Of course you love her. You’ve been in love with her since you saw her in the pool.
Ajax snorted and when I didn’t say anything he answered for me. ‘You stupid bastard. Only idiots in love are so goddamn self-sacrificing. Christ.’
‘But I—’
‘Look, I care about the well-being of my potential new architect and, believe it or not, I give a shit about you, so how about you stop being such a dumb asshole and go tell her how you feel?’
My heart twisted, the anger slipping from my grip. I tried to hold onto it. ‘It’s not that simple, prick,’ I growled.
‘Of course it’s that simple.’ Ajax straightened. ‘We all did bad things, Xan, but that was years ago, remember that. Things are different now. The past is over, and we have to move on.’ He gave me a pointed look. ‘So what I want is for you to stop sulking, go get that girl of yours and keep her here in Sydney so she can design me a fucking apartment building. Oh, yeah, and make her happy. A happy architect makes for an awesome designer and keeps them turning up to meetings.’
I gritted my teeth, ready to tell him what he could do with his orders, but he was already turning around and heading towards the door to my office.
‘Don’t let him win, Xan.’ Ajax pulled open the door and turned, his icy gaze meeting mine. ‘You let her go, then he wins.’
I wanted to tell him that he was wrong. About her. About me. About both of us, but as he went out of the door I couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d said.
It stayed in my head as I stared at my fucking spreadsheet, going around and around.
You let her go, then he wins.
Dad had never wanted me to have anyone. He’d kept me alone, kept me isolated, and I’d so desperately wanted someone. After Seven had died I’d turned inward, turned to the numbers and lost myself inside them. Told myself I didn’t need anyone. Told myself that money and numbers were all I required.
But that wasn’t true. It had never been true.
I still wanted someone. I wanted someone desperately.
Not someone. Her.
My heart squeezed in my chest, giving one hard beat.
Of course it was her. It had always been her and I knew it. That was why we’d sparked off each other so intensely, because we’d always been drawn to each other, helplessly, hopelessly. Fighting, resisting the pull.
And this week, when I hadn’t resisted, when I’d let myself have what I’d always wanted, I’d felt...at peace. Happier than I had been in a long time.
I loved her. God help me, but I did.
Yet...
Don’t let him win.
I pushed myself up from my desk sharply, adrenaline pumping through my veins. Because that was what I was doing, wasn’t I? I was still falling in line with his orders, even now, even years later. Denying myself what I wanted. Keeping myself isolated, keeping myself alone.
Jesus Christ. Dad might be in prison but I was still following his rules.
I was letting him win.
Poppy had told me that I was using her father’s death as an excuse and shit, maybe she was right. Maybe what I didn’t want to see was how much of my father’s puppet I still was.
The poor, lonely fucking kid who couldn’t even look after a stray dog.
My heart beat hard in my chest as I looked down at the spreadsheet sitting on the table. Poppy was right. Trying to find the money, trying to atone wouldn’t change things. Wouldn’t make things better. Wouldn’t make me feel differently about any of this.
There was only one thing that would.
And that was her.
It was time to stop doing what my father told me. Time to stop believing that I didn’t need anyone. That I didn’t want anyone. That I couldn’t take care of her and all those other excuses.
It was time instead to fight for what I wanted. Take what I wanted.
She loved me, even after I’d told her about my role in her father’s downfall and knowing about my tainted past. Even after the way I’d treated her for so many years.
She loved me, she’d given me her trust, and that meant something.
I couldn’t dismiss it like it was nothing.
I wanted her. I needed her.
And I wasn’t going to deny myself any more.
It was time for some new rules.
My rules.
CHAPTER TWENTY
POPPY
I DIDN’T GO to work the next morning. Instead I burrowed down underneath my duvet and buried my head in my pillow.
I should have texted Xander to let him know I wouldn’t be there, but I didn’t. I couldn’t bear to. He would know why and if that meant I didn’t get that stupid reference, then I didn’t care.
I didn’t care about anything.
It was over, him and me. I knew it the moment he’d thrown my safe word back in my face. The moment I’d told him I loved him and seen something in his eyes shut down.
It felt like he had taken my heart in those long, clever fingers of his and ripped it straight down the middle.
A knock came at my bedroom door, my mother yelling something at me through it. Something about work and money and how she didn’t have any and that I’d better be turning up at King Enterprises otherwise we were going to starve.
I ignored her, feeling like someone had stomped on my chest with steel-capped boots.
So that’s what you’re going to do? Lie there feeling sorry for yourself because some man told you he couldn’t give you what you wanted? That’s really what you’re going to do?
My throat closed, tears burning against my closed lids.
It wasn’t as simple as Xander not giving me what I wanted. It was about me giving him my heart and my trust, and in return he’d given me a glimpse of the kind of future I could have had, and then he’d snatched it from me just like that.
It had hurt me so badly. It made me so mad.
To realise what I wanted much, much too late.
And then you didn’t even fight for it. You let him send you away.
My mother’s hammering on the door had ceased and I rolled over, staring at the ceiling, ignoring the tears that slid down my cheeks.
I hadn’t fought for it, no. And I’d let him send me away because I was so angry that he’d used a word—my word—to stop a conversation he didn’t like. And all because he was scared.
I mean, I got it. When I thought about the feelings I had for him, I was scared too, but I’d been prepared to show him my heart, to tell him how I felt, and I had.
It was just so bitterly disappointing he couldn’t do the same, using my dad as an excuse to keep me at a distance, to keep himself safe...
How ironic that, at the end of the day, it wasn’t me who’d been the vulnerable one. It had been him.
So? What are you going to do now?
The temptation to stay in bed for the rest of the day was an attractive one, and I’d remembered to text Ajax about a scheduled meeting today that I was going to miss due to a headache.
Which was pretty crappy of me, but I didn’t want to turn up to the meeting with red eyes and a puffy face, not to mention trying to be excited about a project that would mean working in close quarters with the King brothers. With Xander.
Ugh.
Today I was going to do nothing. I was going to wallow and then maybe, when my heart didn’t hurt so much, I would figure out where I’d go from there.
One thing was for sure though; I wasn’t going to let Xander King break me.
I’d come back from it and I’d find a way to get what I wanted somehow. Because if there was one thing he’d taught me it was that I did deserve to have the things that I wanted.
That although I may not be valuable to the people who should have loved me, that didn’t mean I wasn’t valuable. And that one day I would be valuable to someone.
But not him.
My heart squeezed painfully tight.
No. Not him.
The next few days passed with agonising slowness.
Ajax texted me again with another meeting time and I finally managed to get myself out of bed in order to go. He sent a car for me and I tried to make myself presentable, using liberal amounts of make-up to conceal the shadows beneath my eyes.
The meeting was good though, because it got me out of my head, got me thinking about something other than my poor broken heart. Ajax kept things professional, not asking me anything about Xander. But his blue gaze was sharp and I knew he’d noticed that I wasn’t exactly on top form.
‘Hey,’ he said after we’d wrapped the meeting up. ‘Do you have somewhere to be this afternoon?’
‘No,’ I said, because I didn’t. Nothing except a hot date with a bucket of ice cream and a few action movies with lots of shootings and car chases to escape into.
‘Good. I want to show you something. A site that you might be interested in. But it’s a helicopter ride away.’
I frowned. ‘A site? What site? And a...helicopter?’
Ajax didn’t explain. ‘Are you coming or what?’
Well, it wasn’t as if I had anything better to do and I’d never been in a helicopter before. ‘Sure. Might as well.’
There turned out to be a helipad on the roof of the King building and the helicopter was one of theirs. The pilot didn’t speak, simply handed me a helmet with a headset, though he didn’t give one to Ajax.
I gave Ajax a surprised look, but he only ushered me towards the waiting helicopter. ‘There’s someone who’ll explain at the other end.’
It was all very mysterious, but I didn’t have the energy to argue. So I got in the big machine and within seconds we were soaring above Sydney, the blue harbour glittering, the Opera House’s white curves glowing in the afternoon sunlight.
It was a beautiful distraction and I let the view wash over me as we flew up the coast. I still hadn’t decided what I was going to do about leaving for London and even though some money had appeared in my bank account—money from working for Xander—I felt reluctant to touch it.
Looking down at Sydney unrolling beneath me, I found myself not wanting to leave. It was my home and one day I would build myself a house here, above this blue sea. Yes, I would. If it was the last thing I did, I would. Because I didn’t need a goddamn man.
I could build my own home myself and with my own two hands if I had to.
After about fifteen minutes, the pilot landed the helicopter on a piece of brush-covered headland with views looking back towards the city.
He gestured to me to get out and I did, bending low to avoid the rotors, the wind they kicked up mussing my hair. I was trying to tidy it when the helicopter suddenly lifted back into the sky again, leaving me standing by myself on a piece of clifftop land way the hell in the middle of nowhere.
I gaped at the helicopter as it disappeared, wondering what the hell was going on, when a deep, heartbreakingly familiar voice said from behind me, ‘Poppy.’
I went still, my heart suddenly raging in my chest, not wanting to turn around, not wanting the hope that leapt inside me to be dashed if I did and it wasn’t him.
But it had to be him, didn’t it?
There was heat behind me and, in amongst the scent of dry grass and salt from the sea, I smelled the clean scent of his aftershave.
Xander.
Tears filled my eyes.
‘Poppy,’ he said quietly. ‘Please look at me.’
‘What do you want?’ I forced out, my voice horribly croaky. ‘And why am I here?’
‘I wanted you to see this piece of property.’ He was still behind me and I was so achingly aware of the heat of his body and the scent of him. I think I could have said to the millimetre just how far away he was from me.
I swallowed, curling my hand around the strap of my handbag. ‘Why?’
A few moments of silence passed, broken only by the wind through the grass and the sound of the waves at the bottom of the cliff, the cry of the gulls over the sea.
It was peaceful here. Beautiful.
At least it would have been if Xander bloody King hadn’t been standing behind me.
‘I thought,’ Xander said at last, ‘that this might be a good piece of land to build your house on.’
Everything in me went quiet.
‘If not this place,’ he went on, ‘then there’s another couple of potential properties that you might prefer. It has to be right, because that house of yours is very, very special.’
The tears in my eyes threatened to leak out and I had to blink furiously to get rid of the moisture.
Ahead of me, the blue of the sea glittered beyond the edge of the clifftop, through the dark green trees that were growing over it.
‘What do you mean?’ I asked at last, unable to stop the cracks in my voice. ‘Why are you—?’
His hands were on my hips and suddenly he was turning me around and there he was, standing in front of me. Tall and dark, those midnight eyes compelling and intense.
My breath caught, my pulse out of control.
It was him. Oh, God, it was.
‘I found that money, Poppy.’ His fingers gripped my hips tightly. ‘I found your dad’s money. And I know it’s not going to bring him back, but I thought you might want it so you can invest in your dream. Buy a piece of property with it to build your home on.’
Shock washed through me. I opened my mouth with no idea what was going to come out, but he went on before I could speak.
‘I also emailed Liz Jordan, my architect friend in London, and I’ve set up a personal meeting with her for you.’
Another wave of shock hit me, though this time I kept my mouth shut, staring up into his burning gaze.
‘Again, you can use that money for air tickets to London. And all I told Liz was that you were someone with a lot of talent that I thought she would like. And I know she’s looking for young female architects to take on. But how the meeting goes will be up to you.’
Somehow I found my voice, asking the only question that mattered to me. ‘Why?’
‘Because I love you.’ The look in his eyes blazed, the words making me shake. ‘Because you were right. I was using your father as an excuse to push you away.’ He let go of my hips and took my face between his warm palms, his touch a lightning strike through my entire body. ‘I was afraid of loving you, Poppy. I was afraid I didn’t deserve you, not after the things I’ve done. I wanted someone that was mine, but after Seven...after Dad took her from me, I told myself I didn’t need anyone.’
A stupid tear rolled down my cheek, my heart pressing hard against my ribs.
‘But I do need someone,’ he went on, staring at me as if I was the only thing standing between him and a hundred-foot drop. ‘I need you, Poppy. I know I told you that I couldn’t give you what you wanted and I told you to leave, but... I’m here to tell you that I was a stupid bastard. That I don’t know if I can give you what you need, but I want to try. I want to give you what you deserve and that’s love. It’s not much, but it’s all I have.’
‘Xander,’ I croaked.
‘If you don’t want it, I understand. But I’ve spent the last couple of days organising the money and this property and contacting Liz so that if you don’t want me you’ll at least have something.’
‘Xander,’ I said again.
‘I’m not sure what else to—’
I put my finger over his mouth, silencing him. Because in that moment it suddenly hit me: if I deserved to have the things that I wanted, then he did too.
We deserved to have each other.
‘I want it. And I want you too. I want everything.’
He searched my face silently for a long moment. Then all the tension drained out of his expression an
d he took my finger away, bending to kiss me, at first hard and possessive before becoming gentle and so achingly sweet I could hardly bear it.
Then he lifted his head and cupped my face between his palms. ‘I thought you might have changed your mind. I mean, I hoped and I prayed that you wouldn’t. But I was such a prick to you.’
I leaned into his hands, my mouth tingling, the heat of his touch easing the ache in my heart that I’d been afraid was permanent. ‘You were afraid.’
‘That was no excuse.’ His gaze turned searching again. ‘Ajax told me that if I let you go, I’d be letting Dad win and I realised he was right. In pushing you away I was isolating myself the way he’d isolated me all those years ago. And I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t let him still have that hold over me.’ The intensity had returned to his features. ‘It’s time to take what I want and I want you, Poppy Valentine. I want you to be mine, to belong to me.’ The look in his dark eyes burned. ‘And I want to belong to you too.’
My heart filled up, pressing against my ribs, my lungs, making it hard to breathe and even harder to speak. But I forced the words out. ‘You were always mine, Xander King,’ I said thickly. ‘Right from that very first smile.’
And for a timeless, endless moment everything faded away, the blue sky, the dried grass, the sea, the salty ocean wind.
There was nothing in all the world but him.
And he gave that smile back to me, the same one he’d given me when I was ten years old, warm and full of welcome.
And this time I didn’t turn away.
This time I kissed him.
Because he was mine.
EPILOGUE
Xander
I LOVED POPPY VALENTINE.
First there was her talent, that showed itself in the perfect little house that we built together on that headland overlooking the sea. The house she’d drawn in her sketchbook. Her dream house, that turned out to be my dream house too—with a few minor adjustments, such as a helipad so we could get to the city quickly and an even bigger deck, with a daybed on it so I could make love to her with the sound of the sea in our ears.
Second, there was the passion that came out when she felt very strongly about things. Such as how, when I asked her to marry me a month later, she burst into tears, then shouted at me for surprising her, then kissed me like she never wanted to let me go.
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