by Nancy Warren
“As I was saying . . .” What the hell had she been saying? Oh, yes. “There are some holes in your resumé.”
“What holes?” he said, his gaze still fixed on her with clearly carnal intent. He could probably sell those damn surfboards on sex appeal alone. “Your eyes are the most amazing color. Like the water up in Queensland when you get near the reef. It’s not green, or blue, but something that’s both.” He touched her fingers with his. “Your eyes were the first thing I noticed about you.”
She felt the sun, warm against her face, heard the sounds of people at other tables, muted traffic sounds from somewhere, the bustle of the harbor. She felt the curious buzz of sensation as his fingers toyed with hers, then reality hit her like a slap.
“There are places in the world where your behavior could be construed as sexual harassment,” she informed him, pulling her fingers away.
“This is Australia, mate.”
“And what would you call what you’re doing—in Australian?”
His eyes both laughed at her and undressed her. “Your lucky day.”
“I suppose you subjugate women, too,” she muttered half to herself.
The look he sent her was potent sexuality. “Ah, now that depends on the woman.”
With such arrogance, what could she do?
She rolled her gaze and gave an annoyed tsk. “Holes,” she said, “in your resumé, such as your education. I can’t find any mention of your schooling in any of the biographical material about you.”
“Do you think a bloody surfie cares whether I did the HSC?”
“HSC?”
“Higher School Certificate.” When he saw her raised brows he said, “Whether I finished school.”
She blinked, unable to hide her shock. “Didn’t you finish high school?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
He shrugged his shoulders, then stared into his beer as though thinking. “I was bored. I had to, I don’t know, see the world. Make my own mark.”
He was still doing that, she realized, merely extending the reach of his marker. She wondered when he’d feel he’d made enough of himself, or if he ever would. She walked him through his business from when he’d moved to Sydney to work in a surfboard shop at the world famous Bondi Beach, become a surfer and instructor and then, with the overconfidence she’d already discovered was a big part of his nature, decided he could design a better board.
“That’s right. I won enough surfing competitions to get some money together, plus saved my pittance from working in a surfing shop, got a good mate to help me build my board—he’s now the chief engineer at Crane; you met him.”
She nodded, amazed that he’d come so far so fast.
“Then we strapped the board on my old bomb of a car and drove it ’round to all the shops and the shows. I also surfed on it and won more competitions with the new board. People started to take notice.” He shrugged as if to say and the rest is history.
She nodded again, knowing the rest of his story probably as well as he did himself. From that early success, he’d branched out. Bought a lot of real estate, a sizable interest in two television stations and a newspaper. He even owned a small commercial airline. Now, he was so diversified she doubted anyone knew his exact wealth, including himself. But the surfboard company was where he kept his office, and obviously the business he most loved.
“You’re also the spokesman for Crane products here in Australia. Do you intend to do the same in the States?”
He shook his head. “I was thinking you’d find a Hollywood star or one of those California surfie chicks in a string bikini to sell the things.”
She rolled her eyes. “I see you’ve given this a lot of thought.”
“I hired you to think for me.”
“Then you’ll agree to be guided by my advice as regards the California market?”
He sipped his beer, which sparkled gold in the sun. “I promise to listen to you. I make all the decisions.”
Control freak. A solid gold, no excuses, no exceptions, control freak. It wasn’t a big surprise to have her suspicions confirmed, right down to the fact he was trying to seduce her in order to control her.
“You were smart enough to hire me. Be smart enough to take my advice.”
“Let’s hear what it is first.”
She tapped her birthday-present pen against her notebook, then frowned and dropped it. Had Mark ever bought her the kind of sexy lingerie that was meant to be torn off? Of course he hadn’t. She bought her own underwear. Some of it was quite sexy, thank you very much. She didn’t need a man to choose her underthings for her.
“My initial idea is not to hide the fact that we’re Australian, but to promote the hell out of it.”
He held up a hand. “No koalas or kangaroos, or I’ll lose my lunch.”
“No,” she agreed with a grin. “No cute animals. Well, a cute guy.”
“Guy?” His glass hit the tabletop with a thunk. “What about my string bikini?”
“No string bikini,” she said with a small, smug smile. “I’m thinking a handsome young sun god. He has to be Australian. A model with some verbal ability or an actor with model looks. We put him into your clothes, on your boards. I’m thinking about giving the boards Australian surf beach names: Bondi, Byron, Surfer’s Paradise. We’ll even put a tiny Australian flag on each one.”
“Why?”
“Because you’ve got to stand out in an already crowded marketplace.”
“No. Why the fellow?”
“He needs to be the kind of guy who women drool over and other guys want to be like. Trust me on this one.”
He looked at her for a minute, and she wondered what it was about him that pulled at her. Especially when he didn’t answer her, as though trust was not an option. “If you’ve finished chasing that bit of lettuce around your plate, let’s go.”
As they walked back toward the office, he said, “You should take some holiday while you’re here and let me show you around Oz.”
Did this guy ever give up? “Thanks, but I don’t really have the time.”
“You need to get to know Australia in order to sell the boards.”
“No. I don’t. I need to know California. That’s where I’m marketing the boards.”
“Are you always a pain in the arse?”
She thought about it. “To men like you? Probably.”
A man was coming straight toward her on the sidewalk. She stepped to the right to give him berth, and he stepped to the left; they crashed into each other.
“I’m so sorry,” she muttered.
“No worries.”
“We walk on the footpath the same way we drive. On the left-hand side,” Cameron explained helpfully.
“Thanks, I got it. I need to get back to work.” She only had three weeks here, and a great deal to do.
“You surf?”
“No.”
“Never?”
“No.”
He stopped dead and stared at her. “You live in California and you’ve never surfed?”
“That’s right.”
“Why not?”
“I’ve been busy.”
“Too busy to surf?”
“I tried windsurfing once.” She shook her head at the memory. “I ended up with a strained wrist and my back in spasm. I’m not the athletic type.”
“You just haven’t had the right teacher.”
“Let me take a wild guess. That would be you?”
“Best in the business.” He said it with a perfectly straight face. “I’ll teach you.”
She let a woman in a hurry pass between them to give herself a minute to think. She had to admit, the man had a point. She’d sell his products a lot better if she’d actually been on one. Strained wrist, pulled back, she tried to be philosophical. That was part of the business she was in—temporarily.
Except the idea of spending any time in a wet bathing suit with Cameron Crane had all her warning bells clanging. “I�
�ll think about it,” she said, pretty sure she could find plenty of excuses in the three weeks she’d be here.
“Great. Oh, and can you keep Friday night free? There are some people I want you to meet.”
“What kind of people?”
“Experts in the field. You can listen to what they say about Crane boards.”
“A focus group, you mean?” Wow. She was delighted he was thinking strategically about the marketing.
“Yeah. Exactly. A focus group.”
Chapter Five
“You conned me!” she yelled over the din of drinking songs, pickup mating calls, and some drunks in the corner playing pool. Someone was going to get a pool cue–induced black eye any minute, she was certain.
“You wanted a focus group, darl. This is it. We can focus better if we sink a few tubes of Tooheys.”
Drinking in a pub at Cam’s old haunt, Bondi Beach, with a bunch of his “mates,” wasn’t exactly what she’d expected. Most focus groups didn’t involve mass consumption of alcohol and didn’t take place in a noisy bar, but this wasn’t the time to be picky. These guys were young, obviously surfing crazy, and, so far, reasonably sober.
“So,” she shouted above the music, “tell me about Crane surfboards.”
“Beaut,” said one. Although he could have been referring to the cute girl he was trying to make eye contact with. He’d said he was certain he’d seen her topless on the beach earlier and he was clearly anxious to renew the acquaintance.
“Best boards in the world,” said another.
“Why?”
“Dunno,” said a tall redheaded guy with an earring. “Well, okay, I was surfing Margaret River in W.A., and—”
“W.A.?”
“Western Australia.”
“Right.”
“And I purled off the top of the wave, another surfie rode right over my board. And the board didn’t break. Didn’t even crack. The other fellow’s snapped in two. Well,” he said, “goes to show.”
“Oh, and remember that time up at Noosa,” another eagerly broke in, and they were off.
Poetic, they weren’t, but these surfies were certainly committed to Crane products. Pretty much everyone in the bar looked like a surfer to her. She kept her eye peeled for the sort of man who’d be a perfect spokesman for the U.S. market, but none of these guys was right somehow.
Cameron Crane disappeared, leaving her alone while she asked her questions. She assumed it was so none of the surfers would feel coerced into saying nice things about his products when he was around, but soon he returned with two glasses of beer, one of which he placed in front of her.
“I don’t normally drink when I’m working.”
“It’s camouflage, so you can blend in with the natives.”
“And I don’t drink—”
“Well, you can’t drink sparkling water here.”
“I would have ordered dry white wine.”
The snort he gave her in reply made white wine sound worse than water. Whoever said Americans and Australians spoke the same language had obviously never met Cameron Crane.
He then took up his post beside her, close enough that she could feel the heat coming off his skin, feel the skin itself whenever he leaned in to explain in plain English some jargon she couldn’t work out. Since he didn’t do anything really stupid like put a hand on her knee, she ignored the “accidental” arm contact, and tried to convince herself those shudders she felt every time they touched meant she was cold.
Talking to all those surfers was thirsty work, and she was probably still dehydrated from the plane and the hot climate. Plus, she had to shout over the noise and the “footie” match on the TV and the “pokies,” poker machines that seemed to be a big draw. So she drank more than she meant to, not disliking the beer as much as she’d thought she would.
When they left the pub it was after one and she felt great, with a sheaf full of notes, a head full of impressions and a few ideas for the campaign that at one in the morning after a couple of beers sounded pretty darn good.
“You did all right in there,” Cameron said, putting a friendly arm around her shoulders. “You asked the right questions and they talked to you.”
“I’m good at what I do,” she said.
“I could be wrong, but it looked to me—just for a second—like you were having fun.”
“It was fun. And what are you suggesting? That I’m not a fun person?”
“I think you could have a lot of fun. You need to let go now and then, that’s all.”
Even in the dark she could hear the busy ocean with its crashing waves, feel the ever-present breeze against her cheeks. It was a little chilly after the warm atmosphere of the pub, and she shivered. Cam rubbed up and down her arms and pulled her in tighter.
It was cold, she told herself, that’s why she stayed snuggled against him.
“You’re a long, cool drink of water, aren’t you?”
He’d said that to her before and she’d ignored him, but after a couple of beers and the suggestion that she wasn’t any fun, she suddenly needed to know. “What is that supposed to mean? I’m cold? Wet? Colorless?”
Cameron chuckled, a low rumbling sound. “Is that what you think?”
“No. It seems to be what you think.”
“A long, cool drink of water . . . well, it’s what you want on a hot day, after you’ve worked hard and you’re tired.”
“I thought that was a beer.”
“Too right. But you can’t call a woman a beer. She might get the wrong impression.”
“I’m not convinced I got the right impression by being called a glass of water.”
“This is what I mean.” Before she had time to realize his intent, he pulled her up against him and kissed her.
If the impact of his gaze had affected her, the feel of his mouth on hers had her staggering: warm, strong, faintly beer-flavored, and devastatingly sexy.
Oh, no. No and no and no and no! Her head was clamoring denial but her body seemed to cut off all communication with her brain the minute their lips met.
She’d never believed all that malarkey about fireworks and rockets. To her, kissing had always just been kissing. Enjoyable, mildly arousing, a nice prelude to easy pleasure. But this was something different. The minute he kissed her, something went pop. Kind of like a champagne bottle, and then everything inside her seemed to foam and fizz.
Cameron kissed the way he did everything. Head-on, aggressive, no holds barred. There wasn’t a subtle bone in his body or, she imagined, an unobtrusive move in his repertoire. His tongue swept into her mouth without permission or apology and swept all her polite refusals away. His power was raw and earthy and something inside her responded. A part of her she hadn’t realized existed, calling up a wild urge to kiss him back.
He tasted of beer and hungry man and his body against hers felt tough and strong. He wasn’t a particularly tall man, but he was solid and hard. His unshaven face scraped across hers as he changed the angle and deepened the kiss.
Her fingers were in his hair before she’d known she planned to put them there, plunging in and enjoying the feel of the thick strands against her fingers, pulling him closer, trying to deepen the kiss even more.
He licked at her, teased and played at her mouth, his hands running possessively over her back and finally grasping her hips to pull her in tight against the bulging fly of his jeans.
Oh, how she wanted this and more. But as the lights of a car strobed over them, she came back to her senses.
“No,” she cried, pulling away from him. “Stop it. I can’t do this.”
“Yes,” he said, his eyes wild and compelling in the night, “you can.”
But she was already out of his arms and striding for the car.
They were silent on the drive home to Cam’s place. He obviously wasn’t going to apologize for his appalling behavior, and she simply wanted to forget hers.
What had she been thinking? She was practically married—she had
the tasteful diamond solitaire to prove it—and she’d indulged in wild kissing with another man. She twisted the ring around on her finger like a talisman all the way home.
Once more she regretted not moving to a hotel. She’d meant to, but somehow she’d been so busy with work and then fallen into bed dead tired for the three nights she’d been here, until it was easier simply to stay.
Cam had acted like a perfect gentleman, his busy schedule taking him out two of the three nights she’d been in his house, and on the one night they’d dined in together, Marg had stayed to serve dinner and clean up, and they’d talked business, adding a couple of his associates by conference call so she hadn’t felt she was alone with a determined seducer.
Not until tonight.
Once they reached home she mumbled an incoherent explanation of why she had to get straight to bed and left him gazing at her with a mixture of amusement and frustration.
“Hey,” he said from the bottom of the stairs, forcing her to turn and regard him from her position halfway up. She waited for an apology, but he said, “I’ve got a surprise planned for tomorrow.”
“What kind of surprise?” If she had to bet money, she’d wager his surprise involved getting naked and maybe introducing whipped cream.
“We’re going surfing.”
“Oh, but I . . .” She what? “I’d planned to work tomorrow.”
“That’s what I reckoned. Darl, you’ve got to surf to sell the boards.”
He was right. And besides, she’d have a whole day to prove to him that it was the beer that had kissed him, not her.
“All right.”
“Can you be ready by six?”
She nodded.
“Night.”
“Good night.”
“Hey,” he called again.
Once more she turned.
“If you get lonely in the night, you know where to find me.”
Not until she was safely in her room with the door closed did she drop her head in her hands and groan. Cameron Crane, the man she’d kissed so passionately, wasn’t just a man, but her client. And she was an engaged woman.
Worse, she could still taste him on her lips, still feel the imprint of him on her nerve endings—which clearly didn’t follow the same moral standard as the rest of her.