by Nikki Logan
Dan pushed her away to look deep into her eyes, concerned. ‘What happened?’
‘Well…I seem to have made rather a good speech of my own.’
His smile fairly dazzled her. ‘That’s my girl.’ He kissed her again, before remembering. ‘Why were you looking for me?’
‘I wanted to apologise. I overreacted on the dance floor—didn’t give you a chance to explain. Brant helped me to realise you’ve been trying to protect me and your job at the same time.’
‘Brant did?’
‘He knows better than anyone how fine a line deception is to tread. I think he knew what you were trying to do. I should have too, and I’m sorry I doubted you.’
Dan thought that through. ‘Maybe he is as smart as you say.’ His eyes grew serious. ‘I’m sorry I’ve kept you at arm’s distance, Ava. I’ve held onto my hatred for so long it’s become part of me.’
‘Can you share it with me? Can I take some of it from you?’
He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against hers. ‘Would you?’
‘In a heartbeat.’
He was silent for moments. ‘He was a miserable man, my father. Literally and figuratively. When my mother left he took his anger towards her out on me. I reminded him too much of her. When I was smaller he used words—emotional blackmail, verbal abuse. I’d already lost my mother, and he threatened every day to leave me, too.’
He cleared his throat and took a deep breath. Ava’s hand tightened on his.
‘It worked for years. That and the denigration. When I got bigger, and the words bounced off, he started in with the physical abuse. That’s when your parents stepped in. Sometimes my dad didn’t even notice I hadn’t been home for days. He called me a no-hoper. A loser. As faithless as my mother.’
‘Oh, Dan…’
His arms tightened around her. His voice was pure gravel. ‘Hating her nearly killed me, Ava. But hating him saved me. It gave me purpose and courage. I channelled that into my surfing, and later my studies. I burned to prove him wrong. It was like air for me. I lived with him, so I understand why she had to leave. But I’ll never understand how she could have left her little boy behind with him. Unprotected.’
Ava buried her face in his neck.
‘Hey…’ He stroked her hair. ‘No tears. I just want you to know what kind of competition you were working against then. Even now. That nothing I did was done lightly.’
Ava dragged her mouth over his, tasting her own tears. ‘I understand. I’m so sorry.’
‘It was never my intention to portray you as you have been. To impact on your credibility. I know how important that is to you. Kurtz didn’t like it when I refused to play along. Unfortunately, you bore the brunt of his fear of me.’
‘Fear?’
‘I’m better than he is. I’m better than all of them. And they know it.’
Ava smiled. ‘Lord, I love that confidence.’ She looked him right in the eye. ‘And I love you.’
He crushed his mouth to hers and groaned. ‘I never want you to stop saying that.’
‘I said it nine years ago,’ she mumbled against his shoulder, where she rested her head.
‘Nine years ago I was so deep in the abyss I couldn’t see past my own selfish needs. But even back then I recognised your feelings. I thought it would hurt less ultimately.’
She nodded, remembering how very, very much it had hurt. ‘The severed limb.’
‘Except you were more like a phantom limb. Even after I’d gone I still felt you. Your complete, unwavering love. It was in every story Steve told. It was in every conversation I didn’t have with your father. I grew to hate that love because of what it said about me. That I could walk away like that from someone who’d offered me their heart.’
She stared at him. Resolute. Steady. ‘Do you remember what you said to me that night?’
He winced. ‘Which part of it?’
‘“I will never be with you.”’
His eyes dropped. Clouded.
‘I took that with me everywhere I went, Dan. For years.’ He opened his mouth to speak, but Ava pressed her fingers to his lips. ‘Knowing how that one comment affected me for years after, I can’t even imagine how an entire childhood of putdowns and abandonment must have impacted on you. It’s a miracle you’ve come out a decent human being at all.’
‘You can thank your father for that.’ He kissed the top of her head. ‘And yourself.’
‘Me?’
‘I may have been staggering around in my own personal morass, but I knew exactly where my light sources were. You. Your father. Even Steve. And your mother, for the short time I had her.’
Ava tucked her arms around him, holding on tight. ‘You’ve lost two mothers.’
‘But I’ve found true love. Not a bad consolation prize.’
Ava’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘You proposed to me.’
He smiled, pulling her close. ‘I sure did.’
She pushed away, her hands on his chest, and looked at him meaningfully. ‘Dan, listen. You proposed to me. We’re getting married.’
He blinked at her, and she spelled it out for him in small words.
‘My father is your father now.’
All the blood drained from his face, and then flushed back up in a rush. His jaw clenched and his eyes glittered with sudden moisture. Ava had never seen someone handed their dream before. Her heart exploded for him.
‘That’s not why I—’
She cut him off by stretching up to his lips, pressing them firmly against his, giving him a second to recover his composure. ‘I know. But it’s another consolation prize, huh?’
His answer was to sweep her into his arms and kiss her until they were both trembling.
Minutes passed with absolutely no distance between them, until Ava surfaced, rumpled and smudged. ‘Do you think there’s a fire escape somewhere close by?’ she said.
Her eyes must have given her away, because Dan smiled, long and seductive. He dragged his thumb along the lower ridge of her lip, repairing the evidence of his mouth’s assault. ‘I have no intention of leaving.’
Her stomach clenched. ‘We can’t possibly go back in there.’
He removed a dozen pins from her dishevelled hair and let the heavy locks fall naturally over her shoulders, disguising the worst of his onslaught. ‘No, I think we’ll leave Kurtz to talk his way out of this one.’
‘Then what?’
‘I was thinking…’ His hands roamed her body. ‘I just got engaged to the most beautiful and brilliant woman I know, and we’re standing in the linen store of the best hotel in Sydney.’ He kissed her throat softly and whispered into her ear, ‘And it appears my schedule is now unexpectedly clear.’
Ava giggled. ‘Dan, I have no clothes with me!’
‘You won’t need them.’ His lips trailed over her shoulder. ‘Except those shoes. You’ll need to keep those on.’
Her laugh turned sexy, and she dragged one of her three-inch heels up the length of his calf. ‘Gosh. What would my father say?’
‘He’d say about bloody time.’
EPILOGUE
‘SHE’S loving it! Look at her.’
Ava snuggled into Dan’s chest as they lay sprawled on his enormous couch, watching the widescreen TV across the room. On it, Brant and Cadence hammed it up for the cameras at an official AusOne party across town, celebrating the launch of the third season of Urban Nature—still Australia’s most popular lifestyle programme. Brant looked gorgeous, as always, tall and tanned, and flirting shamelessly with the female half of the crowd.
Cadence—resplendent in a black creation with torn shards of PVC all over it, and three-storey buckle boots—glowered and pouted and brought new meaning to the word surly. The cameras ate it up.
‘I just thought it would be nice if they could go to the movies together from time to time,’ Ava laughed. ‘I didn’t expect her to become the media’s darling.’
‘She’s a born extrovert.’ Dan chuckled against her
nape before pressing his lips to it. ‘You don’t dress like that if you’re hoping not to be noticed.’
Dan and Cadence had established a strangely warm friendship, considering Dan had outed her on national television. She was every bit as sharp as Brant, and her quick mind and good business sense had struck a chord with Dan. Besides, he’d found himself with a vacancy for the position of honorary little sister.
‘She looks happy.’
Dan laughed outright. ‘What do you get that from? The freaky stare, the grim mouth, or the hostile body language?’
‘Come on—look at them. He hasn’t left her side. Look how he’s letting her shine. Only a man deeply in love would take a back seat to his woman. She’s waited a long time for that chance…’
Dan moved against her, his lips pressing harder against her nape. ‘Speaking of waiting a long time…’
Ava switched off the remote and Brant and Cadence vanished. ‘Don’t you have some work to do?’ she laughed. ‘Come on, Mister Executive Producer. You owe X-Dream Sports. They saved your butt, putting you in charge of their surfing channel.’ Programming that Dan had pushed to number one in Australia. She glanced over to where Old Faithful was propped in the hall. Back in the water after a decade. Where they both belonged.
‘And you saved my butt by marrying me.’ He reached around to stroke her. She wriggled against him, scrambling free.
‘Seriously. You have a deadline, and so do I. I have to finish the Becher’s design by Wednesday. I’ve got three more on the wait-list.’
Dan sighed. ‘Okay. But not an all-nighter, eh? I want to watch you sleep.’
‘Stalker.’ Ava straightened her skirt and blouse as she stood.
‘Tease.’ Dan scooted out of her way, heading for his den.
Ava opened the door that joined the two parts of their home. Predictably, AusOne had repossessed her Winnebago almost immediately following the debacle of the awards night. Fortunately Steve had had the good sense to strip it of everything of Ava’s while she and Dan were holed up in the Milana, on their five-day retreat from the world.
Thank goodness for big brothers.
The entire guest house was now Ava’s office space. Stunning designs littered the surfaces, decorated the walls—all commissions which had come in since that disastrous story went to print and Dan’s spectacular proposal at the awards.
All publicity was good publicity, as it turned out, and there’d been no lasting damage done to Ava’s design reputation. Thanks to Dan. He’d taken a huge risk, but it had paid off. He truly was savvy when it came to the fickle entertainment industry.
Ava stretched, then sat at her angled drafting desk and pulled a blank sheet of paper over to try some new ideas. She’d barely lifted a pen before she heard the door open behind her. A moment later large, warm hands slid around her middle and soft, firm lips found her ear.
She smiled. ‘What happened to working, Mr Arnot?’
‘I missed you, Mrs Arnot.’ His hands gently brought her to her feet. Ava’s eyes fluttered closed as she felt Dan’s lips move against the side of her throat, his hard body pressed against hers from behind.
‘But X-Dream…?’
Dan slid his hands down her arms and took her hands in his. He whispered against her ear. ‘X-Dream gets me for ten hours a day. You get me for the rest.’
Ava felt the rush of excitement that always came when Dan was close. Followed closely by the deep, satisfying bond they shared. She twisted in his arms, slid her hand up under his shirt, and loved him.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-4820-9
LIGHTS, CAMERA…KISS THE BOSS
First North American Publication 2010.
Copyright © 2009 by Nikki Logan.
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.
www.eHarlequin.com