Zara here. Leave a message.
In the end he did leave a message. His contact number, instructions to reverse the charges, a couple of suitable times. And, because he couldn’t help himself, a simple, sincere message.
“Call me, Zara. I miss talking to you.”
But she didn’t call him back and he hated the ensuing frustration more than everything else put together. He hated not knowing if she’d received his message. He hated the biting, gut-deep worry that something might be wrong. And he hated the sense that he no longer controlled their relationship, that he might no longer control himself.
On Wednesday morning he arrived back in Sydney and headed straight to his office. And there, on his desk, on top of a stack of personal correspondence his PA had left for his perusal, he found her note. An innocent sheet of white notepaper, six neatly handwritten lines that turned his simmering frustration cold.
Alex read it again, searching for hidden meaning, feeling the cold turn to ice and the stab of each shard, word by word. Her message was clear: She’d reconsidered; she couldn’t do a relationship; she was sorry.
Yes, she’d dressed it up in pretty words, words he’d heard before about not being the right woman for him, about not being able to handle the media attention he attracted, about how great that weekend had been but she believed they were better off to end it now.
Alex crumpled the note in his fisted hand and aimed it at the bin. He wasted half an hour pretending he could concentrate on work, pretending to listen to his PA’s update, pretending he could deal with being cast aside as if that last weekend hadn’t meant a thing.
As if she hadn’t looked into his eyes and told him she’d never been this happy, this satisfied, this contented. As if she hadn’t told him on the phone, forty-eight hours later, her voice low and raspy with emotion, that she missed him already and wished he were there in her bed.
In her body.
He stood up abruptly, slapping the report file shut in the same single motion. “I’m going to Melbourne.”
“Now?” To her credit Kerri’s voice only rose slightly, although her eyes were wide with astonishment. Alex felt a sharp satisfaction. He wanted to shake things up. He needed to take control again. “When will you be back?”
“I have no idea,” he said with grim determination. “But I sincerely hope it’s not too soon.”
Eleven
If Alex had stopped and thought this through, he’d have realized that finding Zara on a Wednesday might not be easy. If he’d employed a cool, calm, logical approach, he might have saved himself half a day of chasing his tail around Melbourne.
Not that he was chasing after Zara, exactly. His pride would not admit to that. He was chasing answers and some face-to-face honesty.
Except she wasn’t at home. She wasn’t answering her phone. She didn’t have a client appointment until mid-afternoon. And finding her on campus proved an exercise in frustrating futility. As did sitting outside her empty Brunswick terrace on the off chance she arrived home.
By mid-afternoon when her personal training job was underway, Alex’s temper crackled with impatience. It itched to surge through the door of the hotel gym, to interrupt her session five minutes in, to demand her time and her attention and her explanation.
Only the heat of that impulsive urge held him back. He’d spent too many years learning to control himself, to countermand that heat with cool control, not to recognize the danger signs. So he waited out the whole hour, waited until her client, red-faced from exertion, came out the door and headed for the elevators.
Then he slowly got to his feet and walked into the small gym.
She was alone. That’s all he noticed in the first twenty seconds. That and the wide flare of her eyes when she turned and saw him standing just inside the doorway. Her mouth formed a silent word of surprise—possibly his name—and then she drew herself taller and attempted a smile.
“I didn’t know you were back,” she said around that fake smile, “let alone in town.”
“Why would you? You didn’t return my call.”
“Your…call?”
Her breath caught in the middle of her question as he started toward her. Six slow, deliberate steps that brought him close enough to see the guarded expression in her eyes. To see the beat of elevated pulse in her throat. “Didn’t you get my message? From London?”
“Yes, but with the time difference…”
“You couldn’t find five minutes that might have worked for both of us?” Alex forced himself to speak evenly, coolly, conversationally. “So you decided a note would be enough. Is that a trick you learned from Susannah?”
Her gaze snapped back to his. Shock radiated from their depths. “No. I’m sorry, Alex. I did try to call and then—”
“Forget it,” he cut in, hating that he’d exposed himself to her sympathy with the reminder of Susannah’s note. “The thing about notes,” he continued even more dispassionately, “is what’s left out. What’s open to interpretation.”
“You didn’t think my note was clear enough?”
“Oh, your message was clear enough. It was nice while it lasted. Goodbye.”
She pressed her lips together and looked away, and Alex set his jaw against the simmer of his temper.
“Did you consider who might read that note? Did you think that my PA might open all my mail?”
That brought her gaze whipping back to his. “Your PA read my note? When I marked the envelope as personal?”
The sharp rise of her voice, the irritation in her eyes, snarled mean knots in his mood and all he could think was Good. He wanted her mad. He wanted an argument.
“Yes, she read it,” he said tightly. “Yes, she knows I’m the best sex you ever had.”
Color flared along her cheekbones. “I did not say that!”
“You inferred it.” And it gave him no satisfaction at all, he discovered as she turned away to pick up her gym bag from the floor. None at all. “Don’t worry. I pay Kerri enough money. She’s not about to tell the world.”
Bag in hand, she straightened. “The world already knows.”
Alex stiffened, his attention snared by her comment and the odd note of resignation in her voice. By the sudden bolt of understanding that tightened the muscles in his shoulders and back and jaw. “Was there something in the papers while I’ve been away?”
She nodded. “Last week. Front page of Goss.”
Damn. “Photos?”
“Outside the hotel. And going into the hotel.” Her mouth twisted into a smile that didn’t take. “I was your mystery blonde for two days and then a couple of the weekend papers ran my name in their society gossip column.”
“And this is when you decided we were over?” he asked slowly. His heart beat harder, lacing his blood with a new optimism. This was an answer. This he could understand. “Because of a magazine that isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on?”
“I don’t want someone taking my photo when I know nothing about it. I don’t want to be on any front pages. I don’t care which magazine or which paper.” There was a fierceness in her voice he’d heard before, over breakfast at Carmel’s café when she’d told him about her mother’s exposure to the media.
When he’d sensed a strong connection because they’d understood each other.
“Not even a medical journal?” he asked, letting her know he remembered that conversation.
“I’m talking about being on the front page for no reason other than being your lover.”
Hurt and regret and something else shimmered in her eyes and Alex couldn’t stop himself from reaching for her, to hold her, to reassure her. But she hugged her gym bag to her chest like a barricade. A clear sign that she didn’t want him any closer.
“If it was only me on the magazine cover I wouldn’t care quite so much,” she continued. “But last week it was an anonymous blonde and then it was Zara Lovett and next time it will be Stripper’s Daughter and they’ll find photos of Mum and run them ne
xt to yours.”
“And you think…what? That I’ll be shocked to find out your mother was a stripper?”
She frowned. Hugged her bag even closer. “You knew?”
“No, and I don’t care.” He started to reach for her again, but she flinched before he got within six inches. “I don’t care what the papers say, Zara. I told you that.”
“You told me you care when it hurts other people.”
This time he didn’t let her pull away. He took her by the shoulders and held her still and forced her to meet his eyes. “What did the magazine say, Zara? How did it hurt you?”
“Not me, my mother. I don’t want her name and her memory dragged through the muck.”
“You would rather walk away? From this? From us?”
“I would rather walk away now,” she said softly, but her gaze was strong and sincere. “Before we get any more involved. Before they start digging for dirt.”
“I don’t care—”
“You do care, Alex, and that’s the thing. This isn’t only about me or you or us, and it’s not even just my mum. You said your mother hates the media muckraking. Don’t you see?” She let go of the bag, let it drop to the floor beside her with a thick thud, and then her hands were on his, giving them a little shake as if that might jostle his obdurate stance. “They’ll drag up Mum’s old story from the archives and then they’ll jump onto your mother’s, too. They’ll have a field day rehashing those old scandals, all the juicy details, all the lies. The heartache. I couldn’t stand that and I know your family couldn’t either.
“I’m sorry, but I just…I just can’t!”
The husky ache in her voice gripped Alex by the throat, turned his voice sharp and harsh. “So, you’re taking the coward’s way out and giving up? Would that make your mother proud?”
Her head reeled back as if he’d struck her. “Yes,” she said distinctly after a second. “Yes, she would be proud that I’m unselfish. That I’m thinking about the other people this would hurt.”
“I’ll look after my mother’s concerns.”
“And what about my father’s family? What about his widow? She won’t want to see her husband’s cheating affair rehashed again and for what? So we can have a good time between the sheets whenever we can find time!”
“Is that how you see our relationship?”
“What else is it, Alex?”
He stared into her face, into the resolute darkness of her eyes, and felt all the frustration of the long day return tenfold. Damned if he told her all he wanted to; damned if he didn’t.
But he had to keep trying. He wasn’t nearly ready to let her go. “It’s nothing if you give in to the guttersnipes. If you let them run your life and rule your decisions. We’re nothing if you toss what we have aside without giving it a chance.”
“I have to. I’m sorry.”
“Are you? Or is this a convenient out?”
A spark of heat lit her eyes and for a second he thought he might yet get a chance to argue hot and strong. But with a slow expulsion of breath she banked the fire.
“It doesn’t matter why, does it? Just…let me go. I have to shower and change. I’ve got a study date.”
Zara knew she’d made a mistake using the date word. She saw his eyes narrow, saw the twitch of a muscle in his jaw just before she ducked down to scoop up her bag.
But she hadn’t expected him to follow her into the ladies’ locker room.
Intent on keeping her legs moving forward, on not buckling to the urge to turn around, to go back for one last kiss, she hadn’t even heard him follow. Not until the door shut behind her with a firm snap. As if propelled by a hand.
She swung around. Her gasp sounded way too loud in the tiny room, as if it bounced off the white tile walls and came back at her from all directions, amplified a hundred times. “What are you—” Her throat was tight, her voice so faint that she licked her lips and tried again. “What are you doing?”
His gaze rolled from her lips to her eyes. His, she noted with a spike in her pulse, were no longer cool. No longer contained. “A study date?”
“In half an hour.” Pleased her voice had regained strength, she flung her bag on the bench and folded her arms across her chest. “So I’d appreciate if you left me to get ready.”
“This won’t take long.”
“To walk back out that door? No, that won’t take long.”
She crossed to the single shower enclosure and turned on the taps as far as they would go. Hot water gushed, a stream of liquid sound, a statement of her intent. Conversation closed, Alex Carlisle. Now leave.
But as she returned to her bag, she heard the snick of the lock catching and her gaze jolted back up. “You locked the door? What are you doing?”
“Ensuring we’re not disturbed.”
Zara was gripped by an insane urge to laugh. The sound of that door locking disturbed her. He disturbed her with the way he watched her through the gathering cloud of steam.
Predatory intent, narrow, sharp, purposeful, flitted across his expression and Zara felt a frisson of alarm in her skin. And deeper, in her flesh and the female core of her body, a much stronger bolt of anticipation and heat and all the things she should not be feeling.
Damn him. Why couldn’t he make this easy? Why couldn’t he accept that she couldn’t have a relationship with him?
Because then he wouldn’t be the man he is, her inner voice of honesty retorted. You wouldn’t have fallen for him. You wouldn’t be locked in this room with him, dreading his next move and craving it in the same breath.
She had to stay firm. She had to keep him at arm’s length. She had to convince him that she meant no.
“Alex, there’s nothing else to say. Please, will you just accept that?”
“I wish I could. It would make my life a hell of a lot easier.”
“Then try harder,” she countered.
But he’d started toward her, his eyes as fiercely insistent as his voice. “I can’t, Zara.”
Zara had nowhere to go, no escape from the man or from the awareness that engulfed her more hotly, more surely, a thousand times thicker than the steam swirling from the shower.
She didn’t know she’d been backing up until she hit the wall, until he stopped right in front of her, his hands flattened on the tiles on either side of her head.
“Don’t,” she breathed.
“Don’t?”
“Don’t touch me.”
His eyes narrowed. “I’m not.”
Technically, he was right. But he stood so close she could feel the heat rolling off his body in stark counterpoint to the cold tiles at her back. When their eyes clashed she felt the jolt of electricity course through her veins. Felt the tingle in her breasts.
Oh, the danger. This much electricity in a wet room spelled doom.
Zara tried to shrink back farther, away from the sparks, away from the temptation. She saw the corners of his mouth tighten and knew she had about a second to regain the ascendancy.
“You’re not touching me. Fine. Then what do you want?” she asked on a note of desperation. “What is your point?”
He stared at her a moment and she had the distinct impression he didn’t know. That he’d acted on impulse, instinct, perhaps on thwarted pride. Because the way she’d done it—the note and the media exposé reason—punched his hot buttons and because he’d had enough of women leaving him.
“Is it because I wrote you a note?” she asked, against her better judgment. “Is that why you won’t accept that I meant every word of it?”
“Perhaps I need to hear it again.” His voice as soft as the billowing steam, he leaned infinitesimally closer. So close that each word stroked her skin with the sweet warmth of his breath. “Tell me you don’t want me, Zara. Tell me you don’t ache for me, that what I’m seeing in your eyes isn’t the burn you’re feeling in your blood.”
“Don’t do this, Alex,” she whispered. “Don’t use sex to try and manipulate me.”
; He stilled. She felt his tension like a renewed blast of heat. “Is that what you think I’m doing?”
“Yes!” Damn him. And a sudden burst of anger came to her aid. Straightening, she met his gaze full on. “You came in here and locked the door. You stalked over here and trapped me against this wall after I asked you to leave. You knew you only had to get close to manipulate this chemistry we have—”
He slapped his hand down on the tile beside her head so hard she recoiled. For a second he just stared into her eyes and what she saw there, the seething, burning heat, shocked her into action. With both hands, she pushed at his chest until he ceded several inches.
“Do you really think that’s all this is? Chemistry?”
“Yes,” she said with quiet intensity. “And I can’t deal with that kind of stuff. It’s too much.”
“Do you think I like it? Do you think I want to feel like I’m—” He stopped abruptly, eyes blazing in his tightly drawn face. “Hell, Zara. In your note you said it was great. Your best time ever.”
Her heart wailed a protest, but she lifted her chin and refused to listen. It didn’t matter what she felt because she couldn’t have him. He was the pain and the dread of front-page revelations. He was a man used to getting his way, a man not used to compromise. Ridiculous that she’d thought they could work out some basis for a long-distance relationship.
Ridiculous that she’d considered he could be her man, her soul mate, her love.
Abruptly he swung away, slamming a hand through his hair in a gesture of abject frustration. But he turned back just as quickly, fire still blazing in those razor-sharp eyes. “What do I have to do to change your mind, Zara? Do I have to ask you to marry me? Will that make you reconsider how much I want you?”
“Marry you?” she repeated, her eyes wide with disbelief.
And then she started to laugh, an edgy stop-start sound that did nothing to soothe the roar in Alex’s ears and in his blood. The temper he so badly needed to control.
Princes of the Outback Bundle Page 48