The Ruthless Gentleman

by Louise Bay

  “You do,” I replied, trying to keep my voice from breaking. She was right. I wasn’t good enough for her. “And I want to be that man for you. Perhaps I wasn’t then but meeting you has changed so much for me. More than that, losing you turned my world upside down and made me reassess everything. I can’t lose you. I want to spend the rest of my life working to be the man who deserves you.”

  Silence surrounded us. I didn’t want to even breathe in case I missed the next thing she said.

  “I need to go,” she said.

  Had I lost her? I couldn’t just walk away. I pulled out a business card. “My mobile number is on this card. Promise you’ll meet me when this charter is over. That’s just five days away.”

  “You’re going to fly back in five days?”

  “No.” I shook my head and I was certain I saw a trace of disappointment flicker over her face. “I’m not leaving Miami. Not until I’ve convinced you that I love you.”

  Her teeth caught her bottom lip, but she reached out and took the card. I wanted to grab her, kiss her, hold her, but I held back. I shouldn’t push her, no matter how hard I wanted to. Not yet, not now.

  “I have to go,” she said.

  “Promise me. Five days.”

  “I won’t make promises I don’t know if I can keep. But I promise I’ll call to let you know.”

  It was a small victory, but I’d take it. I was impatient to get to the bit where I could kiss her, hold her. When she’d be mine.

  She looked back down the jetty. “I really have to go.”

  I couldn’t bring myself to respond. I didn’t want to say goodbye.

  “I’ve missed you,” I said. She nodded and turned, then made her way back to the yacht.

  She glanced over her shoulder as she walked away and gave me a small smile. I’d do anything it took for that not to be the last smile of hers I saw.

  Thirty-Eight

  Avery

  I had a mammoth decision to make and for the first time in a long time I didn’t know what to do. My heart had been thudding through my chest all morning. We were just off the coast of Bermuda and Captain Moss had pulled up the anchor to take our guests back to shore. This was it. The charter was almost over, and that meant I owed Hayden Wolf a phone call.

  His dog-eared, ragged business card was under my pillow, which was where I’d kept it since he’d given it to me. Each night, I’d take it out, turn it over in my hand and ask myself whether I should call.

  Because I wanted to. I really wanted to.

  He believed me, and I’d long forgiven him for questioning my loyalty and character.

  And I loved him. I truly loved him. And he said he loved me.

  So it was simple, right? I should just call him.

  The problem was, I’d hurt so much during these months since he’d left the yacht. The pain had been raw and visceral but I was beginning to heal. Sort of. At least, I had accepted a future without him. Then he showed up five days ago, while I was trying to plan a future that didn’t include him. Things had been made easier because I knew he hated me. And because he clearly hadn’t shared the deep, fundamental feelings I had for him. I wouldn’t have assumed the worst of him and called him a liar. The imbalance in our feelings made it easier to see the future without him.

  “Can we get you anything else?” I asked the six guests still seated at lunch.

  “I think we’re good,” Brad said, glancing at his watch. “We need to pack.”

  There were only a few minutes of this charter left, and the ticking of the clock was booming in my ears.

  “I think August has done that for you, while you’ve been at lunch,” I replied.

  His wife patted his hand. “It’s all handled.”

  That’s what they’d paid for, and that’s what we’d done. It had been a good charter. The guests had been friendly and fun without being too much of either. As the kickoff to what may well be my last season, I couldn’t complain.

  Skylar and I cleared the table and tidied away the kitchen while the deck crew docked the yacht and then hauled all the luggage up from the bedrooms. The last half an hour was always busy, but it was also when the crew wore their biggest smiles.

  “I can’t wait to get wasted tonight,” August said as she shut the dishwasher with her hip. “It’s still so hard to get used to pouring champagne for other people when you can’t drink it yourself. Where are we going?”

  I shrugged and looked at the other crewmembers gathering in the galley, ready to say goodbye to the guests.

  “Can we start drinking right away? Like before tonight? As soon as they’re gone?” August asked.

  “It’s going to be a very long season if you need to drink that bad already,” I replied. “But as long as Captain Moss says we’re on free time until tomorrow, then you’re good.”

  “I just want to make a martini and get to drink it myself, you know what I mean?” August asked.

  I knew exactly what she meant. My dad was right. We spent so much time looking after others that along the way, I’d forgotten what I wanted. What I liked. What I loved. The only interruption on my horizon of other people’s needs and wants had been Hayden. He’d been mine. Just for me.

  I’d told him I’d call him whatever my decision was and although I had all these fears, all these reasons why Hayden and I couldn’t be together, I wanted him to change my mind. I wanted him to be mine again.

  The next hour passed in a blur. We said goodbye to the guests, we had the tips meeting and we were dismissed for a full twenty-four hours. That was a lot of time to drink.

  “Whoop,” August called as Captain Moss left the galley. “Freedom and a stack of dollar bills.” She waved a white envelope with her tip in it. “It’s good to be alive. Can we crack open the beers?”

  Crew began to crowd around the fridge and I took the opportunity to slide out of the banquette. “I have to go make a call,” I whispered to Skylar.

  She slid an arm around my waist. “Be careful. Remember you are an incredible woman who sees only the best in others.” I’d told Skylar about my conversation with Hayden. She was skeptical about him flying to Miami, about his protestations of love. And I understood that. I’d forgiven him but that didn’t mean I could accept him back in my heart.

  “I don’t know where we’ll end up, but I figure I’ll listen to what he has to say.” The fact was, even if we could put everything about Cannon in our past, which I believed was possible, the practicalities of dating someone like Hayden were impossible. But I wanted to hear him out in a way that he’d never really listened to me when I told him I wasn’t Cannon’s spy.

  “You deserve to be happy,” she said.

  I kissed her on the cheek and then, without anyone noticing, I dipped out of the galley.

  I didn’t even change. I just grabbed my bag and Hayden’s number and headed off the yacht. All I could think about was the way he held me so tightly and protectively. The way he looked at me when I was talking as if I were saying the most interesting thing he’d ever heard, the whisper of his lips against my skin, his reluctant smile. I just wished it had meant as much to him as it had to me.

  I gathered speed, wanting to find a quiet place to call as soon as I could. As I got to the end of the jetty, I scanned the marina, trying to think about where I might go.

  “Looking for someone?”

  I spun around and came face-to-face with Hayden Wolf.

  Thirty-Nine

  Hayden

  Patience had never been my strong point, but sometimes that wasn’t a bad thing. After all, it meant I was standing here in front of Avery. I couldn’t just sit in a hotel room and wait for her to call. I’d come down to the marina to watch her yacht dock.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, her smile pulling up the corners of my mouth as I stepped toward her.

  “Waiting for you,” I replied, sliding my hand over her hip.

  She tried to step out of my arms but there was no way I was going to let that happen
. “I said I’d call.”

  “And I said I’d wait.”

  “I was just . . . We’d just . . . I was about to call you,” she said, her hand sliding over my chest. I shuddered at the perfect feel of her.

  “What were you going to say?”

  Her smile faltered. “I was going to say I’ll hear you out.”

  “Like I should have done to you,” I mumbled. She was a better human being than me. I’d questioned her, accused her and here she was, still offering me a chance to set things straight. “I understand I betrayed you. You have every reason to hate me.”

  “I don’t hate you. But I also know that you can’t possibly feel for me what I feel for you. Because if you did, we wouldn’t be standing here heading in different directions. And I can’t be with someone I love more than they love me. My heart is fragile enough. It can’t cope with the inevitable disappointment that comes from that.”

  I groaned, desperate to take on all the pain I’d caused her, all the pain she felt inside. “I was an idiot. I accept that, but let me prove to you that I have learned my lesson. I should never have questioned you. But don’t ever think it was because I didn’t love you enough. I stand here, not just believing but knowing that I will love you until my last breath. That’s true whether you walk away from me or you let me keep proving my love to you for the rest of our lives.”

  She covered her face with her hands in the same way I’d seen her do through binoculars all those weeks before. “I’m here for the next five months, Hayden. We don’t work together.”

  “Look at me,” I said, circling my hands around her wrists and uncovering her face. I swiped my thumbs below her eyes, hating that I’d caused her grief. “Five months is nothing.” I pulled out her hair tie, letting her chestnut-brown locks fall free, the ends caught by the falling sun. There she was. My Avery. “It’s all details. We’ll figure it out.”

  She swept her fingers over my cheekbone, shaking her head. “They’re important details and I can’t open myself up again. Not to you. Not when I don’t know how it’s going to end.”

  “I’ll tell you how it’s going to end. You’re going to marry me, we’re going to have twenty kids and we’re going to grow old together.” Fuck, I’d never thought a wife would be in my future, let alone kids, but being with Avery, that was all I could see. Her. Forever.

  She rolled her eyes. “I need you to be serious. If we can’t make dating work then what hope do we have?”

  “We’re way beyond dating, my love. Don’t you get it? You need to understand that when we met there was no going back. I belong to you now. You belong to me. Tell me it’s not true.”

  “I can’t. I love you.”

  My heart swooped. She was mine. “I love you more than you will ever know.”

  I took her hand and strode down the dock. “But if you want to nail down the details, plan it all out? Let’s go.”

  “Where are we going? Not to your hotel because—”

  “What? You won’t be able to keep your greedy little hands off me?”

  She laughed and part of me died that I’d had to wait so long to hear that again.

  “No, we’re going to my car. I have my laptop. We’re going to make a plan.”

  “A plan?”

  “Yeah, I’m going to figure out how much time I can spend over here. Maybe I’ll get an office or something.”

  “In Miami? You’re just going to move to the States, just like that?”

  I stopped suddenly and faced her. “You don’t get it, do you? I want you. And I’m going to do whatever it takes, and that means doing whatever you need.”

  “I think this might be my last season anyway,” she said. “My brother’s insurers were a pain in my ass but we have a charity that’s pledged to step in—” She stopped talking and looked at me, her eyes narrowing. “You found out the insurers had reassessed my brother’s benefits,” she said. “It was you! Lycan. Wolf. Shit, Hayden.” She stamped her foot on the ground but didn’t try to drop my hand.

  It was time for my final confession. I’d hoped to tell her once she’d agreed to be mine. I didn’t want money or any weird sense of obligation to color her decision. “The Lycan Foundation is my charity. They’ve agreed to fund your brother’s care. It really was the least I could do. I was the reason it was cut in the first place.”

  “You can’t do that. I can’t be dependent on you. What if we split, then what?”

  “Didn’t you just hear me?” I cupped her face in my hands. “We’re not going to split up. Not ever. And anyway, the money is ring-fenced for your brother. There’s no going back on that.”

  She sighed, her head resting against my palm. “It’s too much. I can never repay you.”

  “I don’t want you to. This was the right thing to do, whether or not I’m in love with you. I caused your brother’s health insurer to stop funding his care.”

  “No, Cannon did.”

  “Exactly. I brought them to your door. You can’t say no to this. It’s for your brother. And it’s excellent for my tax planning.” I released her and took her hand as she swatted at my arm.

  “Thank you,” she said as we began to walk toward the car again. “That’s an amazing thing you did.”

  “It’s nothing compared to what you’ve done for other people your whole life. This was just money. It’s nothing.”

  “You think we can figure out these logistics?” she asked, looking up at me.

  “I know we can. As long as we’re together, we can do anything.”

  “I’ve never been erect over a spreadsheet,” I announced as Avery pressed save.

  “Are you hard because of the spreadsheet, or because it’s finished?”

  We’d agreed I’d fly to the Caribbean as much as I could to catch Avery between charters, and in the meantime she’d figure out what she wanted to do now she could pursue her own dreams.

  “Because I’m looking at you,” I said as I reached for her, threading my fingers into her hair.

  Her gaze slid to my crotch as my dick pressed against my zip, trying to escape.

  She rose from where she sat and straddled me so we were face-to-face. “I think I want to go back to school. College,” she said. “I’d like to teach.” She shrugged as if she was almost embarrassed.

  “You’re amazing.” Even now, able to do anything she liked, she wanted to do something that would help people. “I love you more every second I know you.”

  She grinned and pressed her mouth against my jaw. “I like hearing that.”

  “That I love you?”

  She pulled back. “Yeah. I don’t feel so stupid for falling for you as hard as I did, for loving you as much as I do.”

  I groaned and pressed my hand against her ass, pushing her against my straining cock, and she ground against me. Fuck, she felt good.

  “You think college would work? I mean that’s four years. And my dad and brother—they’re in California. You’re in London.”

  “They can move, or we can move, or we’ll just split our time. Whatever you want.”

  “Are you sure you’re not just saying this so I’ll get naked?” She fumbled with my fly.

  “I’m definitely saying it so you’ll get naked, but I’ll still mean it after we’re dressed again.”

  “I only have twenty-four hours,” she whispered into my ear. “It’s not long enough. I know how good you make me feel.”

  I groaned and stood, carrying her to the bed. “Then I’d better get started. I don’t want you to miss out on anything.” I undressed her, then dumped my clothes on the floor until we were both naked. I stood over her, staring down at her perfect body, trying to take it all in. Jesus, I was a lucky fucker. I knew that whatever happened, however many more times Cannon tried to bring me down, they’d never succeed. I had Avery Walker and that made me a winner every day of the week.

  I didn’t know where to start with her. I was always so sure of everything in my world . . . except when it came to the woman in front o
f me. She constantly had me off-balance. Maybe that was why I loved her. I leaned over her, trailing my fingers over her thigh and dipping over her pussy. Her skin was hot and tight and as I pushed between her folds, so wet. Twenty-four hours? Jesus, I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to let her leave this room after a week. I had too much I wanted to do to her, too much I wanted to share with her.

  “We’ll have more time soon,” she whispered, as if she understood what I was thinking. She usually did. She circled her hand around my cock and my hips bucked toward her; I needed more, wanted to feel every part of her on me, over me, surrounding me.

  “There are so many things I want to do to you.” I crawled over her and rolled to my side, pulling her toward me, her back to my front.

  “As long as it involves me having an orgasm, I’m good with any of them.”

  I chuckled and hooked her leg back over mine and buried my face in her neck, savoring the feel of her skin sliding against mine. I pressed my palm to her stomach, shifting her toward me so my cock rubbed over her sex from behind. Her heat and wetness and the promise of what came next chased the breath from my chest. I dipped my fingers into her pussy and she sighed.

  “Fuck—condom,” I spat. I’d been so focused on getting her naked and touching her, I’d forgotten.

  I pulled away, but she stopped me. “Do we have to?” she asked, her voice small and quiet.

  She didn’t have to say anymore. I knew what she was asking.

  “There’s been no one since you,” I whispered, circling her clit. “No one except the memory of you.”

  “Me neither,” she said, shifting a little so she could look at me.

  Relief shot out of my chest as it became clear that although our feelings for each other had been stretched, they’d never reached a breaking point. On some level, we’d always remained committed to each other, even through the darkest of times. It was what I needed to hear from her.