calhoun can’t imagine how she’ll pay for the damage to the luxurious car. She’s struggling to launch her design studio and make a home for her daughter. From the black Jaguar storms super-yacht tycoon Rafe Severino. Steaming mad. Totally gorgeous, desperately in need of a top-line decorator for his spectacular harbor-side mansion.
Excerpt
Rafe Severino pounded his fist on the steering wheel in time with the old Rolling Stones anthem. The Stones weren’t getting any ‘satisfaction’ and neither was he. His company, Severino Superyachts New Zealand, seemed unstoppable. Personally though, Rafe was lost in the desert.
And he knew it.
He hated that his marriage had been a mess. Hated being the last son to establish his own family. Hated the way his parents fawned over his younger brothers and their kids—and barely acknowledged his existence.
He hated even more that he let it matter.
Ahead of him a truck swung out across the road prior to reversing into an alley. Rafe slowed and then stopped to give the driver space.
The wind from the sea had risen. A flag flapped and rattled on a nearby pole. An empty Coke can tumbled along the gutter. Inside his Jaguar with the volume up high, Rafe saw both but heard neither. ‘Satisfaction’ seemed a long way off.
He sucked in a deep breath and tried to drag his brain onto something else.
His eyes drifted to the legs of a high-heeled blonde as she edged through a nearby doorway with a sign-board. The wind tugged at the long tendrils of her hair, concealing part of her face with a sexy golden veil, but still something about her seemed familiar.
Then the hem of her filmy blue skirt flipped up and Rafe sharpened his attention.
To the girl’s obvious consternation the sign-board started to collapse, and he easily lip-read her short sharp curse. His mouth quirked at her frustration, and he watched as she batted at her flying hair with one hand and clutched the sign with the other.
Recognition streaked through him then—an assistant of Faye’s. Josie or Susie, something like that. Maybe his ambitious ex-wife had new premises he didn’t know about? Was she going up in the world or down?
A combination of curiosity and his grandmother’s long-ingrained code of chivalry made him turn the big car into a vacant space and kill the engine and the music. At that instant a more vigorous gust of wind wrenched the sign right out of the girl’s hands and flung it onto the sidewalk. The two halves parted company and she jumped onto one to hold it down, for all the world like a child playing hopscotch. The other flew up and hit the front of his car.
There was a bang. A crunch. A sound that could only mean bad news. Rafe added his own curse to hers and swung his long body out. He closed the door with a savage ‘thunk’ and strode around to assess the damage.
Resisting Nick
Nick Sharpe owns a chain of fitness centers. He has money, ambition, and a body honed to perfection, but he’s just discovered he was adopted and never told. To make matters worse, his P.A. has walked out at short notice. His business and personal lives are suddenly in disarray—and then fate hands him Sammie.
Sammie Sherbourne only needs a temporary job until her passport arrives, then she’s off to see the world. The last thing she wants is to become one of Nick’s many conquests. But Nick’s hot and he’s hurting, and Sammie knows she might hold the key to his identity. That’s a lot of temptation for a girl with a tender heart.
Warning: Contains sexy games in beds, bathrooms, and on balconies.
Excerpt
Sammie Sherbourne took the stairs at a half-run, hoping jeans with a polo shirt and Nikes were appropriate for the sporty atmosphere of the fitness center. She bounced up into a deserted reception area and slowed to watch through the long glass wall as clients stretched, pedaled, and grunted at the various machines. One dark-haired man finished his workout on a cross-trainer, slung a towel around his neck, and moved toward her with a loose-limbed stride.
She tried not to stare, but his dampened shorts and tank showed off a tall, sculpted body that appeared hard-disciplined and a great advertisement for the place. The nearer he got the better he looked. A month here, before she escaped from New Zealand, might be no hardship at all!
She dragged her attention away from his powerful thighs and up past the sweaty tank that showcased his gleaming chest and shoulders. Then found bristling stubble, an impatient scowl, and snapping black eyes.
“You’re the replacement temp?”
She nodded. “Samantha.”
“Nick. You made it on time. Good.”
He scrubbed the towel over his hair, and Sammie darted another glance downward. So this was the boss?
He got as far as saying, “If you can—” and his cell phone rang. He wrestled it from his shorts pocket, which pulled the thin fabric mouthwateringly tight, and waved a hand at the desk.
Sammie took this as in invitation to sit, and watched from the swivel chair as he stalked off sounding far from pleased about something.
She waited. And she waited. Ten minutes passed before he reappeared.
In that time, she’d checked the desk drawers and stowed her bag in the bottom one which was empty apart from a box of staples.
She’d answered the e
ver-ringing phone. Yes they were open; no, Nick wasn’t available right now but she’d take a message; yes, their special $299 package ran until the end of the month (because she’d read the poster on the glass wall); no, Nick wasn’t available right now but she’d make sure he phoned back as soon as possible; no, she wasn’t Julie. Or Tyler.
Where the hell had he got to?
He came back still barking into his phone, but now smelling sexy as sin and wearing a black suit, charcoal shirt open at the neck, and beautiful shoes. He leaned over the desk while he continued his phone conversation, raised an exasperated eyebrow at her, rummaged amongst some papers, and produced a list that he thrust in her direction.
“Okay?” he mouthed silently.
She shrugged, nodded, and handed him the phone-message slips. He jammed them in a pocket, took the stairs at a lithe run, and disappeared.
And thank you too, she muttered to herself.
Seduction on the Cards
When journalist Kerri is assigned to interview a seriously rich anti-gambling crusader, she imagines a grandfatherly tycoon with a comb-over. But hunky Alex Beaufort has plenty of hair—and enough of everything else to make her mouth water.
Irrepressible Kerri decides to find out exactly how much, and a sizzling game of strip-poker soon has them both peeling off their layers of self-protection.
Seduction is definitely on the cards—but who’s seducing who? And what are the odds? Good enough to take a chance on?
Warning: Contains sexy Frenchman, tropical heat, and enthusiastic outdoor fun and games.
Excerpt
Kerrigan Lush felt the ripple of unease start on her scalp, tingle down her neck, trickle along her spine...and then slide down each leg until her toes curled in her scarlet stilettos.