“Not just photos.”
Nick stilled.
“My story.” She set the cup down. “Our story.”
“Even more boring.” But her reminder was effective. He was responsible for bringing Hannah into everyone’s lives. It was him she’d trailed back from Europe. Zoe knew what it had done to her cousin Steve, how Hannah had almost destroyed him, using Nick’s friend in a spiteful jealousy game.
“Boring?” She smiled again. “Oh, I don’t think so. Your teenage girlfriend, seduced by your father.”
“You were twenty one, two years older than me.”
“Details.” She waved them aside. “And your father’s new wife is much younger than him, too.”
Nineteen years.
“No blackmail, Hannah.”
She rose, seductive promise in every curve of her body, triumph in her eyes. “Think about it, Nicky. Your stepmother won’t like the publicity, I promise you.” She dropped a slip of paper on the table. Her telephone number.
He could chart her exit by the male heads turning to watch her progress.
“Fuck.” He dropped money on the table and left.
“Fudge.” Zoe leant back against her desk, sending a stack of books sliding to the floor. She ignored them. Hannah was back—and just when Zoe finally had the opportunity to make Nick see her as a woman, a seducible woman.
“Hannah,” she muttered the name like a curse. Ten years ago Zoe had been a skinny schoolgirl giggling over equally skinny (and spotty) teenage boys, but she remembered how inferior Hannah had made her feel and how the older girl had wound Nick and Steve around her little finger, although they’d both wised up in the end—after Hannah waltzed off with Nick’s father.
Steve. Zoe slowly restored her desk to neatness, stowing away the incriminating sketchbook as she did so. Steve had taken Hannah’s betrayal worse than Nick, when you’d have thought Nick would resent his father’s involvement. But it was Steve who’d sunk into depression from Hannah’s games. She’d tortured both boys, using Steve to make Nick jealous.
Zoe sank down into the desk chair. There had been that night in the middle of winter. She had been doing her homework at the restaurant. Everyone else had been tidying up, closing up after the handful of customers who’d ventured out on the wet, cold evening. Steve had entered, talking wildly of suicide. Nick had entered behind him and she recalled the look in his eyes. He’d looked tortured.
Nonna had taken charge. She’d set Steve washing dishes, sat Nick down and told him he wasn’t responsible for the alley cat who’d followed him home. There had been counseling sessions for Steve, spoken of in whispers by the family, till Steve himself could talk of them, could open up, smile and accept his own intense personality.
And now Steve was engaged. Olivia was as placid as Steve was driven. They balanced each other.
Hannah couldn’t be allowed to threaten that peace.
“Zoe, I’m sorry Hannah turned up here.” Nick walked into her room and closed the door behind him.
“Why did she?”
He shook his head and paced the length of the room.
“Steve,” she began hesitantly.
“I won’t let her near him. Besides, it’s not him she’s after.”
“You?” That wasn’t any better from her perspective.
“Ha. She wants me, all right. As a messenger boy.” Nick shook his head again. “I shouldn’t have come in here.” He stopped opposite her at the desk.
“Nick, anything you say to me, is just between us. I won’t tell anyone.”
“I know that, chickie.”
She was half-resentful, half-relieved to hear the old pet name. He’d called her that back when they were kids.
Nick had been part of the family for years, informally adopted once her family realised that Steve’s school friend had precious little family of his own. His mother had skipped when he was seven. Heaven knew how many marriages she’d gone through since then, and his father had spent ten years and more proving that he could be just as careless. It had taken Cecy to settle Mr. Gordon. Nick had brought himself up.
He hitched a hip onto her desk and sat there, sideways to her, studying his feet. “I have to talk to Dad, but he’s somewhere in Africa. He wanted to get this last deal finalised so he could be home with Cecy for the birth and after.”
“A satellite phone?” Zoe suggested.
“I’ll try it and leave messages.” He rubbed his jaw with the heel of his hand.
She frowned. Nick wasn’t the kind to run to Daddy to get him out of a mess. If he needed to contact his father about Hannah’s appearance, then… “She turned up here because your dad’s out of the country. That’s it, isn’t it? This is about him, not you.”
“You could say I brought her into the family circle.”
“Huh.” Zoe clamped her mouth shut on the names she could have called Hannah. “That sort doesn’t need an invitation.”
“She’s here to cause trouble and she has the ammunition to do so. I don’t want to pay her off, but with Cecy…Dad might think it’s worth it.”
“Blackmail,” Zoe breathed. She stood up. “I’ll fix her. What a bitch. Cecy’s pregnant. After years of wanting a baby and Hannah…ooh.”
Nick caught her arm as she would have marched past. Off balance, her momentum swung her in against him. When he swiveled on the desk, she ended up standing between his thighs.
“Oops.” She braced herself with a hand against his chest. He smelled warm and male and excitingly of Nick.
His arms encircled her loosely. “I don’t want you involved in this situation. I’m sorry we can’t go to Walpole.”
“Of course we can’t.”
“But once I’ve dealt with Hannah—”
The delicious tingles down her spine faded. She pushed more determinedly against Nick’s chest and he released her. She stepped back. “I can’t take the week off anyway.”
“Oh?” He raised that damn eyebrow.
“I need to focus on my painting.” On landscapes and not guilty drawings of Nick the Unattainable. Hannah, bitch though she was, served as a necessary reminder. Nick might be a friend of Steve’s and of the family, but he was out of Zoe’s league. He was intelligent, charming, handsome and rich. He could—and had in the past—escorted international models to glamorous parties. She was simply an ordinary girl with impossible dreams and a secret sketchbook.
She folded her arms and forced her voice to steadiness. “If you need any help dealing with Hannah, let me know. Friends help each other.”
He stared at her for a long moment, then his mouth twisted. “Yeah, I’ll let you know, friend.”
Chapter Three
Nick got the hell out of Zoe’s room before he proved to her how un-friendly he was feeling. Having her in his arms felt so damn natural. It felt right. So how could she casually shrug him off and step away?
He stomped to his office and threw himself into his desk chair. He scooped up the phone and punched the programmed button for his father’s office.
Ailsa, his father’s executive assistant, answered.
“I have to get hold of Dad, now.”
The best part of Ailsa was she didn’t ask questions or list problems. “Give me thirty minutes.”
The phone rang in twenty.
He snatched it up. “Dad?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Gordon. Your father is out at the mine. Miss Ailsa Fitzgerald said the matter is urgent. He is not answering his phone. I have spoken to an engineer at the mine who has sent someone to deliver your request that he call you. I hope that is satisfactory?”
“Yes, thank you.” Nick hung up. From his window he could see the courtyard and the Loyolas’ restaurant on the other side of it. His car and Zoe’s stood in between, along with two lemon trees in wine barrel tubs and a bench seat.
Zoe. As mad as she was that he wanted her out of this mess with Hannah, he wasn’t changing his mind. Hannah was poison. Even if it set back his relationship—what relationsh
ip?—with Zoe, he wasn’t risking having her hurt.
The phone rang.
“Nick, are you there? Is it Cecy?”
“Cecy’s fine.” He heard his dad’s shuddering sigh. “We’ve got a problem, though. Hannah Swinton.” He waited a beat.
“I remember her,” his dad said cautiously.
“She has photos, sex photos, of you and her. She saw me, today. She says that if we don’t pay her, she’ll share the photos and a story with the media, a pleasant tale about how you seduced your son’s teenage girlfriend.”
“For frog’s sake. She wasn’t your girlfriend when I…”
“I know, Dad, but the media could make a circus out of it. Hannah’s counting on us thinking of the stress for Cecy.” Nick didn’t mention the age gap that the media would play up. The real gutter press would even look for signs of a relationship between him and his stepmother. That was the sort of story that would really get them salivating…and what they couldn’t find, they’d make up.
“Shit. Cecy wants this baby so much. I can’t risk…I won’t pay blackmail.” There was silence as his dad thought. “Stall Hannah. Call Jim Lennon. Ailsa will have his number. He’s a private investigator. He’s worked for me before. Call him. Tell him everything. You have to fight fire with fire. Hannah’s a self-centered, cold bitch. She’ll have things in her life that she won’t want coming out. Jim will find them.”
Blackmail to foil a blackmailer. “Will he find them in time?”
“You’ll have to give him the time.” It was his dad’s executive voice, then it cracked. “And for God’s sake, protect Cecy.”
Jim Lennon was a medium sort of guy. Medium height, medium age, medium looks. Even his office was ordinary and dull. There were no photos or desk ornaments, nothing to give a visitor a handle on what made the man tick. A plastic potted palm stood in one corner.
Nick might have worried, but the shrewdness in Jim’s eyes convinced him his father wasn’t crazy to trust the problem of Hannah to this guy.
“Stall as long as you can,” Jim said. “You dated her once. See if you can charm her. If she thinks she’s hooked you again, she might lay off the blackmail.”
Nick shook his head. “She won’t believe that one. She knows what I think of her.”
“Women like her can be blinded by their own vanity.”
Well, that was Hannah. Only her selfishness exceeded her vanity. “I’ll be sick if I have to pretend she’s attractive.”
“If it buys me a day, it’s worth it.”
“Okay.” Nick let out his breath in a resigned sigh. “I’ll try.”
“If she doesn’t buy your fake attraction, argue over the price she wants for her silence. I’ll give you figures on what the media outlets pay for this sort of story. Bargain with her. I’ll be working as fast as I can. I’ve contacts overseas that I’ll also get on the case. You said she’s originally from London and spends her time in the playgrounds of the rich and famous?”
“Yes. Paris, Monaco, Dubai.”
“If all else fails, string out making the actual payment.”
“What, pretend I’ve got her bank account number wrong?” Nick asked sardonically. “All right. I get the message. I’ll do whatever I have to do to give you time to dig up something in her background. I’m just saying, dig fast.” He frowned. “On a different topic, there’s one more thing I’d like you to do.”
Jim glanced up from the notes he was scribbling.
“Organise security for Cecy, Dad’s wife. I don’t want her to notice it, but I don’t want Hannah coming near her—and Hannah might try it. It would be a way of turning the screw.”
“Good point.” Jim added another note.
“I’ll call Hannah, now. See about setting up a dinner date. Expensive restaurant, best manners.”
Jim looked sympathetic. He could afford to now he had Nick’s cooperation. “It’s tough, but wooing her might work.”
Nick nodded grimly. The only woman he wanted to woo was Zoe.
Zoe felt sick to the stomach. She’d gone to the theatre last night with a group of friends. They’d gotten together first for an early dinner and had been walking down the street, still laughing from one of Ellie’s stories. Zoe had glanced over at Pyramid, the “in” restaurant of the moment, and lost all desire to laugh.
A formal suit emphasized Nick’s tall, muscled elegance. He’d looked every inch a billionaire’s son as he helped his date out of a low slung sports car. Hannah had emerged from the car in a dress that revealed more, much more, than it covered. And Nick had raised her hand to his lips, drawn her into his body and carelessly thrown the car keys to the valet, all his attention on Hannah.
It had to be a ploy, Zoe told herself desperately this afternoon as her hands shook and she abandoned all pretense of working to stare out the window.
It wasn’t just last night that bothered her. All morning Nick had been odd with her, distant. There’d been no smiles, no shared coffee break.
He had a lot on his mind—but so did she.
She couldn’t forget the odd way he’d repeated her word “friend” yesterday, or the way he’d grimaced.
Had she taken too much for granted? Trespassed too far on family friendship?
She closed her eyes a moment in embarrassment. Had she shown somehow that she craved more than friendship? But she’d been so careful. She’d been casual, carefree Zoe.
Except casual, carefree Zoe had conned him from the start.
“Damn.” She swung away from the window. Either she settled the issue—cleared her conscience—or she’d have no peace. Not allowing herself time for second thoughts, she marched down to Nick’s share of the studio.
She found him in among pots that needed glazing. But like her, he wasn’t working. He was leaning back in his chair, balanced on two legs.
“Nick, we have to talk.”
“Words no man likes to hear.” The chair thudded all four legs to the ground.
The dread tightening her muscles loosened a bit at the glimmer of humour. It said they were still friends.
But then he tried to brush her off. “Zoe, can this wait? I have an appointment in thirty minutes.”
“My confession won’t take that long.”
“Confession?” His eyebrows shot up. “I’m sure you haven’t done anything that bad.” He smiled with the innate charm that was even more devastating than his Viking-style handsomeness.
“I did.” She rushed the words out. “I knew you didn’t want to share studio space with me. I took advantage of you. You were sick, wretched with flu, and I brought you Nonna’s chicken soup and told you how if I couldn’t find studio space here, I’d have to go back to Melbourne. I went on and on about how much Nonna and my parents would miss me. It was blatant emotional blackmail. I made it impossible for you to do anything other than offer me the space John Li left vacant when he went to Europe. You’ve been really good about it, but I can’t blame you for resenting me.”
“Zoe, I don’t resent you. And you didn’t twist my arm to make me share the studio with you.” Far from it, he added mentally.
He remembered the day she’d walked into his flat after more than a year away. He’d been recovering from the flu. Over the worst of it, but still far from his best. He’d taken one look at her and known she was it.
He frowned at the memory. It hadn’t been his finest moment. He’d jumped up from the chair he’d been watching TV in, wavered dizzily and collapsed back. She’d hurried to his side.
She brought him alive. She was genuine and beautiful and he wanted a life with her. He wanted everything. He stood and walked around the table to stand in front of her.
“You didn’t blackmail me. We work well together. I knew we would.” He touched her downcast face and couldn’t resist stroking his thumb over her cheekbone. “You’re a beautiful, vibrant woman and I’m happy to share my studio with you.”
He wanted to say so much more, but Jim Lennon would be here in a few minutes. The private
investigator said he had information about Hannah and wanted to discuss it in person.
Zoe looked up at him and his gaze snagged on her mouth. It was killing him, not knowing how she tasted. Her tongue darted to her top lip and the tiny feral growl he made deep in his throat surprised him.
It surprised Zoe, too. He watched her eyes widen and her lips part.
“Stop me now or…” He lost the rest of the sentence as his mouth met hers.
He cupped her face with his hand and their mouths touched, tentatively learning each other. That was all that connected them, and yet, it would take a nuclear explosion to severe Nick from her. Zoe was responding to him!
He was drunk on the scent of her, sandalwood and turpentine and underlying both, the feminine invitation of her body. The poets were right. Zoe’s lips were like rose petals, like satin. Damp satin. He groaned as their kiss deepened and desire thudded heavily through his body.
Zoe stepped forward, closing the distance between them as she wrapped both arms around his neck.
“Sorry, but your shop assistant said I should announce myself.”
The hand he’d raised to drag her closer still, fell to his side. His other hand, that had cupped her face, felt empty as she yelped in surprise and jerked away.
“I…I…um.” She abandoned all attempt to say anything coherent and simply fled.
It saved Nick from having to introduce Jim Lennon, but he wasn’t feeling particularly grateful.
“I really am sorry,” Jim said. “Nice girl.”
“My girl.”
“I gathered that.” Jim grinned.
Nick flushed at his own primitive response. He indicated a chair for Jim and walked back around the worktable. “You said you had news. I hope so, because taking Hannah to dinner last night was a nightmare. She enjoyed it, but she didn’t believe in my so-called attraction for a moment. She played with me like a cat plays with a mouse.”
Outside, Zoe stopped worrying about her embarrassment and arousal, and paid attention to what she was hearing. She’d stopped in her headlong flight to her room, pulled up short by the sound of people in the front rooms and knowing they would see her as she passed the open doorway. It would be just like Marly to see her and call her out to meet customers—and Zoe was in no state to meet anyone.
Drawing Closer Page 2