Hold Me Closer (Sea Island Brides Book 1)

by Kelly, Georgia

  “You should know better than to believe that’s entirely possible,” his mother said. “The press will always tell the story their way.”

  “Maybe,” Hudson said. “But I like to be holding at least some of the cards.”

  His mother and Jilly excused themselves to go refill their drinks, leaving Annabelle alone with Hudson.

  “You’re always thinking about the business angle of things, aren’t you?” she said. “Do you ever just relax and have a good time?”

  “There will be plenty of time for that once this acquisition is finalized. Right now, this deal is the only thing that matters to me,” he said.

  The hard line of his jaw tensed as he spoke, and it was clear how much he cared about his family’s business. No surprise there. It was abundantly clear to Annabelle that Hudson would do whatever it took to be a successful CFO. She might have admired him for it too, if it wasn’t for the fact that he didn’t care who got hurt in the process.

  “Can I ask you a question?” She turned to look at his mother and sister who had drifted over toward the pool.

  “Of course,” he said, following her eyes.

  “What do they think of this phony engagement plan? I mean, obviously you’ve already told them about it, but do they approve?”

  “They agree it’s the best way to avoid a scandal,” he said. “My twin brother Harlan has his doubts about the plan, but everyone else knows it’s the best way to turn the tide in our favor.”

  Annabelle straightened at the mention of Harlan’s name. “Where is your brother?" she asked casually, her heart racing. "I was hoping to meet him tonight.”

  “Harlan was in town for a few days between acting gigs, but he’s just flown to Japan to shoot a small role in a new movie,” he said. “We’re hoping some positive press in Japan will help convince Takahashi to close the deal.”

  Annabelle nearly choked on her mint julep. Japan? That was a world away. All her hopes of speaking to him in private went out the window.

  “When is he coming back?”

  “After the deal is finalized, I hope,” he said. “My brother Jack is over there, too. He thinks the owner of the company has been stalling because he’s not sure he wants to trust a family of American kids with his precious company. This engagement couldn’t have come at a better time. In a way, the tabloid photos were a blessing in disguise. Maybe you’re my guardian angel.”

  The way he looked at her sent sparks flying below her navel. She doubted he would still feel the same way if he knew she was the one who’d set him up. Still, the attraction between them was undeniable. She fought the urge to move closer. To feel his warmth against her skin.

  It was distracting, and it annoyed her. She didn’t want to feel this way about him. She wanted to hate him.

  Annabelle didn’t dare to even look at him. She was terrified of the way her body reacted to his simplest touch. She blamed the romantic setting. The wind in her hair. The waves crashing onto the sand just a few feet away. Any man standing next to her would surely bring about the same response under these circumstances. There was nothing special about this particular man. She needed to believe that.

  “Annabelle.”

  He moved closer and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Annabelle wrapped her hands tighter around her glass, doing her best to concentrate on the condensation gathering on its surface.

  “There’s something I need to tell you.”

  Curious, she looked up at him, trying to read his expression. Had he discovered her secret? A flash of panic passed through her, but as she studied his face, she could easily see that it wasn’t anger he was feeling. It was something far more dangerous.

  Desire.

  “Even before those pictures came out in the papers, I was having a hard time getting you out of my mind.” He put a hand on each of her shoulders and gently spun her around to face him. “You have no idea how difficult it was to walk away from you that day by the pool. Maybe now that our circumstances have changed, I won’t have to walk away.”

  Was he being sincere? Or simply trying to take advantage of the situation and her agreement to play the part of his girlfriend?

  Annabelle clenched her teeth. If he thought getting her into bed was going to be easy, he had another thing coming.

  “I suppose this is the moment where women usually fall into your arms, grateful to be in your presence.” There was more bite in her voice than she intended, but Annabelle was having a hard time controlling her emotions. How could she have let herself be pulled in by his charms? Hudson Montgomery was the enemy. Plain and simple. He wanted to use her for his own benefit, then throw her away.

  Well, he had another thing coming to him if he thought he could treat her like every other woman he’d been with over the years.

  Hudson cleared his throat, a questioning look darkening his handsome features. “I didn’t mean it like that at all.”

  “I understand what you meant, Hudson. You’ve been a very good boy for the past year or so for the sake of this acquisition, but now that everyone thinks you have a legitimate girlfriend, why not make the most of it?”

  The look on his face told her that she was closer to the truth than she realized. The rat was actually trying to get her into bed now that their relationship posed no threat to his business deal. She was nothing more than a plaything to him. How very romantic.

  “Wow, I’m actually right, aren’t I?”

  “If I remember correctly, you were the one who showed up at my house in a bikini, ready to put your career on the line,” he said. “Are you telling me that you weren’t here to seduce me?”

  Annabelle’s heart raced and her hands felt suddenly numb. She couldn’t very well tell him the truth about why she had been coming onto him that day. “I know what it must have looked like to you,” she stammered. “But I was desperate to get a great story that would open my boss’s eyes and promote me to full reporter. Considering your past with women, I thought the best way to get a story was to flirt and be sexy.”

  The lie rolled off her tongue, gaining more confidence as she spoke.

  The smile disappeared from Hudson’s face. “So, you’re saying your performance here by the pool was all an act?”

  He rubbed his forehead and paced the tiled walkway.

  Annabelle stood in silence, listening to the ocean as she watched him struggle with his thoughts. When he stopped abruptly and turned to her, she felt the seriousness in his blue-green eyes pierce straight through to her heart. “Did you sell those photographs to the press?”

  “No,” she said honestly. “I can promise you that I was just as mortified to see those tabloid photos as you were.”

  “I’m going to trust you, Annabelle. But let me make it clear that lying to me would be a very bad idea.”

  Annabelle felt as if the breath had just been knocked out of her. Her knees weakened as the weight of her lies bore down on her. Eventually, Hudson was going to find out the truth about those photographs, and when he did, he would never forgive her.

  “I hope you’ll excuse me, but I am so tired. I really should get to sleep.”

  As she turned to leave, she could tell by the line of his jaw that Hudson was angry. Maybe he was doubting his choice to invite her into his life. Or maybe he was just so used to getting what he wanted that he couldn’t stand the thought of someone turning him down.

  He didn’t call after her or try to follow her, and she didn’t dare look back once she’d found the strength to walk away.

  Chapter Five

  “If you’ll follow me to the study, there are a few things I’d like to go over with you.”

  Hudson stood in the doorway of the breakfast nook the next morning and waited for Annabelle to finish her orange juice. After last night’s unexpected rebuff, he half expected all of his longing to disappear. Instead, the opposite was true. She looked more delicious than ever in a short jean skirt and black t-shirt.

  He led her to an interior room lined from floor to
ceiling with thick, hardbound volumes. The study was his favorite room in the house. Being in here reminded him of his father, who had worked long hours here when Hudson was a child.

  He motioned for her to take the seat across from the large antique pine desk that had been in his family for over a century.

  When he took his place in his father’s old chair, he was all business. It was technically his older brother Jack’s chair now, but in his absence Hudson had become the face of the local operations.

  Usually, anyone sitting in Annabelle’s position was immediately intimidated by him. Annabelle, he was shocked to find, looked confident and unaffected. He had to admit that her constant ability to stand up to him as an equal was impressive.

  And sexy.

  Most of the women he’d been with were quick to agree with anything he said. Even in his every-day business dealings since he’d taken over more of the company duties, he was constantly frustrated by the fact that people were afraid to disagree with his ideas or to stand up for what they believed in if those beliefs happened to contradict his own.

  Annabelle was different. She wasn’t afraid to speak up about what she wanted.

  “I think it’s important for us to sit down together and discuss any questions you have about our current arrangement,” he began, clasping his hands together. “There are also a few ground rules I would like to go over before we continue with our engagement announcement in a couple of weeks.”

  When she didn’t speak, he continued.

  “How did you sleep last night? I hope the cottage was comfortable for you?”

  For the first time that morning, Annabelle’s face broke out in a smile that lit up her entire face. “Yes, oh my gosh, the cottage was amazing. I adore tabby houses.”

  Her happiness lifted the tension from the previous night’s argument, and his shoulders relaxed slightly. “Do you have any questions before we discuss the rules?”

  “Why don’t you tell me what your rules are, then I can tell you whether I want to change them or not.” The challenging look she flashed at him as she crossed her tanned legs made him shift in his seat. He looked at her full lips and thought of the way it had felt to kiss them.

  Tearing his gaze away, he tried to focus on the purpose of their meeting. “I wrote down a few guidelines that should help us discuss the boundaries of our agreement. If you have any questions or suggestions as I read through them, please, just let me know.”

  On the outside, he sounded like his normal self, conducting a standard business meeting. But on the inside, he was picturing her half-naked body pressed against his. The image of her stretched out on the beach, his body hovering over hers in the sand, flashed through his mind, intensifying his need for her.

  “Number one,” he managed to say, doing his best to push those thoughts beneath the surface. “It’s important that no one outside of the Montgomery family knows that our relationship or pending engagement is an act. You cannot tell your friends, your old boss, your family, no one. The only people who are aware of our arrangement are my immediate family and my secretary. All of our household staff, from our chef to the limousine driver, have to believe that we are in love and getting married. The slightest leak to the press and we’re finished.”

  “Okay.”

  He looked up from his paper and stared into her eyes. She seemed so unaffected by him, and here he was, tortured by thoughts of what it was like to feel those warm, lush lips against his own. “That also goes for after the acquisition has gone through,” he continued. “Even if it’s ten years from now and someone asks you about our relationship. Whatever we decide on as our public story has to be the story we tell everyone from now on.”

  She offered no protest to his first rule, and he had to wonder if there was anyone she was close to in her life. He’d checked into her background before proposing this deal, and knew she’d been through some hard times. Losing her parents at such a young age must have been very hard on her. He wished he could talk to her about her past. Get to know her inside and out.

  “Is there anyone you’d like to invite to the engagement party? You have a cousin you’re close to, right? Would you like to invite her?” At the mention of her cousin, Annabelle’s smile faded and she leaned back in her seat.

  “No,” she said sharply. “I’d rather not bring my family into this, if that’s okay with you.”

  The sadness and fear that fell over her features made him want to reach for her. He was struck by the force of her emotions. When she smiled, he felt the whole room light up, but when she was sad or angry, it tore him up inside. What the hell was wrong with him? A woman had never affected him like this before, and it left him feeling out of control and frustrated.

  “If you’re scared of them finding out about our engagement, you have to realize that this is going to be front page news. They will find out eventually. Trying to hide it would be pointless.”

  “I’m not trying to hide it,” she said, shifting in her chair. “But I don’t see any point in inviting anyone to my engagement party when it isn’t even real.”

  “That’s the point, though. To convince everyone that it is real.”

  “There’s no one,” she said. “I’ll follow your rules, but you need to respect my privacy and my decisions about the people in my life.”

  Her tone reminded him of the way he spoke when he was solid on a point and was not willing to back down. He knew better than to push the issue, so he moved on, but in the back of his mind, he wondered why she was so protective of her personal life.

  “Moving on,” he said, picking up the paper on his desk again. “Number two. Everything you say to the press should show the Montgomery family in a favorable light. Basically, to the press, we need to appear happy and in love.”

  To his relief, the tension in her body relaxed and she was back to her normal self again.

  “Does that go for after we break up, too? Or can I pretend to be your bitter ex-fiancée? You know, tell everyone how you broke up with me through email and didn’t buy me enough diamonds?”

  “Can a woman ever have enough diamonds?” he joked, and she laughed. The sound filled the room, warming his body from head to toe.

  “And what if the press asks me how we met? Or where we went on our first date? Or even whether you were a Boy Scout when you were little?”

  “Those are good questions. We’ll need to come up with a story and stick to it. As for the Boy Scout question, the answer is yes.”

  “Why am I not surprised?”

  She giggled, and Hudson leaned back in his chair to study her. So far, Annabelle was full of surprises. He had no doubt there were many more surprises lurking beneath the surface.

  He intended to dig deeply until he’d uncovered every one of them.

  Last night, his ego was wounded when she said she was only coming on to him to get a good story. Reporters had been treating him like that for as long as he could remember. In fact, most women treated him like that, thinking they could use their bodies to get anything they wanted from him.

  He’d had to learn about that the hard way. Thoughts of Haley rose to the surface, still painful after almost seven years. Never again would he let a woman into his heart like that. It gave them too much power and control.

  Annabelle might have wanted to get a good story, but she was lying when she’d said she wasn’t attracted to him. He could see it in her eyes every time she looked at him. He could feel it in the air between them, snapping with all the tension of two people who were meant to be lovers. Before she left Cottonwood Plantation, Annabelle was going to be his. It was the only way he could get her out of his system.

  “There’s just one more thing I wanted to discuss with you, Annabelle.” He stood and circled around the desk until he stood directly in front of her, his eyes drawn to the curve of her breasts, straining against her tight black shirt. “If we’re going to make this believable, we’re going to have to get comfortable being close to each other. Touching each other
. Even kissing. Are you going to be okay with that?”

  The air in the room seemed to change as he moved closer to her. A feeling of grand anticipation swelled within him as she rose, her body so close he could hardly resist the urge to crush her to him.

  “I understand what you’re saying, and I completely agree with you,” she said, stepping around him. “But let’s leave the show for when there’s an audience.”

  She turned the brass handle and opened the door, disappearing into the hallway.

  Frustrated and aroused, Hudson leaned back against the edge of his desk. He was sure that she wanted him, but something was holding her back. Every time he got close to her, she threw up another wall. Good thing he wasn’t the type to shy away from a challenge.

  Before this acquisition went through, he was determined to watch all her walls come tumbling down.

  Annabelle couldn’t get out of Hudson’s office fast enough.

  As soon as she was alone in her tabby cottage, she flopped onto the couch and let out a deep sigh. She was supposed to despise him, but every time she got close to Hudson Montgomery, she wanted to pull him down on top of her, to feel the weight of his body moving over hers.

  At the same time, she wanted to punch him in the face. It was like being on an emotional roller-coaster ride that never ended.

  Anger. Desire. Passion. Outrage. All of the above.

  Before she could work through her feelings, the cell phone on her bedside table began to chirp. Annabelle reached for it, her shoulders tensing as she read the caller ID. Julia. Perfect timing. Now she could add guilt and worry to her list of emotions this morning.

  How was she going to explain this to Julia? In her original plan, Julia wasn’t supposed to find out about any of this until after Annabelle’s blackmail plan had worked. She figured the joy of her success would keep her cousin from spending too much time getting mad at her for doing something so stupid and reckless.

  Of course, the original plan was toast. And Hudson was right. Everyone she’d ever known would learn of her engagement once the papers got hold of the news.