by Lisa Jackson
“I’m sick of fish,” she said churlishly.
“Well, you’d better get used to it, because it’s about all we brought along for this leg of the journey,” her mother snapped. She narrowed her eyes on her daughter. “And don’t you ever, I repeat ever, treat Hans that way again!”
Regina’s cheeks burned bright, but she tossed her head and shoved her plate aside.
Beth sighed and seemed about to say something else . . . when William, to diffuse the tense conversation, suggested they go into the salon for coffee and bridge.
Regina pouted and turned her attention to her cell phone and Stewart seemed more interested in the bar than cards, which left Hale and Valerie to take on Beth and William.
They lost the first hand and the next, and Hale barely said a word. Valerie’s stomach knotted, but she played as cleverly as she could, considering the fact she’d only had a few lessons. More than once she caught Hale staring at her, his eyes thoughtful, his mouth stern—as if she’d done something to deserve his disapproval.
The game progressed much too slowly for Valerie. She couldn’t wait to either escape from Hale’s scrutiny or haul him into a private corner and demand to know what was wrong. However, with everyone watching, she held on to her patience and played cards as if her life depended on it.
“We’ll dock in Victoria in the morning,” William announced. He slapped a card on the table and took the trick.
Valerie was starting to understand bridge, though when William and Beth started their rapid-fire bidding, she was sometimes at a loss and occasionally misplayed.
“How long will we stay there?” Regina asked in a flat tone.
“Just one day and night.”
“Good.”
“Bored, are we?” Stewart asked.
Regina slid a glance at Hale and sighed. “We have important things to do back in the city,” she said. “Well, at least one of us does.”
“Ouch,” Stewart muttered, glowering into his half-full glass of scotch.
“Prickly tonight, aren’t they?” William whispered out of the side of his mouth.
Nodding, Beth pursed her lips, laid down a trump card and proceeded to take the remaining tricks, winning the hand.
This was her chance to escape. “That’s it for me,” Valerie said, stretching. “Maybe someone else would like—”
“I’d love to!” Regina piped up, instantly losing interest in her phone. “Hale, you will be my partner, won’t you?”
Valerie was stunned. She’d expected Stewart and Regina both to take their turns at the bridge table. All night she’d planned for a little time alone with Hale, intending to find out just what she’d done or said to put him in such a foul mood. But now Regina’s eyes were shining, her rosebud lips drawn into an expectant smile.
Hale glanced quickly at William, seemed about to decline, then said, “Of course I will, unless Stewart wants to play.”
Stewart rolled his eyes. “I don’t feel like being massacred tonight, thank you. Mom and Dad are much too bloodthirsty.”
“Then I guess you’re stuck with me!” Regina remarked, her dark eyes twinkling as she stared at Hale. She fairly flew across the room to land in Valerie’s recently vacated chair.
“Stewart, really, you could play in my place,” his father offered.
“With Mom?” Stewart shook his head, but lifted one side of his mouth in a sly grin. “I might misplay a card and she’d ground me—or worse!”
“I never grounded you!” Beth responded with an amused laugh. “Not that you didn’t deserve it just about every day of your life!”
Valerie left them bickering happily. Pretending she didn’t see the furious glint in Hale’s eyes, she abandoned him to Regina, who was practically drooling to be his partner. Valerie had hoped that Regina had given up on Hale, as the past few days had been so carefree, but obviously, from Regina’s sullenness tonight and the girl’s absolute elation with becoming his partner in bridge, Valerie had been wrong. And she’d been wrong about something else—her reaction. Regina’s flirting with Hale cut to the quick. A sharp pang of jealousy pierced her. Stupidly she wished she’d never left the table—never given Regina a chance.
“Don’t be an idiot,” she muttered to herself as she closed the door of her cabin shut behind her. “You don’t care about him! You don’t!”
She threw herself on her bed, reached for the book she’d put off reading for over two years, only to discover the paperback spy thriller missing. Searching nightstand, table and bookcase, she came up empty. “That’s odd,” she thought aloud, but wasn’t about to go back to the main salon and check again. No doubt, Hale was still angry with her, and she had learned that sometimes it was better to avoid him until his black mood passed, which usually wasn’t too long.
She heard the tinkle of Regina’s laughter and Hale’s hearty chuckle. Her heart twisted. “It doesn’t matter,” she insisted, but as she unzipped her dress, she caught sight of her reflection. Her lips were turned down, and deep creases lined her forehead.
The dress, a pale peach confection provided by the president of Donovan Investments, slid to the floor. Valerie dropped onto the stool near her bureau. Her heart ached. She cupped her chin in one hand and stared at her mirror image. “You’ve got it bad, girl,” she told herself, recognizing the unthinkable.
Bending her head, she pulled the pins from her hair and felt the weight of her braid fall past her shoulders. She unclasped her necklace and dropped it into her open jewelry case. Snapping it shut, she saw the diamond on her hand—that horribly beautiful stone that reminded her that her engagement, this cruise and the attentions of Hale Donovan were all a farce.
Her cheeks grew hot, and she closed her eyes against the truth. Because, whether she liked it or not, she was falling in love with Hale Donovan.
“Dear God,” she whispered, the thought striking her like a thunderbolt. She threw on an oversized T-shirt and lay atop the bed, not bothering with the covers. The night was hot, the cabin stuffy. Snapping off the lights, she listened to the noise from the salon. She glanced at the bedside clock every ten minutes. The neon numbers seemed to mock her, and she tossed and turned, waiting for the sound of Hale’s footsteps in the hallway, hoping that he might knock on her door. For the first time since their journey had begun, she’d left the bolt on the connecting doors unlatched.
She wanted to talk to him . . . alone. Never before had she been afraid of her feelings, but never before had her feelings betrayed her. Except with Luke. Ah, yes, Luke, the reason she’d decided never to fall in love again.
An hour passed before she heard Hale in the hallway outside. His footsteps paused at her door. Her heart went straight to her throat.
But he didn’t knock, and she heard him open and shut his cabin door. Straining, she listened as he rustled about in his room and imagined him stripping off his jacket and tie, unbuttoning his shirt, pulling the tails from the waistband of his slacks . . .
Clamping her teeth together and clenching her fists around the thin blanket covering her bed, she willed herself to stay in her room, because if she made the first move, opened the door that was not only a physical barrier but the symbol of all that was between them, what would he say? What would she do? How could she stop herself from fulfilling the erotic fantasy of falling into bed with him?
She heard him sigh, and her heart stirred. Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried to sleep, only to stare at the clock and watch the minutes slip slowly by.
“Sleep—sleep,” she told herself.
She must have dozed, because the next time she looked at the clock the neon numbers flashed two-thirty. The cabin was hot and stuffy, her skin damp with sweat.
With a groan, she tossed back the sheet she must have pulled over her and sat up, feet dangling from the bed. She glanced at the connecting door, and her pulse leaped. She loved him. It was that simple.
Angry with herself, she shoved her hair out of her eyes. How could she have fallen for a man like Hale Donov
an, a man who valued a dollar more than anything, a man who seemed to have no past, a man willing to hire a woman to pretend to be his fiancée in order to deceive a friend and businessman?
Her head began to throb. And are you any better? William and Beth Stowell have done nothing but kind things for you and yet you continue to lie to them—go along with this cheap facade.
Knowing that sleep was impossible, she found her slippers and made her way through the darkened craft to the deck. She needed fresh air and space and time to think.
Once on deck she felt better. Moonlight cast a silvery path on the dark water, and stars blinked back at themselves on the inky surface. There wasn’t a breath of wind, and the ship, aside from the churning engines, was still and quiet.
Taking several deep breaths, Valerie walked to the side of the boat and rested her elbows on the rail, staring into the black water.
Sweat collected on her forehead. She closed her eyes for a second and experienced the uncanny sensation that someone was watching her every move. The hairs on the back of her neck bristled.
“What’s the matter—couldn’t sleep?” Hale’s voice cut through the stillness.
Valerie nearly jumped out of her skin. As she whirled, she caught sight of him, stripped naked to his waist, the muscles of his chest and arms visible in the half-light. Her eyes were drawn to the dark mat of hair covering hard pectoral muscles and the washboard of his abdomen. “I—I didn’t know you were here.”
He didn’t answer her, just regarded her with wary eyes.
“But I’m glad you are,” she forged on.
“Are you?”
What was this new game he was playing?
“Why?”
“I thought we needed to talk.”
He lifted a dark brow, and hooking his thumbs into the belt loops of his jeans said, “So talk.”
“Something’s wrong.”
“What?”
“That’s what I’d like to know. Ever since you came up on deck this morning, you’ve been moody.”
“Have I?”
He was baiting her. She knew it. Yet she couldn’t help but rise like a trout striking at a fisherman’s lure. “Haven’t you?”
He lifted one shoulder; the muscles flexed for a brief second. Valerie’s chest tightened.
“What is it, Hale? What’s wrong?”
His eyes darkened. He stared at her and said, “You lied to me.”
The accusation hung suspended between them. What was he talking about? “Lied?” Shaking her head, she turned one hand palm up. “I never lied about any—”
“No?” he cut in angrily, his lips twisting into a sardonic grin.
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“Positive!”
“Then tell me,” he said slowly, his nostrils flaring. “Who’s Luke?”
CHAPTER 10
“How do you know about Luke?” she asked, shaken.
“This . . .” He tossed a paperback book into the air and caught it deftly. Even in the darkness she recognized the cover of the novel she’d misplaced earlier in the evening.
“Where’d you get that?”
“You left it in the salon. I picked it up to give it to you, and it fell open to the first page.”
He didn’t have to say another word. Luke had given her the book two years before. She knew the inscription by heart. “For now and always—my heart will remain in your hands. I love you, Luke.” It had been an anniversary gift—given her on the one year anniversary of the day she’d met Luke in her political science class. He’d left her one week after giving her the book.
Striding across the deck, he handed her the paperback. “I thought there wasn’t anyone else.”
“There isn’t.”
“So why bring the book with you? As a reminder?”
“No . . .” She flipped through the pages, then tossed the paperback onto a nearby table. With a frown she admitted, “It’s taken this long to get over him.”
In the shadowy moonlight, Hale’s face appeared rugged, his anger clear in his angular features. “How long?”
“Two years.”
“And there’s no chance of the two of you getting back together?”
“No!” she snapped, then bit her tongue and tried vainly to control her rapidly escalating temper. “And what business is it of yours anyway?”
“I just don’t want him showing up and becoming the fly in the ointment, so to speak. You said there were no boyfriends or jealous lovers that I’d have to worry about.”
“There aren’t.”
“Except for Luke.”
“Except for Luke,” she repeated, goaded and wishing to knock Hale down a couple of pegs. He had no right to make her feel guilty about loving someone before she’d met him and she intended to let him know it. “Nowhere in our agreement did it say I wasn’t allowed to have a past. What happened two years ago can’t possibly matter.”
“Maybe.”
She couldn’t stop herself. His high-handedness brought out the worst in her. Shaking, she pushed herself upright and tilted her face upward, her eyes blazing into his. “Well, at least I have a past. I have friends and family and yearbooks and memories of my life for the past twenty-four years, but you”—she gestured wildly with her hands—“as far as I know, you didn’t exist until you entered college. You have nothing, not one single thing to prove you were even alive!”
Sucking in a swift breath, he surrounded both her wrists with steel-strong fingers. “Enough!”
“What is it, Hale? What are you hiding?”
“Nothing, damn it!”
“Well, neither am I!” She yanked her hands back and started for the stairs, but he caught up with her.
As quick as a cat, he caught one hand in his and whipped her around. “What happened to our truce?”
“You abused it—by prying!” She held up the paperback and wagged it in his face.
“And you abused it by lying.”
“I never lied.”
“Just left out some important details.”
“But not my whole life, Hale,” she said, letting out her breath. “I didn’t hide my whole damned life from you. You met my mother, saw where I lived, asked questions and I answered. But me, I’m faced with a brick wall.”
“Maybe I don’t have a past,” he said softly.
“That’s crazy—”
“It’s very sane. Believe me.” He relaxed his grip, but kept his fingers around her wrist. In the half-light she noticed a sadness steal across his features, gentling the hard angles of his face.
What had he been like as a boy? she wondered, and ached inside that she hadn’t known him then. Had he always been so jaded, so callous—or had his past shaped him into the hard-edged businessman he’d become?
He lowered his eyes to her lips and swallowed. Gently, he moved his fingertips along the insides of her wrist. Slowly he tugged, pulling her forward, bending his head and suspending his mouth above hers, his breath fanning her chin. “Oh, Valerie,” he murmured on a sigh as soft as the night. “Sweet Valerie . . .” He touched his lips to hers, tasting and feeling.
Valerie’s pulse leaped to life as his kiss, starting so chaste, deepened with a passion that flowed from his body to hers. Her heart clamored. She pressed her body to his, her soft flesh molding perfectly against his thighs, hips and chest.
Taking her hands within his, he surrounded her, wrapping his arms so tightly around her that her breasts were thrust against him. Covered only by the thin T-shirt, her nipples were pressed intimately against his rock-hard chest. Responding to the nearness of him, smelling the musky scent of his maleness, tasting the salt on his lips, she pressed closer, opening her mouth, feeling her nipples harden and ache. Love me, she silently begged.
“What am I going to do with you?” he murmured into her open mouth. His tongue penetrated her mouth just then, causing a quicksilver flame to shoot through her blood, stirring a response so deep within her she quivered to her
very soul.
Pulling her wrists free, she wrapped her arms willingly around his neck and returned his kisses with the fire of her own. What was there about this complex man that brought her close to tears one second, fired her with fury the next, then within a split second consumed her with a longing so intense she could only think of making love to him?
She was warm inside—with need and want. Warm with secret fires that no other man had ever stoked. Please, Hale, love me, her mind screamed silently, while she battled that very love herself.
He lifted his head, his eyes silver with passion, his hands shaking as he placed them on each side of her face. “This—this can’t happen,” he rasped, trying and failing to control his breathing. “Not yet.”
“Not ever,” she agreed.
“Oh, God.” He ground his teeth and released her, clearing his throat and shoving his hair from his face. “I should never have hired you. I should’ve known the first time I laid eyes on you that this would be a mistake!” But instead I persisted—hounding you—nearly forcing you because deep inside I wanted this moment, I wanted to feel you tremble in my arms. Damn it, from the first moment I saw you, I wanted to make love to you.
Hale walked backward until his buttocks thumped against a mast. His blood thundered, his head pounded and his heart was thudding like a sledgehammer. Mouth dry, he slammed his eyes shut against the seductive vision she created. With moonlight in her hair, her eyes glazed with desire, he could barely control himself. He clenched his fists behind his back and pressed the back of his hands hard against the mast. “I think we’d better call it a night, Valerie.”
Before he did anything foolish like kissing her again, he forced his eyes open and strode to the stairs. His steps were lightning quick as he headed straight to the cabin. Damn, but his hands were shaking and the fire in his loins wouldn’t quit. Just the thought of her, warm and pliant in his arms, was enough to turn him inside out.
He threw himself on the hard bed. Then moaning, he rolled over and squeezed his eyelids shut, knowing he’d never fall asleep and trying to block out all thoughts of her.