One Real Man (Entangled Bliss) )

by Kwan, Coleen

  “It’s strictly temporary. I won’t be here for very long. I’ll be returning to Sydney soon.” As Paige spoke, she realized how important it was to hear herself say those statements. Verbalizing her goals made them more concrete. She would escape from this hellhole. She would pull herself back to where she belonged—which was definitely not being Owen’s damn housekeeper.

  Ally nodded, her expression even more sympathetic. “I heard what Seth did to you,” she said softly. “It was despicable. I can’t believe he’d be so callous. He wasn’t like that before.”

  Paige drew in a breath, her chest too tight. “You mean, before he met me.”

  “Oh, I didn’t mean that!” The other girl’s face dropped. “I mean…before you and he went to live in London. From what Nate’s told me, it sounds like that’s when he changed, when he started mixing with a different crowd.”

  Reaching for another plate, Paige wearily rubbed the back of her arm across her brow. She was so tired of analyzing her failed marriage. What did it matter when or why Seth had changed?

  “I’ll get over Seth.” She pulled back her shoulders, lifted her head. “After all, you did.”

  Ally nodded. “It’s good you’re Owen’s housekeeper.”

  The plate almost slipped out of Paige’s hands. “Good? Afraid I have to disagree with you on that one. The pay stinks and Owen isn’t nice.”

  “Aww, I know he was blunt with you earlier, but that’s just his way of hiding his insecurities. He may not admit it, but he’s lucky to have you as his housekeeper.”

  “Insecurities? Owen has insecurities like I have pimples.” As soon as Paige said that, she sneaked a quick peek at her reflection in the nearby stainless steel toaster. No, no pimples, thank God. She straightened to find Ally gazing at her, head tilted in speculation.

  “He’s not looking forward to all the business entertaining he’ll have to do soon, especially in this town where everyone knows what he used to be. You could give him a few tips, maybe even be the hostess for him.”

  Paige threw back her head and burst out laughing. She couldn’t help it; Ally’s suggestion was so ridiculous. As she sobered up, she realized Ally looked a little peeved. “Sorry about that.” Paige shrugged, returning her attention to the dishes. “But the idea of me playing Owen’s hostess is just so…” She shook her head. “So bizarre.”

  Ally chewed her lip for a while. “Maybe I’m wrong, then.” She pushed herself upright and headed for the door. “I’d better get back to the party.”

  Damn, Paige thought. Now she felt bad for mocking Ally, even though it hadn’t been intentional. She’d even begun to appreciate Ally’s presence in the kitchen, but now she’d pushed her away. “Uh, sorry, I didn’t mean to…” Shoot, she didn’t even know what she wanted to say.

  “No worries.” Ally paused at the door, her expression thoughtful and not unkind. “If you ever need any help or just want to chat, you should stop by my store. It’s called Java and Joolz, right where my old gift shop used to be.” She disappeared before Paige could say anything.

  Alone, Paige exhaled slowly, puzzled by the conversation and her reactions to it. Ally was the kind of girl she’d never have considered possible friend material in the past. They were so different, and yet Ally had invited her to drop in at her store, as if she liked Paige. Well, maybe she would visit her one of these days. If she had the time. If she was still here in Burronga. If she was still Owen’s housekeeper.

  …

  When it was almost time for bed, Paige realized her wristwatch was missing. She’d taken it off in the main house and forgotten it there. For a moment she contemplated leaving it until morning, but the watch was a treasured present from her godmother, and she couldn’t remember exactly where she’d left it in the kitchen. If she didn’t retrieve it now, she’d be restless all night.

  Sighing, she slipped on a light cardigan and left the cottage. She didn’t have a flashlight, but the path was well lit. As she neared the house, she saw a few windows were still lit up but there was no noise or chatter, so clearly the guests had left. In the kitchen she soon found her wristwatch and strapped it on. She was about to leave when a muffled noise made her pause. It seemed to be coming from the pool house. Curious, she padded down the side passage leading to the conservatory. As soon as she entered, she stopped, wishing furiously she hadn’t been so inquisitive.

  Only the pool lights were on, filling the conservatory with a shifting, watery blue illumination. On the far side of the pool stood Owen, a long-handled net in his hand. He’d been trawling it through the water, but at her entrance he paused, his body growing quite still.

  “Paige?” The upside-down shadows obscured the expression on his face, but she noticed his hands tightening around the pole. “What’s up?”

  “Nothing, I—I just forgot my watch in the kitchen.” Shoot, why was her voice so breathy and constricted? She shook back her hair, eager to regain her poise. “What are you doing?”

  “Cleaning the pool, obviously.”

  She pursed her lips at his answer. “You don’t need to clean the pool anymore. You pay someone else to do that.”

  He didn’t speak right away. With a shrug, he dipped his net through the water. “Old habits die hard. Once a pool boy, always a pool boy.”

  Her cheeks heated. She didn’t want to leave now, not after a crack like that. Folding her arms, she moved farther into the conservatory. “I don’t think I’ve even seen you use this pool once.”

  “I’ve been busy.” But the sudden rigidness in his shoulders seemed to say something else.

  A disturbing possibility struck her. “Can you swim?”

  “Sure, but I prefer swimming in the ocean, not paddling back and forth in a chlorinated bathtub.”

  “Oceans are fun in summer, but not now. This time of year there’s nothing better than a heated indoor pool.” His silence needled her. She was tired of being on the defensive. She slipped off her shoes and dipped one foot into the water. “Try it. You’ll enjoy it.” She swirled her toes about, flexing her ankle.

  Beneath her flimsy, knee-length cardigan, she wore only a camisole top and stretchy shorts that clung to her thighs. Owen had grown quite still again. Although he stood a distance away, she could sense a change coming over him. He gazed at her with half-hooded eyes, not moving an inch, yet somehow she knew his chest was rising and falling harder than it should, that his heart rate was accelerating, just like hers.

  Blood pounded through her body as she switched legs and arched her other foot into the water. She slanted a sideways glance at Owen, verified that he was still staring at her as if transfixed by the slow rotations of her foot. A strange electricity vibrated in her, filling her with a breathless, reckless fever. Just hours ago she’d resented him, but now she wanted to tease him, to ruffle his senses.

  “You’ve never used this pool, have you?”

  He shook his head, his gaze never leaving her foot.

  “Why not, Owen?” Her mouth and her body were running out of control, but she was helpless to stop them. The rigidness in his stance, the determined way he gripped his net, the dark, reined-in force behind his stare—all fuel to the fire flaring in her. “After all those hours you spent cleaning this pool, why didn’t you jump in the first chance you got?”

  He took a few strides toward her, and suddenly he was much closer, more dangerous, vibrant with purpose. Her heart skipped several beats. With his green eyes and burly shoulders and the net in his fists, he looked like Poseidon—a goaded, frustrated god.

  “A valid question,” he bit out. “I spent so much time on this damn pool—cleaning it, monitoring it, scrubbing it—and yet I was never allowed to use it. Employees are not allowed to use the facilities, my dad was told by your parents. Not even when the family was away. As if we might contaminate the water.” He breathed in and out hard several times, nostrils flaring. “So why can’t I use the pool now? Now that I can, why can’t I dive-bomb into it and make it mine? Why do you think I c
an’t, Paige?”

  His gaze drilled into her, and for the life of her she couldn’t look away. “I d-don’t know.”

  “Don’t you?” He moved even nearer, so close she could feel the warm whoosh of his breath against her cheeks and the heat pounding off him in giant waves. She stepped back, but he simply closed the gap. “You don’t know why I might have a few hang-ups about this place? Could it have anything to do with what you used to do to me here?”

  “What I used to do?” She tried a hair toss, but her neck was shaking too much. In fact, her whole body was trembling, just like it had in the past when she’d pranced across the conservatory in her bikini, aware that Owen was staring at her, the knowledge making her tingle all over. “Come on, that was just a bit of f-flirting.”

  “Is that what you call it? Funny, it felt more like torture to me.”

  Indignation flared in her. “You make it sound so one-sided, but it wasn’t. Sure, I flirted with you now and again, but you dragged me into the ferns like a caveman and kissed me against my will!”

  An abrupt silence fell between them, and all she could hear was her staccato breathing and the frantic beat of her pulse. His eyes were shadowed and fathomless, filled with emotions she couldn’t interpret. Resentment? Lust? Regret?

  “I kissed you against your will? So…you didn’t want to be pawed by the grubby pool boy, you just wanted him panting after you.” His voice lowered to an ominous growl. “You wanted to show off to your friends, boost your reputation.”

  Oh God, how right he was about that. Astrid Sherwood had challenged her to toy with the dark and brooding pool boy, and she hadn’t dared refuse. To do so would have meant banishment from Astrid’s inner circle, and she couldn’t afford that, not when belonging was so important to her—her and her mother. Shame squirmed in the pit of her stomach. Even though she’d nursed a secret weakness for Owen, she had used him, and for nothing more than to impress Astrid.

  “And those two weeks when we sneaked around and you let me kiss you any chance we had?” His voice was water running over gravel, liquid and rough at the same time. “You were just leading me on, hoping to make a fool of me. I suppose you were laughing at me behind my back, laughing with your friends.”

  Her eyes squeezed shut. She didn’t want to remember those two weeks; it was too…confusing. After that first kiss in the ferns, she’d slapped Owen and run away. She’d never told anyone about that first kiss. But then, a day later she’d bumped into him, and somehow he’d ended up kissing her again. Only that time, she hadn’t slapped him or run away. Instead she’d stood there, transfixed by the magic of his lips running softly, reverentially over her mouth, her cheeks, her neck. He’d been so gentle and strong at the same time, his kisses so different from the fumbles she’d endured from other boys. In the days that followed she couldn’t stop thinking about Owen and meeting him accidentally on purpose. His kisses grew bolder and hungrier at each encounter, and she couldn’t get enough of them, and she knew she was falling into deep, deep trouble…

  “Paige, look at me.”

  His abrupt command made her eyes flicker open. She wished she hadn’t, because the sight of him sharpened the memory of his kisses. Her gaze involuntarily lowered to his mouth. His tough, manly features accentuated the generous sensuality of his lips. She could almost feel them against hers, hard and soft, demanding and giving. Desire tugged low in her pelvis—acute, dangerous, scary as hell. Even after fourteen years, the vortex that was Owen was as powerful as ever, threatening to suck her in.

  She pressed a hand to her stomach, her lungs aching for air. “I never laughed at you behind your back,” she said huskily. “I never told anyone about…about us.”

  Owen blinked, startled. “You didn’t?”

  She shook her head.

  He plowed his fingers through his hair, some of his ire evaporating. “I don’t understand, then. Why did you go to that dance with Eric Jensen? What did I do to deserve that?”

  It wasn’t anything he’d done, but rather what she was afraid she’d do if they carried on meeting in secret. The magic of his kisses, the thrill of his hands caressing her, the blood-tingling fire in his eyes as they devoured her—all so wild and irresistible, luring her further and further into dangerous, uncharted territory. Even now she could barely admit this to herself, never mind telling him.

  “You didn’t do anything, but it was time to call a halt.”

  Instantly his chin jerked up. “Oh yeah? So when you coolly say it’s all over, that’s it? I don’t get a say? I’m just supposed to go along with whatever you decide?”

  Her stomach snarled. Without thinking, she burst out, “Oh, come on, Owen. What did you expect? Did you think I’d take you to the school dance?”

  She’d never meant to say it that way, but it was too late to recall her words. Owen’s face chilled to granite.

  “Yeah, as a matter of fact I did.” His shirt tightened as he folded his arms, biceps like rock. “I thought you would take me instead of some smarmy, wimpy pretty boy.”

  She swallowed, her throat like sand. Eric Jensen had been everything Owen wasn’t—smooth, charming, rich…and most importantly, safe. Even though he had every girl at school swooning over him, he hadn’t once troubled her pulse rate. She’d gone with him to the school dance because he’d asked her, and everyone would think her insane if she turned him down. But mostly she’d done it because she was desperate to break free of her warped fascination for the brooding pool boy, and Eric Jensen was the quickest way of getting her message across.

  But she couldn’t confess any of this to Owen. She twisted her head sideways, unable to bear his accusing glare any longer. “Why are you still hung up on this?” She waved her hands impatiently. “It happened so long ago. What does it matter anymore?”

  “It matters to me. You thought you could use me and toss me aside like a dirty tissue. And then when I turned up at the dance, you acted like I was a dangerous thug so you could get rid of me.” A muscle ticked in his jaw. “You treated me like garbage. It matters.”

  “You—you were causing a scene.” Her throat was so tight she had trouble breathing.

  She and Eric had been dancing when Owen had suddenly thrust himself between them. Ignoring Eric’s protests, he’d focused on her, demanding she talk to him, and when she refused, he’d grown louder until the teachers had intervened. She remembered the searing embarrassment that had engulfed her as the other students watched on avidly. She remembered the smug censure from Astrid and the chagrined coolness from Eric. Of course the gossip had reached her mother’s ears and resulted in a Big Scene, where Paige had had to relive the humiliation all over again. If Owen had set out to knock her off her perch, he couldn’t have chosen a better way.

  But as she looked at him now, she glimpsed the hurt in him hidden beneath the suffusing anger, and the discovery made her heart pang in a novel, disturbing way. He’d suffered, too. Her mother had wanted to fire Owen’s father, but for once Paige’s father had intervened and refused to get rid of the blameless caretaker. Owen’s decision to move to Sydney seemed to solve the problem, and any guilt she’d felt about that had been overwhelmed by relief that the whole sordid episode was over. But it wasn’t over for Owen, she saw. After all these years he still bore the scars from that dance, and she was responsible—mostly. The realization felt like a needle in her chest.

  “I guess I was partly to blame,” she said, the words stiff, reluctant. His eyes widened, but he didn’t say anything, so she forced herself to continue, “I should have ended things with you before the dance, told you about Eric. That was my fault.”

  He exhaled slowly and the shutters seemed to come down on his expression, as if he’d hoped she’d say something else. “Yes, that was your fault.” He riffled his fingers through his hair again, looking perplexed. “But you should have known you couldn’t stir me up the way you did without some consequences.”

  She nodded. “I know that now.”

  “Do you? Be
cause I’m not sure you do, judging by that foot thing you just did.” He waggled his finger at her bare feet, the warning glint back in his eyes. “You can’t tease me and think you can get away with it. I’m not your sixteen-year-old pool boy. You start flirting with me again, I’m going to react, and you might not find me so easy to handle this time.”

  All the air seemed to be trapped in her lungs. She couldn’t breathe in or out. All she could do was stare at Owen’s set expression and know he meant business. The thought of handling him, of him handling her, sent her blood pressure soaring. A minute ago she hadn’t just enjoyed teasing him—deep down, she’d wanted him to respond. She’d wanted him to lose control and grab her, kiss her. Again. Good God, she still had the hots for the grown-up pool boy. Still couldn’t help herself around him.

  She managed to rest one hand on her hip, casual-like. “Oh please, I was just joshing you back there. Don’t take it seriously.”

  He frowned, looking confused, and rubbed his forehead as if he had a headache coming on. “I’m not the smooth type. When it comes to women, I don’t go in for games.”

  “What do you go for in women, then?”

  As he blinked in surprise, she gave herself a mental head slap. Why ask him such a leading question? But nevertheless she found herself hanging on for his answer.

  “I like a woman who’s straightforward,” he said slowly. “Someone who’s natural, confident, easygoing, friendly.”

  Sounded like a Labrador. She bit her lip. “Looks-wise?”

  “Looks aren’t important.”

  “Uh, well, that’s a lie.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “What?”

  “Men who say looks aren’t important are just plain lying. Or else they’re blind. Which you aren’t.”

  He scratched the underside of his chin for a few moments, contemplating her seriously. “Okay, let’s just say looks aren’t as important as character. In fact, for me there’s no faster turnoff than a woman who puts her looks first. I can’t stand those fake Barbie doll types who spend all their time checking themselves in mirrors.”